Starring Elle Fanning, Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi, Reuben de Jong, Mike Homik and Rohinal Naryan

Directed by Dan Trachtenberg

20th Century Studios, out now

Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) is a young Predator determined to make a name for himself and take vengeance for his father’s murder of his brother. Alone on Genna, a ‘death planet’, Dek hunts the Kalisk, the most terrifying creature his people know of. But he doesn’t hunt alone…

Dan Trachtenberg is now three for three on fun with Yautja. Badlands is a blast from start to finish and the key to why it works is in Dek and Schuster-Koloamatangi’s performance.

Dek, superficially, has a lot in common with the younger predator who clashed with Naru in Prey. He’s slight, inexperienced, desperate to prove himself and prone to stupid or rash decisions. He’s also, as the stunningly good opening sequence depicts, massively traumatised. In another clever echo of Prey’s use of the Comanche language, the entire first 20 minutes of the movie is set on Yautja Prime and sees characters speaking entirely in Yautja. We meet Dek and his brother, get an idea of the society through how they treat each other, meet Dek’s father and see the terrible lengths these people will go to to stay ‘strong’ and then he’s hurled through space before landing on Genna, the death planet.

Despite being a six foot something alien death bringer, Dek has scrappy underdog energy and a surprising emotional complexity. He screws up, he makes bad choices, he learns, makes good choices and makes friends. Schuster-Koloamatangi shows us all this not just through the top notch effects work but through a performance of remarkable physical complexity and honesty. The biggest laugh in the movie is all him, a silent, mildly distracted nod that tells you everything about him and the people he’s somehow survived. All the big action beats are down to him too and the ending is hugely satisfying as Dek takes everything that’s tried to kill him and uses it as a weapon.

The second biggest laugh, and third in fact, come from Thia. Thia is a bisected synthetic played by Elle Fanning with energy that is best described as ‘murderous synthetic Mary Poppins’. She’s chipper, just a little furious and touchingly open. She’s also a torso and this is, I promise you, the only movie you’ll see this year where FIND MY LEGS is a B plot. She’s never more than mildly annoyed, even in the most horrendous situations and that both explains Dek warming to her and gives the movie a welcome new perspective on Weyland-Yutani. If you’re looking for a Xenomorph, you’re looking in the wrong place but the world’s worst mega corporation (aside from Prodigy) continue to have no manner of luck and no sense of empathy. Thia was programmed to feel so she could hunt better. Tessa, her sister, also played by Fanning, was programmed to feel so she could yearn for success harder. Tessa’s the single weak link, underdeveloped as anything other than an antagonist. and their sisterly relationship ignores an open narrative goal that would have changed the franchise for the better. As a look a Weyland Yutani’s multi-century search for bioweapons  they’re fascinating and Thia’s a delight, but if there’s a single place the movie could have pushed harder it’s here.

It’s especially notable because Genna is a glorious location made entirely of things that take every other character’s presence murderously personally. There’s a pulpy energy to a lot of the creatures we meet that makes them all the more pleasingly vicious. Bud, played with incredible physical energy by Rohinal Narayan is a particular standout, a small, impregnable mammal who outhunts Dek and has good reason to. Fans were initially worried about the addition of a ‘sidekick’. Don’t be. Bud’s no one’s sidekick.

Verdict: Badlands is a blast. It’s intensely clever, ties everything up while simultaneously setting up a possible team up (there’s a very familiar ship in one scene…) and hits every single mark it’s tracking bar one. Enormously good fun. Give the man another. 9/10

Alasdair Stuart