Elle Fanning recently was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for the film Sentimental Value (2025), which is an international feature that hasn't been as widely seen. Her role in this science-fiction, action franchise has done better in terms of more people watching it. Like another Oscar-nominee from this past year, Michael B. Jordan and Wagner Moura, here Fanning is playing a double role or two characters in the same film. She stars as a robot or a synthetic, known as Thia. She also plays Tessa, an identical-looking synthetic, but with a totally different personality. Thia is more bubbly, friendly and engaging. Tessa is more cold and uncompromising. Both of them were sent from Earth to a planet called Genna, so that they can find and collect alien species for study, experimentation and exploitation. If this sounds familiar, it's the long-running plot line that began with Ridley Scott's Alien (1979), a narrative universe in which this film also exists.
James Cameron turned Scott's claustrophobic, horror flick into a kick-ass actioner, centered on a really tough woman. Director and co-writer Dan Trachtenberg continues that Cameron turn but only now aided with a lot of CGI to have more high-flying, death-defying, over-the-top set-pieces. Several of which embrace kaiju battles that puts this film more in the realm of cartoon or anime. However, if anything is clear, it's gravely apparent that Trachtenberg is a huge fan of Star Wars (1977) and its subsequent franchise.
From the opening scene, it was obvious Trachtenberg was taking his queues from that George Lucas enterprise. The planet that's at the beginning could be some corner of Lucas' most iconic planet, that of Tatooine. At one point, we see two characters fighting with plasma swords that feel reminiscent of lightsabers. A fight between father and son results in the son getting his arm chopped off, which feels ripped from The Empire Strikes Back (1980). At another point, Thia becomes a robot who loses her legs and has to be carried on another character's back. This is also ripped from that 1980 Star Wars sequel when C-3PO lost his legs and has to be carried by Chewbacca. At another point, a warrior character has to protect an alien child, which feels ripped from The Mandalorian (2019) with the alien child here not being as cute as Grogu but just as marketable.
What makes this film stand out, not only from the Star Wars films, but other entries in this franchise that started with Predator (1987), starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, is the fact that Trachtenberg took what was the villain in a sci-fi slasher flick and made him the hero, the veritable protagonist for whom we're supposed to care. This is not totally unique. Cameron did it with Schwarzenegger in his sequel to The Terminator (1984) and Lucas did it with Darth Vader in his prequel series. Making an antagonist the protagonist in subsequent films has been done before, but it 's a question of how far the sympathy can be stretched.
Until now, the aliens, known as predators, have been depicted as brutal, merciless killers. The aliens called Yautja are a warrior race who hunt for sport. In all the other films, they hunt humans, kill them or try to kill who they deem as the strongest, while murdering anyone who gets in the way. It would be a hard sell to depict a Yautja killing humans and expect the audience to sympathize with that Yautja or root for him. Instead, there are no actual humans in this story. It's either other Yautja, robots or even bigger and scarier aliens at odds here.
In a lot of ways, this is Trachtenberg deconstructing the brutal and merciless culture, established in the previous films. Trachtenberg is critiquing the machismo and solo warrior themes that certainly kicked off this franchise with that 1987 hit. This film is more about embracing sensitivity and friendship, as well as pushing compassion and understanding of other creatures. The question is how long can Trachtenberg keep up the theme of compassion in this series where the main character is meant to be a serial killer. Trachtenberg pulls off the trick that in this film, the Yautja in question isn't actually a serial killer. He kills one animal that's equivalent of a bison, but he doesn't kill anybody with whom we're meant to have sympathy, which breaks from all the Yautja we've seen in all the previous entries. Can Trachtenberg maintain that this Yautja in question will not become a serial killer in future entries, despite coming from a serial killer culture?
Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi is the New Zealand actor, of Samoan and Tongan descent, who plays that Yautja in question, named "Dek." The film was shot in New Zealand, so he's a great local find. He has a huge, physical presence, being over 7 feet in height. Yet, Schuster-Koloamatangi has the same problem as Tom Hardy in The Dark Knight Rises (2012) or Pedro Pascal in The Mandalorian, and that is we never see his face. Hardy and Pascal's faces are covered in masks that they can't take off. Schuster-Koloamatangi's face is covered completely with CGI. Some motion capture might have been involved, but it's a shame that the actors of color are completely covered and unseen. This includes Schuster-Koloamatangi, as well as Ravi Narayan who also does some motion capture work here.
Rated PG-13 for sci-fi violence.
Running Time: 1 hr. and 47 mins.
Available on Disney + Hulu.