Predator: Badlands

Predator: Badlands

Director ~ Dan Trachtenberg

Writers ~ Patrick Aison, Dan Trachtenberg, Jim Thomas

2025,  United States-Australia-New Zealand-Canada-Germany

Stars ~ Elle Fanning, Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi, Ravi Narayan

Surely, we all came away from ‘Prey’ (2022) set in the 18th-century Great Plains saying, “If only the franchise was the Predator facing off against opponents across different eras!” – but it seems that that was exactly Dan Trachtenberg’s vision all along. Updated for modern concerns with a Ladies-Are-Badass-Too focus – the perpetual insistence on this instead of letting it be organic being the film’s weakness, depriving its protagonist of further depth – ‘Prey’s stripped-down gender-flip-the-original proved fun and satisfying. It felt taken back from the disappointments the franchise had taken with the action-toys-mashed-together trajectory merging with the Xenomorphs. And it shouldn’t be undervalued that Trachtenberg centred it on a Native American woman in the 1700s.

‘Predator: Killer of Killers’ (2025) proved an even greater a step forward: if nothing else, Trachtenberg is certainly trying to push what is a limited narrative starting point as much as he can. Having reinvigorated the premise with ‘Prey’, he offered an animated anthology utilising the exoticism of different eras. And again, it made sure the Women Warriors are represented. There was a lot of impressive animation – the World War 2 airplane-versus-spaceship battle being a highlight – although the introduction of time travel is maybe an unnecessary addition. It continued from Nimród Antal’s sufficient ‘Predators’ (2010) in taking things off world and broadening the range.

Having exhausted the Predator Throughout History angle with ‘Killer of Killers’, Trachtenberg obviously had the plan to explore the alien hunter culture. After all, the problem with its predecessor was that it was an anthology of the killer of killers getting beaten every time.

So, we open ‘Badlands’ with Predators talking to one another, but as it is all rooted in masculine Brother and Daddy Issues (shades especially of the first ‘Killer of Killers’ segment), there is nothing challenging, nothing unfamiliar to us. Rather, Dek’s mission to prove himself becomes increasingly convincing so that when he lands on a perilous planet to go hunting, it promised perhaps a silent odyssey of his killing and surviving his way across the planet. It would actually be a shame if humans turned up, I was thinking, so that I was disappointed when indeed a human face appeared. Even more disappointed that it was Elle Fanning as a perpetually irritating synthetic motormouth character, undermining any gravatas already built-up. It does the Odd Couple Funnies thing, and by the time a cutesy-but-lethal alien joined the odyssey, it was essentially ‘Shrek’ for ‘Predator’ fans.

Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi brings the necessary physicality to Dek, and the alien face effects are great and unsettling, however much they try to make him a relatable anti-hero – but it is Elle Fanning that gets top billing. Predators with daddy issues – didn’t see that coming.  And a rote Find Your Own Family message was not an angle expected of Trachtenberg to take the franchise either, for both good and bad. One has to commend Trachtenberg trying to stretch the franchise parameters, although one might argue that putting that particular narrative cupcake in this action playpen is ill-fitting: the sister stuff is distracting, often irritating, and drags the enterprise away from its focus. But then again, this film is not a bloodbath expected of the franchise as everyone is a synthetic, proposing even crossover appeal (in the screening I attended, there were preteens). Yet the limitations of the franchise do feel usurped, first by blowing them all on an animated go-for-broke and then expanding and changing the emphasis. That there’s apparently a long-game of interest being carried out is laudable and still fascinating for fans (the females next, it seems).

One Battle After Another

 

One Battle After Another

Writer & Director ~ Paul Thomas Anderson

2025 ~ US

Stars ~ Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro,

Regina Hall, Teyana Taylor, Chase Infiniti

 

Paul Thomas Anderson offers up another breathless kaleidoscopic drama full of satire, poignancy, excellent ensemble performances and several effortlessly suspenseful set-pieces. Under it all, Johnny Greenwood’s score plays between scenes and time to provide a fluidity to all the chaos. Covering a lot of ground, Anderson’s editing and script effortlessly leapfrogs decades and characters with a credo that nothing changes that much and we are forever chased down by our past. Indeed, the basis of the script is Tomas Pynchon’s novel written in 1990, and then Anderson says this took him about twenty years to write, but the observations and commentary, even with a little updating, are still relevant.

