Director: Dan Trachtenberg
Stars: Elle Fanning, Dimitrius Schuster-Kolomatangi, Cameron Brown
Predator fans have long been in the wilderness. For all the muscular simplicity of the John McTiernan action classic of the ’80s – and even its underappreciated and overstimulated 1990 follow-up – various creatives have floundered to give the franchise purpose in the interim. The Paul W.S. Anderson Alien mash-up is enjoyable but tacitly agreed as not canon for either franchise. The less said about the films from the 2010s, the better.
10 Cloverfield Lane‘s Dan Trachtenberg seems keen to turn these fortunes around. Consigned to streaming in the COVID era, his Prey drew a lot of favourable notices, and he’s stayed on to steer both the ambitious animated offering Killer of Killers and now Badlands, which sees the alien warrior species returned, finally, to our multiplexes. For all intents and purposes in its Disney age, Trachtenberg is the franchise’s new father.
The Disneyfication of 20th Century Fox properties hasn’t always worked out. See the Alien series’ current identity crisis or the dull buffing of Star Wars‘ already smooth edges. But Trachtenberg’s inexplicable love for this meat-headed series is stitching together – from anthology-like episodes – an admirable, even versatile consistency (if that isn’t too much of an oxymoron). Predator: Badlands takes some pretty big risks with the established patterns. This is the first to make one of the predators – now officially monikered that Yautja – a protagonist, and the first to reduce the adult content sufficiently to secure a 12A certificate. Gung-ho purists may balk at such moves, but these are offshoots of Trachtenberg seriously engaging with the world(s) he’s developing.
Badlands also sees him make the most convincing bridge to the Alien universe yet. Where Fede Álvarez’s Alien: Romulus and Noah Hawley’s Alien: Earth mired themselves in empty Ridley Scott cosplaying, Trachtenberg is clearly more enamoured of the series’ James Cameron-helmed episode (itself more tonally connected to Predator). Badlands is surprisingly well bolstered by Alien lore. Pulse rifles and power-loaders fit into it, hand in glove.
The start is a little rocky. On predator home planet Yautja Prime, Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Kolomatangi) is runt of the litter, cast out by his clan’s patriarch (also Schuster-Kolomatangi) after daddy gets mad and kills Dek’s protective older brother, Kwei (Stefan Grube). As hard sci-fi goes it’s all a little, well, alienating. Dek absconds to Genna, a ‘death planet’ home to all manner of slithering beasties, where his intent is to collect as a trophy the head of the Kalisk; the only beast his father is afraid of. Running into trouble early on in his mission, Dek makes improbable friends with Thia (Elle Fanning), an excitable Weyland-Yutani synthetic that’s been blasted in two. Missing her legs, Thia offers to guide Dek to his prize, where she hopes to be reunited with her severed limbs.
Elle Fanning’s out there this year doing the lord’s work for sci-fi fans. First she bolstered Hideo Kojima’s galaxy-brained follow-up to Death Stranding, and now she’s here gifting us one of the more creative iterations of the Weyland-Yutani synth yet. In fact – spoiler alert – she does double duty, playing an altogether icier version of the character too; Thia’s ‘sister’ Tessa. It’s not just the number of limbs that tells them apart. As (almost) the only English-speaking actor in this thing, her warmth as Thia is incredibly welcome and smartly played. I was as suspicious of this pairing as anybody, but Schuster-Kolomatangi is a good foil for Fanning’s chipper robot. Even with piles of prosthetics and CG masking his face, the actor is able to imbue Dek with a prideful, moody petulance that feels true enough of the Yautja temperament without making the species too humanistic.
There’s some good imagination in the variety of alien species that these two encounter together (with Thia handily acting as Trachtenberg’s jabbering exposition factory), from razor-sharp flora to gangly, tree-dwarfing fauna. If Badlands pushes its luck, it’s with the inclusion of a cutesy simian that Thia names ‘Bud’. Bud is a push too far toward the toy-friendly whimsy of the House of Mouse. A Grogu type character that’s far less appealing and which feels ill-fitting in an otherwise mean and muscular universe. Dek’s experiences with Thia ultimately lead to a softening of the toxic machismo that defines his Yautja upbringing (an increasingly Klingon-like species). Overcoming his innate Andrew Tate-isms is a cultural leap enough. Did we need a comedy sidekick putting a new spin on the term ‘ape’?
But Bud’s the biggest sticking point in a well-paced, action-packed romp. The final third runs afoul of an increasing sense of murk as the story descends into night and a Weyland-Yutani base camp that lacks much of the visually interesting scenery that typifies the long opening stretch, but this is also where Trachtenberg gets to up the stakes and play in a sandbox more redolent of classic monster movies. There’s nothing highbrow about Badlands. Indeed, it appeals to some of the most basic impulses we have. But watching Trachtenberg smash giant robots into giant monsters comes with a decent sense of crude catharsis, even if his action set-pieces occasionally want for a little more clarity.
The end is a shade too cute, threatening an improbable (and probably annoying) Guardians of the Galaxy style set-up for future instalments. Trachtenberg’s instincts so far – to keep telling disparate stories that don’t clearly interlink – would be a better way forward. Between Prey, Killer of Killers and now this, he’s shown a fan’s love for this material, while also showcasing a broader set of abilities as a filmmaker. While none punch into the realms of genre or franchise classics, it’s as consistent a run as Predator has ever had. If he decides to stick with the IP it’ll be in safe hands. If he moves on, it’ll be interesting to see how he applies these skills elsewhere.
With significant thanks to Elle Fanning, this one sails over expectations.
The Lost Highway Hotel 