A Family Friendly Predator Movie
Summary
Predator: Badlands has a great opening 15-20 minutes but falls apart once Elle Fanning and “Bud” show up turning this into a family friendly movie which for me is a terrible idea and maybe the final nail in the coffin for this franchise. It does at least have a brisk pace and plenty of action, but you can probably wait for streaming.
Plot: Predator: Badlands, which stars Elle Fanning and Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi, is set in the future on a remote planet, where a young Predator (Schuster-Koloamatangi), outcast from his clan, finds an unlikely ally in Thia (Fanning) and embarks on a treacherous journey in search of the ultimate adversary. The film is directed by Dan Trachtenberg and produced by John Davis, Dan Trachtenberg, Marc Toberoff, Ben Rosenblatt, Brent O’Connor.
Review: I’ve had somewhat tepid expectations for Predator: Badlands especially since hearing about the PG-13 rating. I also read that it was basically a family-friendly movie, but now I’ve seen it for myself I’ve been able to form my own opinions.
The first 15-20 minutes are fantastic as we get to see the Predator homeworld, Yautja Prime; we’re introduced to our protagonist Dek who is a young Yautja (I love how they are actually called that in the movies now) sent off to redeem himself where he decides he needs to hunt the ultimate prey. So far, so good I said to myself; it’s when Elle Fanning’s synthetic, Thia shows up that the film falls apart for me… Why is she annoying? Why won’t she stop talking? I think it’s meant to be funny but it isn’t. At all.
The two pair up as Dek tries to hunt down the most dangerous creature on the planet, but then “Bud” comes along, a doe eyed alien creature. I nearly walked out of the theatre at this point, but knew I had to stay to write a review. Why is there a cute character in a Predator movie? That is a terribly misjudged idea and will kill the movie for many fans, myself most of all.
It’s not all bad though; I’ve always wanted to see a Predator movie where a Yautja is the lead character and in Badlands he even gets some character development. Dek is a sympathetic character and I love his facial expressions which are incredibly emotive. If the movie was just him on his own without any other characters that would have worked perfectly for me.
Badlands is relentlessly paced with constant action from beginning to end and I always enjoy big monsters too. Despite the PG-13 rating there are some limbs cut off, but nothing overly gruesome.
The music is one of the highlights with an excellent score… there’s just one problem – we never hear Alan Silvestri’s iconic Predator theme tune and I stayed right to the very end credits. Without the music this never feels like Predator and is just an (admittedly fun) sci-fi adventure movie. I also found the the Yautja’s sounded too human when they spoke; they had a more gargling, growly sound when they spoke in the original two movies, but now they just sound too much like us.
Overall, Predator: Badlands has plenty to enjoy but is the most family friendly entry in the franchise with “Bud” a very misjudged idea and Thia a rather annoying character. The first 15 minutes are amazing and there is near constant action with Dek making for a cool protagonist. You could argue that the main theme of the movie is that family isn’t blood but really the friends we make along the way and after all, isn’t that what we all want from a Predator movie?