I watched Predator: Badlands expecting two hours of things getting their spines ripped out. What I got instead was a buddy movie where one buddy is a seven-foot alien runt with daddy issues and the other is Elle Fanning playing a busted android with zero filter. And somehow, it works.

Dan Trachtenberg flips the entire franchise on its head by making the Predator — sorry, Yautja — the protagonist. Dek is basically the kid who got picked last in gym class, except gym class is a death cult and getting picked last means your own father orders your execution. So he does what any self-respecting outcast would do: he flies to the most dangerous planet in the galaxy to kill something unkillable and bring the trophy home. Solid plan.

Then he meets Thia, Fanning’s android character, who’s missing her legs and her sister but not her ability to talk circles around a creature three times her size. Their dynamic is the heart of the movie — she teaches him that maybe not everything is about skull collecting, and he teaches her that sometimes you do need to collect a skull or two. The banter between them was not something I expected from a Predator film.

The Death Planet itself is gorgeous and terrifying — everything wants to eat you, including the plants. The action delivers, the creature designs are phenomenal, and there’s an actual emotional arc buried under all the green blood.

Is it a classic? No. But this franchise keeps reinventing itself in positive ways lately.

Recommended.