Predator: Badlands forges a new direction for the franchise through a cosmic road movie across the galaxy’s most dangerous planet. While director Dan Trachtenberg delivers brutal action and gnarly new monsters, the sequel feels surprisingly bloodless.
That might be a bit of a shock to hardcore Predator fans, since blood and guts go hand-in-hand with the Yautja’s very nature. But the story here is more about Dek achieving an impossible feat to win his father’s approval and earn his own cloaking device than it is about slaughtering talented fighters across the universe.
Despite the bloodless approach, Predator: Badlands still makes for a exhilarating cosmic adventure with an expectedly funny streak thanks to Dek’s dynamic with Thia, the damaged Weyland-Yutani android he meets on his hunt.
Trachtenberg smartly expands the scope of the Predator franchise by building on cultural elements seen in the animated movie, Killer of Killers, while also making Dek feel like a unique character instead of just another Yautja hunter. But it never quite delivers the savagery that the trailers promise.
What is Predator: Badlands about?
Predator: Badlands follows Yautja hunter Dek as he tries to kill a monstrous creature called the Kalisk to prove to his father that he is not a weakness to the clan on Yautja Prime. If he does, he’ll be welcomed as one of the clan’s own and will be given his own cloaking device, like the ones seen in previous movies.
He travels to the planet Genna to find it, not knowing that the planet is the most dangerous place in the galaxy, and the entire ecosystem is designed to be as dangerous as possible — even down to razor sharp grass. Yikes.
While there, he meets a damaged Weyland-Yutani android called Thia (Elle Fanning) who agrees to help Dek find the Kalisk if he reunites her with her robotic twin sister, Tessa, and so the dysfunctional buddy road movie begins.
Hit the road, Dek
The Predator has always been one of those action/horror franchises that occasionally dishes out a funny line to ease tension, but here it’s a way of forging the dynamic between Dek and Thia.
The synth is the comedian to Dek’s straight man, providing a relatability for the audience in a story without humans, and asking the questions we’ve all thought about over the years… “What does the chewing: Outside fangs or inside teeth?”
These smaller moments make the unlikely pair pretty endearing. However, their story attempts to make a fairly generic commentary about finding your own family instead of relying on blood relations, but it never really sells the point properly in amongst the action and monster chaos.
Regardless it’s easy to have fun with Badlands, especially when the pair pickup an unexpected sidekick along the way. The adrenaline-fuelled beatdowns and duels are undeniably cool, and Trachtenberg relishes the opportunity to introduce some inventive beasts and bugs throughout the story.
It all culminates in a brawl where Dek shows off everything he’s learned from his experiences on the most dangerous planet in the universe. But while audiences should feel every crunch, slash, stab, and blast, Predator: Badlands doesn’t commit to the savagery that it clearly wants to deliver.
Predator: Badlands bares its teeth, but doesn’t have bite
Now, it’s important to note that just because the film isn’t as gory as the rest of the Predator franchise, doesn’t make it a worse movie. Excessive gore does not equate to a cinematic masterpiece. But blood and guts have been a staple of the franchise thus far, and it is a little weird to see a Yautja kill things without seeing the red stuff.
Granted, Dek kills plenty of monsters and bugs on Genna, but they don’t bleed like we do — and it just doesn’t look as visceral or as impactful when beasts get cut in half or tentacle limbs get lopped off. Make no mistake, Predator: Badlands is violent as hell and it’s easy to have an absolute blast with it, but the violence is missing the weight that previous movies had.
Perhaps a large part of why it feels more sanitized is that it uses the Weyland-Yutani synths as human replacements, which raises an interesting predicament.
Trachtenberg smartly weaves the company from Alien together with Predator without needing to dump a Xenomorph-sized threat into the story for the sake of a crossover, and it works a treat. But by having the Yautja go up against synths, it removes a level of danger from the story.
Is Predator: Badlands good?
Predator: Badlands is worth a trip to theaters, and we can guarantee that if it was released straight to streaming, fans would be complaining that it wasn’t on the big screen. But it is let down by a few generic plot points and sanitized violence.
Despite not being as gory, it boasts some slick action alongside some disarmingly funny performances from Elle Fanning in her twin roles, and Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi brings a unique energy to a role that could have been predictably two dimensional.
Predator: Badlands score: 3/5
Predator: Badlands arrives in theaters on November 7.
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