The Reboot Trilogy That Worked

            Reboots have become a sad reality of the movie landscape. Franchises that were popular 20-30 years ago are now constantly being remade, and for the most part, the result is more grating than fun, but there have been a few exceptions to this, and in 2022, Predator became one of those exceptions, thanks to the hands of Dan Trachtenberg. His reboot even shed the name of Predator, and it was called Prey.

Prey took place on Earth, and instead of being a more contemporary movie, where soldiers are taking on this militaristic monster, it occurred in America when the natives were the ones living on the land, and it ripped. Sadly, it did not make it to the theaters. Then earlier this year, Trachtenberg released another Predator movie, Killer of Killers, and instead of being live action, it was animated. So with these two proven successes, both being Hulu releases, Predator Badlands, Trachtenberg’s third Predator movie, got the theatrical treatment it deserved.

            Dek, a Yautja (Predator), is the runt of his group, and despite the training from his brother, Kwei, his father still thought that he did not deserve to live. Kwei stuck up for Dek, and he sends Dek away while he sacrifices himself in a fight with their dad. Dek decided that to really prove himself to the clan, that he was going to take on the toughest beast, a kalisk, which is on the planet Genna.

            There proves to be other formidable beasts on the planet other than the kalsik. Immediately upon landing, a tree like vine that slithered like a snake attacked, and it took some of Dek’s weapons. After he escaped this peril, another one soon arose. A pterodactyl like flying creature started dropping rocks on Dek, while he was around plants that shoot out spikes that paralyze the recipient if pricked. Thia is trapped up in a nest and knows how to help Dek, he just has to free her, and so he does, and she returns the favor by stopping the pterodactyl, but as it turns out, Thia is a robot.

            They start to work together. Thia needs help finding her legs, which were taken by the kalisk, and Dek wanted to find the kalisk, so they were a perfect match. They encounter some other beats, but eventually they do find her legs and the beast, but there is a larger threat looming for them both.

            The one aspect of this movie, and Prey that sticks out to me is the importance of the environment. In Prey, the native woman uses her knowledge of the surroundings to help fool the yautja and ultimately defeat it. In this movie, the yautja is the one that uses the environment to his advantage. When Thia was guiding Dek to the kalisk, she was teaching him about the environment, how to circumnavigate danger, and how to get the local wildlife on your side.

            This sympathy towards nature, and the willingness to embrace it allowed Dek to prevail in the final battle. When they found the kalisk, a whole battalion of robots like Thia, showed up, and they not only took down the kalisk, but they also took Dek with them. Once Thia realizes that her sister, Tessa, is not on her side, she helps to free Dek. Dek then goes and uses his resources around him to recruit local wildlife to help him fight the robots and attempt to free the kalisk.

            It is interesting that the robot was the one that taught Dek the sympathy for the nature, when normally robots would come off as callous and emotionless, but in this case, Thei was programmed differently. However, that did not stop the other robots from coming across in a more negative manner. They did not care that they were placing the wildlife into small cages and injuring it, they just wanted to reap the benefit of the natural resources and depart with a lack of care to what it was doing the environment. It reminded me of Avatar in that way. The colonists come in and screw with the native species just to get what they want and leave once it has been used up.

            This movie also has the theme of the shedding of old traditions. To officially become a Yautja, Dek needed to go out on his own and slay a beast without help and bring it back as a trophy. When Dek got to the planet, he had to enlist the help of Thia, but Dek kept calling her a tool to help circumnavigate the rule, but then they added another friend, a blue monkey type guy with eyes big like a cat and Bud became a part of the crew too. Thus, shedding the whole idea of needing to do it independently.

Dek’s father did not accept the robot head as his trophy when he came back, despite not knowing all he had to do to defeat that robot and so many others. So they fought, and right before Dek was about to win, his father said that he thought Dek was good enough to join the clan, and Dek said he had his own clan. Then he killed his dad.  

            So this turned into a common fantasy trope of a found family. Not something I would have expected from a traditional Predator movie, but the enhancement to the story telling is what makes these movies so much better. They not only use the found family trope, but they also use the runt of the litter trope as well. Just because they are smallest does not mean that they cannot be the mightiest, although none of the Yautja actually look like runts.

            I did like that it initially seemed that a Predator movie was not going to be centered on humans. In theory, there is a large expansive universe filled with formidable beasts, but for some reason, the Yautja are always fighting humans. So in this movie, when they first landed, it was like a totally foreign planet with no humans, until the robots showed up and ruined it. I guess humans are always the true enemy.

            This did fall into a franchise trap, and I think part of it was due to the PG-13 rating and the franchises association with Hulu/Disney. It seems like all franchises now are adding a cute character solely for marketing purposes and potential toy sales. The baby kalisk was that in this film. It was so adorable, and although it worked as a twist to some extent, when we found out that it was the baby kalisk, it still felt like it was included more for marketing than plot. I call this the Baby Yoda Effect. Also I was surprised by the PG-13 rating. This movie was superallow due to the violence being against aliens and robots there was no blood, and blood is really what gets the rating boosted up to R. Hopefully this will allow for more people to go and see it to help it at the box office.         

            This movie was definitely worth seeing, especially in theaters. The action was incredible, and the visuals looked surprisingly good considering the fact that it was rife with CGI. The score with the deep tones complimented the action scenes as well, and the final battle sequence between Dek and his father did the best at combining all of these together. It felt like a blend of the final battle in The Northman and Dune II with the way it was shot and the lighting. I had a really hard time deciding between 3.5 and 4 stars, but I ended up going with 3.5 stars, but do not take that as a knock. I absolutely loved this movie, and it kept me entertained from start to finish.