Predator: Badlands: Movie Review

Cast: Elle Fanning, Dimitrius Schuster-Kolomatangi
Director: Dan Trachtenberg

The director of Prey, the Predator movie that revamped the franchise, returns with a new twist on the alien hunter series.

In this latest, shot in New Zealand, the film switches the traditional point of view from the victims of the hunter to the hunter himself (NZ actor Dimitrius Schuster-Kolomatangi.)

The latest Predator starts brutally as the runt of the litter Dek (Schuster-Koloamatangi) is taught to fight by his brother Kwei. Knowing Dek's fate is to be cast out and executed by their father due to his weakness, there's a frisson of genuine heft in the film to start off with as we're forced to side with the killer creature that's terrorised others in the past.

But the shift to a softer predator only belies the general feeling of this film that's essentially an Odd Couple buddy riff with some sci-fi, a large dose of the wider mythology and a cute cuddly Grogu CGI buddy.

When Dek is sent to the deadly planet Genna on his own self-imposed mission to kill a creature, claim a trophy and head home for revenge, the stage is set for a hunt in the vein of prior Predator films.

However, what Trachtenberg does is to subvert expectations, by pitting the planet with all its deadly flora and fauna against him. Dek's mission to self-empowerment is further complicated by the discovery of half-synthetic Thia (a pixie humour-filled Fanning, who gets to showcase two sides of the same character thanks to the story) who promises to help him, in return for reuniting her with her missing torso.

To say more about Predator: Badlands is to diminish the slight narrative and to rob the audience of what unfurls. Needless to say, this B-movie creature feature lends itself more to the comedic than the bloody, but never scrimps on the action sequences (which in truth, become more garbled and amorphous the more CGI is involved).

Yet what emerges from Predator: Badlands is an intriguing expansion of the world that's spawned plenty of films since the first in 1987 - and Trachtenberg is clearly at home as he builds a world that he's clearly intent on populating with critters, threats and camaraderie.

The mix doesn't always quite work and the over-reliance on the CGI-led antics lets Predator: Badlands down in parts. But along the way, the journey is a genuinely enjoyable one that leans into exactly what you'd want from a film like this - and one which has seen its violence dialled down and confined to alien shenanigans to secure an R13 rating.

More than just a perverse coming-of-age film that's set in the Predator universe, and blessed by performances from a truly impressive Fanning and a solidly physical Schuster-Koloamatangi, Predator Badlands shows there's real potential again in this universe - and while it remains to be seen where Trachtenberg will take it next, there's some level of security knowing this is a talent who always surprises within the genre (witness Prey) and yet keeps it in the confines of what's expected.