Parents' Guide to Predator: Badlands

It has a few fun moments here and there, but this entry in the overall inconsistent sci-fi/action franchise feels like a grab bag of older ideas from older movies, with little to distinguish itself. A far battle cry from director Dan Trachtenberg's excellent series refresher Prey, Predator: Badlands starts out promisingly, for the first time telling a story from the point of view of the monster, rather than the humans trying to stop the monster. (In Alien vs. Predator, the Predators were the heroes of the story, but only because they were the lesser of two evils.) But this idea quickly falls apart, as—it turns out—Predator logic is incredibly narrow and allows for little emotional growth. Anything other than aggression is seen as weakness and therefore punishable by violence.

And so Dek goes on his quest to a planet where everything is deadly (shades of Lightyear). The grumpy loner meets an annoyingly yappy sidekick (hello, Shrek); avoids a field of flying, poisonous spikes (cue Raiders of the Lost Ark); and uses a glowing sword (very Star Wars) to fight an army of clones (we see you, The Matrix). There's a cute, computer-animated comic relief alien with big eyes, which is ultimately helpful in the final battle (remind you of the Ewoks from Return of the Jedi?). And an evil corporation (literally borrowed from Alien and Aliens) wants to monetize the monster. Over the course of the story, Dek learns to accept others and becomes a better Predator, but it feels more like checkmarks on a spreadsheet than anything organic. Even the title Predator: Badlands seems to have been chosen at random (or perhaps by AI). Hopefully next time these hunters can rustle up a better story.