My Expectations : 7/10
My Rating : 7/10

Having seen the trailer for Predator: Badlands, I was not too excited to watch the movie. However, there was no way I could miss it, so I took the day off and went to watch it.

The Movie

The movie starts at Yautja Prime, the home planet of the Yautja. They are shown as a martial clan with strict honour codes.

Dek, is the runt of his clan whose father wants him culled. He goes to Genna to kill the Kalisk and bring its head back as a trophy to prove his worth and earn his cloak.

Once there, he “makes friends” with Thia, half of a Weyland-Yutani synthetic. They have interesting camaraderie. Dek tries to brute-force his way through each problem, whereas Thia teaches him to work with the planet instead of fighting it.

Along the way, everyone learns that the real villain is not the Kalisk, but “corporate greed”. Eventually, Dek proves himself as worthy of being a Yautja & avenges the death of his brother, making new friends along the way.

My Thoughts

I always thought of the Yautjas as mysterious creatures who we rarely saw, always hiding in the shadows. Knowing little about them made their lore more interesting. This movie shatters all of that and brings us up close and personal with them. It was shocking to see one of them being slapped in the face by a cute monkey-like creature. There are multiple comic moments involving the Yautja. He even shares jokes and tender moments with the other characters.

That being said, the action sequences are really cool. It was cool to see Dek (deprived from his high-tech weapons) use the planet’s flora and fauna against the Weyland-Yutani synths, not unlike Dutch from the first movie. He also uses the Weyland-Yutani pulse rifles against them. The fight scene with the 2 halves of Thia fighting simultaneously was also cool. There’s even a loader fight scene for good measure.

This movie is also the first Predator or Alien movie without a single human character.

Overall, a good action movie, but not how I wanted to see the Predators.