Review: Predator: Badlands (2025)

Predator: Badlands (2025)

Rated PG-13 for sequences of strong sci-fi violence

Score: 4 out of 5

Dan Trachtenberg was easily the best thing to happen to the Predator franchise since somebody first came up with the idea of crossing it over with the Alien franchise. In the last few years, he has made three Predator movies in the form of Prey, the animated Predator: Killer of Killers, and now this, and each one of them can be credibly argued to be the best in the series since the original back in 1987, depending on what one is in the mood for. What's even more impressive is that, despite each of them having enough commonalities that it's clear that they were all made by the same man, each of them is also a clearly distinct film that stands on its own separate from the rest. In this case, the series' usual perspective is flipped, the main character this time being a Predator himself setting out to prove that he has what it takes, and the result is not so much a horror movie as it is an action-packed survival thriller, one that feels like Trachtenberg had been watching a lot of The Mandalorian and The Last of Us in the dynamic between its protagonist and the damaged robot he comes across who aids him in his quest. Don't let the PG-13 rating fool you, this is a vicious, unflinching, no-holds-barred sci-fi action flick filled with kick-ass fight scenes, tons of interesting lore for franchise nerds, two great lead performances, a sense of humor that's lively without getting overbearing and annoying, and some neat commentary on both the Predators' culture and, by extension, the sort of real-life human honor cultures that it resembles. I saw this on a big fat IMAX screen, but I can still see this holding up on a rewatch at home, and I recommend seeking it out either way.

One thing that becomes immediately apparent watching this, from the very first frame, is Trachtenberg's skill at crafting worlds and dropping viewers straight into the film. The film opens on Yautja Prime, the homeworld of this series' titular alien hunters, who call themselves the Yautja. This is a world where advanced technology is paired with a primitive tribal lifestyle that feels like a deliberate choice on the part of the Yautja, with our first sight being our protagonist Dek racing across the expanse of this world on a hoverbike decorated with the bleached bones of dead alien creatures. They're a species and culture who justify their savagery with a social Darwinist attitude about how only the strong deserve to survive, let alone rule, an attitude that takes center stage with Dek and the brutality he's immersed in from the moment we meet him. Dek, a young Yautja, is the runt of his litter and the disappointment of his father Njhorr, who wants to just kill him for being so weak and not up to Yautja standards. When Dek's brother Kwei tries to stand up for him, Njhorr kills Kwei for it, seeing him as having given into emotional weakness and forcing Dek to flee the planet. One gets the sense that Trachtenberg, as much as he may love this series as a whole, sees the Yautja and their culture as fundamentally rotten to the core, as evidenced by the fact that the first and, so far, only explicitly heroic Yautja we've seen in these films (though I can't speak for the comics) is one who's dismissed as a scrawny weakling by his own family. When Dek finally confronts Njhorr again at the end after all he's been through, it's not a happy reunion, with Dek tearing into his father and everything he believes, stands for, and represents while Njhorr does everything he can to prove Dek's point.

This theme continues once we get to Genna, the brutal death world that Dek said he wanted to travel to so he could prove his worth to his father by hunting the Kalisk, a terrifying apex predator that no Yautja has ever managed to take down. Genna is a planet whose name sounds like "Gehenna" and "Jahannam," the Jewish and Islamic terms for Hell, and where everything from the bugs to the herbivores to the trees to the grass wants to kill Dek, such that we can only imagine what the Kalisk is like if none of this is sufficient to be the scariest thing on Genna. While it was clear that Trachtenberg shot this movie on Earth (New Zealand specifically), he still did a wonderful job making Genna feel alien, a place hostile to any life that is not its own as we see all manner of creatures big and small locked into its vicious struggle for survival. For Dek, survival comes not from being an island unto himself, but from a fire-forged alliance with Thia, a synthetic who'd been the sole survivor of an expedition that the human Weyland-Yutani corporation sent to Genna on their own research mission. (Yep, this marks the official moment when the Alien and Predator franchises, after decades of crossovers, are declared to exist in the same universe.) Thia's in no position to do much fighting, not when her entire lower half has been ripped off and she's now just a head, torso, and arms, but she does know where Dek can find the Kalisk and promises to lead him to it in exchange for him reuniting her with her severed lower half so she can be rebuilt. The relationship between Dek and Thia forms this movie's dramatic core, with Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi pulling off a very difficult job getting me invested in a character who's visibly non-human, virtually all action, and only speaks in a fictional language, while Elle Fanning does a great job making Thia the comic relief to Dek's hyper-serious warrior without ever feeling like an outright joke character. (For starters, the most annoyingly chipper parts of her personality are kept to a brief montage that's specifically designed to establish her as somebody who Dek finds annoying.) I thought I knew where this movie was gonna go with Dek and Thia's budding friendship, especially after seeing comments on social media talking about its themes, but the film still found a way to surprise me.

