Movie Review – Predator: Badlands

The Yautja are ritual trophy hunters. It’s how they earn their cloaking devices. But you know this because if you’re reading this then you’re probably like me and watch the hell out of these movies when they are decent. So, it’s no surprise that these clans of ritual, remorseless killers would have a runt in the litter, especially in a film that compares them to wolves. And what do you do with the weakest link? If you’re the Youtja, you destroy it before it becomes a liability.

That’s how this movie begins. The runt wants to kill the scariest trophy he can to earn his place. His father has other plans and when he demands one brother kill the weaker one, things don’t go according to plan. That is how Dek ends up on Genna, a merciless planet filled with all the things that want to kill him, trying desperately to get the trophy he needs.

Dek meets Thia (Elle Fanning), a Weyland Yutani android sent to Genna to research for the galaxy’s biggest, greediest villain. Thia was separated from her “sister” droid and needs Dek’s help to get to her. Dek needs her help to find the trophy he seeks. Along the way, they are almost killed by every horrifying thing you can think of because the entire planet is an obstacle course of terror. They meet a cute local creature who helps them and spits on Dek, a sign that it wants to be his clan, but Dek is Youtja and he has no clan until he gets his trophy. Turns out the creature is the baby version of the trophy he seeks – the very creature’s mother.

This film has deeply rooted themes of finding where you belong and what family truly is. While all three of the protagonists seek the family they were born to in some capacity, they find in each other what their own kin denied them. Acceptance. Safety. Friendship.

There are parallels to Avatar in the way that Weyland Yutani goes to this planet much in the same way as humans do in James Cameron’s epic. Weyland is there to harvest the planet for everything it can use – including an unkillable creature with regenerative capabilities – regardless of the cost to the local environment. Like several of the Alien films, the villain isn’t a violent creature. It’s the corporation and the men behind it. Folly of man seems to be the theme in a lot of cinema as of late.

Elle Fanning is spectacular as two separate droids with very different personalities. Dimitrius-Schuster Koloamatangi is memorable as Dek and credit to both he and Fanning for speaking the Youtja language so convincingly.

This film is almost all special effects and it’s beautiful to watch as each new thing comes in to try and kill Dek. I think my favorite part is when Thia, who spend most of the film cut in half, kicks her way to finding the top half of her body. A surprisingly entertaining sequence. The score is a great accent piece to the visuals. Script has both humor and heart and is never heavy handed.

See this on the big screen where it deserves to be seen. It’s exactly the kind of film the theater is meant for.

4.5 out of 5 stars.