Copyright news
PREDATOR: BADLANDS (M) Director: Dan Trachtenberg (10 Cloverfield Lane) Starring: Elle Fanning, Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi. The hunter becomes hunted, and the bad becomes good The Predator franchise has been hacking away for the best part of four decades without ever coming close to matching that indisputably chilling first salvo fired by the one and only Arnold Schwarzenegger. Until now. While Predator: Badlands admittedly did not have to beat much to secure a ranking as the second-best Predator ever, it is an impressive second-best that is well worth checking out. The turnaround in quality here is turbocharged by a twist few will have seen coming, but many will want to see fully explored. What if there was a Predator who could be cheered instead of feared? The answer as supplied by Badlands takes our curiosity about the possibility of a Predator becoming a relatable hero, and spins it into something irresistibly exciting and entertaining. A lengthy prologue opens on the home planet of the Yautja, the tribal assignation for all true Predators. Though standing almost three metres tall and an accomplished hunter, fighter and killer, a young Predator named Dek (played under several layers of synthetic effects by Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) is deemed to be the runt of the tribe by his warrior father. Family ties mean little to the Yautja, and Dek is deemed worthy of imminent execution by his own brother. To beat this guaranteed death sentence and prove his worth, Dek travels through space to the one place all Yautja fear to tread: the notorious ‘death planet’ known as Genna. The sequence where Dek arrives and then acclimatises to the living hell of Genna stands as some of the most imaginative and frightening sci-fi filmmaking seen in quite a while. Virtually everything that is alive on Genna – the flora, the fauna and the ferociously unkillable wildlife – has the potential to end Dek’s impulsive visit in the blink of an eye. Nevertheless, after reluctantly joining forces with a chatty, yet knowledgeable lost android named Thia (Elle Fanning), a determined Dek mounts a seeming suicide mission to track and capture the most dangerous resident on Genna: a massive, yet fast-moving beast known as The Kalisk. Considering Dek spends the entirety of the movie speaking in an alien language (and Thia spends most of the most of the movie missing a pair of legs), Badlands remains accessible and involving throughout. While some later fight sequences lack the awe-inducing panache displayed in the movie’s frenetic first hour, the admirable nature of Dek as a character and his evolving bond with Thia (and later, a third figure best not mentioned for spoilers’ sake) allows Badlands to deliver the goods in fine style. Predator: Badlands is now showing in general release. BUGONIA (MA15+) General release. The cinema world’s reigning master of all things way, way out-there is director Yorgos Lanthimos. After a decade of innovative and widely-admired weird-fests such as Killing of a Sacred Deer, The Favourite and Poor Things, Lanthimos is now a brand name for brave and unforgettable movies. With such an exulted reputation comes a weight of expectation, and it is safe to say that a sizeable proportion of Lanthimos’ fanbase will walk away underwhelmed by his new effort. Emma Stone (who landed a deserved Best Actress Oscar for Poor Things) stars as Michelle, an embittered pharmaceutical CEO who has been kidnapped by a pair of deluded conspiracy theorists named Teddy and Don (Jesse Plemons and Aidan Delbis) because they believe she is an alien. Just as Michelle seems oddly comfortable with being held against her will in a grubby basement, Teddy and Don are distinctly unprepared for facing the consequences of their amateur abduction project. While Stone supplies a performance rife with fierceness and focus, and Lanthimos extracts much black humour from this grim premise, the movie struggles to find a coherent point to make until very late in play. By that time, the patience of many viewers will be close to exhausted. PRIME MINISTER (M) Selected cinemas. A strikingly intimate chronicle of former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Arden’s two terms in office, this documentary is a must-see for anyone fascinated by what politics means in this day and age Elected by chance at age 37, Ardern crammed a lot into her time on both the national and international stage. In addition to steering through a high amount of game-changing legislation and giving birth to a child in only her first year in office, Ardern later went on to lead her country through the aftermath of a tragic terrorist incident and the enduring chaos of the COVID years. The most remarkable aspect of the doco is its unprecedented access to a political leader making decisions in real time. With her partner (and later, husband) Clarke Gayford keeping a video diary from day one, we get to see, hear and feel Ardern fighting to hold her personal ethics in place while meeting the ever-changing needs of an entire nation. Revealing and inspiring stuff.
