In order for a movie franchise to survive in any meaningful way, it has to evolve beyond its roots.
Take The Fast and the Furious: a series that started Point Break-with-cars morphed into breakneck speed action heist movies where everyone is basically a superhero. It made the most money and got the most new fans watching because it wasn’t afraid to take a risk. Most of the time, we get slop from name-recognised franchises every few years – think all of the Terminator movies since T2, where a studio tries to milk the IP by promising a bold new vision that definitely could be a trilogy. Predator, which may be seen as the lesser of the sci-fi horror/adventure trio that consists of Terminator and Alien (though both Alien and Predator now share main movie continuity), it has managed to survive and subtly evolve since that time Arnold Schwarzenegger was turned into the buffest final girl in all of cinema.
This is thanks mainly to Dan Trachtenberg who, with the release of Badlands, has completed a three-movie revival of a franchise that we all thought Shane Black killed with The Predator. Trachtenberg seems to understand that the formula only needs a bit of tweaking. With Prey and Killer of Killers, he gave us four stories that dropped Predators, or Yautja, into different periods of history and set them on the collision course with four very compelling heroes. The only thing to do now was to see how the other half lives.
There will be Predator fans that hate the very idea of this movie – how could we ever be scared of a monster when we are dropped into a story where one of them is the hero? Easy – make him an embarrassment to his race who has to gain his honour by hunting on a planet that isn’t Earth. It is a change of perspective that the series needed. In this particular Predator, named Dek (who reminded me inescapably of the Predator version of Conan the Barbarian), we have a character with a compelling motivation that’s new for the franchise. It is really as easy as that. Trachtenberg, and writer Patrick Aison, switched the perspective and deep-powered the killing machine to make sure we buy his eventual badassery.
It is, in many ways, a very old-fashioned quest story: the kind that were popular in the eighties, with a wisecracking sidekick in android Thia, a kind of cuddly creature that I know is going to make certain viewer’s blood boil with its cynical merch potential, and a planet where all of the flora and fauna is designed to kill you in the most sickening way imaginable. It is very, very fun and the leads, particularly Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi who manages to emote through both practical and CG effects (making another case for that mo-cap/special effects Oscar), are extremely compelling. Fanning’s Thia does struggle with a few lines, but these are mainly bits of dialogue that studios are convinced we need to understand what is going on; no actor, living or dead, has been able to make them sound good.
Badlands is a brilliant action adventure movie, with the kind of world-building that looks better than the Avatar trailer that preceded the showing I went to: I had a huge grin on my face for every second the story was on the Predator home-world, another risky move in demystifying these villains that just leant to Dek’s character and eventual triumphant victory. Making the new and most threatening villain in the Predator universe the Alien universe was a great touch, and this movie leaves the franchise in great health for a future entry.
Only one thing – even though a sequel is teased, we should never do this again. Badlands works partly because of the novelty of its point of view. Leave it as a one and done. Otherwise, the people that are accusing the franchise of losing its teeth will be absolutely right. Anyway, what did you think of Badlands, and where does it rank amongst the rest of the Predator franchise for you? Let us know in the comments!
If you enjoyed this and want to see more stuff like it, please consider supporting us on Ko-Fi.
By Kevin Boyle
(header image via The Verge)
No But Listen 