Director Dan Trachtenberg takes his third crack at Yautja lore with Predator: Badlands, and this time the protagonist is the galaxy\u2019s most notorious trophy hunter himself. It\u2019s a pretty wild shift in perspective for the franchise, but one that I think Trachtenberg pulls off. <\/p>\n
After Prey<\/a> and Predator: Killer of Killers<\/a> got Hulu-only releases, the Yautja are finally back on the big screen. Predator: Badlands follows Dek, a little brother, runt of the litter, as he\u2019s exiled from his clan and on the deadliest planet in the galaxy trying to earn his stripes. Well, his stripes and a cloaking device. It\u2019s a rite of passage storyline that should sound familiar, which is exactly why it works so well for this movie and the point-of-view change it\u2019s attempting.<\/p>\n It\u2019s hard to flesh out mythology like this, though. Being seven movies deep into a franchise that\u2019s had a handful of twists and turns and failures<\/a>, deciding where to shift focus is a near impossible task. Trachtenberg\u2019s answer to that is an elegant solution, which is to say, \u201cyou know, just being a little brother can be hard.\u201d<\/p>\n Dan Trachtenberg\u2019s track record (his Dan Track-ten-record?) shows that he knows how to build a good movie. His films are structured with clean and simple storylines, but he stages sequences well, blocks scenes efficiently, and puts the camera in all the right places to get the most out of those simple premises. Badlands is yet another example in his filmography of doing all the small things right. Little, personal details get set up early in the movie, like the reason Dek\u2019s missing a fang and what that means to him and his brother, that come back to play an important role in the plot later on. It\u2019s simple but effective filmmaking, textbook even.<\/p>\n But most importantly, there\u2019s always a relatable, emotional core to what Trachtenberg\u2019s doing<\/a>. That\u2019s what made Prey and Killer of Killers such novel entries in the Predator canon. Amber Midthunder\u2019s Naru and Killer of Killers\u2019 cast of poor frozen bastards from across time all had proper emotional reasons to fight and survive. Dek in Badlands is no different. <\/p>\n The other half of the protagonist duoe is Dek\u2019s new Weyland Yutani synth pal, Thia. Elle Fanning<\/a> is programmed to be an \u2018aww shucks\u2019 kind of synthetic that ultimately learns as much from Dek as he does from her. She\u2019s got a hard-coded good nature that takes her on a similar emotional journey as her new Yautja bestie. She\u2019s got a wholesome quality that I don\u2019t think has been seen outside of some quieter, family based moments in Trachtenberg\u2019s other two Predator entries. By the end of the movie though, Thia has some of the most charming and creative ass-kicking in the whole story and Fanning really pulls it off.<\/p>\n But the ass-kicking that had me chuckling and giddy? That was all Dek\u2019s. There\u2019s a moment in the final act that had me saying \u201cyes, that. THAT is the Predator<\/a>.\u201d Granted, it came a little late in the runtime, but it\u2019s definitely there. The fighting is a mix of a clever use of his surroundings and brutal head-stomping, which, by the way, is how I would describe the action in all the best parts of Predator as a franchise.<\/p>\n But speaking of the ass-kicking, that they\u2019re on a distant alien planet is really the only reason this movie is PG-13<\/a>. As the first non-R-rated Yautja hunt this movie still goes pretty hard. The biggest difference is that it\u2019s all alien gore splashing around. If it were people, like it was in Prey and Killer of Killers even, the brutality with which Dek goes about his business would be an easy R rating. <\/p>\n Aesthetically speaking, the creature design is pretty good. The alien death planet is populated with ravenous flora and fauna and, while they compare unfavorably to the creatures of Avatar<\/a>, for example, they are better than most. And there\u2019s something very engaging about Dek and Thia encountering one deadly thing after another, learning a quick and important fact about them, then killing and eating them. And nothing dies the same way. All those vine things we see him fighting in the trailer<\/a>? Not a single one of them gets a repeat dispatching. <\/p>\n To be fair, there is also a certain amount of (and hold on to your shoulder cannons here) cuteness<\/a> in this movie. It makes sense and it moves the story along, so it\u2019s not cuteness just to sell toys or shill a new ride at Disneyland, but it is ironically an alien idea in a Predator movie. <\/p>\n Some of it works, some of it doesn\u2019t, of course, but Dek is such an earnest young Yautja. The kid tries to make a joke. It\u2019s one of the moments that doesn\u2019t really work, but it plays as that overly literal style of humor you get from characters like the Terminator<\/a>. He\u2019s just programmed a certain way and he\u2019s slowly learning a different way. But even though the joke didn\u2019t fully land, I appreciate the effort. Once you open the door to the Yautja having a language, they can immediately start telling you who they are. From there it\u2019s no surprise that Dek is a unique specimen among his clan, a little different from the rest, which is fine because how boring would that be if they were all the same!<\/p>\n You need the familiar to get away with the new.<\/p>\n Trachtenberg and screenwriters Patrick Aison and Brian Duffield take great pains to portray Dek as eager to prove himself and passionate about the Yautja way of life, but also a little worried about his place in it. And actor Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi manages a subtlety in his performance that makes Dek a downright relatable dude. He\u2019s not any less strong, less violent or more gore averse than any Predator that\u2019s been on screen so far. He\u2019s out for vengeance. He loves stabbing his prey in the head and bathing in its viscera. But he\u2019s also mad and smart and capable and underestimated. It\u2019s the same story we saw with Naru from Prey. They even repurposed a line of dialogue from Prey to drive that point home making Dek\u2019s story a very familiar one, surrounded by equally familiar imagery from the Yautja ship and weapons, to the Alien franchise easter eggs. But that\u2019s exactly what\u2019s needed to shift the POV. You need the familiar to get away with the new.<\/p>\n One of those new things is the Yautja Codex, which we got our first peek at in Killer of Killers. Badlands gives us another look at these Biblical commandments that guide the entire culture of the hunters. And even though there was a divided reaction to Arnold Schwarzenegger\u2019s Dutch and Danny Glover\u2019s Harrigan<\/a> showing up in a post-release post-credit Killer of Killers scene (which i believe set the record for the furthest post credits a post-credit scene has ever landed), I like what Trachtenberg and his team are doing here. There\u2019s something to be said for not revealing too much of your monster though. It\u2019s the \u201cdon\u2019t show the shark\u201d rule of filmmaking. But as much as the last three entries in this franchise have added to the lore, there\u2019s still plenty we don\u2019t know about the Yautja. But Trachtenberg isn\u2019t only interested in breaking new ground. Badlands makes great use of everything Predators have done to be interesting in the 40 years since that original ugly mother fucker first blew up a jungle and all the special ops badasses in it.<\/p>\n