<\/p>\n
The prey may change \u2014 the planets, too, their digital backdrops swirling like screensavers \u2014 but take comfort in knowing that when it comes to a \u201cPredator\u201d movie, we\u2019re still talking about a dude in a suit. This time, that dude is New Zealand\u2019s Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi, a game 7-foot-3 actor whose eyes bulge behind those motorized mandibles and sometimes shine with feeling.<\/p>\n
Despite his size, his Dek in \u201cPredator: Badlands\u201d is what you might call a baby: an untested youth who endures a sibling\u2019s beatdown in the film\u2019s opening moments. Their warlord father is displeased with both of them. After some extreme parenting that would be frowned upon in most societies, alien or otherwise, neon-green blood flows and Dek is hurtling toward another world, vengeance burning in his heart.<\/p>\n
\u201cBring it home \u2014 for Kwei,\u201d he mutters in an elaborate creature language invented expressly for the film<\/a>. (The dialogue itself gets less attention.) Dek will seek the \u201cunkillable Kalisk,\u201d prove his worth in the hunt and, presumably, have some terse words with Dad upon his return.<\/p>\n Not to kill a Kalisk or anything but these Yautja (to use their species name) were never meant to carry a movie. Put one in a film with Arnold Schwarzenegger in the original 1987 summer action hit<\/a> and suddenly the Terminator seems chatty. Pit them against the immortally gross creatures of \u201cAlien vs. Predator\u201d and the Yautja are nearly huggable.<\/p>\n Read more:<\/b> Much of ‘Predator: Badlands’ is in an alien language. We asked a Yautja expert to break it down<\/a><\/p>\n But main characters they are not. \u201cPredator: Badlands\u201d has a misshapen gait to it, like a comedy skit drawn out to feature length. Fortunately, almost as soon as Dek lands on Genna, a planet of murderous flora, to bag his Kalisk, he runs into a babbling half-robot missing her legs who makes the movie much more compelling. You can either wonder how Elle Fanning<\/a>, the tremulous heart of \u201cA Complete Unknown\u201d<\/a> and this season\u2019s \u201cSentimental Value\u201d<\/a> found herself in it, or smile at the good fortune of her being a stealth nerd who apparently loves a challenge.<\/p>\n Strapped to Dek\u2019s back C-3PO-style, the disembodied Thia (Fanning) fills the movie with a semi-stoned running commentary: \u201cAnd what does the chewing \u2014 your outside fangs or your inside teeth?\u201d she asks him. When a second Fanning shows up as Thia\u2019s vicious sister Tessa, another \u201csynthetic” built for dangerous off-world work, the film finds its groove as a new chapter in the continuing saga of our friends at the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, a fictional enterprise with such spectacularly bad luck at acquiring bioweapons, they should have faced a hostile takeover by now.<\/p>\n And, like virtually all of Hollywood\u2019s anti-corporate sci-fi adventures, \u201cPredator: Badlands\u201d is, at heart, a pro-business statement, bowing especially deeply to James Cameron\u2019s designs for 1986\u2019s \u201cAliens,\u201d<\/a> including its squat vehicles, soulless directives (\u201cThe Company is not pleased,\u201d says a computer who isn\u2019t the screenwriter) and the colossal power loader that lets someone human-sized do battle with a beast.<\/p>\n There isn\u2019t much of an original signature here. Returning director Dan Trachtenberg hits the beats competently but not too stridently, like a good superfan should. If you\u2019re expecting Dek\u2019s sensitivity to become an asset, give yourself a trophy. Yet if a machine \u2014 or a studio \u2014 can produce a robot as fun as Thia, there\u2019s hope for this franchise yet.<\/p>\n