Predator: Badlands - A Clever Twist on the Predator Formula
/****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****
My Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars
My Recommendation: SEE IT/SKIP IT. A mixed bag of a movie that could have been better but entertains nonetheless.
Predator: Badlands, directed by Dan Trachtenberg, is the seventh film in the Predator franchise and it tells the story of Dek, a young predator who is exiled from his Yautja family and must kill an unkillable beast on a far-away planet to prove his worth to his father.
The Predator franchise, which began in 1987 with John McTiernan’s glorious Predator starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, has been revitalized in recent years after decades of disrepair, and it is all thanks to filmmaker Dan Trachtenberg.
Trachtenberg helmed the 2022 film Prey, which set the usual Predator formula amongst a Native American tribe back in the 1700s. I thoroughly enjoyed that film and found it be a clever twist on the Predator story.
Next up for Predator and Trachtenberg was 2025’s Predator: Killer of Killers, an animated anthology that set the Predator formula amongst Viking warriors, Japanese Samurai, and World War II American pilots. I found this film to be a mixed bag – better as an idea than in execution.
Which brings us to Predator: Badlands, which hit theatres on November 7th of last year and performed quite well at the box office – garnering $185 million on a $105 million budget. The film is now available to stream on Hulu, which is where I watched it.
It is undeniably an interesting idea to turn the Predator formula of a Yautja – the official name of what a “predator” from all the movies actually is, from a vicious villain into a hero with whom you are meant to sympathize.
Badlands is aided in this transition in audience expectations by the ever-charming Elle Fanning, who plays Thia, a Weyland-Yutani (the evil company from the Alien film franchise) humanoid robot, who becomes Dek’s sidekick on his journey to redemption/revenge.
All of the pieces are in place for Predator: Badlands to be a big success, and it almost pulls it all off. Unfortunately, it still feels like a better idea than it is a movie. It isn’t a bad movie…it just feels like it could’ve been a better one.
The opening which gives an insight into the family dynamics of the Yautja, is a bit bumpy, but it delivers the message loud and clear – Dek is a runt of the litter and no one respects him. So, he must go prove himself by killing an apex predator – the Kalisk, in order to be officially welcomed into the Yautja klan.
The world where Dek goes to hunt the feared Kalisk, Genna “The Death Planet”, is supposed to be this treacherous place filled with the coolest of deadly flora and fauna, but all the flora and fauna are pretty silly looking and disappointing.
The fight and battle scenes in the film are pretty underwhelming too…repetitious and often-times not very imaginative. Even the big bad Kalisk doesn’t seem so big and bad once we get a look at it…except it possesses one trait which is like a cheat code in a video game.
The best part of the film is without question Elle Fanning’s Thia. Thia, who is a humanoid robot on a fact-finding mission for Weyland-Yutani – the same nefarious corporation behind the mayhem in the Alien franchise (and also my current employer), has been stranded, cut in half and left in a vultures nest on Genna.
Dek stumbles upon Thia and she claims she can help him on his hunt, so he saves her. The problem is that she only has an upper torso, and due to this disability Dek must carry her around the planet on his back.
Thia is a motor-mouth and gives a running and rather humorous commentary on everything going on during their odyssey. Why Thia, a robot, is so funny and sarcastic is beyond me…but this one-sided repartee definitely works. Dek on the other hand, like all Yautja, is seemingly incapable and allergic to humor, so the pairing of the witty Thia and the diabolically serious Dek, makes for as fun a rom-com couple as I’ve seen in years.
The story goes from there and while I won’t give any spoilers away, I will say that it has some twists and turns in it that I did not see coming…which is no small accomplishment.
The thing about this movie is that it does have a lot going for it…Elle Fanning’s charms and a clever twist on the formula being the two prime examples, but it never felt to me like it quite put it all together in the very best possible way.
That said, I am glad that Dan Trachtenberg is in charge of the Predator franchise…and to be honest I’m just glad somebody is in charge of the franchise.
For all of Trachtenberg’s faults – like his reliance on tired woke tropes to spice up storytelling, he at least gives a rat’s ass about the franchise. He is trying stuff…and that is better than the vast majority of franchise entertainment nowadays.
I feel the same way about Trachtenberg’s Predator franchise that I do about the current state of the Alien franchise – namely that they are poised to potentially be interesting science-fiction entertainment for the next decade…middle-of-the-road entertainment…but entertainment nonetheless.
The fact that Predator and Alien are two intertwined franchises makes for the possibility of fun and interesting storytelling…especially with the awful Alien vs Predator stuff having already been done and done badly in the past. One can only hope that these franchises…which seem to be at least headed in a decent direction despite having had some really bad movies in their canon, can keep going in the right direction.
As for Predator: Badlands, I think that there are worse ways to spend your time than with the luminous Elle Fanning – even just half of her, and with a Yautja out for blood.
The movie isn’t perfect…in fact, it is mostly just average, but in a world where the vast majority of franchise entertainment, be it superhero stories or narcissistic Mission: Impossible adventures, are bloated big budget messes and misfires, Predator: Badlands is a harmless bit of mindless entertainment – if you enjoy such things in general, and Predator films in particular, you should check it out.
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