The Predator franchise hasn’t been all that good for most of its existence. The original with Arnold Schwarzenegger is an 80s action movie classic, but the subsequent movies are far more hit-or-miss, and that’s mostly misses. But then along came Prey , a movie that both went back-to-basics but also did something new by setting the story in a different time period. Writer/director Dan Tractenberg managed to just make a good action movie with a Predator that was both similar to the classic version but also different from what had come before, all while showcasing a different human character that would overcome the creature. That was followed up by this year’s animated Killer of Killers, also from Trachtenberg, and really, it looks like the Predator movies are in good hands.
Then we got the new Predator: Badlands where, for the first time, the Predator himself is the protagonist.
Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) is a young Yautja (you know, Predator) who was deemed too small and weak by his chieftain father. His only real friend seems to be his brother Kwei, but when his father demands that Dek be killed before the young Yautja can get a chance to find a trophy and become an adult in his society, the only thing to do is send Dek off to hunt the elusive Kalisk, a creature from the planet Genna that, it is said, cannot be killed. Dek’s ship crash lands, forcing him to eject onto a planet where everything might be trying to kill him, and he soon has lost most of his weapons to boot.
His luck begins to change when he finds the upper half of Thia (Elle Fanning), a synthetic being designed for exploration by the Weyland-Yutani Corporation from the Alien movies. Though he doesn’t want company in his hunt, Dek does concede he can use Thia like a tool as she knows a lot about the life forms on the planet. However, Weyland-Yutani wanted something about of this planet too, and another synth called Tessa (also Fanning) is also on Genna after something, and Tessa and her team of synths are also armed. Can Dek get what he’s after?
Arguably, one of the biggest problems with the Predator movies is how interchangeable the Predators are. The ones in Trachtenberg’s movies often have more unique looks or personalities, and Dek, as a runt of a Yautja who wants to prove himself, is no different. True, I didn’t realize how small he was compared to others of his kind until the end of the movie, but he does have a chip on his shoulder and a determination to do something big that will gain him honor amongst his clan. The thing is, this movie is basically just a good popcorn movie. Don’t think too hard about the movie itself, and bad things could happen.
That said, it’s far from perfect, and the third act didn’t work as well as the rest of the movie. I think the thing that makes the good Predator movies work well is how the human protagonists overcome the Predator’s advanced tech. For this one, the Predator is the one fighting against the odds, but it’s the planet itself where just about everything is out to kill him that when the enemies become a lot more conventional, the movie kinda loses something. To be clear, the first two-thirds of the movie are pretty solid, and the movie tries to give some personality to Yautja, but then it’s another sci-fi action movie. I enjoyed this movie for the most part, but the ending felt like something I had seen before, and I don”t go to Predator movies for the same-old, same old same old. At least when the Predator is attacked by everything that lives on planet Genna. When other enemies arrive, the attack seems a lot more conventional.
Grade: B
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