A big part of the reviewing business is accurately identifying what it is you're reviewing. It's not much good attacking a film for being a boring action movie when it is, in fact, a romantic comedy. And sometimes the identifying part of the review is the whole point - when, for example, a franchise known for being one thing takes a turn towards something else entirely.
Stymied by the demands of turning a one-off story into a franchise, the Predator movies have largely drifted in and out of focus over the years. Aside from the car crash that was The Predator, none of them have been outright bad (we're only talking about solo Predator movies here; enter at your own risk the world of the Aliens crossovers), but none of them have really been solid enough to set a firm path for the series to walk.
The recent direct-to-streaming (but was really good enough for cinemas) Prey made things work by getting back to the basics: badass in regular trouble, then a Predator arrives and the real trouble begins. Predator: Badlands - directed by Dan Trachenberg after helming Prey and the animated Killer of Killers - takes things in a very different direction. So much so that it's a far question to ask: is this really a Predator movie?
Well, it definitely features Predators, if that's what you're asking. After a bunch of family feud backstory - turns out our lead Dek (New Zealand actor Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) is the runt of the litter, which is not a good thing to be in Predator (or as they prefer to be known, Yautja) society - Dek is off to Genna, aka "The Death Planet" to prove his worthiness by killing the most deadly creature in the galaxy, the Kalisk.
Also after the Kalisk is Weyland-Yutani, the evil corporation from the Alien movies. That explains why, after a lengthy stretch of struggling to survive on a planet where everything is trying to kill him in entertainingly inventive ways, Dek finds the top half of Thia (Elle Fanning), a synthetic damaged and left behind after a WY attempt to capture a Kalisk.
She says she can help him find and defeat it if he takes her with him. He disdains co-operation - but if she's merely a tool, then okay. Is this the start of a beautiful friendship? There's a lot of competing agendas standing in the way of any kind of bonding, and that's before Thia's much more committed to the mission sister Tessa (Fanning) shows up with an army of identical synthetics.
This works very hard - and mostly succeeds - to hide the fact that this is very much a PG-Disney coming-of-age movie. The WY forces are 100% robots (WY has a long history of using them), which means a lot of "killing" where no people get hurt. The plot is very much about the importance of working together and the value of found family over those violent losers you were born (or made) with. Is there a cute animal sidekick? Sadly yes, though they do play a useful part in the plot (and the killing).
Judged on its own merits, this is a highly entertaining romp. Fanning is a perfect foil as the chirpy Thia, Dek is a classic earnest teen (whose youthful Yautja features are surprisingly expressive), and their story is a legitimate "fun for the whole family" (well, maybe not little kids) adventure. There's lots of exciting action and thrilling danger that never gets too scary because it's almost all plants and robots. But is it a Predator movie?
Fans of old school Yautja action - skinning people alive, ripping out their skull and spinal column, slaughtering dozens of heavily armed men (as opposed to robots) at a time - will notice a distinct lack of that kind of thing here. It's a good film, but the term "Disney Predator" is a pretty accurate description of what this is, no matter how well it plays up all the (plentiful) action, (limited) violence and (non-existent) gore it can get away with under that heading.
The obvious path for Predator sequels would have been a string of movies that seem like they're going to be something else entirely (workplace drama, family comedy) only to have a Predator turn up out of nowhere at the end of act one and start hunting people. But they couldn't market that kind of movie as a Predator movie without spoiling the surprise, and so instead we've had decades of films striking out in different directions trying to find a way forward.
This probably isn't going to be the long-sought-after new direction. A big part of why Predator: Badlands works is that it's running against what you'd expect to get from a Predator film, but it never just ignores the franchise's violent past. The whole "found family" thing wouldn't hit as hard if we hadn't seen a bunch of films showing us just how brutal and murderous Yautja are.
The result is yet another Predator movie that tonally doesn't have much to do with what came before. As such, it brings honour to the franchise.
- Anthony Morris
