PREDATOR DOUBLE FEATURE REVIEW (Part 2)

 

Killer of Killers & Badlands: Spoiler Analysis

If you haven’t checked it out yet, I’ve reviewed both Predator: Killer of Killers (currently streaming on Disney+) and Predator: Badlands (currently in theatres) without spoiling them, and now I’m going to get into spoiler territory, but as a long-time fan, I recommend both, despite mainly having some issues with Badlands.

As I said in my spoiler-free review, director Dan Trachtenberg stuck to his concept of the predator as a good guy with complete conviction. There is not a single human in the movie. There are also no xenomorphs, either. A blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo of a hologram of Amber Midthunder’s Naru from Prey is the only character connection to a previous Predator film. I like that there were only new predators and new synthetics and other brand-new creatures, but I have to say, the idea that the Kalisk exists in the same universe as the xenomorph is a little hard for me to wrap my nerd brain around, especially in the case of its cute, Star Wars-like infant form. In fact, the new high-tech laser swords (though logical in-universe, given this is the far future and Yautja tech is already way more advanced than human tech) felt a little too Star Wars, to me, and reminds me that this Predator is an official Disney product.

A big point of contention going into Badlands for many fans was the PG-13 rating. The argument some made was the violence would still be at the acceptable standard because there would be no human blood. I still find it a questionable choice to have only two films (this one and the first Alien vs. Predator) deemed appropriate for younger viewers when this is the ninth overall Predator film, which started as a hard-R franchise. It just reinforces the uselessness of the ratings system; now streaming makes it so easy to just watch everything and anything without ratings even being an issue unless a parent takes the time to adjust the streaming service’s settings. I get trying to make more profit in theatres, though, so skewing for a lower rating to allow more people to see it, and I prefer a PG-13 Predator in the theatre that doesn’t feel compromised to the same degree AVP did than an R-rated Predator released only to streaming (Prey).

In addition to a lack of red blood, PG-13 ensured there was no chance of anyone getting called an "ugly motherfucker", but a quick note on predator speech: they finally invented a proper language for the Yautja. It was cool to see and hear them speaking, but a lot of the time it sounded like Dek was just a human doing a predator voice…because he was, which took me out of it sometimes. One of the otherworldly qualities of the predator in the past is its use of voice mimicry, but here, the android just translates, so she can speak normal English and he can talk all he wants. Dek is obviously the most talkative predator ever seen up to this point, but he’s still pretty laconic, and I applaud the decision to keep him subtitled from beginning to end.

Badlands does still feel less brutal than most past Predator sequels even for all the violence it still contains, and with Killer of Killers being the immediate predecessor (no pun intended!) it’s even more noticeable because Killer of Killers, despite being animated, did not try to soften the violence for kids. Killer of Killers took the opposite route, which I loved: with special effects not being an issue, the creativity with the gore and dismemberment was even greater and, at times, jaw-dropping. There were a couple moments that were pretty shocking in Badlands, with Dek’s father getting his head bitten off by Bud at the end and Kwei getting slain early on, but for the most part, the android carnage just didn’t hit the same, and on that note, the androids seemed pretty easy to dispatch, especially considering Thia herself is severed in half and both parts can fight independently!

Thia’s legs walking around and fighting other androids was so absurd I kind of loved it, in a schlocky sci-fi/action way. The original Predator avoided schlock, but most sequels have not, so I don’t really fault Badlands for slipping into schlock territory here and there, because it maintains the seriousness and believability where it matters most, which is with Dek’s experience throughout the film. Killer of Killers pretty much avoids schlock altogether, which is partly why I loved it so much, and one of the reasons many fans are saying Dan Trachtenberg is three for three with his Predator films. Prey is largely schlock free, as well, but without the same gravitas as Killer of Killers or Badlands. What brought Badlands down more compared to Killer of Killers, for me, was the decision to pair Dek and Thia with the overtly cute Bud, and the eventual outcome of the story.

I get that Trachtenberg is trying to do something different with Predator, and he has mostly succeeded, but I don’t care that Badlands is set in the far future and the predator is the protagonist and the Weyland-Yutani corporation is the villain once again. Yautja are hunters with an honour code, and it’s established (correctly) early on that they are solitary hunters, but Thia makes a case for the timber wolf on earth being a pack hunter. I wanted to see Dek go off on his own at the end, and I know it makes sense narratively for his “new clan” to be Thia and the young Kalisk, but it felt a bit like trying to have your cake and eat it too. Just because it was all set up didn’t mean it needed that payoff. I’m torn, because I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t like seeing a predator go soft, either, and betray not only its blood relatives but its entire culture. The twist of Bud being a young Kalisk salvaged that annoyingly saccharine supporting character, but it didn’t excuse that creative decision to make it basically become his pet instead of his prey.

Badlands felt like it went for a safe ending, whereas the ending of Killer of Killers really took me by surprise. Combining all the anthology stories into one final story on Yautja Prime made for an epic finale, and both movies end with a bit of a cliffhanger, but I’m far more interested in the potential Killer of Killer’s continuation. When Dek and Thia were watching the hovering ship at the end of Badlands, for a moment I thought it might be Torres and Kenji, which would have been an insane way to bring the two films together for the inevitable next installment. I’m at least curious about finally seeing a female Yautja in a Predator movie!

In the end, Predator: Killer of Killers and Predator: Badlands have both put a shot in the arm of the franchise to give me at least some hope for its continuation. Prey was Trachtenberg’s trophy to prove his worth as the guy to take the reins of the franchise, and the hunt was a success. Killer of Killers was a very worthy addition to the trophy wall, and Badlands is a more exotic prize, though the hunt itself was not without troubles. At least neither film is fraught with nostalgia bait or poor creative decisions, which has been holding back pretty much all Predator sequels since Predator 2. I’m intrigued by what Trachtenberg has up his sleeve for the next installment, but hope he goes back to the human-slaying R-rated intensity of Killer of Killers, only done in well-produced live-action like Prey. If all the best aspects come together with a worthy narrative, the next Predator could be the indisputable greatest sequel of them all. Let’s hope Trachtenberg can crack that story.