Film Review: Predator, Prey, And Everything In Between

Predator: Badlands is a pretty decent continuation of the franchise which began in 1987 where Arnold Schwarzenegger faced the first creature onscreen which is apparently now known as a Yautja.

Dan Trachtenberg is the director of this film while Patrick Aison is the credited screenwriter.

Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi plays the lead role as the outcast Predator named Dek. Elle Fanning also stars as a synthetic woman named Thia who is missing her lower half. Reuben de Jong, Alison Wright, and Mike Homik.

This film includes some family drama injected into mythos of the Predator race. A young Predator who is apparently seen as some kind of weakling is trying to receive some type of approval from his father. When the father makes an attempt on his own son’s life, Dek makes his escape to hunt another more terrible beast known as the Kalisk. When Dek arrives on the planet known as Genna, he runs into trouble and meets am artificial, yet sentient woman known as Thia. Thia has already met the Kalisk and had her lower half sheared off for her trouble. Thia is on the search someone she has identified as her sister. They were there on behalf of a corporation to experiment on the Kalisk which has some extraordinary regenerative abilities which Dek is destined to find out. As their quest nears its climax, it is no longer clear where the bigger threat lies for Thia and Dek.

It’s a decent enough movie on a slow afternoon, but it’s not all that memorable. I had some trouble caring about the family woes of Dek. Fanning’s cheeky and chatty performance as Thia was kind of entertaining.

There were of course lots of CGI visuals for the eyes to feast on. The action sequences were finely programmed or whatever. The various creatures inhabiting Genna were much the same as any other in this genre of film. Lots of tentacles get sliced off in this film.

Anyway, the film is entertaining and manages to not be terrible, which is a relief to fans of the franchise. Some of the action sequences have so much CGI, it does feel a bit cartoonish. Probably the best thing about this movie is Elle Fanning’s performance.

The film is above mediocre or average but not by as much as I dared to hope.