The Wandering Fox Reviews: Predator Badlands

Freddy and Teddy were settling inside the house and all snuggled up in their own chairs.

Freddy: Ooooooooh, it’s getting cold out there!

Teddy: Yeah, this is the place to be! Gotta confess though it’s that time of the year to just watch something all warm and all.

Freddy: Well Wandering Fox has gone out with his dad to watch that new Predator film, he’s made the right choice.

Teddy: I wonder when he will be back?

The door then opened and the Wandering Fox came in, giving his dad a good night and thanking his dad for the trip to the cinema. Teddy smiled.

Teddy: Oh, that answers that!

That it did! Well, i can tell you this was in a way the movie I was most excited for all year.

Teddy: Is that so?

Freddy: More than Superman or Fantastic 4?

Teddy: Or Zootopia 2?

Well no, I didn’t watch them and I’m done with superhero movies now, I’ve seen one too many and they’re basically the same thing. That and while I will watch Zootopia 2 I won’t be watching it in the cinemas as kids tend to be bloody noisy so no, I will have to wait for it to come out on D+ or DVD. But Predator Badlands had me interested thanks to the franchise getting a much needed boost thanks to Prey after The Predator in 2018 had almost killed it. The fact it was set in the far future with a Predator as the protagonist and was tying into Aliens had me well interested, with Dan Tratchenberg who directed Prey returning to direct. So, was it worth the trip out? Then get suited up as we hunt for the truth of whether this movie was bad or good.

The Story

The story sees a young Predator, or Yautja as the species are called in the franchise, called Dek fleeing from Yautja Prime after his brother Kwei refused to kill him for their father Njohrr for being weak. He flees to the planet Genna where a creature called the Kalisk resides, hoping to bring the Kalisk’s head to his father to not only redeem himself in the clan but to avenge Kwei’s death. There’s problems already for him though: the Kalisk is a being so feared that even the Yautja are afraid it. And Dek is not alone on this planet as the sinister Weyland Yutani corporation of the Alien movies are also on the planet hunting for something that isn’t a Xenomorph. And along the way Dek is joined by a Weyland Yutani Synth called Thia (Elle Fanning).

The story does start quite strong for the most part with us having a little insight into Yautja lore and how the Yautja operate as clans who not only are driven by honour but also strength. In the previous Predator movies like Predator 2 or Aliens vs Predator: Requiem we get some glimpses here and there of how the Yautja operate with them gifting Detective Harrigan a 1700s pistol out of respect for killing the Yautja he was fighting it out with, and Yautja Prime debuted in Aliens vs Predator Requiem with only a glimpse in which we see Wolf Predator hired to go and clean up the mess its fellow Predators made in failing to stop the PredAlien. The comics themselves really built upon Yautja society with them even taking in human apprentices. Here though we get more into how some clans operate and they are brutal, opening with Dek fighting his brother Kwei who had been sent to kill him by their father for being weak. Kwei refuses to kill Dek and instead tries to give him a way out by selecting a prey for him, but with Njohrr coming and killing Kwei, Dek is forced to go and has vengeance on his mind. We then get a good scene in which Dek loses most of his equipment and has to fight with so few of his gear but overcomes the struggle. The planet Genna is truly a hostile world that it makes the jungles of South America or the streets of LA a walk in the park for the Predators, from eldritch monsters far bigger than the Predators to even the natural environment being hostile, Dek is indeed truly in for a fight for his life.

The quality though does start to get questionable once Thia comes in. Thia is a female Synth made by Weyland Yutani and she’s basically been split in half and trapped up in a nest. Thia is…something shall we say. I think Thia’s “comedy” terribly clashes with the dark tone that was set up at the start of the movie. She seems less like an advanced android and more like a modern day millennial fan girl who’s binged 80s movies. Or to put it more bluntly she’s the Donkey to Dek’s Shrek. Seriously she never shuts up at first. Compare her to previous androids in the Alien franchise she’s far too human compared to Ash and Bishop, the latter of whom was a far nicer guy. Her gushing over Dek being a Yautja doesn’t help as he’s trying hard to trek through Genna’s harsh landscape, though it seems this was done on purpose as Dek builds a vine strap to tie her to his back and literally says “Talk that way”. That was a good moment of comedy XD Though sadly I think the movie veers a bit too far into Disney cuddly areas by introducing a cute little alien Thia calls Bud and with how she copies Dek here and there and is able to cope better in fights, and has a cringeworthy scene towards the end, it has me thinking either Tratchenberg got too carried away in the whole “found family theme” or Disney executives were yelling at him to make “Predator but Star Wars!” This kind of thing just doesn’t work in Predator. These guys do remember The Predator in 2018, right?

