I can’t speak for all professional film critics, but personally, I live by a set of rules. You never make up your mind about a movie before you see it. You never walk out of a movie, no matter how bad it is. And here’s a big one that’s going to be relevant in just a second: You never call a movie “one of the best of the year” unless the year is, at least, mostly over. Otherwise, how could you know?
Well folks, it’s early November and I’m calling it: Dan Trachtenberg’s “Predator: Badlands” is one of the best movies of the year. This probably shouldn’t be a shock, since Trachtenberg’s “Predator” prequel “Prey” was one of the best movies of 2022. After 40 years of filmmakers trying and struggling to turn “Predator” into a consistently successful sci-fi franchise, Trachtenberg finally cracked the code. The premise is that aliens hunt humans for sport, but that’s not what the stories are really about. Dan Trachtenberg understands that the best “Predator” films are macho tales about how machismo is bullcrap.
In John McTiernan’s original “Predator,” musclebound male action archetypes are powerless in the face of a superior hunter, who happens to be an alien with a vaginal face. Trachtenberg’s “Prey” was about a Comanche woman who wasn’t allowed to be a hunter, but hunted and killed the universe’s (allegedly) deadliest hunter anyway. “Predator: Badlands” continues in this tradition, challenging regressive masculine values by telling a glorious and gripping story about why caring about people is killer.
On the surface, “Predator: Badlands” breaks all the franchise’s rules — for the first time, a Predator is the protagonist. Not just that, we finally get some subtitles when he talks, so we learn useful information about the Yautja alien species and their culture. It turns out they’re just angry, violent jerks who live without compassion, friendship or self-sacrifice, like weekend warriors who watch pissy YouTube videos and accept every toxic thing they’re told. The Yautja are so obsessed with strength that they even kill the runts of their litter, which is a problem for our hero, Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi), because he’s the runt.
To save his life, and prove his worth to an emotionally distant and murderous father, Dek decides his big hunt — a coming of age ritual to the Yautja — will be the biggest ever. His trophy will be the Kalisk, an allegedly unkillable monster living on a planet where everything is cartoonishly lethal. The trees are trying to kill you. The grass is trying to kill you. The caterpillars are literally hand grenades. Dek is, to put it mildly, out of his depth. To put it less mildly, he’s screwed with a rusty chainsaw.
Dek wants to prove he’s a Yautja through and through, but to survive, he’ll have to find his own path. He stumbles across a cheerful, chatty android named Thia (Elle Fanning) who knows all the local flora and fauna, and whose legs were ripped off by [checks notes] the local flora and fauna. She wants her legs back, but her legs are in the Kalisk’s lair, so she offers to guide Dek there. Whoops! Yautja aren’t allowed to make alliances. Thia convinces Dek that, since she’s a robot, she’s nothing more than a tool, and he’s allowed to have tools, so he should carry her torso around like a North Face backpack. And thus their quest begins.
There’s a structural simplicity to “Predator: Badlands” that belies its depths. It’s one of those classical adventures where the journey, and just stick with me on this, is more important than the destination. Will our stoic hero learn a valuable lesson about friendship from a comic relief sidekick and a cute CGI animal, in an expensive blockbuster produced by the Disney Corporation? Yes, let’s not pretend otherwise.
But Dan Trachtenberg — working from a stellar screenplay by Patrick Aison and Brian Duffield — uses this familiarity to explore something new. “Predator” is, again, a macho tale about how machismo is bullcrap. Dek doesn’t find a new family and give up killing things. He learns you can kill things better if you have friends who like killing too. He never gives up on his quest for violent self-improvement. He is, always, a Predator, and “Badlands” is, always, a Predator movie. It just argues that strength doesn’t come from toxic masculinity, and you can build a better warrior — and a better action movie — by doing what the best “Predator” movies did in the past. Trachtenberg once again embraces a formula while summarily rejecting that formula’s typical message.
None of this would work if Elle Fanning, in particular, didn’t do some real heavy lifting. Which is ironic, since her character gets toted around like carry-on luggage. This is the type of character who could easily ruin an action movie, the sort of comic relief, heart of gold sidekick who usually doesn’t have much to contribute. But Thia is a genuinely funny character, and her sensitivity is nuanced, so she’s a welcome addition to the dynamic. She’s productive, not only offering useful information but also carrying her own in fights (sometimes in bizarre ways). Without Thia, and without a performance as complex as Elle Fanning’s, “Predator: Badlands” doesn’t work. The way Fanning modulates between naive fascination and grim annoyance would, in a universe where films like “Predator: Badlands” were serious awards contenders, be celebrated at the end of the year.
But let’s not lose sight of the fact that “Predator: Badlands” is also frickin’ weird. Dan Trachtenberg doesn’t let the straightforward plot get in the way of his bizarre imagination. There’s a terrifying eel monster that spits acid who is, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, a very good boy and deserves a treat. It’s a testament to excellent blockbuster filmmaking that you find yourself emotionally attached to something wholly ridiculous, and by the end of “Predator: Badlands” it’s hard not to get swept up in the moment. I felt things watching “Predator: Badlands” that I never felt while watching a lot of so-called “serious” Oscar nominees.
“Predator: Badlands” tinkers with the formula fans are used to, but it’s a fantastic “Predator” movie anyway, capturing the thrills and themes that make the series special while successfully stretching out the canvas, revealing all-new details. This is wickedly exciting filmmaking. The rare, flashy studio blockbuster that doesn’t read like a laundry list of creative compromises, where the money went to telling a story about fascinating characters and putting them in impossible, gorgeous, and horrifically violent situations. Like “Prey” before it, “Predator: Badlands” is mainstream sci-fi filmmaking at its zenith, and it’s proof — in an era where proof is hard to find — that big, expensive action spectacles don’t have to suck. Indeed, they can still totally frickin’ rule.
“Predator: Badlands” opens exclusively in theaters on Nov. 7.