1 of 5 | Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Kolaomatangi) is on the hunt in “Predator: Badlands,” in theaters Friday. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios
Predator: Badlands, in theaters Friday, makes creative use of the franchise’s mythology dating back to the original 1987 film. Centering this story on an alien shifts the dynamics of the franchise, but the movie displays a satisfying commitment to the creature.
Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) is a Yautja, the species commonly referred to by human moviegoers as Predator. Dek is a smaller Yautja, rejected by everyone in his clan except for his brother.
Dek wants to prove himself by going to planet Genna, known as The Death Planet, to hunt the unkillable Kalisk. On Genna, Dek meets Thia (Elle Fanning), an android separated from her legs in a Kalisk attack.
Making a Yautja vulnerable is ambitious. In eight prior films, the Yautja hunt people, or the equally threatening xenomorphs from the Alien films.
Director Dan Trachtenberg, who conceived the story with screenwriter Patrick Aison, creates an inventive hostile environment on Genna. As soon as Dek arrives, he is attacked by aggressive roots and explosive bugs, and there are more dangers seen lurking in the distance. Even the flora of Genna is deadly.
Thia uses a universal translator so she can speak English, and understand Yautja, so Dek’s dialogue is still subtitled. Thia’s optimistic blabbermouth is an amusing foil to the stoic Dek, and the film does explain why she would be programmed with such a personality.
One of the creatures of Genna is an adorable one nicknamed Bud, who becomes like a pet. That’s a very Spielbergian trick to make one of the monsters cute, like the mogwai vs. the gremlins.
Set on an alien planet full of creatures, Predator: Badlands becomes much more dependent on CGI than previous films. This makes it less grounded than the Earthbound Predators, but the effects are done by Weta Digital, of Lord of the Rings, Industrial Light and Magic of Star Wars and Framestore of Paddington, so they are the best in the business.
At their best, the Predator movies show humans using their ingenuity to defeat a technologically advanced adversary, be it Arnold Schwarzenegger in the original or Amber Midthunder in Prey. Badlands is necessarily a different paradigm, but it moves relentlessly through the perils of Genna nonetheless.
With Thia and Bud by his side, the film is obviously about Dek learning the value of teamwork and the benefits of interdependence. They also become his found family after he is rejected by his clan.
Those are very human values, not Yautja, but the audience for the film will be humans so perhaps that is the wiser focus.
The hunt is further complicated by some surprises they have managed to keep out of the trailers, so they will not be spoiled in this review either. Trachtenberg and Aison draw on the breadth of the franchise to tell a new story.
Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001, and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012 and the Critics Choice Association since 2023. Read more of his work in Entertainment.
