‘Predator: Badlands’ Review: Elle Fanning in a Sweet Franchise Entry

In the new film Predator: Badlands, a young Predator monster, Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi), is bullied by his domineering father for being too small and weak, learns important lessons about the value of sensitivity, and meets two feisty women (one a robot, the other an alien) who will become his besties for life. He might as well audition for the school musical. Or move to New York City at the end. 

That’s the joke a friend and I made as we walked out of Dan Trachtenberg’s surprisingly soft-hearted addition to the Predator canon, a movie that pushes its franchise mythology in a decidedly sweet direction. Some viewers might miss the macho brutality of Predators past, but Dek’s adventures in self-confidence and chosen family may well satisfy plenty of others. This Predator is queer and we should say it. 

I’m mostly kidding, but it is disarming to see one of these movies from a gentler and cuddlier perspective, when the first two films in the franchise, from the 1980s, were such relentlessly grim and gory affairs. Dek’s race of technologically advanced big-game hunters from outer space has been humanized before — perhaps most notably in Alien vs. Predator, a kicky piece of fan-service from 2004 — but Badlands carries that project much further. Most likely because this is the first time in the series that the story is told from the Predator’s perspective; audiences couldn’t really be asked to peer over the shoulder of a remorseless killing machine for 107 minutes. 

Well, maybe they could, but probably not in a PG-13 release from a company owned by Disney. And so we have this sort of YA-ish take instead, one made lively and engaging by Trachtenberg’s witty and inventive world-building. (With great credit, of course, to screenwriter Patrick Aison.) Trachtenberg made a similarly thoughtful Predator movie, Prey, a few years ago, and now further asserts himself as a filmmaker who can take a tired old piece of IP and breathe new life into it. 

Dek, who loves Cher and muscle magazines (I assume, anyway), is cast out of his clan and sent rocketing to a planet, Genna, known by his people as the death planet, so dangerous are its flora and fauna, an unending array of ghastly beasts that have felled many a Yautja (the name of the Predator species) in the past. Desperate to prove his mettle, Dek seeks out a terrifying creature of Yautja lore, determined to be the first of his kind to slay it. He also has to find an apartment on Christopher Street for less than $700 a month! 

Luckily, Dek soon encounters a legless android named Thia, played with pluck by Elle Fanning. Thia was sent to this dread planet by the Weyland-Yutani corporation, the famously evil entity that haunts most of the Alien movies. She’s been separated from her all-android team — and from the lower half of her body — and thus strikes a deal with Dek. She’ll help him track down the creature he’s after if he’ll carry her toward her synth brethren (and, again, her legs). 

Fanning is a sprightly breath of fresh air, winsomely cutting through the grit-and-honor stolidity of the Predator mindset. She’s a lovely complement to the never-ending parade of gnarly things that Dek encounters on his quest, frequently steering the film away from impossible bleakness. To further enrage Predator purists, Thia and Dek adopt a cuddly little monkey-ish creature as their companion, a CGI bit of whimsy seemingly borrowed from Pixar. While there are dismemberments and other bits of gruesome violence to be found in the film, Badlands is largely aimed at endearing its audience rather than repulsing them. 

It’s a perspective shift that mostly works, so thoughtful is the film’s construction. Trachtenberg is generous but also careful with detail; his film remembers what it has previously introduced us to, satisfyingly referencing back to plants and animals passingly encountered an hour prior. Badlands is a decidedly B-movie that thoroughly utilizes and enjoys the freedoms allowed when any prestige ambition is eschewed. The film simply wants to be the best version of a zillionth Predator installment that it can be. If it has to complicate — and, yes, soften — the branding to do that, so be it. 

By the time Dek gets his prize and finally works up the courage to kiss the cute boy he met at Musical Mondays at Splash — or, y’know, finally confronts his awful dad — I was cheering from my seat. Well, maybe not cheering, exactly, but at least nodding in mild appreciation at a movie that realizes its humble and happy purpose. There’s even a clever gag at the end of the film that addresses a glaring omission from so much Predator mythology, answering a question that Dek and no doubt countless other Yautjas like him have asked before: Where my girls at? Can’t wait to see them all kiki in the next one.