Predator: Badlands Makes the Predator the Hero, and It Rules: Review

As different as they have all been, the one thing the previous six Predator movies have in common is their villain. In the original film, Arnold Schwarzenegger and his cuddly band of commandos are being hunted by the titular foe; since then, Danny Glover, Adrian Brody, Mahershala Ali, Boyd Holbrook, Keegan-Michael Key, and Amber Midthunder have all found themselves battling to survive the high-powered alien threat. Predator: Badlands, though, has a different approach: What if we’re rooting for the Predator the whole time?

The new movie is the third Predator adventure from director Dan Trachtenberg, who once again proves how possible it is for even the most dormant of franchises to come to life again. 2022’s Prey, one of the best movies of that year, was a stripped-down cat-and-mouse game between Midthunder’s 1700s Comanche warrior and a Predator whose own tech is more primitive than we’ve seen before. Then, the semi-surprise Killer of Killers, released directly to Hulu last June, expanded further on the “Predators throughout the ages” angle, with three different warriors from different time periods as the targets.

Badlands, meanwhile, flips the approach and finds something fresh and wonderful and bold as a result — as if James Cameron had made Terminator 2 entirely from the T-800’s point of view. The movie begins on the planet Yautja Prime, where a young Yautja (the actual name for the Predator race) is facing his first hunt, which will confirm him as a member of his clan. Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) isn’t the biggest or strongest in his family, making him a disappointment to his father, who’d much rather Dek be dead rather than bring continued shame to the clan. (Do not look to the Yautja for examples of nurturing parenting.)

Determined to prove his worth, Dek leaves Yautja Prime to kill a Kalisk, the most terrifying creature living on a terrifying remote world called Genna. A crash landing separates him from most of his best weapons, but his ingenuity helps him survive the early threats Genna throws at him, as this is a planet where even the trees want to eat you. As the danger increases, though, he comes across the stranded and broken “synthetic” Thia (Elle Fanning), who’s on Genna as part of a Weyland-Yutani expedition. Thia’s thrilled to see him, and once she convinces him that she’ll be a useful tool for him, they set off to hunt down the Kalisk…

The above basically sets up the general direction of the movie, and god, there’s so much that’s just flat-out cool. Like how up until Elle Fanning appears, there’s not a single word of English dialogue: Dek communicates with his family in their native tongue, making me wonder for the first twenty minutes or so if this movie would technically be considered a foreign-language film. It’s also an introduction that sets up Dek as very much a part of his culture, which might be best described as “toxic masculinity on meth,” while also giving us reason to empathize with him. Who hasn’t foolishly yearned for the approval of an impossible-to-please authority figure?

There’s also the not-so-subtle crossover with the world of Alien — while no Xenomorphs are found on Genna, the Weyland-Yutani presence adds a certain frisson of pleasing nerdity, while also confirming how far off in the future we are. Oh, and for the vast majority of the movie, Dek is not wearing a traditional Yautja helmet, so we’re seeing his full, beautiful face — which, according to the film’s press notes, was entirely created with CGI, based on the real-life performance of Schuster-Koloamatangi on set.

The CGI is so well-done that I at first thought it had to be supplemented with prosthetics, and that’s only one of the major visual effects accomplishments in this movie, which overall looks flawless. And it’s all in service to a story about a warrior finding a new kind of strength not in his weapons, but in his companions. Fanning’s performance, energized and game while still capable of secrets, is the glue that holds the movie together, though the incredible commitment from Schuster-Koloamatangi also pays off. There’s not a single human in this movie, but it’s still rich with real humanity, thanks to their interactions.

Trachtenberg has one intriguing element to his films to date: He doesn’t often work with large casts. His first feature, 10 Cloverfield Lane, featured just a trio of actors, while Prey and Killer of Killers also kept the scope small. This isn’t a drawback but a plus here, as this dedicated focus on a few characters helps open up the emotional arc of Badlands, while leaving plenty of room for some incredible action.

Alien worlds filled with dangers aren’t exactly new for this genre; in recent years the Avatar movies and the wild animated series Scavengers Reign have explored this trope. Yet, like with his previous Predator films, Trachtenberg delivers at least four sequences in this movie that are totally unlike anything else I’ve ever seen on screen. His approach — combining unexpected elements with just a hint of cartoon wit — leads to the most incredible “hell yeah!” moments in the theater. My dearest hope is that audiences nationwide make it to the movies this weekend to experience those moments with the biggest crowd possible.

In case all of the above didn’t make this clear, Badlands is a totally different Predator movie from anything that’s come before, and not just because the Predator’s a good guy. It proves that with real imagination, anything is possible, even in the context of what could have been yet another cookie-cutter franchise entry. Badlands doesn’t compromise anything we’ve previously understood about one of cinema’s most terrifying villains. It simply opens up a whole new way of thinking about them, and what they represent. Never thought I’d use the word “beautiful” in reference to a Predator movie. But that’s what makes it such a wonderful surprise.

Predator: Badlands stalks into theaters on Friday, November 7th. Check out the trailer below.