FULL SPOILER-FREE REVIEW @ https://movieswetextedabout.com/predator-badlands-movie-review-dan-trachtenberg-earns-the-franchise-keys-by-flipping-the-hunt/

Predator: Badlands is the first Predator film since 2022’s Prey. It is also the second Predator-related media released this year. Hulu’s animated anthology film, Predator: Killer of Killers, is now streaming. All three titles were directed and/or written by Dan Trachtenberg.

“Dek” is the runt of the “Yautja” clan so his militaristic father has asked his elder brother “Kwei” to get rid of him. Luckily, his brother isn’t so brutal and so with an impossible task on his hands to prove his worth, “Dek” manages to escape to a planet where he seeks to make a trophy from the menacing “Kalisk”. Thing is, this place is riddled with all sorts of flesh-eating monsters and plants so his own survival chances aren’t especially high until he encounters the top half of synthetic “Thia” (Elle Fanning) who is quite hot on keeping him alive and who agrees to work with him to achieve his task. It turns out, though, that she and her mission doppelgänger “Tessa” are on this world for a similar reason and him getting back home is not in their plans, let alone home with a creature that has impressive regenerative powers. What chance the young “Dek” can achieve his task, or perhaps even better - do something his tribe never do and learn to cooperate and maybe even make friends? Now it is fractionally better, but for the most part this really just reminded me of Adam Driver’s “65” (2023) as the whole premise of the “Predator” - the menacing and all-conquering alpha hunter - is abandoned in favour of this great looking but derivative story of survival with fangs against critters and plants that could have caused a stir in “Star Trek” in the 1960s. By flipping the established plot on it’s head like this, Dan Trachtenberg is almost asking us to sympathise for “Dek” rather than hide behind the sofa, and this manages to disappointingly humanise him - albeit monosyllabically - and reduce any sense of menace to a bare minimum. Sorry, but I was underwhelmed by the whole thing.

> Director of his 3rd Predator project, I think…3 times a charm…Dan Trachtenburg , obviously understands Alien. I think he brought the “aliens” in Cameron style to this pg13 Disney + friendly film. So maybe for a newer audience that wants to understand and identify with the originals. Movies now get “universe” in comic book format is how we lay film work. New normal. So get with the program, ya hard-to-please Treky Boomers. If you watch Badlands with all things considered, you find it delivers well. The originators of Alien and sci-fi alike also started woke back then. The real kind . It was green peace hippie and comic book loving pc building movie magic “woke” nowadays, so it’s not hard to see how the concepts and themes in the Badlands plot and story and character developments blended and balanced together with high energy ramping up music score. Cyberpunk space synth composed like an opera complemented the vibe in place far, far away ; ). Excellent delivery execution with precision made woke but like like a fine woke wine.