‘Predator: Badlands’ Review — A Fierce Evolution of the Franchise

‘Predator: Badlands’ Review: Thrilling and Violent Predator Entry Finds Evolution in Humanizing Tale

Safe to say, Dan Trachtenberg has put his stamp on the modern Predator franchise. Following up on eye-catching entries such as Prey and Predator: Killer of Killers for Hulu, both of which deserved the full cinematic treatment, Trachtenberg now takes the next step in the ongoing Predator mythology with a big-screen sequel called Badlands.

This is not a remake of Terrence Malick’s Badlands — it’s a clever, sci-fi shakeup of Alien and Predator led by Trachtenberg’s imaginative storytelling. The film follows a film series first by introducing an innovative original idea that had never even been touched upon in either universe: what happens if a Yautja and a Weyland-Yutani synthetic could legitimately feel emotions?

With Predator: Badlands, Trachtenberg again demonstrates that he knows just how to update a classic for our times — weaving action with character and smart visal storytelling.

MPA Rating: PG-13 (for sequences of strong sci-fi violence.)

Runtime: 1 Hour and 47 Minutes

Language: English

Production Companies: Lawrence Gordon Productions, Davis Entertainment, Toberoff Entertainment

Distributor: 20th Century Studios

Director: Dan Trachtenberg

Writer: Patrick Aison

Cast: Elle Fanning, Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi

U.S Release Date: November 7, 2025

Trachtenberg’s continuous interest in familial dynamics persists and is applied to the Yautja culture, captivatingly.

Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) is the weakest and most underestimated member of his Yautja tribe. Trained by his older brother Kwei (Mike Homik), Dek is preparing to go on a first hunt — a life-defining ritual which will see him gain his warrior cloak and take his place among the Predator castes. And during a tearful exchange, Dek vows to finally prove himself by attempting the impossible result — tracking down the unkillable creature Kalisk.

But when a terrible truth is revealed, everything shifts for Kwei and Dek — Kwei’s first hunt was meant to be Dek himself. Defiantly, Kwei saves his younger brother by sending him adrift on a spacecraft and is subsequently killed by their father for challenging him.

Dek crash-lands on the Kalisk’s planet, Genna, a world rife with predatory beasts and monsters. As he navigates this alien terrain he runs into Thia (a cuddly spunky Elle Fanning), a cheerful and wise Weyland-Yutani synthetic minus legs. Thia has been separated from her identical manufactured Tessa (a sweetly sinister Fanning) after clashing with the Kalisk.

Reluctantly, Dek backpacks her and treks through an unfamiliar land to pursue his attacker. But with Thia and a besotted, cute baby monster named Bud helping him out, he soon begins to question whether dominating in the trophy hunting department will really get him the family he yearns for.

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Trachtenberg’s continuous interest in familial dynamics persists and is applied to the Yautja culture, captivatingly.

“How Dan Trachtenberg Redefines Family and Honor in the Predator Universe”

Dan Trachtenberg’s Predator series are movies of deep, late-coming-of-age themes where family and identity is at its core. Badlands changes things up by putting a Yautja (Predator) in the lead, but it still feels like Prey‘s emotional core. It’s in the smallest of these characters that screenwriter Patrick Aison, who wrote both films, returns to the classic “underdog warrior” narrative — one where the tiniest, most unimposing figure becomes its mightiest — but this time manifested through Dek, a Predator with a heart.

Aison very effectively utilizes this fresh point of view to add some humanity (for lack of a better word) to the Yautja, which for once are depicted as more than just “intergalactic hunters.” He poses a great question: Can emotional connection and family love be real in a culture based on violence and dominance? This moral struggle propels the narrative onward, especially as Dek’s relationship with Thia, an idealistic Weyland-Yutani synthetic, deepens over their joint travels. Their dynamic — tense yet humorous — is what I imagine a fusion of Wreck-It Ralph and Ratchet & Clank would be like, if Ratchet was a Predator.

