<\/p>\n
Siblings. Parents. Clan.<\/p>\n
Sacrifice and grief. Symbiosis versus exploitation. Nature versus nurture; the environment against the machines.<\/p>\n
Of course, we\u2019re talking about the tensions in \u201cPredator: Badlands.\u201d<\/p>\n
Director Dan Trachtenberg (\u201c10 Cloverfield Lane\u201d) has played around in this universe before, to better effect in the 2022 prequel \u201cPrey.\u201d This new standalone film focuses on Yautja culture, making a hero out of the franchise\u2019s familiar alien foe by turning predator into prey.<\/p>\n
As a sci-fi action-adventure romp, \u201cBadlands\u201d works fine. But the film is hampered by an identity crisis, unwilling to commit to that genre or to being a standard-issue \u201cPredator\u201d kill fest. Forget about matching \u201cPrey,\u201d a film that fits into this cinematic universe while being its own unique beast.<\/p>\n
Key motifs are spelled out quickly in Badlands. A mantra is shown from the codex of the Yautja, the titular invisibility-cloaked murder machines with lasers and blades that hunt other apex predators for sport: \u201cYautja are prey to none. Friend to none. Predator to all.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wouldn’t you know it: All three of those pillars get challenged in the movie\u2019s 100-odd minutes.<\/p>\n
Cut to: a young Yautja, hunting. It\u2019s a practice quest on the alien’s home planet.<\/p>\n
Our hero, Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi), is the runt of the litter. Perceived by his father as the clan\u2019s weakest link, Dek is training with his older brother, Kwei (Michael Homick), for his inaugural hunt. In order to earn his invisibility cloak, the younger Yautja must travel to a distant world to slay its greatest predator, returning with a trophy \u2014 or not at all.<\/p>\n
Propelled by his father\u2019s disdain, Dek says he will conquer the unkillable Kalisk on Genna, the planet of death, to prove his worth. But before Dek can, Kwei defies his clan\u2019s code and his father\u2019s command, sacrificing himself to save Dek, who rockets off to Genna. There, he vows to hunt the Kalisk then return home to avenge his brother.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a rough landing: Dek immediately becomes prey to all. Most of his arsenal is stolen by a serpentine vine-monster. Blades of grass are razor-sharp. A sluglike alien, seemingly innocuous, glows and expands in Dek\u2019s hand \u2014 then detonates. A tiny armadillo-monkey with the puppy-dog eyes of a French bulldog proves to be among the fiercest predators on the planet.<\/p>\n
Dek soon recognizes he\u2019s in over his massive, CGI-enhanced head.<\/p>\n
Enter Elle Fanning\u2019s Thia, a humanoid synthetic working for the sinister Weyland-Yutani Corp. She can communicate with Dek and the planet\u2019s creatures \u2026 and she happens to be looking for the same beast.<\/p>\n
Dek insists that Yautja hunt alone; Thia retorts that they also tend to die that way. To survive on this planet, Dek will have to challenge his clan\u2019s code.<\/p>\n
It’s a decent action movie that wears its influences on its sleeves. Some feel like intentional homages; others feed into the aforementioned identity crisis.<\/p>\n
Taking a page from the \u201cAvatar\u201d franchise, \u201cBadlands\u201d created an impressive original language for the Yautja; that James Cameron universe is a major influence, from Dek’s crash landing to the flora and fauna of Genna \u2014 and how our hero must learn to respect and utilize both while on his hunt.<\/p>\n
But, unsure of what it wants to be, \u201cBadlands\u201d loses steam down the stretch.<\/p>\n
The final battle is Cameron\u2019s \u201cAliens\u201d meets \u201cGodzilla vs. Kong.\u201d The home planet of the Yautja nods to \u201cMad Max,\u201d while Genna looks more like Kong\u2019s Skull Island. The movie feels at times like a chapter in the expanded \u201cStar Wars\u201d universe (toting a franchise-first PG-13 rating, to boot). The plot drifts toward Greek tragedy, a la \u201cOedipus Rex,\u201d and repeatedly veers toward buddy-comedy territory. Most of Thia’s comic relief bits fall flat.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, \u201cBadlands\u201d is a fun weekend watch for your home cinema \u2014 but it won\u2019t leave a lasting impression.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Siblings. Parents. Clan. Sacrifice and grief. Symbiosis versus exploitation. Nature versus nurture; the environment against the machines. Of course, we\u2019re talking about the tensions in \u201cPredator: Badlands.\u201d Director Dan Trachtenberg (\u201c10 Cloverfield Lane\u201d) has played around in this universe before, to better effect in the 2022 prequel \u201cPrey.\u201d This new standalone film focuses on Yautja […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2142529,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[346422,406542,362908,406543],"class_list":["post-2142528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-badlands","tag-dimitrius-schuster-koloamatangi","tag-elle-fanning","tag-yautja"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Hunter-becomes-hunted-with-mixed-results.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2142528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2142528"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2142528\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2142530,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2142528\/revisions\/2142530"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2142529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2142528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2142528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2142528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}