It’s a good thing this ‘Predator’ has found a friend

Elle Fanning elevates ‘Badlands’ as a robot who connects the film to ‘Alien’ franchise.

- JOSHUA ROTHKOPF

THIA (Elle Fanning) is an android missing her legs who becomes a companion for Yautja hunter Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi.)

(20th Century Studios)

The prey may change — the planets, too, their digital backdrops swirling like screensavers — but take comfort in knowing that when it comes to a “Predator” movie, we're still talking about a dude in a suit.

This time, that dude is New Zealand’s Dimitrius Schus-ter-Koloamatangi, a game 7-foot-3 actor whose eyes bulge behind those motorized mandibles and sometimes shine with feeling.

Despite his size, his Dek in “Predator: Badlands” is what you might call a baby: an untested youth who endures a sibling’s beatdown in the film’s opening moments. Their warlord father is displeased with both of them. After some extreme parenting that would be frowned upon in most societies, alien or otherwise, neon-green blood flows and Dek is hurtling toward another world, vengeance burning in his heart.