I’ve seen it criticised for being “liberal propaganda”, but the leftist terrorists here are surely just as caricatured as the weirdo, heartless Right Winger cabal, the slimeball white men plotting in bunker backrooms. The black gun totin’ pregnant promiscuous revolutionaries who forfeit motherhood for jealousy of her own baby and The Cause and the burn-out paranoid loser stoner dad are exactly fitting a conservative view of Leftist Revolutionaries to sneer at. Anderson says that he based the French 75 movement on The Weather Underground from the Seventies, which is a weirdly dated exemplar when there are surely more current possibilities to imagine (but you can’t be taken seriously if you say Antifa). Brett Easton Ellis accuses the film of “liberal mustiness”, of not reading the current political room;  but if the characters are manifestations of what their enemies imagine, the film’s  representation of the Right Wing is less outdated than of the left. That it provokes criticism for the portrayal of Prefidia too surely means it is poking at both sides; not that Ellen E Jones’ criticism of Anderson’s tripping on the Racist Jezebel trope is without merit, but that it perhaps misses a wider picture where all the main characters are filtered through questionable-cartoonish-broad filters. I bristled at both the naming of characters as Lockjaw and Junglepussy for being trite/obvious/dubious, but the the former is also funny as you roll your eyes, and learning that the latter is Shayna McHayle’s stage name means it is owned as a deliberate provocation; and certainly she uses her screentime to strut it, even as it hits on blackpoitation.

 

Sean Penn’s inscrutable sleazeball weirdo is unforgettable: I mean, “Col. Steven J. Lockjaw”… But I don’t think I go too far out on a limb when I say we see such cartoonish types representing Republicans and the interests of White Supremacy on a regular basis currently. Sean Penn finding the scariness of the caricature, Lockjaw is both ridiculous and dangerous, which is a truth. Leonardo DiCaprio bumbles and rants comically over his earnest intentions with Benicio Del Toro quietly securing his corner by moseying through his scene-stealing whilst everyone else does the fireworks. Teyana Taylor is the force of nature that propels the narrative long after she’s gone in hiding, and Chase Infiniti as Willa brings the down-to-earth, confused yet headstrong outcome to all of this. The prodigy of both sides, Willa’s story is the most shaded and it is pertinent that Infiniti’s performance doesn’t follow the broad strokes most around her: her character is single-handedly dragging the film from its Seventies’ Classic feel (“mustiness”?) into a yet uncharted future rebelliousness.

 

The police descending upon Sensei Sergio St. Carlos’ operation as Bob argues about passwords trying to connect with his old movement and, especially, the final car chase are highlights. Dark farce and excellent propulsive pacing mean the momentum never lets up: we are dropped into the action and it never slows, and despite what it is made of, it never feels polemical over the movie needs of fun and thrill. Afterwards, you can do your think-piece. Amusing, exciting, a little surprising, it moves from the debatable broadsides into something more heartfelt and, through the symbol and promise of Willa, something more hopeful, even if there is no certainty of what.

In fact, how relevant and zeitgeisty it feels makes it a significant satire, because: if ‘Civil War’ was portentous in its declarations, ‘One Battle After Another’ roots it all in the messy insecurities and weirdness of the individuals concerned, trying to live down their past or abusing their positions. In fact, its skewering of political extremities to personal flaws and ego is evergreen, especially for a country always at war with itself and in the Trump era feels more vital than ever.

