Badlands is the most bizarre Predator franchise film, but it works great between sci-fi and comedy

Forty-five years after John McTiernan's first Predator film, eight dedicated titles (including six live-action films) and countless video games, books, comics, and merchandise later, asking Badlands to be faithful to the spirit of the saga means questioning what that spirit is today, given that the first film certainly did not presuppose this cross-media expansion and temporal longevity.

In its decades-long cinematic incarnations, Predators has become many things: Badlands, however, remains the most bizarre subject, furthest from the sci-fi horror core with which this saga is usually associated. It would not be an exaggeration to define it as a sci-fi coming-of-age story with comedic elements. The protagonist of the story is Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi), a Yuthja considered weak and deformed who, to be re-evaluated in the eyes of his clan and his cruel father, decides to go to the planet Genna and try to kill an invincible creature called the Basilisk.

Badlands is a Predatorial Coming-of-Age Story

Dek, however, has greatly underestimated the planet itself: if the Basilisk is at the top of the food chain, every life form (flora and fauna) has evolved to be highly lethal, making every step on the surface a test of survival even for a warrior like him. For this reason, he reluctantly forms an alliance with a synthetic – or rather, half-synthetic – named Thia (Elle Fanning). Sent by the Yutani corporation to map the planet, Thia lost her legs after a clash with the creature and her "twin" Tessa, who is missing somewhere.

Thia is an expert in predators and guides Dek in the hunt for the Basilisk, in an adventure where predator and prey roles constantly alternate. Thia's easy chatter and brilliant jokes, along with the young age of the protagonists, make the film very lively and youthful, far removed from the photographic and thematic darkness of previous films.

The strength of Badlands is the construction of its hostile and wild planet

The film's strong point, as in any self-respecting space opera, is the world-building. Badlands' best ideas are all reserved for depicting the planet's lethal flora and fauna, well-realized by visual effects but above all well-written and conceived. It almost seems like a video game where the player must learn to combine the hostile natural elements around them to build weapons or climb the food chain. In this regard, one can feel a bit of Prey's influence, where the ability of the prehistoric protagonists to exploit their surroundings and their hunter's mentality was central to gradually making them credible adversaries for the aliens who arrived on their planet.

Elle Fanning and Dan Trachtenberg make Badlands a better film 

The premise and some plot points, on the other hand, are very, very conventional. Yet Badlands finds its strength in Elle Fanning, always able to captivate the viewer's attention (here in a very conventional "robotic" dual role, but transformed by her into true entertainment). Considering that her other equally successful performance this year is in Joaquim Trier's Sentimental Value, she confirms herself as an actress of great solidity and versatility, suitable for all registers and genres, capable of "carrying" the viewer, of giving character and freshness to even somewhat trivial roles like this one.

The other name that emerges victorious from Badlands is undoubtedly that of its director Dan Trachtenberg, who this year also directed the animated anthology Predator: Killer of Killers. Now an expert in the Predator saga, his best work in this field remains the remarkable and very unfortunate Prey, which never made it to theaters. Badlands is written by the same duo (Dan Trachtenberg and Patrick Aison) but is infinitely more reassuring and even simpler in its ambitions than the previous "prehistoric" one.

Furthermore, one often gets the impression that the production looks to Denis Villeneuve's Dune duology as stylistic and sonic inspiration. It's impossible to hear the beautiful soundtrack of Predators: Badlands without thinking it's a high-quality "knock-off" of Hans Zimmer's immense work for Denis Villeneuve's sci-fi blockbuster, just as certain shots of Yunthja Prime and in the final battle sequences strongly recall Gedi Prime and the Harkonnen assault on the capital of Arrakis. Despite these detrimental influences, given that Badlands has a much smaller budget than the film it "draws inspiration" from, probably more imposed from above than anything else, Dan Trachtenberg has a true talent for finding the perfect camera movement to sharpen a line, to make a fight more elegant or compelling.

The fact remains that the film – partially depowered by its criminally open ending – seems to show its true potential only in the grand finale. With the continuous blurring of the line between television series and cinema, one almost gets the impression of having seen a very promising pilot for a series. Furthermore, the film has a very strong summer blockbuster vibe, so its November release raises some perplexity. In short, Badlands is a small film that demonstrates that, with the right talents, after Prey, Predator can move in even more unexpected directions considering its origins and with remarkable effectiveness.