robot

The prey may change — the planets, too, their digital backdrops swirling like screensavers — but take comfort in knowing that when it comes to a “Predator” movie, we’re still talking about a dude in a suit. This time, that dude is New Zealand’s Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi, a game 7-foot-3 actor whose eyes bulge behind those motorized mandibles and sometimes shine with feeling.

Despite his size, his Dek in “Predator: Badlands” is what you might call a baby: an untested youth who endures a sibling’s beatdown in the film’s opening moments. Their warlord father is displeased with both of them. After some extreme parenting that would be frowned upon in most societies, alien or otherwise, neon-green blood flows and Dek is hurtling toward another world, vengeance burning in his heart.

“Bring it home — for Kwei,” he mutters in an elaborate creature language invented expressly for the film. (The dialogue itself gets less attention.) Dek will seek the “unkillable Kalisk,” prove his worth in the hunt and, presumably, have some terse words with Dad upon his return.

Not to kill a Kalisk or anything but these Yautja (to use their species name) were never meant to carry a movie. Put one in a film with Arnold Schwarzenegger in the original 1987 summer action hit and suddenly the Terminator seems chatty. Pit them against the immortally gross creatures of “Alien vs. Predator” and the Yautja are nearly huggable.

But main characters they are not. “Predator: Badlands” has a misshapen gait to it, like a comedy skit drawn out to feature length. Fortunately, almost as soon as Dek lands on Genna, a planet of murderous flora, to bag his Kalisk, he runs into a babbling half-robot missing her legs who makes the movie much more compelling. You can either wonder how Elle Fanning, the tremulous heart of “A Complete Unknown” and this season’s “Sentimental Value” found herself in it, or smile at the good fortune of her being a stealth nerd who apparently loves a challenge.

Strapped to Dek’s back C-3PO-style, the disembodied Thia (Fanning) fills the movie with a semi-stoned running commentary: “And what does the chewing — your outside fangs or your inside teeth?” she asks him. When a second Fanning shows up as Thia’s vicious sister Tessa, another “synthetic” built for dangerous off-world work, the film finds its groove as a new chapter in the continuing saga of our friends at the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, a fictional enterprise with such spectacularly bad luck at acquiring bioweapons, they should have faced a hostile takeover by now.

And, like virtually all of Hollywood’s anti-corporate sci-fi adventures, “Predator: Badlands” is, at heart, a pro-business statement, bowing especially deeply to James Cameron’s designs for 1986’s “Aliens,” including its squat vehicles, soulless directives (“The Company is not pleased,” says a computer who isn’t the screenwriter) and the colossal power loader that lets someone human-sized do battle with a beast.

There isn’t much of an original signature here. Returning director Dan Trachtenberg hits the beats competently but not too stridently, like a good superfan should. If you’re expecting Dek’s sensitivity to become an asset, give yourself a trophy. Yet if a machine — or a studio — can produce a robot as fun as Thia, there’s hope for this franchise yet.

Aside from last season’s glitch, where they failed to lift a major trophy, City have been a relentless winning machine themselves, with six Premier League titles in the last eight seasons, as well as a Champions League in 2023.

In Haaland, they have someone destroying defences with power, speed and clinical finishing.

The 1-0 defeat at Villa Park was City’s first in 10 games and, while they responded with wins over Swansea and Bournemouth, he has not forgotten that blip.

“I didn’t score last game,” Haaland told Sky Sports when asked if he felt unstoppable. “I try to help the team to win – that’s my goal.

“Even by scoring, helping or winning duels, it doesn’t matter as long as we are winning games. I want to help the team become a better football team, that’s my job.”

Haaland’s numbers this term are on a different level. The only other player to score 13 times in the opening 10 Premier League games was Les Ferdinand for Newcastle in the 1995-96 campaign, while Haaland himself managed 15 in 2022.

He has the highest xG (9.20) in the league without scoring a penalty, while he accounts for 65% of City’s goals in the top flight and Champions League – scoring 17 of their 26 goals across the two competitions.

“To give the chances and the passes to him, this is what we have to do,” added Guardiola. “He knows that, but we are so blessed and lucky to have, first of all, an incredible person because he is the sweetest and kindest.

“And he will improve. After that, as a player the numbers are just outstanding.”

Much has been said of City’s over-reliance on Haaland and the need for other players to ‘step up’ and score more goals.

“Of course you want other people to join in and they will eventually,” journalist Julien Laurens told BBC Radio 5 Live.

“But I don’t even know why this is a debate. When you have Haaland and the best finisher in the world right now, it would be silly to even give a chance to anyone else. You want the ball to fall in the box to Haaland 100% of the time.”