Superman

 

Superman

Writer + Director ~ James Gunn

Writers ~ James Gunn

Superman created by ~ Jerry Siegel Joe Shuster

2025, USA

Stars ~ David Corenswet, Rachel Brosnahan, Nicholas Hoult

   

No origin story here. In fact, there could have been one or two prequels before this point, detailing Lex Luther’s growing grudges and plans, Clark Kent and Lois Lane’s  (Rachel Brosnahan) romance and revelations, even the kidnapping and coercion of Metamorpho. Instead, Gunn wastes no time dropping us in midway through a fight that Superman has lost. In fact, the film spends a lot of time and is pretty good at making Superman vulnerable-adjacent. The first images we see of him is beaten and dabbed bloody. David Corenswet as Superman-Clark may have the looks and disarming charm, but where he doesn’t have the extra smooth cocksuredness of Christopher Reeve, he has a Twenty-First Century “I’m just doing my best”.

Mostly, it is obvious everyone is having a ball. There is an unmistakable party vibe to Gunn’s superhero romps, even as laced with darkness as they are. Actually, ‘Superman’ is markedly lighter than his earlier imaginings, deliberately brighter and positive in tone whilst still having a little time for the horror of war and vulnerability.  Superman can be, as ever with superheroes, accused of fascistic and imperialistic dogma, but I tend to see superheroes as a wish-fullfilment for the disenfranchised. As Superman was created by two Jewish nerds in the late Nineteen-thirties, how else were they going to punch Nazis? There’s room in the film for debate in how Kal-El’s good deed-doing is just as dogmatic and potentially blinkered as his opponents accuse, because there’s self-awareness; even The Justice Gang's more mercenary nature keeps his ethos questioned. We have Homelander and Omni Man to express our distrust and deconstruction of an invincible paragon. But ultimately it chooses Superman as the myth that we need – even with flags.

Gunn unashamedly posits super-heroes as a force for good to call on in warzones whilst the bad guy is a money mogul destroying the world from his own pettiness. Lex Luther (Nicholas Hoult) is obviously modelled on the Elon Musk type, rich beyond imagination and unable to placate his own ego, playing at war and interdimensional black sites for his own perceived grudges. The analogies can’t be missed and pleasingly roused the wrath of the anti-woke types who have no understanding of the character’s origins and meaning. It’s not subtle. But there is again attention to the casting to give Luther’s team flickers of individuality, cheering on his success at besting Superman as they might a pal’s game-playing, elevating them above just mindless minions.   

Gunn is here for the comics fans that already know their stuff, and everyone else will catch up quickly. Fan service is satisfied by taking namechecking John Williams’ original score, by utilising lesser-known characters – Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced) is fearsome with that battlecry, Mr Terrific (Edi Gathegi, very cool and beguiling facial markings; Fantastic was taken) – as well as taking serious-ish the absurdities – scene-stealing Krypto the superdog, Metamorpho (an emotionally pained Anthony Carrigan), Guy Gardener (Nathan Fillion; Gunn loves a lunkheaded, slightly misguided but ultimately good hero). As underwritten as Hawkgirl and Metamorpho may be, there’s the feeling that there’s other films happening with them elsewhere, that they have fuller stories that we’re not seeing (oh, Metamorpho has a family?). Gunn will make room for kaijus, and pocket universe black sites too but he knows how to root in the small stuff. The early Lane-Superman interview is where the film truly locks in after leading with the super-stuff. And in terms of giving and sidestepping a lot of exposition, the scene where Lois goes to the Justice Gang for help only to have Gardner spill the beans on Superman’s secrets is a masterclass, conveying so much under the guise of a funny interaction and goes down so smoothly you hardly realise the work it’s doing. Or he’ll make sure the Justice Gang is battling an interdimensional being while Clark and Lois are having a heart-to-heart.

Typical of Gunn, ‘Superman’ is overstuffed but always fun and light on its feet. It cracks along at a breathless pace, offering new details right until the very end (red suns make you drunk!). It is daft and heartfelt, committed, and lands its humanitarian anti-ego message with an almost naïve clarity totally befitting its hero. Perhaps it’s not up with the top-tier superhero flicks, but it’s colourful pell-mell entertainment and certainly demonstrates that a desaturated palette is not needed to get your points across.