The movie does get back to being better when it’s serious. Thia herself does get a little better as the story continues with her wondering where her perfect copy Tessa is. We go to Tessa’s perspective and it is good as well as how aside from conversing with Mother (the AI in the Alien movies), she and the other Synths hardly talk, just coldly looking around themselves and barely emoting as they interact with the natural creatures of Genna or Kwei’s ship. It’s good acting from Elle Fanning as she plays the more emotive kinder Thia while as Tessa she’s just cold and even has a slight sadistic side although she faintly has moments of fear or self doubt that goes well with her. Thia herself does get some character building as she learns from Dek of why he’s here and how the loss of Kwei hurts him greatly and how he notes that Tessa is her sister that makes Thia yearn for for her, as well as the obvious betrayal that comes has Thia flatly say she isn’t her sister.

The “twist” of the movie in which the Weyland Yutani corporation want the Kalisk for its regenerative ability is so easy to see that it does make the film sadly a bit predictable, but the inclusion of Bud being the daughter of the Kalisk only made it more predictable. Though admittedly there is something in the final fight against Tessa that I was surprised by. I won’t spoil it but it at least was more of a twist than Weyland Yutani wanting the Kalisk XD Dek though does show he’s quite good at improvising like a proper guy in the wild, with him grabbing a few bits and pieces of the natural environment and making himself a few tools and weapons out of them to fight the Synths is really good, I’ll give them that.

The movie does sadly drag a bit towards the end as we get not one, not two, but three final confrontations. First Dek fights Tessa in an obvious throwback to Aliens’s final battle with Ripley against the Alien Queen. Then Tessa has a final confrontation with Thia. Then we return to Yautja Prime for Dek to fight Njohrr, it does seriously drag. Then we get a dark humour bit at the end as Dek’s mum comes to find out about the mess Dek has made, yes the movie ends with Dek saying “It’s my mother” upon seeing her ship. Yes.

The choice of having Dek talk with subtitles is questionable as you will find yourself reading what he’s saying but maybe missing something going on the screen, wether it be a bit of action or a facial expression Dek is conveying, it’s something I’m annoyed with. The only thing they could’ve done was had him mimic others voices and with Thia being the only character talking English it’d just give Elle Fanning another role and Dek would just be dumb if he was just talking like with Elle’s voice. I guess I’ll take the subtitles than that.

The movie does make up for its questionable tone with some good acting and decent action scenes, it’s choppy at the start but to the climax it gets better. For a PG-13 it’s quite bloody as we do get alien creatures sliced in half or their limbs chopped off, to seeing multiple Synths getting their bodies ripped apart or decapitated. Though strangely we don’t see a Synth’s head getting destroyed in which his head is utterly reduced to goop, it’s shot from behind a glass window and his white fluid sprays the glass. You mean to tell me you will show lots of characters getting decapitated but you won’t show us a character getting his entire head blown apart!?

The scene in which Thia and Tessa talk to each other on the ship while Dek is captured is good with Tessa telling Thia she regrets trying to save her is great work with Elle playing them both, thanks to the makeup and change in her voice, Elle really gives you the impression she’s playing two different characters. That and good camera trickery.

I think my main issue with the movie is, aside from it’s tone getting too comedic at times and the Alien references get a bit much, it’s how I just feel Dek and Thia’s relationship and story arc is done with barebones effort. There’s good scenes with them but for Dek to simply take one little history lesson about wolves from Thia and changes his entire attitude and work to suit a wolf and takes on Bud and a random alien as a companion and forgoes his desire to kill the Kalisk is very lazy in my opinion. Oh and we don’t even know why Dek is considered weak, but hey we have a prequel comic coming that will explain it, because why on Earth should we explain it in the movie ?

I think Dek’s main lesson should be that it’s alright to work with somebody. While the movie bizarrely preaches Yautja society says they must work alone, Aliens vs Predator, both comics and movie, have multiple Yautja working together, but with Predator Badlands chastising Thia for wanting to help him by saying “Yautja hunt alone”, to which he gets through things with her help and may be left with a choice to save her or go alone, that could have been a better story to tell instead of having him get a little history lesson of Alpha Wolves and teaming up with cute aliens to have a pack of his own. Thia’s with her realising how much the Weyland Yutani corporation sees her as merely an expendable tool that can be thrown away, with even Tessa feeling she should be scrapped, is good and all, but we really needed more to see how Dek took to her as it just feels weak. I mean compare this to the first two Predator movies, especially the first, Dutch’s team have great interactions with each other and have good brotherly love that you feel for them as they are killed by the Predator, or Harrigan’s scenes with Danny at the start of the movie shows well these guys have been friends for years that Danny’s death only enrages Harrigan in trying to find the Predator.

