The Predator franchise has always worked for me. Sure, there are a few clunkers in there — Alien vs. Predator and Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, I’m looking at you — but from the original Predator to the Robert Rodriguez-produced Predators to the gloriously Indigenous-heavy Prey, every film in this roster has been a true popcorn movie.
Add the latest installment, Predator: Badlands, to the ever-growing list of more-than-watchable sequels, because this film not only delves deep into the Predator mythos, but, in the end, it takes the Predator and turns him into a real stand-up guy lonesome scion of alien revenge.
No, really.
The Predators — or, as they’re called now, the Yautja — are in this clan that a little guy named Dax is about to be initiated into. Challenged by his brutish father who, sadly, decapitates his older brother for being weak — Yikes! Are you sure that wasn’t my dad? — Dax crash-lands on the alien world of Ganna, where he’s going to become a man or, you know, die trying.
On the hostile planet — apparently, it’s a real hellscape — he immediately finds vine-like strangling creatures, exploding caterpillars and large plants that shoot out poisonous spikes and immediately paralyze the body. And that’s in the first 15 minutes.
Eventually, he finds an android survivor (Elle Fanning) from a Weyland-Yutani (shades of Alien’s Xenomorphs?) scouting party. Along with a cute rolling-ball creature they call Bud, they try to find the mythical Kalisk that Dax wants to kill to impress his father.
While that’s going on, the android’s identical twin sister and a bunch of space marines find Dax’s ship. They take all the weapons and, of course, want to capture and eviscerate him. They all engage, entangle and enrage with a round of alien psychoanalysis about grief and loss, as well as old-fashioned shoulder cannons and wrist-controlled atom bombs.
With sparse alien dialogue and the mannerisms of a hardened warrior, New Zealand actor Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi is more than serviceable as Dax, alternating between immature warrior to seasoned champion for whom, as the mid-credits scene teases, more adventures will come.
But if anything needs more credit, it is Dan Trachtenberg, directing his third entry in the franchise. Between Prey and the animated Predator: Killer of Killers, he is on a creative streak I am actually down with, giving Dax and all the Yautja actual characteristics that make than more than, well, Predators.
In the end, Predator: Badlands is just a wildly entertaining entry in a nine-movie series that is only picking up camouflaged steam, and I am here for it. —Louis Fowler