Action movies have been around for hundreds of years at this point, and I’m sure that most of us can boil it down into maybe five or six sentences. A good guy character is the strong everyman who has to fight for something that’ll save the world, and oh look, there’s a hot chick too. At the same time, this is a broad generalization of the genre as a whole; it’s what most people picture when asked to imagine an action flick. Though film tropes themselves can alter culture and shake the foundations of what it means to be a movie-goer.
A beloved action movie franchise, the “Predator” series has haunted the nightmares of hundreds of kids and served as a fictitious role model and cool anti-hero bad guy that young boys dress up as for Halloween. My nightmares and my brother’s Halloween are to be included. As a child, my dad and uncle were the two primary male role models in my life (still are). But as a young tomboy and girl who loved football and wearing jeggings, a pink tutu, and a Rams jersey all at once, I was obsessed with anything related to “Aliens or Predator”. So, to my pleasant surprise, when the god awful installments during the 2000s and 2010s were over, and “Romulus and Badlands” hit the screen, I genuinely loved them both. My filmmaker brain was a bit more obsessed with “Romulus”. I went feral when my uncle and I were watching “Badlands”, and the shipyard from “Romulus” showed up.
The direct tie-ins to the two sister franchises of this era are much more palatable and fun than the painful “Aliens vs. Predator.” While I am an action movie fan, the genre as a whole could use improvement. And I also have a very high bar for movies. As a filmmaker, I force myself to make the uncomfortable realizations that not everything is perfect. I find a lot of joy in dissecting the lesser qualities of a movie I like so that I can avoid or subvert them. “Predator Badlands” has a trope that I have grown tired of, as it often aims to make the general audience feel more included and to attract more kids to the movies, thereby increasing profits. I like to call it the “cute little guy” trope. When there is a mute or very quiet animal, alien, or general baby thing that follows the main character around as a buddy, consider the flanderization (the process of dumbing down a character to one main trait) of “The Mandalorian.” The entire show was built on the back of the dichotomy of the big, bad, tough guy Mando and the little, cute baby thing Grogu. I watched the first season and got tired of the trope when I was twelve.
I was exhausted of complaining about a trope I didn’t like, so I attacked it from a different angle. And I soon found myself staring in the face of an issue that I hadn’t thought I would see. The subversion of the traditional testosterone-filled dude-guy-strongman was right there! And I hadn’t even seen it until a bug-eyed baby alien upset me enough to turn the other cheek. “Badlands” follows Dek, an outcast in his clan who was saved from an honor killing by his older brother Kwei, who dies to save Dek.
Disgraced by his father, Dek turns to hunting a monster from another planet and bringing its head to his father, only to kill him and become the clan’s leader. Throughout the movie, Dek faces many interpersonal problems—the majority stemming from traditionalism and his cultural definition of masculinity. The grief over his brother pushes him to the ends of other planets designed to harm intruders. His need to go further and avenge his brother and take back his honor is not as explicitly stated as Prince Zuko from “Avatar: the Last Airbender”, but he still struggles immensely from his death and mutilation. Along the lines, Dek meets another outcast. A Weyland-Yutani synth named Thila. Thila is the movie’s necessary female role in an action movie. She’s grounded and soft, caring and highly intelligent. Elle Fanning brings a charm to the absolutely unmatched character. With Thila’s help, Dek can help process his emotions and feelings towards his brother’s death. And better yet? Thila isn’t portrayed as a vapid character or romantic interest. The two of them have a genuine bond that I did not expect from the franchise.
The titular cute baby in the movie is called Bud, who was affectionately named by Thila. Bud himself is lost and wants nothing more than to find his mother. He’s crafty and tricky and knows all about the planet that the two of them are new to. The addition of the baby leading the three of them around and starting to mimic Dek through his mannerisms is sweet but essential to both of their characters. Dek is learning to take care of things other than himself. As well as Bud growing to understand the world, which dictates the large majority of a childhood. Through this, Dek can help Thila in a much more emotionally intelligent way than he could before. Culminating in a very heartwarming scene where Dek goes out of his way to help Thila, who was captured by the Weyland-Yutani synths. Dek adapts to the planet’s flora and fauna by utilizing them to his advantage. The way that Bud had once shown them to do.
Dek plays the hero and saves Thila; this is where the aforementioned heartwarming scene takes place. Thila successfully finds her way back to her legs- the motivation the group had to visit the shipyard before she was captured. She escapes from the synths and, for a moment, hesitates as Bud runs in between her and Dek. They have a conversation along the lines of the classic “I didn’t think you’d come back for me.” He reassures her that looking out for his family is essential.
By the end of the movie, Dek’s motivation has changed, and he now sees his friends as his family. When he travels to defeat his father, he has the opportunity to take up the clan. He refuses, and instead plans to chart the skies with his new clan. The foundational shift that the character undergoes seemed almost hidden to me at first. Where I had gone into the movie expecting something completely different than what I got, it was refreshing to deliver me a twist that, for once, wasn’t a secret villain. Instead, it had the change from an anti-hero-warrior type to a heroic, well-rounded man who looks out for his fellow outcasts as if they were family. While the movie is far from perfect, I applaud it for subverting traditional tropes and offering me a fresh perspective on the film as a whole- a solid 7.8 out of 10.