Predator: Badlands
Review: I’ve had a little break from going to the movie theater (I needed the sleep more) but I was finally able to make it back in to see the newest addition to the long-running ‘Predator’ franchise. The first film to be focused on a Predator protagonist, we focus on Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi), a young Yautja runt trying to prove himself to his clan by defeating an extremely deadly prey. An action sci-fi movie, both the action and the sci-fi were turned all the way up to ten. It was chock full of action, but I’ll admit not all the action was super memorable to me. There were definitely some cool action moments, especially with Dek’s laser sword and with some different fights with the flora and fauna of Genna. But I felt like there was some cooler action right there that was not touched on and a lot of the action started to run together for me. I’m also kind of pissed we didn’t get to see more the laser bow because that was sick. And I think the Predator franchise has a lot of really cool lore that needed to be expounded on and this movie finally did that. The film has no human characters, but does have a couple humanoid synthetics (two of them played by Elle Fanning) so the film is about 50/50 in English & in Yautja with English subtitles. The film had some really cool visuals in the gadgets, creatures, and setting, though there were a couple setting shots that were a little nondescript.
High: The two best ideas that the Predator franchise has had recently were making the Predator the protagonist of a film & letting Dan Trachtenberg do his thing. The three films he has helmed are 3 of the top 4 (stay tuned for my full Predator rankings tomorrow on the blog) from the whole franchise and are so distinctly different from all the other films. I saw some people saying they didn’t like that this film ‘humanized’ the Predators, but personally I thought it was kind of cool. Letting us know that each Predator is different and finally immerse ourselves into their culture was a really good choice in my opinion.
Low: I love the MCU, but it does have a very distinct style that has negatively influenced a lot of movies. This is one of them. I thought Elle Fanning’s delivery was really great and she was definitely a positive from the film. But I didn’t like the way her character was written. There was a lot of unwarranted comedic relief in a movie that just does not need comedic relief. I thought Thia’s arc was really cool and I really liked the back and forth between her and Dek, but I don’t think a joke was needed to end every conversation.
Rating: 7.5/10
