In Predator: Badlands, an alien hunter lands in South Dakota and visits Mt. Rushmore with half of a sentient robot while battling nasty things that go bump in the night. The latest Predator movie from the director of the excellent Prey, Badlands is unsurprisingly badass.
Flipping the franchise on its head, Predator: Badlands puts us behind the mask of the title character, a runt of the litter named Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) who travels to a hostile planet to prove that his abusive dad that he can hang with the big boys. While there, he reluctantly befriends the top half of a white-blood-spewing robot named Thia (Elle Fanning).
Predator: Badlands is explosive from the first moment thanks to a thundering and alien score that seems inspired by the recent Dune movies. Director Dan Trachtenberg dives immediately into the action and rarely lets up until the film’s final frame, unleashing a torrent of exciting, fun, and varied sequences that has the Yautja warrior battling monsters and more. Mixed with solid visual effects and supported by a clever screenplay, Badlands is a multifaceted experience that blows by most other Predator movies.
This movie could have easily become one-note and exhausting, but Trachtenberg knows when to shift course and change things up. While there’s nothing shocking about anything that happens here, Predator: Badlands delivers several pleasant surprises, from easter eggs to major plot points.
The choice to make Dek the main character is a risky one–humanizing a Predator could have easily neutered what has made them nasty for four decades. The movie may overstep in the end, but Dek is a badass protagonist–effectively a more lethal version of Worf from Star Trek: TNG.
When Fanning first appears, her cheerfully talkative demeanor threatens to throw off what had up to that point been a pitch-perfect and serious action flick. Yet she endears herself over time, with her capabilities–those damn legs–playing an important role in the movie’s big climax. Thanks to her, but not exclusively her, the movie gets funnier as it progresses, too.
Predator: Badlands is about as fun of an action movie as you’ll see all year, a thrilling, entertaining, and utterly enjoyable experience. No need to visit South Dakota.
Review by Erik Samdahl. Erik is a marketing and technology executive by day, avid movie lover by night. He is a member of the Seattle Film Critics Society.