Publication Date: 11-27-2025

Predator: Badlands (2025) review

Dir. Dan Trachtenberg

By: Steve Pulaski

Rating: ★★½

Dan Trachtenberg has found a way to make Predator a consistent franchise built on a simple foundation that allows for more expressionism and deeper human emotions to translate. His first film, Prey, revolved around a Comanche warrior who couldn’t hunt, but disobeyed her code of conduct to go after the very Predators that hunted humans for sport. His follow-up, Predator: Killer of Killers, also released this year, was an animated flick that saw Trachtenberg successfully transport his vision to an entirely new medium.

Now, Predator: Badlands — fundamentally beholden to the same level of minimalist plot as its predecessors — involves a motley crew of cretins navigating the hostile planet of Genna, led by a youthfully naïve yet determined Yautja hellbent on proving he can kill an apex predator.

Badlands is superior to Prey — a film I found hollow and disjointedly modern despite the setting and tribalism suggesting otherwise — but how come I still didn’t fully enjoy it? I’ve come to accept that Predator movies aren’t my bag, and Badlands still finds itself victim to the same leaden dialog and monotonous combat sequences as every other installment that came before it. That said, Trachtenberg’s films have shown there is mileage to be traversed when distilling down needless mythology to the bare basics of survival, and that at least offers a decently entertaining playground on which memorable events can occur.

The aforementioned Yautja is Dek (24-year-old New Zealand actor Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi in only his second major film role), and Patrick Aison’s script asks us to view him as our protagonist. It helps when an extended prologue shows him seeking approval from his clan-leader, who prefers his brother. They’re just like humans, only with startlingly less compassion and more emphasis on sacrifice, to the point where they even kill the runts of their litter. Sidebar: Dek’s character design reminded me of The Creeper, which made me smile.

A runt in his own right, Dek decides to fast-track his coming-of-age ritual by killing an apparently unkillable monster known as the Kalisk, and take his corpse as a trophy. The planet of Genna is comprised of various things that are meant to kill, including razor-blade grass, exploding trees, and caterpillars that double as grenades. Just when Dek is about to eat his lunch so soon after crash-landing on Genna, he’s saved by chatty android named Thia (Elle Fanning), a disembodied torso whose legs were ripped off, who is seeking her twin sister. Initially skeptical, Dek sees her utility as a tool as opposed to an autonomous person, so he lugs her upper-half like a backpack. Serving as the third leg of their tripod is a native creature known as Bud (Rohinal Narayan), the cutest ugliest thing you’ll see in any movie this year. He spits on Dek and Thia to claim them as his family, a good reminder that this is a Disney production and no opportunity to include a goofy little animal will be missed.

Blessed so, Badlands sidesteps so much of the bloat that makes these science-fiction movies a plethora of incoherent babble. Aison’s slim-and-trim storyline allows for Dek and Thia’s relationship to blossom. Thia subtly teaches Dek the ill-fated nature of his quest by teaching him the ludicrous ways of machismo thinking. Warriors are stronger when they recognize they’re not indestructible, or find others who complete them by doing things they cannot.

It’s a worthy message; one still hampered by Dek’s leaden dialog, thunderously captured through what sounds like Schuster-Koloamatangi speaking through a digeridoo. And while the action feels dimensional, and the effects uniformly sound, it still becomes a muchness in the third act, even if it finds a strong concluding point that validates the efforts of its goofy little trifecta. Predator: Badlands is many people’s movie, and the franchise is in great hands with Trachtenberg. Even I, at times, don’t give a damn what I have to say.

My review of Prey (2022)

Starring: Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi, Elle Fanning, Reuben de Jong, Mike Homik, and Rohinal Narayan. Directed by: Dan Trachtenberg.