Predator: Badlands

The Predator films have always been more concerned with its concept than it is building upon a consistent line of narrative threads. Each film has been about how to take that concept and give it a different context to exist in. Historically there's been a lot of misses with that, but I feel what makes Badlands particularly unique in that it's giving us a Yautja to root for and it's heavily leaning in on the series connection with the Aliens franchise. This has been done plenty of times outside of film but it's still novel to see this done in film without having it be a crossover. Not only is it adapting Alien's lore, but also some of its conceit!

However, I don't think it lands on being conventionally Predator or Alien. There are specific things it picks up from both but it lacks the sense of being "hunted" in the conventional Predator films nor does it have the sense of panic that Alien films embody. The lead character is someone who can confidentially fight even the most fearsome of beasts and functionally it's more of a conventional action film than horror. The film centralizes on a sense of camaraderie that neither series conventionally does either, though interestingly that camaraderie is between two unique concepts of the franchises so perhaps that can be seen as a sort of meta commentary for how much the two have complimented each other over the decades.

The two leads are conventional tropes but I do think the context of their existence gives them spice. Typically I'd find Thia's characterization insufferable but I think it works here insofar as she's an ai and is designed to be as pleasant and amicable as possible which gives her an air of familiar inhumanity. It's a funny idea that ai like her is designed to never antagonize ANYONE, even something as malicious as a Yautja. Dek is solid insofar that he's played up as a conventional Yautja to those around him but amongst his own people he's viewed as a runt and much of his drive is to live up to his cultural ideal, which is real cool way to give him a contrast to other Yautja throughout the franchise's history.

This foundation and chemistry is good but I couldn't but feel disappointed by how this was developed after the halfway point. I was hoping Thia would be played straight as a manipulator, someone who was designed to be pleasant but has no real attachment. Or hell, her support for Dek is more awkward unintentional exploit since she can't possibly do anything to harm a client! On the other end, Dek could just continue to see her as a literal tool and not believe her posturing is anything more than the fabrication that it is. In actuality, the direction taken is both having clear emotional attachment to each other and ending up saving each other. This is so boring, feels like they didn't have the balls to say something about our relationship to ai and just sit on the most conventional narrative arc imaginable. The long term implication of their existence together doesn't excite me, there's just nothing about their dynamic that's interesting beyond its initial premise.

Perhaps there is a throughline between both in how they're having a rebellion against their culture but I feel it was poorly justified on Dek's end. I get this was driven by how he perceived the familial relationship of his comrades, but I don't buy that he would drop all of his understanding of the world through the Yautja lens to all of a sudden play the conventional hero because he saw himself in a baby animal. Come onnnnn. They sold me the idea this guy has hunted for years and is experienced, no way this is the first time he's encountered the baby of his prey. I also feels it's a bit of a cop out to not have him find a solution to be able to properly obtain the Kalisk trophy. This is treated as a rebellion to tradition, but like... why? What's his grand plan? What does he think is the better alternative in Yautja culture? It feels like such a boring way to motivate him to save Thia.

Narratively it possesses the overarching conceit of Alien with framing from Predator's lore. The idea being that the conflict is a result of the corporation (Weyland-Yutani) callously putting its employees in dangerous situations to avoid accountability for some nefarious purpose, but with the context that the victims in this case is nature itself. The Yautja just being a side effect of that. I like its framing that even though the Yautja are brutal killers they at least have some semblance of honor unlike the callousness of this major corporation destroying nature. The corporation thinks little of life; and while the Yautja kills for fun, they still think the life they hunt has value. There's no proper reflection on this but I do think the indirect framing is good.

I kinda feel this is the extent of where its broader conceit lands on, though. "Corporation. BAD!" Is such a dime a dozen plot beat; especially nowadays, that it's hard to care if they have little else to say beyond the most obvious thing. Welyand-Yutani has always functioned as an evil corporation but the Alien films framed them differently. They were always a backdrop but there was more substance to it comparatively. Their purpose was to give context to why the setting of every Alien film exists and how their actions caused the Xenomorph conflict in an indirect way which is a cool novelty. But here, they're VERY directly the cause of conflict and I find that less interesting. It's less about a company's intentional neglect causing extreme suffering as much as it is the company directly causing that suffering. I get this is maybe inane to complain about in a Predator film specifically but so much of its DNA stems from the Alien franchise so it's hard to not think about this comparatively. There could have been more about the way company abuses ai in the neglect of others, stronger ideas about how ai harms nature; hell, even just cementing the idea of ai having self-autonomy and being treated poorly by the company itself. SOMETHING. But instead the movie opts for "robots can have feelings too :D" and "they were mean to the animals!" as the bare minimum they want to engage with. It's not like the Alien franchise hasn't set a precedent for ai being villainous which this film also employs, so it feels pretty bland they couldn't give more meat to this idea in a corporate context.

But despite it all, I think it's a thrilling action film at least. What it does well is mainly two things - setpieces and scale. The setpieces typically have some central gimmick which Dek has to play around. The knife flowers, the destroyed corporation base, the military base, etc and all of these give a sense presence that affect each fight. All the fights feature a foe of massive size so there's a sense of intuitiveness that Dek expresses with the environment to be able to defeat each of them, and it's always cool to see someone with a Yautja's tool kit find ways to defeat an overwhelming foe. Typically the Yautja IS that overwhelming foe but it lands so effectively on the conceit of Dek's character that they put in the environment where the Yautja looks far less intimidating comparatively. Despite this I like that Dek isn't a bumbling fool either. There's a sense deliberateness to how he does everything which makes Dek comes off less an underdog and more of a badass who defeats such overwhelming foes on the regular. It's a bit funny that the environment is very Earth like upset mundane things are deadly in ridiculous ways (exploding slugs, man eating plants, etc) but I think that makes its novelty cool!

While I do think the film becomes less engaging by the second half both in terms of its action scenes and narrative, I don't think the film overstays welcome enough to aggravate you on this. It's a fast paced movie that doesn't drag on any point and visually it's usually exciting to watch. If we're judging this on the conceit of Predator films I'd call it a solid action flick but lacking the psychological weight that the original film possessed that elevated it beyond the conventions of the genre. In this sense I think it's actually comparable to Killer of Killers in terms of value and what it successfully lands on. It's aiming for a different conceit that made Predator popular, but I think that's okay. But as an Alien I think it's a total failure in terms of landing on anything interesting. I suppose it's fortunate; then, that this movie is called "Predator" and not "Alien" so more people are going to judge it on the former rather than the latter. And by the standards of the former, I'd say this movie is aight!