Producers: Brent O’Connor, Ben Rosenblatt, Marc Toberoff, John Davis and Richard Cowan Director: Dan Trachtenberg Screenplay: Patrick Aison Cast: Elle Fanning, Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi, Michael Homick, Rohinal Nayaran and Cameron Brown Distributor: 20th Century Studios
Grade: C+
Who would have thought that the brutal “Predator” franchise would go so soft-hearted? “Badlands” turns out to be something of a reversal of the last feature in the series, 2022’s “Prey”: that movie’s “test of a warrior” premise saw a young Native American woman pitted against a rampaging predator bent on a path of destruction, while this one sees a young predator trying to prove himself against an “unkillable” enemy. It’s also, believe it or not, a family drama, in which our protagonist finds a new clan to replace the one that’s disowned him.
Not to worry, though: it’s still chock-full of the kind of fighting action fans expect. The difference is that here it’s almost completely of the CGI variety, whereas in “Prey” the combatants were mostly human. Whether viewers will much care is doubtful.
The movie opens with a duel between yautja Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) and his older, bigger brother Kwei (Michael Homick), a preparation for Dek’s warrior test. Kwei wins, and Dek announces his decision to travel to Genna to confront the fearsome Kalisk, which none of his kind has ever bested, in his quest. Before he can be rocketed there, however, their father Njohrr (also Schuster-Koloamatangi) appears to demand that Dek, the runt of the clan, be terminated—a necessary culling of the weak. Protective Kwei refuses and perishes at Njohrr’s hand, but not before sending Dek off on his journey.
Genna proves extremely inhospitable, and Dek is attacked by forest creatures with ravenous tendrils and poisonous spines. He’s assisted by Thia (Elle Fanning), the torso of a synth separated from her legs during a failed mission by a crew from the Weyland-Yutani Corporation (the sinister outfit first encountered in “Alien”) to capture a Kalisk. Dek agrees to adopt Thia as a “tool” to help him reach the Kalisk’s cave. Along the way they discover the remnants of the destroyed mission, whose leader Tessa (Fanning again) had been retrieved by the company, repaired and returned to the planet with additional synth forces to complete their task. They also encounter a cute-though-ugly little monkey-like critter (Rohinal Nayaran), which proves helpful on occasion and Thia basically adopts, calling it Bud.
As the trio run the gauntlet of menaces the planet has to offer, Dek mellows and grows protective of Thia, whose recovery of her legs is followed by her realization that Tessa, whom she’d considered a sister, is merely a single-minded instrument of the corporation, programmed to brook no resistance to the fulfillment of the mission, to which is added the capture of the predator. And Bud proves not to be just some frisky little creature; it has important family connections.
What the trek through the badlands of Genna brings, in other words, is the formation of an unconventional family that replaces both Dek’s and Thia’s old ones. There’s eventually an inevitable confrontation with both the Kalisk and the Wey-Yu team, followed by a return to the predator home planet, where Dek must face Njohrr and their clan. But even then director Dan Trachtenberg, who’s apparently taken over the franchise (he directed “Prey,” as well as this year’s Hulu animated movie “Predator: Killer of Killers”) and writer Patrick Aison (who penned “Prey”) have a coda in store, one that points to a sequel.
Though the look of the picture is spectacular (credit to production designer Ra Vincent, cinematographer Jeff Cutter, as well as the effects and animation teams) and one has to acknowledge the yeoman services of Schuster-Koloamatang, Homick and an array of stunts folks, the not-so-secret weapon here is Fanning, who brings verve and sass to Thia and a grim seriousness to Tessa. Along with Stefan Grube, Trachtenberg has edited the movie slickly, even if the final battles, which include multiple iterations of Cameron Brown as Tessa’s synth soldiers, tend to go on rather long. The score by Sarah Schachner and Benjamin Wallfisch pounds away mercilessly.
“Predator: Badlands” definitely takes the franchise in a new direction, and does so with professional skill. At the end of the day, however, one has to wonder what the domestication of Dek means for the brand. While coda leaves open whether future features will go a similarly softer route or return to the grimly brutal tenor of the past, one can easily imagine a Disney+ series in which Dek, Tessa and Bud skip from mission to mission as bounty hunters righting wrongs committed against innocents. Of course the violence of “Badlands” would have to be toned down, but the Disneyfication of the franchise has begun, and one can only wonder where it will lead.
So the film charts a new direction for the franchise with the efficiency Wey-Yu might bring to rebranding an outmoded product without abandoning what its fans love about it. The operation must be deemed a success on its own peculiar terms, but whether it will take over the long haul is questionable. A predator that’s not the supreme bad-guy of the past is a very different kind of beast.