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Predator franchise for silver screens reset with lean action and character focus.
After Shane Black’s catastrophic The Predator in 2018, where the film’s quality barrelled out from being painfully terrible into “So bad, it is good” territory after autism becomes not only a plot device but an actual weapon, all hope seemed lost for the Predator franchise, until Dan Trachtenberg’s made-for-streaming hits Prey and then Predator: Killer of Killers.
Violently course-correcting the franchise back to its roots involving the Yautja alien race and their fierce devotion to “the hunt”, Trachtenberg’s films proved to be the shot in the arm that the franchise desperately needed and he has done it once again with Predator: Badlands.
The source of scorn within his clan due to his size and qualities being physically inferior to the rest of his species on the Yautja Prime planet, Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) informs his brother Kwei that he will hunt the dangerous Kalisk on the planet Genna to prove his worth to his family and clan.
However before Dek is able to prepare for the hunt, the siblings receive a rude awakening from their father and leader of the clan Njohrr, who has arrived to kill Dek to restore the clan’s honour.
Attempting to save his brother, Kwei battles their father. Just before the older brother is executed, Kwei directs the ship to depart to Genna with Dek onboard.
Once on the planet, Kwei crosses path with Thia (Elle Fanning), a damaged Weyland-Yutani synthetic android, who aids him on his hunt with the wealth of information she has accrued on the planet’s dangerous flora and fauna.
Tighter worldview, weaker Yautja make story click
Unlike his recent predecessors, Trachtenberg has been guided by a clear vision on the 5W1Hs for his takes on the Predator mythology.
In Prey, the writer-director pitted young Comanche warriors against a towering Yautja during the early 18th century in North America. He then followed it up with Killer of Killers earlier this year, which focused on three historical time periods: the Viking era, feudal Japan and during World War II.
Rather than repeating what he had already done and risk turning it into a gimmick, Trachtenberg shifts gears with Badlands, flipping the typical point of view from the humans being hunted to the Yautja instead.
Further expanding the storytelling is how Trachtenberg “de-powers” the film’s lead Yautja. Instead of being the typical hulking brute with fighting, hunting and survival experience honed over centuries of experience, Badlands has Dek, a runt with only some experience in fighting and who has never undertaken an actual hunt.
It is a refreshing new take for the franchise, seeing a Yautja start his story at a complete disadvantage and how Dek has to rise to the top despite the odds being stacked against his favour.
A big part of Dek’s character development is Thia and Bud, a small alien the Yautja and android befriend on Genna. As he is vastly different from the other Yautja, the duo are critical in showing him that his life can be more than just “the hunt” or satiating his clan and race’s desire for worthy Yautja hunters.
Smart ratings workaround fuels harder, faster action
Beyond just its creative writing choices, Badlands also benefits from how it cheats film censors. Due to the conservative notions involving entertainment media, red blood, violence and so on, Trachtenberg’s film sidesteps this pitfall by filling the film front to back with aliens and androids.
As the aliens have a myriad of non-red coloured blood while the androids have their typical white “blood”, Badlands secured a PG-13 rating in the US, unlike the other Predator films that were rated R.
This is significant beyond just getting more people into theatres: it also allowed the filmmakers to go hog-wild with the film’s action and violence. Limbs are torn, throats get pierced, heads are chopped off or ripped out with spines still attached, skulls crushed, bodies disintegrated, you name it – Badlands likely has it.
Greater action, better storytelling and just all-round a solid blockbuster, Trachtenberg hits the bullseye with the precision of a Yautja Plasmacaster, proving for the third time in a row that the franchise is in good hands.
