A wise man once said that there are no bad Predator movies (yet there are, but generally batting average is indeed better as far as movie franchises go). And Dan Trachtenberg (Prey) continues this premise with Predator: Badlands. For the first time, the franchise is from the alien trophy hunter's point of view with his hefty Shakespearean - or at least Black Panther-ean backstory with the Oedipal complex and brotherhood and betrayal and revenge and so on.
We open in Yautja Prime, the predators' home planet. With space ships and all their technology, the planet is pretty barren. There are no females to be seen and no hairdressers. It's all about hunting, killing, and bringing home trophy kind of culture. Very macho and very rigid, like the way of the samurai or something...but I digress.
Young Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) is deemed a weakling and as the tradition goes, needs to be culled, because only the strong survives. After his merciless father slain his older brother for protecting him, Dek escapes and crash lands on a hostile planet where Kalisk, an apex predator creature lives. With the help of the marooned upper half of Thia (Elle Fanning) - an android among all synthetic armies in a specimen collecting mission from a Wayland-Yutani ship (nicely continuing the franchise's narrative thread). Thia convinces Dek that she can help him to hunt down Kalisk for his triumphant return and possible revenge, and in return, he can help Thia reunite with the other identical but bad synth Tess (also played by Fanning) and retrieve her bottom half (which proves just as deadly as the upper part).
The imagined world building is top-notch with great action sequences. With a little critter Thia names Bud who becomes a pivotal piece of the puzzle later on, becoming the welcoming comic relief in the relentless violence and mayhem. Trachtenberg, who has shown his ability to enliven and breathe a new life into the same old, machismo driven franchise in Prey, does it again with Badlands. Action sequences are cool, effects are aces, and Fanning's smudged up, cracked porcelain doll face is perfect as a conflicted synth.
By the end of Badlands, both Dek and Thia learn a thing or two, about hunting in a pact like that earth creature called wolves that Thia mentions and friendship. Badlands is superb entertainment and definitely worth seeing in this February movie desert landscape. It starts streaming on Hulu 2/12.
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