Elle Fanning delivers one of the most disjointed performances of the year in “Predator: Badlands.” It’s not her fault — she’s a great actor. It’s just that she spends the majority of the movie in two pieces.
Fanning plays an android whose torso and legs have different trajectories in this ninth installment of the “Predator” franchise, an insane example of sci-fi action filmmaking that’s also equally split between slapstick humor and operatic violence.
It has perhaps one of the most bananas fight scene of all time when Fanning’s separate torso and legs take on some evil goons and combine to kill them all, crushing the last one’s skull and then high-fiving herself — with her hand slapping her foot in celebration.
Director and co-writer Dan Trachtenberg has merged a young, eager-to-prove-his mettle Predator with Fanning’s hip android for “Predator: Badlands” and it’s basically an unlikely buddy movie with decapitations. Fanning spends the first part in a makeshift backpack, nattering on while the Predator strides along and snarls.
We start with the Predator called Dek — played by Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi, lost in prosthetics and a costume that makes him look like an ancient Roman — with a nasty home life. His dad calls him a “runt” and wants him executed for embarrassing the clan. He even wants his oldest son to murder him in front of him. This is what is called “daddy issues.”
To prove his worth, Dek decides he must hunt and kill the galaxy’s most fearsome creature, the Kalisk, a gigantic, unkillable creature native to the planet Genna. He will do this without visiting a dentist, his mandibles and fangs showing clear signs of gingivitis. Do you even floss, bro?
These Predators are one-note, as always, from some sort of Darth Vader Elocution Class. “Failure means death,” is one line. Another: “Bring it home or never return.” It’s always weird when an advanced intergalactic species speaks like comic book villains from the ‘50s — no contractions, no subtlety, no elaboration, just “Sensitivity is weakness.”
So we find ourselves at the planet Genna, a truly nasty place to ever Airbnb. There are flying dinosaurs that toss boulders, plants that shoot out paralyzing spores, grass that is actually a collection of glass shards and tree roots that will hunt you and crush you. Thanks, New Zealand.
Here is where the young buck Predator encounters Fanning, a sliced-in-half android — a so-called “synthetic” — from the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, who viewers will learn is not always after the best outcome for its workers. In a time-honored depiction, they want to turn everything into a bio weapon.
“I can be useful to you,” Fanning’s character called Thia suggests to the impatient Predator. She knows the planet and can navigate it’s weirdness, like that creature with just a massive mouth and arms, a Dr. Seuss-ish beast if Dr, Seuss was into crystal meth. He soon comes around: “I will use you, tool.”
It’s hard to underestimate Fanning here, who keeps us interested. She doesn’t just add comic relief, she adds a much-needed human element, which is doubly hard as she’s playing an android. She hopes to reunite with a sister robot but learns that perhaps her empathy is unique to her. Along the way, they find and sort of adopt a cute creature that resembles an otter (it’s definitely not an otter).
Schuster-Koloamatangi has a few moments when his emotions betray a little kid, but under those blazing eyes and orthodontist’s dream job, he might as well been completely CGI. And that endless clicking? It’s like seeing the movie with multiple dolphin pods.
Trachtenberg who previously directed and co-wrote the story of “Prey” in 2022 and the animated “Predator: Killer of Killers” earlier this year, is confident in this world and it shows. He’s created a story about the betrayal of family and the joy of found family — and slicing horrific, nightmare creatures in half with a laser sword. But it’s both parts of Fanning that steal the show.
“Predator: Badlands,” a 20th Century Studios release that hits theaters Friday, is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association for sequences of strong sci-fi violence. Running time: 107 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.
