Following the massive success of 2022’s Prey, director Dan Trachtenberg’s highly anticipated next instalment, Predator: Badlands, has officially landed worldwide! Starring a dual-role performance from Elle Fanning as synthetic sisters Thia and Tessa, alongside Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi as Dek, the film immediately thrusts the franchise into bold new territory.
The narrative centres on an outcast young Predator, banished from his clan, who undertakes a perilous journey to the remote planet Genna where he must battle an enormous, deadly creature known as the Kalisk.
The film has received strong positive reviews from critics and earned a Fresh rating of 85% on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics are unanimous in calling the film “a bold, wild swing for the franchise that delivers sci-fi action alongside a fascinating expansion of Predator lore.”
Many outlets specifically praise the intense action, violence, and Elle Fanning’s compelling dual performance. Director Dan Trachtenberg is once again praised for courageously trying something different with the Predator franchise, successfully breaking from the standard formula.
Have You Seen It Yet?
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Predators always felt like a fan film with a massive budget to me. Doesn't do much with what it introduces, but also doesn't actively detract from what came before (unlike The Predator).
We love a good Jaws riff, don't we folks?
It's missing just a couple of small things that'd elevate it. In my opinion: we needed a scene of the Predators acting together after their reveal, maybe turning Mombassa into a trophy. Then we needed to see that mechanical falcon scanning the forest, because the tension dissipates after their escape from the Predator den and we never see Falconer doing any tracking. The Predators should feel omnipresent, but those three seem to leave the film during the second act and only come back to die. I also could've done with Classic Pred just having a new design.
Havent seen the predator again, but it did wonders for even more appreciation of the original, 2, predators, first avp.
Not Prometheus, never had the fridge moment with this film, exaggeration sure but I think it is very well put together overall, the campfire, Dek's freakout in the crashed ship, the scene he's a prisoner in, gave plenty of time to breathe.
Probably because if the audience stops to think, they realise most of it doesn't make any sense. Kong: Skull Island was a similar example.
I'm all for exploring new territory, but there's also a point where you can stray so far from the original that you have to ask what the point of maintaining those tenuous links even are anymore. At the end of the day, it didn't feel like this needed to have a Predator in it at all, aside from banking on the name recognition (same with the Wey-Yu stuff).
I'm not going to begrudge anyone for enjoying it, but if the franchise as a whole is veering in this direction, my movie collection won't be growing for a while. That said, I'd watch an extended cut just to see if it improved the pacing. It felt like a lot of stuff may have hit the cutting room floor.
It wasn't a 10/10, there were a couple scenes that could have been tighter, and I didn't like the mid-credits scene.
But overall, it was a blast. Really really enjoyable. Great AVP content
Oh, wow, even better! Thanks for sharing it, you guys rock. I'll download it to my pc when I get back home
I actually found, purchased and transcribed that script a couple of years ago! That vision is in our downloads section!
https://archive.org/details/avpalienvspredat00cera
That's my main interest in it, yes.
Didn't know about your article, I'll make sure to give it a read.
I was bummed the movie nearly except 5 seconds foregos Predator vision entirely.
It's such a key aesthetic trademark and would've been highly interesting to see how Dek was struggling or dealing with the deadly world around him in POV.
It really was a rush job of constantly changing scripts and it's surprisingly coherent all things considered.
It is interesting in that it gives a glimpse into what could have been, I guess.
Still, it would be interested to read since it's closer to the original idea, with the 5 Predators and the Cambodia opening and all that.
No one knows
Cool! Sadly I've never got the chance to read that one.