Especially when Tessa, the other major human-looking character in the film, enters the picture. The remnants of the Weyland-Yutani expedition were still in orbit around Genna and seeking out the Kalisk for themselves, and Thia's synthetic "sister" Tessa has been recovered and rebuilt for round two. I already thought Fanning was great as Thia, but seeing her pull double duty as Tessa had me convinced that they'd secretly cast her sister Dakota alongside her, the two characters were so radically different from one another. None of Thia's cheerfulness or warmth is present in Tessa, an intense, cold-blooded, hard-nosed ice queen who's there to get the job done (and maybe snag a live Yautja too, while she's at it) and serves as the main... well, not "human," but at least sapient villain for Dek and Thia to overcome. In many ways, she serves as a mirror of Njhorr, a figure whose obsession with Darwinian struggle highlights how the only difference between the corporate suits of the human race in this universe (and, by extension, the real-life corporations that Weyland-Yutani is based on -- Trachtenberg definitely has Thoughts about this sort of thing) and the naked barbarism of the Yautja is that the humans and their synths cloak their violence behind a mask of civilization and refinement. With Tessa, Fanning became this movie's secret weapon, her dual role here such that she ought to be on the notice of every casting director in Hollywood, especially when Thia and Tessa interact face-to-face or Thia has to briefly impersonate Tessa in one scene (and doesn't quite pull it off).

This movie's got plenty of other weapons, too, of the more literal variety. Trachtenberg is no slouch when it comes to action, with the film starting with its foot on the gas and only rarely letting up long enough to give viewers room to breathe. It is bloody, too, such that I highly suspect that the only reason the MPAA let it get away with a PG-13 is because there's no "hard" swear words, no cursing, and no violence inflicted on human beings. There are plenty of scenes of synths and aliens getting chopped up and dismembered, yet all the blood that's spilled is either the white "blood" of synths or the green, orange, blue, or purple blood of aliens. It's here where Schuster-Koloamatangi gets the most room to shine, the prodigious action scenes serving as a sizzle reel for him as an action hero as he fights every monster under Genna's sun and then gets into battle with Weyland-Yutani's synths. The wildlife of Genna, too, was awe-inspiring to look at, ranging from slightly fantastical and aggressive versions of real Earth animals (pterodactyls, elephants, bugs) to truly alien monsters like carnivorous, prehensile vines, a giant spider-like carnivore that stalks the trees, and the fearsome Kalisk itself, which looks like King Kong if he were possessed by a demon. Make no mistake, even with the rating, the humorous bits, and the focus on a heroic Yautja, this is by no means "baby's first Predator movie." This film is as hard-hitting and brutal as any other in the series, and it makes no bones about it.

The Bottom Line

Predator: Badlands continues the hot streak that this series has been on for the last few years, with a pair of great leads, a ton of kick-ass action, neat worldbuilding for series fans, and subtext that doesn't overpower the film but still lends it some added depth. Disney should just keep letting Dan Trachtenberg do his thing with these movies, because he's killin' it so far.