Predator: Badlands

4 outta 5

Predator films have been going through many installments, with the latest Predator: Badlands taking the series into the future and featuring some light crossover with the Alien franchise. It actually takes one of the meanest villains in sci-fi and makes him a likeable protagonist, which is probably helped by giving him a terrible dad and an awesome sidekick. Director Dan Trachtenberg has made three excellent Predator movies with Prey, Killer of Killers and this. This is however his third Predator film that ends with “look a Predator ship is incoming/outgoing”! May need a new bit. Anyway, still lots of monster and robot splatter but since nobody is human and no one swears it got rubber stamped with a PG-13 rating in the States (it got PG in Ontario). This is a different Predator flick but still features lots of cool Predator stuff and even a cute animal sidekick. Something like that has been in series though, as The Predator also had a space dog companion. There’s so much that can be done in this franchise that nothing that nothing seems out of place. It’s nice to know that a decades-old sci-fi horror franchise can still evolve.

Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) is a runt Yautja aka a Predator who wants to go on his first hunt. He picks the most dangerous planet with the most dangerous target, an “unkillable” creature called the Kalisk. Dek’s brother, Kwei (Mike Homik) says that the hunt would be impossible. When their Predator Father shows up, demanding Dek’s death, Kwei is killed by Father and Dek ends up alone on the planet. After nearly being killed by indigenous creatures and plants, Dek meets a damaged Weyland/Yutani synthetic, Thia (Elle Fanning). Dek drags her along as a tool and they meet a somewhat cute animal who Thia immediately likes and names Bud and Dek sort of tolerates.  Thia has a twin robo-sister, Tessa, who dismisses the Yautja runt, and wants the Kalisk for the Company’s bioweapons division. Now Dek must save his newfound android companion and take on an army of synthetics.

The connection to the Alien franchise makes sense. Since Weyland/Yutani Corporation is always trying, and failing, to get the Xenomorph for their bioweapons division, they would send out teams across the galaxy for other potential bioweapons. Thia says that humans aren’t sturdy enough to survive on this planet, which actually ties into a plot point from Alien: Romulus nicely. Even with the Alien connection, and being set on a world of deadly creatures, there isn’t a Xenomorph. An advantage to having all synthetics is the carnage can be very messy but since they’re just made of metal, fabric and white fluid they get destroyed in all sorts of interesting ways. Thia is introduced as a torn apart droid and when Dek picks her up and he pokes at her exposed circuitry she says, offended “Excuse you!” The way he gets her around is a blast, tossing her up a mountain, and her exclaiming, “I’ve never been thrown before! What a thrill!”

Fanning makes Thia polite, and enthusiastic, constantly chattering about the native species of the planet. She finds her newfound Yautja fascinating, and she is surprised when Dek reveals that his brother has died and she deduces that he is grieving, which for a Predator involves a lot of killing. They have a fun straight monster/crazy droid dynamic as Thia is a chippy contrast to the dour Dek. At one point, she gets mad that Dek has abandoned Bud, the cute creature that spit on Dek to mark him as a member of their pack. The precocious animal sidekick is a bit of a stretch, not to say this Predator has been “Disneyfied” but that gets close. Also Dek’s motivations in the finale basically has him abandoning his entire Predator code but it makes sense because A) his father tried to kill him and killed his brother and B) Dek has found a new clan so to hell with them. Dek’s Predator design is more expressive, as he looks a bit more human than most Predators. It is an odd revamp for such an iconic creature, but it sorta works.

Fanning pulls double duty as the very nasty Tessa and she makes each character distinctive, and Tessa doesn’t have any eyebrows so it sets them apart. Tessa is an obedient minion of the Company and is willing to dispose of her sister and the Predator. She confronts the big Kalisk in a mech suit which is a twist on the iconic climax of Aliens, but she is the bad guy and the big monster is the hero. Also, Tessa gets torn up, providing one of the best looks at what exactly these synthetics are made of.

Predator: Badlands has tons of cool action scenes, like when Dek first lands and the entire place wants to kill him; even a bug he picks up unexpectedly explodes. The Kalisk is unkillable because it literally regenerates, something Dek learns when he lops off its head and it keeps going. Its regeneration power is why the Weyland-Yuanti bioweapons division is so interested. This movie makes the viewer root for the Predator and understand his culture of honour and violence. He may be ugly but he’s still a cool mofo.