I am always suspicious of any film that is dumped onto a streaming platform without a theatrical release of any kind. They are usually cash grabs, designed to suck up time more than to entertain. Less to engage, more to be on in the background so that tech companies can wave around fictional stats about how three hundred billion people tuned in to watch The Electric State, a movie that definitely exists and was definitely well received, stop asking questions please. But it’s nice to be proven occasionally wrong about that suspicsion as I was with a new Predator movie in 2022, Prey centering its hero as a Comanche woman battling out with the vicious alien. Following that, Dan Trachtenberg, the director of the film made another straight to streaming Predator picture earlier this year, Predator: Killer of Killers (this one being an R rated animated feature) before returning for his latest project.

Now finally he gets his day in the sun, with the first theatrically released Predator film since Shane Black’s The Predator, Dan Trachtenberg brings us Predator: Badlands. Badlands has a different feel than any other Predator movie, with the protagonist of the movie being one of the domineering hunters as opposed to those being hunted by the monster. Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) is small for his species, so to prove to his family that his ferocity can counter balance his small stature he heads to do his ritualistic hunt on the most dangerous planet in the galaxy, and hunt the most dangerous prey it has to offer.

Along the way Dek meets a synthetic from the Weyland Yutani Coroporation (yes the very same from the Alien franchise, I expect another Alien Vs Predator film announced tomorrow at this point) named Thia (Elle Fanning). The two of them team up to hunt down Dek’s prey. The planet is full of danger, and while much of the movie is clearly shot on green screens and sound stages, there are shots of Dek wandering through natural biomes, things that were filmed on location in New Zealand. These shots are incredible looking, and help to steep us in the world that Dek is navigating through. Unfortunately much of the film is dark and muddy CGI. Many of the notable fight sequences take place at night, almost certainly because rendering CGI is easier and cheaper in dark settings. It cheapens some of the major moments of the film when you are having trouble making out what exactly is happening in these fast moving action scenes.

Dek and Thia’s relationship is the center of Dek’s new clan, as he begins to question if what he really wants is to return to a family that has shunned him his entire life. It’s the sort of found family film that we’ve seen before, but it still works as a gang of unlikely friends sit around a camp fire and try to come up with a plan to best see their dreams through. And while this camp fire scene might not have Gonzo singing “I’m Going to Go Back There Someday”, it does have an ornery Predator sharpening his laser sword which has got to count for something.

The structure of Badlands has a video gamesque quality to its essence. Progression is felt as Dek moves through the planet, equipment feels like a resource that you can lose or expend. Relationship bars seem just on the other side of the edge of the screen. It’s a vibe that might not work for many films, but it feels at home in this one. It’s not unlike In the Lost Lands in that regard, although constructed considerably better than Paul W.S. Anderson’s latest crack at the bat. And it’s the kind of movie that we’ve been missing from cinemas for a long time.

Predator: Badlands sports a PG-13 rating, the first of the franchise outside of Alien Vs Predator to do so, and comparatively it’s the cutest of the franchise. Elle Fanning’s motor mouth machina providing levity, playing against the surly Dek who only speaks in the Predator’s native language. There’s a wholesome quality that feels new in a Predator movie, even if it lends itself more to Guardians of the Galaxy than to the original John McTiernan directed Arnold Schwarzenegger picture. So while it’s novel for Predator it is still perhaps something we’ve seen before, and probably done better a handful of times. But it’s a decidedly fun movie about how when you’re family lets you down, you can always make a new family with people that accept you the way you are.

3/5