Although Badlands might be visually inspired by Shadow of the Colossus, its tone is far more Tartakovsky-indebted — between its energetic, animation-like flourishes and shifting pacing, to the barbarian-creative primal world it conjures. What the film does capture is two entirely dissimilar beings — one organic, one synthetic — learning from each other, acquiring empathy and outgrowing their own origins. Imagine if Samurai Jack went hunting through a world full of monsters and dreamscape vistas that change with every mountain learned.

At the forefront of this, Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi does a breakout turn as Dek. He is the perfect mix of raw muscle and heartfelt performance, finally giving us a Yautja with a personality. Combine that physicality with understated emotional expression and the character has an intensity you seldom encounter in sci-fi movies.

Opposite him is Elle Fanning, who impresses in two roles as Thia and her icy sibling, Tessa. She infuses both with warmth, wit and intensity, forging one of the movie’s most satisfying dynamics. Combined, Schuster-Koloamatangi and Fanning turn Badlands into something more — an action-packed emotional tale that helps redefine what the Predator movies can be.

Predator: Badlands is a bloodsoaked blast, despite being a step down in quality.

Predator: Badlands — A Visually Ambitious But Suspense Deficient Spectacle

” With a budget of nearly $500 million, Badlands will be Dan Trachtenberg’s largest — and by far the most ambitious — project to date, topping 10 Cloverfield Lane and Prey in both scale and scope. And while the director adheres to his signature realistic style of shooting (even going handheld on occasion for added verisimilitude), that sometimes works against him. Some action sequences turn into visual mudslides, and viewers can be confused about who is fighting whom or where they ought to cast their gaze.

That said, there is some very entertaining action choreography. The chase and combat sequences on Genna, which illustrate Dek’s violent tussles with alien creatures, are filmed with kinetic camera work, striking slow-mo action and fluid tracking. The set pieces play like they were ripped straight from a high-end video game, and there are stylized kills that flirt with even the barest edge of a PG-13 rating. Each punch feels like it has weight to it even as the over-reliance on “final battles” in this film’s third act stretches the climax out a bit longer than needed.

From a pure visual perspective, however, Badlands is weighed down by contemporary blockbuster color grading trends. Trachtenberg and his director of photography, Jeff Cutter, provide sturdy compositions but the low-contrast, grayish palette — studio mandate these days — mutes the film’s otherwise jazzy science fiction realm. It’s a pity, because the movie’s scope and energy deserves better than what looks like an iPad game adaptation — it misses out on having Sharpness that wouldn’t be too far away from Avatar: Fire and Ash (that film has bluish purple designs, but they are rounded), whose lush colourful design might remind audiences of what spectacle at the movies could actually look like.

The end of the film even cries Avatar’s storied “bitch and mech” throwdown, turning nostalgia into a two-shottipoppermashup between Alien grime and Predator gore. But beneath all of the spectacle, you can’t help but wish there was a more vibrant big-show presentation at work — particularly when you consider the efforts of WETA’s VFX team, who’ve designed and animated all manner of ingenious alien life forms. The standout is Bud, a mischievously adorable hybrid of Stitch and a gremlin tailor-made for instant fan appeal. Unfortunately, much of that detail is hard to make out in the film’s muted visuals.

In other words, Predator: Badlands is formally striking but visually shackled — an action-packed video game bursting at the seams that showcases Trachtenberg’s ambition, if the occasional studio slickness blunts his creative teeth.

CONCLUSION

But even with a new PG-13 rating, Predator: Badlands is sturdy enough to make ya bull that we’ve definitely entered into a spiky-era of the franchise, but likewise suffers from Trachtenberg’s ambitions being hemmed in by studio boundaries.

Trachtenberg’s continuous interest in familial dynamics persists and is applied to the Yautja culture, captivatingly.

“How Dan Trachtenberg Redefines Family and Honor in the Predator Universe”

Predator: Badlands is a bloodsoaked blast, despite being a step down in quality.

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