For nearly forty years, the Predator franchise has been living in the shadow of John McTiernan’s immaculate work on the original 1987 film, Predator. That film saw one of the greatest action filmmakers of the era take on a film that seemed simple and straightforward on the surface, but ultimately gave way to deep complexities below, subverting the tropes of genre and using the presence of an intergalactic creature to deliver a blistering commentary on the uber-masculine archetypes of the time. It was remains an incredible film to this day, that is both obscenely entertaining and far more articulate than one might think.
In the aftermath of such an accomplishment, it felt as though each subsequent attempt was doomed to pale by comparison. Thus, through the decades and numerous sequels and crossovers, each new installment was doomed to be unfavorably measured against the high-water mark that was McTiernan’s original. However, in 2022, something shifted. Dan Trachtenberg’s Prey, a prequel that hijacked the franchise’s core formula and imbued it with a new perspective that was far more in-line with the original film’s subversive themes, blew audiences and critics away. The result was a first for the franchise: a follow-up that felt like it deserved to be in the same conversation with the original film.
Subsequently, this year Trachtenberg and company doubled down on Prey’s approach, delivering Predator: Killer of Killers. The animated anthology film showcased three other time periods and settings throughout history and what happened when a Yautja showed up to claim their fearsome prize, all while interweaving them and ruthlessly pushing the mythology of the franchise as a whole forward.
Now, with his new film, Predator: Badlands, Trachtenberg capitalizes on all of the goodwill and forward-momentum mustered by his two previous entries to deliver the seemingly unimaginable: a film that flat-out eclipses the original film and blows the doors wide-open on what is possible within the Predator franchise.
Predator: Badlands review
Predator: Badlands is a mile-a-minute rip-roaring thrill ride that quite literally hits the ground running and never takes its foot off of the gas for even a moment. From the opening frame of the film, it becomes clear that Trachtenberg and his longtime cinematographer Jeff Cutter are not interested in simply delivering just another Predator film; the opening minutes of screen time are devoted to sprawling, fully realized science fiction vistas that would feel at home in something like Dune or Star Wars. The synchronous combination of these top-notch visuals with Sarah Schachner’s otherworldly musical score results in something genuinely transportative, the impact of which is only heightened all the more by seeing this on the biggest screen possible. Long before the opening title card even drops, Predator: Badlands so wholly immerses us into this world in a very tactile and all-encompassing fashion, and its ridiculously effective at doing so.
The hook of the story, as writ by Trachtenberg, Patrick Aison, and Brian Duffield, is that this Badlands repositions the normally antagonistic Yautja to instead be the protagonist of the story. Thus, the film centers around the story of Dek (brought to palpably physical life by Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi), the runt of the litter who is, against all odds, trying to prove himself to his tribe by venturing to one of the most dangerous planets in the galaxy, Genna, and hunting one of its most fearsome inhabitants. Along the way, he faces off against a litany of other violent creatures on the inhospitable planet and forges an unlikely alliance with a Weyland-Yutani synthetic named Thia (played wonderfully by Elle Fanning).
The result is a story that not only pushes the Predator franchise forward in innovative ways, but also explores the core themes that have always been at its heart: those of masculinity and familial bonds of one kind or another.
From 10 Cloverfield Lane to Prey to Predator: Killer of Killers, Trachtenberg has demonstrated he has a real penchant for delivering films that feel incredibly cathartic, well-earned, and emotionally satisfying for audiences. With Badlands, he takes this to new extremes, crafting a film that ascends to insane heights in its final act only to keep one-upping itself, both in terms of spectacle and in terms of emotional resonance for the characters and its larger themes. If you stick around through the end credits, you’ll see that the top-listed person in the ‘filmmakers would like to thank’ section is James Cameron, and that makes total sense: Badlands has the beating heart of what a James Cameron Predator film might feel like. From its comprehensive and palpable character arcs to its firing-on-all-cylinders setpieces, the movie plays the audience like a fiddle.
Another element of this is Trachtenberg and Cutter’s distinct, highly subjective visual style. So much of the film is rooted in Dek’s perspective, and the visual vernacular of the camera work reflects that in ingenious ways. Several of the film’s most exciting and extravagant action sequences unfold in stunning oners that see practical and digital elements blending seamlessly together to enable the audience to stay completely tethered to Dek. This allows us to not just see but flat-out experience his trials, tribulations, actions, and reactions in an incredibly impactful manner.
The overarching story and world of Predator: Badlands is a gargantuan-scale world that plays like a bona fide premium blockbuster experience in every conceivable way. It feels like what might happen if you blended Fred Wilcox’s Forbidden Planet with a ‘90s Dark Horse comic. But the real stroke of artistic ingenuity that pays off in spades is Trachtenberg’s focus on Dek’s journey, internally and externally. Even as the film interweaves elements from across all of the various Predator films, key threads from the Alien films, and sets up entirely new stuff, Badlands is so deeply entrenched in Dek’s story that it never once feels messy or complex. It is a huge testament to Trachtenberg and his team's accomplishment here just how simple and efficient the whole thing feels, despite how packed-to-the-brim it is with creatures, action setpieces, and genuinely gonzo science fiction stuff.
Verdict
By the time Predator: Badlands wraps up, it delivers a cinematic experience that both feels so quintessentially indebted to the Predator franchise and also so vibrantly fresh. The performances are great, the characters are endearing as hell, it is bursting at the seams with inventive visual imagination, and it plays like a two-hour long, ever-escalating action sequence in the very best of ways. It charts a bold new path that I desperately hope audiences will get to see come to fruition, because it makes the past forty years of the franchise look so small in terms of scope and vision.
Predator: Badlands kicks in the door on the franchise’s potential, while also delivering a phenomenal movie in its own right. It hits theaters this Friday, November 7.