{"id":162742,"date":"2025-11-04T18:00:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-04T18:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/162742\/"},"modified":"2025-11-04T18:00:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-04T18:00:08","slug":"badlands-is-a-buddy-comedy-no-really","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/162742\/","title":{"rendered":"Badlands’ Is a Buddy Comedy (No, Really)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tHe\u2019s part of a race of extraterrestrial hunters who take pride in their stalking prowess and being the \u201ckiller of killers.\u201d She\u2019s an android programmed to collect alien<\/a> specimens and, apparently, offer a cheerful running commentary whenever disaster looms. Along with an adorable creature blessed with the agility of a Rhesus monkey and the scrunchy face of a pug, they\u2019ve got to navigate dangerous environment rife with deadly obstacles. We don\u2019t want to say that hilarity necessarily ensues when, you know, one of the characters splits a massive beast in half with a laser sword and holds its bloodied, severed spine up as a spoil of victory. But it\u2019s pretty obvious you\u2019re watching a buddy comedy. One in which the co-lead is a Predator. [Cue theme to The Odd Couple<\/a>]<\/p>\n

\n\tOnce upon a time, this stone-cold killer from a galaxy far, far away was merely another threat that stood between Arnold Schwarzenegger<\/a> and survival in the jungles of Central America. Thanks to Stan Winston\u2019s extraordinary design and the need for endlessly franchised creature features, the interstellar intruder with the mandibles and dreadlocks kept coming back to Earth, hunting everyone from 18th century Native American tribes to future-shocked L.A. cops. Sequels, comic books, video games, action figures, and an animated feature followed. It even got to go toe-to-toe with Xenomorphs. A star was born. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe sixth film in the series \u2014 eighth if you count the Alien vs. Predator offshoots \u2014 Predator: Badlands retains the mix of B-movie action and pulpy horror, with a lot of hard sci-fi elements thrown in. Most of the dialogue is in the title character\u2019s native language, which we believe is called \u201cPredatorese,\u201d and everything takes place on two planets that answer the question, \u201cWhat if Frank Frazetta and Roger Dean had a baby?\u201d But it\u2019s really a comedic road movie at heart, with as much yuks over a mismatched pair trying to get along as yucks involving the goopy innards of cosmic mastodons. Finally, the Predator cinematic-universe remake of Midnight Run that no one knew they, er, needed?<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

\n\tThings kick off with a bit of inter-family strife, involving a young predator named Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi). He\u2019s attempting to go through the traditional Yautja rituals of manhood, which will earn him his invisibility cloak. Those involve besting a fellow warrior in battle. The one testing his mettle happens to be his brother, Kwei (Mike Homik). Dek is soon marked for extinction by his dad, the tribal leader, because \u201cweaklings\u201d must be culled from the herd. Long story short, our hero escapes and vows to bring back the ultimate trophy: the head of a Kalisk, an indestructible monstrosity with regenerative healing powers that lives deep within the harsh terrain of Genna. If you\u2019re already confused or bewildered, leave now \u2014 it\u2019s only going to get wonkier from here.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tMike Homik and Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi in \u2018Predator: Badlands.\u2019<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t20TH CENTURY STUDIOS<\/p>\n

\n\tOnce he lands on Genna, Dek fights off a number of indigenous flora, fauna, and the odd hungry behemoth. He also discovers Thia (Elle Fanning<\/a>), a synthetic made by the Weyland-Yutani corporation \u2014 yes, that Weyland-Yutani corporation<\/a> \u2014 who was also sent to capture and retrieve the Kalisk. Congratulations, AvP fans, the franchise crossover is now officially canon! Their meet-cute involves a pterodactyl, a number of plants that shoot paralyzing needles, and a nest in which Thia has been imprisoned. Once she is freed, Dek discover the robot is missing her bottom half. Help her retrieve her legs, Twia says, and she may be able to aid him in finding a Kalisk. He straps her to his back and, along with that aformentioned monkey-dog hybrid who Twia names Bud, they set off to meet their destiny. [Cue \u201cMovin\u2019 Right Along\u201d from The Muppet Movie<\/a>]<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\n\tThere are thrills and chills and spills and a lot of cross-lingual back and forth; you\u2019d be surprised how much banter you can get out of English-to-Predatorese bickering. Fanning knows exactly to add a slightly Pollyanna-ish aura to her opportunistic yet optimistic synthetic, as well as a cold, menacing vibe when playing her evil synth twin. Director Dan Trachtenberg has given us both the franchise\u2019s undisputed masterpiece Prey<\/a> (2022) and this year\u2019s animated anthology Predator: Killer of Killers, and his third time up now makes him the series\u2019 resident go-to ringmaster. He knows how present paperback-cover vistas, yowling monster attacks, and a set piece involving Twia and her still-disembodied gams respectively fighting off Weyland-Yutani thugs. Everything bops breezily along, stopping occasionally to have Dek growl maxims about strength through domination, and observe a decapitation or two.<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n

\n\tBadlands does have something close to a message that makes itself apparent before the triumphant final-boss fight (there\u2019s one more Alien-related bit of business in store), the Greek-tragedy climax, and a post-credits stinger, in which you\u2019re reminded there\u2019s a difference between the cosmic killer clan you\u2019re born into and the cosmic killer clan you choose, yadda yadda yadda. Or maybe its that the real apex-predator hunt is the friends we made along the way. Regardless, this detour into a genre not previously associated with clacking mandibles and righteous kills suggests the brand\u2019s braintrust wants to diversify its portfolio a bit. To which we can only reply: Bring on the raunchy teen-musical Predator rom-com!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He\u2019s part of a race of extraterrestrial hunters who take pride in their stalking prowess and being the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":162743,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[263],"tags":[48362,36683,16997,18,13790,117,19,17,327],"class_list":{"0":"post-162742","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-alien","9":"tag-arnold-schwarzenegger","10":"tag-cult-movies","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-elle-fanning","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-movies"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115492737875788765","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162742\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}