Badlands is a classic sci-fi revival done right

Predator: Badlands is not the movie I expected it to be. After reviving the series after an extended hiatus with 2022's Prey and following it up with the animated anthology Killer of Killers, director Dan Trachtenberg is putting a very different spin on things with his latest venture into the Predator canon.

Gone is the historical focus and mostly silent main cast, replaced instead by a duo of protagonists fighting for their lives on a dangerous planet in the far distant future. In many ways it feels like a Predator movie for the current generation with more heart, more laughs, but still all the violence you've come to expect from this series. I had a great time as it subverted my expectations and showed how easy it is to root for the titular aliens we've been conditioned to fear for decades.

But most of all, it showed how older properties like this can feel fresh, exciting, and filled with surprises without relying on laborious amounts of predictable fanservice. Similar movies like Alien: Romulus should take note.

Predator: Badlands Is The Film Alien: Romulus Should Have Been

There's a lot about Alien: Romulus I respect. It's a scary movie with a strong cast of characters and a huge sense of place. It really feels like our heroes are stranded on a ship trying to survive in a corporate dystopia where the only escape is to work yourself to death for a company that treats you as little more than a tool.

It depicts a young group of newcomers, barely in their twenties already crushed under the boots of mega-corporations, who resort to robbing an abandoned ship if it means even the slightest chance of a better life. As expected, things quickly go south when a Xenomorph shows up, and they're all picked off one by one.

It's superbly acted, ripe with excellent effects and will undoubtedly knock your socks off. But it also feels weighed down by cynical franchise expectations eager to spew cliched one-liners and bring deceased actors back from the dead with cheap and ultimately unnecessary tactics. If you've seen Romulus, you know what I'm talking about.

A young woman holds up a pulse rifle against a red background, all while a terrifying drooling monster looks down from above her.

One of the film's main characters is a returning Rook, an iconic synth from the original Alien who is found aboard the ship and actively tries to sabotage our characters throughout the story. But instead of being portrayed by a new actor, or introducing a new character that could have served the exact same purpose, the late Ian Holm is instead recreated using digital effects and AI to replicate his voice and facial expressions.

It's awful and doesn't look good, so much so that the eventual digital release tried to improve the effects but to no avail. Romulus comes so close to feeling like a fresh start for this franchise, but it ends up feeling like it needs to preserve decades of history instead of moving forward.

Alien could learn so much from Predator: Badlands

The main characters make an annoyed face in Predator: Badlands.

Despite being set in the same universe, Predator: Badlands feels much more progressive in how it wants to present its characters and plot. It sets up fairly basic stakes and follows through with them to spectacular results.

The story begins on Yautja's home planet as we see siblings Dek and Kwei looming over the barren desert. Dek is a youth who eagerly seeks the approval of his clan, but as a physically inferior being, his father decides that one of the only ways to earn his trust is to accept death. But his older brother sacrifices himself when Dex is banished to the hostile planet Genna in search of his prey – an unstoppable creature known as the Kalisken.

Shortly after the crash landing, he is rescued by a disembodied synthetic named Thia (played to adorable effect by Elle Fanning) and the two become an unlikely duo that I immediately fell for. Their circumstances of mutual trust eventually make them the greatest of allies as they navigate a planet filled with untold horrors. Each step may be their last, but charming dialogue and a combined desire to survive eventually results in the two becoming closer and learning countless valuable lessons from each other.

Badlands still has all the gory violence and gnarly deaths you'd expect from Predator, but it also broadens its potential audience by injecting moment-to-moment action with comedy. It rarely feels out of place either, somehow managing to avoid the awkward MCU-ification it could so easily have given up too. This isn't the hypermasculine plot of the original film (though it was always satirical, with muscle-bound Arnie as the atypical “Final Girl”), nor the self-serious contemplation of Prey. It's a new take on the Predator that wants to reinvent its titular terror into a relatable hero willing to grow and learn even if they don't quite know it yet.

Sometimes it can feel strange that movies that are so usually framed around trying to defeat or escape from the Predator suddenly position Dex as an anti-hero to root for. Grieving a great loss after his brother's death, he is suddenly trapped on a planet where unexpected allies are willing to recognize these feelings and help him confront them. I never expected a classic sci-fi series like this to suddenly have so much heart, even if it meant alienating hardcore fans who might have preferred something akin to Romulus.

An alien Romulus woman walks down an orange corridor in a spaceship

Box office numbers are also record highs for the series, so maybe it was worth the risk to appeal to this wider audience and take the plunge to turn the Predator into an unexpected hero. Yes, parts of Badlands are predictable and undeniably sanitized, but I prefer a new take on things that gives me a cast of characters worth rooting for than another predictable slasher flick that abuses our nostalgia for cynical gain.

Predator: Badlands is a violently adorable film that has already won the hearts of many, and I hope it teases a bright future for a franchise that felt shrouded in doubt for so long.