Most everyone knows what to expect with a Predator movie. A group of humans get picked off, one by one, by ruthless extraterrestrials known as the Yautja, except for a lucky few who survive based on their own resourcefulness. It’s a monster movie franchise dressed up in sci-fi lore, a testosterone-addled excuse for men to bang their action figures together and imagine that they, too, could survive a Predator encounter just as well as Arnold Schwarzenegger did. But the franchise struggled to survive beyond the brawny blockbuster era of the late ‘80s and ‘90s, and by the mid-aughts, it had exhausted the B-movie potential by pitting Predators against xenomorphs. After two failed attempts to reboot the franchise, where could the Predator movies go next?In 2022, Dan Trachtenberg provided one answer with Prey, a back-to-basics survival thriller that took the Yautja to 18th century America, and pitted a cunning young Comanche woman against the alien. It felt refreshing, energizing, and novel. Trachtenberg has done it once again, with Predator: Badlands.Predator: Badlands asks the impossible question: what if the Predator was the protagonist? After 38 years and nine movies of the Yautja being the most merciless sonuvabitch ever, it seems absurd to even consider it. But after Trachtenberg miraculously rebooted the franchise with Prey, and strengthened his vision of the franchise with his animated spinoff, he’s pulled off his greatest magic trick yet with Badlands, a movie that not only manages to make you root for the Yautja, but also delivers the most accessible Predator movie yet.A Predator and his synth. | 20th Century StudiosBadlands follows Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi), a young Yautja preparing for his first hunt with the help of his protective older brother Kwei (Mike Homik). But Dek is the runt of the clan, a weakling who is doomed to be culled by his ruthless father (also played by Schuster-Koloamatangi). Before his father can dispatch with Dek, Kwei sacrifices himself so Dek can escape to Genna, a deadly planet that even the strongest of Yautja are wary of. There, he embarks on a quest to slaughter the “unkillable” Kalisk — though, he finds he’ll need the help of Thia (Elle Fanning), a damaged Weyland-Yutani synth who knows how to navigate the treacherous planet.If you can tell by this brief plot synopsis, Trachtenberg cracked the secret to turning a famous baddie into a hero: by structuring the movie like a hero’s journey. And what is our most famous cinematic hero’s journey? Star Wars. Dek, our hero, even receives an introduction right out of The Force Awakens’ playbook: Like Rey’s iconic introduction, Dek’s first appearance is shot almost entirely in silhouette, or with his countenance hidden, in a series of frames that has him striking exclusively cool poses. The scene then descends into a duel with his brother, Kwei, as they clash bright-red swords that look almost like lightsabers. The central dynamic between Dek and the peppy Thia is the kind of Lone Wolf and the Cub riff that Star Wars has been obsessed with lately. And later on, we meet creatures that could almost be described as cuddly. It’s as if Trachtenberg is turning in his audition for a Star Wars movie, if he’s not simply paying homage to the studio that now funds 20th Century Studios.But surface-level similarities aside, there’s an air of awe and optimism to Badlands that has never felt present in any other Predator movie, all of which fall in a range of mean to cruel. Dek is easy to root for — he’s smaller and more human-sized, he’s got an endearing, half-formed tooth, and when he’s got his mask off (which he does for the majority of the film), the CGI manages to give him a guileless, almost innocent, expression. To the cynical mind, Badlands could be read as the Disneyfication of a franchise that had no business being Disneyfied (especially when a certain cuddly sidekick gets a little too cute), but it’s clear that Trachtenberg is simply out to make a Predator movie for everyone else. This is a wildly entertaining, immersive crowdpleaser where cute critters can reside alongside terrifying, Lovecraftian horrors, and where our hero can be a fanged alien searching for acceptance.Trachtenberg and cinematographer Jeff Cutter craft a visually dazzling adventure with more awesome sci-fi spectacle than any previous Predator movie. | 20th Century StudiosIt all comes down to the central dynamic between Dek and Thia. Dek is a little too awkward and naive to be the traditional stoic, while Thia is a chattering ball of sunshine with her own ulterior motives. Buried under prosthetics and CGI, Schuster-Koloamatangi delivers an impressively vulnerable performance as Dek that swings between sympathetic hero and endearing himbo. But as the “face” of the movie, Fanning is a delight playing double duty as the sunny Thia and her more solemn synth sister, Tessa — offering moments comedic relief as our Yautja’s unlikely ally and clearly relishing in playing the sinister villain once the resolute Tessa sets off to retrieve her sister.At times, the character dynamics are a little too easy and hunky dory. Patrick Aison and Brian Duffield’s script hits the found-family message a bit too hard at times, and more hardcore Predator fans may chafe at the lack of character conflict. But Trachtenberg balances the film’s wholesome vibe with kinetic, spectacular setpieces that test the limits of Badlands’ PG-13 rating. Dek may be a runt, but his scrappy fighting style makes for more dynamic, visually interesting fight scenes, and Trachtenberg’s camera matches that style in kind; weaving, looping, and dodging alongside Dek. Trachtenberg’s dynamic shooting style is buoyed by the breathtaking planet of Genna, a dangerous place that seems lifted out of pulp magazines, or out of Scavengers Reign. Everything, right down to the trees and grass, and a lowly slug, is dangerous, while the creatures are cosmic terrors that can swallow you whole. Despite the somewhat gray color palette that Badlands shares with every other blockbuster right now, Trachtenberg shows that he has an eye for visually arresting images, delivering more awesome spectacle than you’d expect in a grungy franchise like Predator.The only problem is that the movie has about three “final” climactic showdowns (all of which are admittedly impressive), to the point that you start to wonder when it was going to actually end. But despite a laggy finale, Predator: Badlands still proves to be kind of miraculous. It’s a wildly entertaining blockbuster that makes you believe that a robot Elle Fanning can befriend a monstrous alien that hunts for sport. And most impossible of all, it makes you root for the Predator.Predator: Badlands opens in theaters November 7.