Overall, the movie’s story is very mixed. It’s nowhere near as bad as The Predator where that was just plain embarrassing to watch as that had rewritten the Yautja into being conquerors who are obsessed with Autistic people, or its idiot plot of a Predator helmet being sent to a family home through a mail man for the Autistic boy to run around shooting things with it. I’ll at least take the more iffy humour here over the idiocy of The Predator. But it’s still got a flawed story with a flawed relationship like Prey as while Prey did at least breathe some new air into Predator with it going back in time to it being set in the wild of the 1700s, Naru’s relationship with her brother was quite one sided with her being such a grump which is annoying as you don’t want an unlikeable protagonist. That and the cutesy alien sidekick just seems like Tratchenberg was trying to copy The Mandalorian. Dek’s at least interesting in how he improvises to get through Genna with his own sense of humour against the more millennial Thia’s works, combined with good action you can at least watch this for a bit of fun.

If you’re a newcomer to both Predator and Aliens and feel uncertain of the goriness of the former or the darkness of the latter, I’d suggest this as your starting point in the franchise. It’s action is quite decent, the “goriness” is mostly alien blood or Synth liquid, Dek is quite the badass and if you can stomach Thia’s first few scenes I think you will like it as a good jumping on, as well as establishing the Weyland Yutani corporation as a scummy company that you come to see in Alien and Aliens it’s a good jumping on movie to get into both.

I don’t think I’ll talk of the characters as I feel I’ve covered most of them, but I’m gonna move onto something I don’t really talk of much, that being.

The Cinematography

The movie is set in the far future so it’s gonna be reliant on CGI and soundstages a lot, which is a big shift from the location filming they did with Prey. It’s understandable but the question is, was the money well spent or did Dan Tratchenberg get a bit too foolish with the money? Well this is surprising as the movie was apparently only made on a $105 million budget and for the amount of CGI that was in it as well as the set pieces it will make RTD cry about how he had £8 million spent on each episode of Doctor Who a lot of it looked bland. A lot of the visuals are spent with making Genna look truly horrific and unfriendly to anybody living on this planet, from vine tendrils coming to life, to literal Bladed Grass, exploding worms, explosive paralysing nettles to eldritch monstrosities, it truly belongs to the universe of Predator and Aliens. I say they did a good job on it.

The makeup on the Yautja look good that you often wonder how much of Dek’s facial expressions is CGI and practical. They made enough suits for a few Yautja who wear masks with only Dek, Kwei and Njohrr having their faces revealed. They recapture the colouring and set designs of the Yautja ship well enough that you feel like you’re in the ship of Predator 2 and the clothing of the Weyland Yutani Synths do look a lot crispier but still remaining true to them. Money well spent. You can tell why they simply stuck with Elle Fanning than casting Dakota in as the other sister as otherwise the budget would've gotten too big. XD

Njohrr.

The fight with the Kalisk was incredibly impressive as we see Dek giving it everything he has, slicing it, blasting it, cutting its head off or it’s legs but it just grows back with a lot of icky detail in it that you truly feel as if you’re seeing a alien’s body makeup :) that and they make it convincing of Thia being only half the woman she was.

Ba dum tush.

The practical makeup was done great as well with Tessa as we get a good look at her upon being damaged.

However. There are moments where things look a bit unconvincing or goofy be it Dek being thrown off a waterfall or him getting flung through the air on his ship looks incredibly goofy even with the music being dark. That and there’s some moments where it looks as if they jumped a few frames in the CGI as while Dek mostly looks alright, there’s a moment at the start of the movie where he’s captured and he’s turning his head about with his mandibles stretching and it looks as if a few frames were lost on that.

The visuals on Yautja Prime look way better than what little we could see of it in Aliens vs Predator: Requiem though the first ever look we get of it I can’t help but think they were trying too hard to make it look like the Dune movies with the outlook on the desert to the deep vocal singing you can hear.

Overall, money well spent aside from some bits here and there, they saved a bit of dosh by simply casting Elle Fanning as Thia and Tessa and made good practical works as well with the Yautja ship. Wether it will make back its money we are gonna have to wait and see for it.

Oh, just to note before anybody gets angry at me for bringing up the Autism in The Predator. I am Autistic myself and I found it offensive with how autism was done in that movie. We aren’t the next phase in human evolution you dimwits!

Like I said, the story is mixed but it’s nowhere near as bad as The Predator.

Teddy: Think you will buy it on DVD?

I might do, I think it’s a good enough film to watch for a dull afternoon.

Freddy: That’s great, now why don’t you get your shoes off and get yourself wrapped up? It’s cold out there!

That I will. Take care everybody.

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