Predator: Badlands (12A)

Dek is an inexperienced Yautja, desperate to impress his father Njohrr, who is the leader of their clan. Protective older brother Kwei prepares Dek for his first hunt to prove the doubters wrong. The so-called runt of the litter chooses to slay a hulking Kalisk on the far-off planet of Genna. He must return with evidence of the slain beast or be cast out from the tribe. The headstrong Yautja crash-lands on Genna and joins forces with a badly injured Weyland-Yutani synthetic soldier called Thia.

LondonNet Film Review

Predator: Badlands (12A) Film Review from LondonNet

Since our first encounter with the trophy-hunting Yautja in the 1987 film Predator, the agile extra-terrestrial warriors who stalk prey using thermal imaging-enabled headwear and advanced cloaking technology have been portrayed as the bad guys. Two lacklustre franchise fusions, Alien Vs Predator and Aliens Vs Predator: Requiem, pitted the mighty Yautja against the most formidable organism in the universe. On both occasions, acid-blooded xenomorphs with an icky penchant for bursting out of chests came out on top…

Director Dan Trachtenberg perpetuated the antagonistic Predator mythology in his slickly engineered 2022 film Prey but now he flips the narrative on its head in a mismatched buddy action thriller in deep space, told through the eyes of a predator who has been cast out from his clan. Scripted by Patrick Aison and Brian Duffield, Predator: Badlands upcycles a classic underdog story in otherworldly surroundings with an emphasis on pulse-quickening stunts and visual effects-laden spectacle.

Actor Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi’s face is concealed behind motion-captured digital trickery and he speaks in a language developed for the film but still manages to convey his character’s churn of emotions as he matures from outcast whelp to merciful protector. Elle Fanning scene-steals as the chatterbox comic relief and reaffirms connective tissue between the Predator and Alien universes.

Dek (Schuster-Koloamatangi) is an inexperienced Yautja, desperate to impress his father Njohrr, who is the leader of their clan. Protective older brother Kwei (Mike Homik) prepares Dek for his first hunt to prove the doubters wrong. The so-called runt of the litter chooses to slay a hulking Kalisk on the far-off planet of Genna. He must return with evidence of the slain beast or be cast out from the tribe. “Father calls me the weakest, so I must kill the strongest,” rationalises Dek.

The headstrong Yautja crash-lands on Genna and encounters a badly injured Weyland-Yutani synthetic soldier called Thia (Fanning), who was separated from her twin Tessa (Fanning again) while hunting the Kalisk. Thia offers to help Dek capture his prey in exchange for locating her missing torso and legs. The visiting warrior is adamant that he must survive on his own but Thia’s sophisticated empathy programming strikes a chord: “We can be more than what they ask of us.”

Predator: Badlands is a robust and muscular action thriller that gleefully upends expectations of the franchise’s ardent fanbase. Action sequences are staged with brio, albeit with an overload of digitally rendered eye candy in bombastic skirmishes with voracious fauna and hulking seven-storey beasts that don’t tolerate interlopers in their primeval world. Schuster-Koloamatangi and Fanning are an appealing double-act in the eye of the storm. Scriptwriters Aison and Duffield cannot resist a coda that blatantly sets up another film. Hopefully, any sequel would be more like Aliens than Predator 2.

– Kim Hu