A monster movie with a beating heart & a slightly confused moral compass

It seems no franchise ever truly dies; it just gets a gentle Disney makeover.

- Troy Ribeiro

Predator: Badlands, directed by Dan Trachtenberg, proves that even a series built on decapitations and dreadlocks can evolve into a cosmic coming-of-age tale. Gone are the testosterone-soaked jungles of yore; in their place is Genna, a "death planet" that looks like a theme park designed by Ridley Scott and Pixar in a joint fever dream.

At the heart of this strange, sensitive spectacle is Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi), a pint-sized (according to its species) Predator desperate to prove himself to his tyrannical father. In any other film, he'd be lunch. Here, he's lunching with a legless android named Thia (Elle Fanning) and a CGI pet so adorable it deserves its own merch line. The result is an unlikely blend of How to Train Your Dragon and Mad Max, spliced together with the DNA of an Alien movie that's had a few too many lattes.

For all its absurdity,