Predator: Badlands (2025)
Directed by: Dan Trachtenberg
Premise: A young alien hunter (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) travels to a dangerous planet to prove himself by killing a deadly beast. He encounters a human android (Elle Fanning) who is researching the planet on behalf of an unscrupulous corporation.
What Works: For fans who have followed the Predator series from the 1987 original and through the many sequels and spinoffs, Badlands represents a pivot for the series. Starting with Predator 2, the films gradually doled out hints about the culture of the titular alien species, now referred to as the Yautja. Badlands puts the Yautja at the center of the story. The protagonist, named Dek, goes on a hunt to prove himself. Dek’s story complements what we’ve seen so far while moving the series forward. We get a fuller sense of the Yautja culture but also a critique of it. Dek is a social outcast which makes him an underdog but Dek’s journey forces him to question his own values. The filmmakers do a great job characterizing everyone. Dek is a fully realized character. The physical performance of actor Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi and the contributions by the effects team give Dek a personality and an internal life. He’s paired with an android named Thia and Elle Fanning adds a lot of personality and humor to the film. Thia has her own disillusionment and Thia and Dek’s stories are intertwined. This is an impressively unified story with great fictional economy. Virtually everything that is set up pays off later. Badlands is an adventure story and the action set pieces are very exciting while also advancing character and plot. The characters’ fortunes keep ebbing and flowing with unexpected results that create new challenges to overcome.
What Doesn’t: In making the Predator the protagonist, the filmmakers also make the character more human. We can see this in the design of Dek’s face which is much more human than the creatures of other Predator movies and in the voice which sounds like a human dialect instead of the clicks and growls heard the earlier films. The characterization is also much more human. By pairing Dek with Thia and with another creature named Bud (Ravi Narayan), Badlands relies on the story formula of an assassin paired with a child as seen in Leon: The Professional and The Mandalorian. While the filmmakers make Dek an accessible hero, they take an easy route that dulls the edge of the material. The visual effects of Badlands vary. Many of the images are convincing but once in a while the creatures look too digital.
Bottom Line: Predator: Badlands is one of the better entries in this franchise. The filmmakers opt to be mainstream and commercial instead of creating something more challenging but Badlands is an exciting adventure story that’s well told and expands the Predator franchise.
Episode: #1074 (November 16, 2025)