Predator Badlands Spoiler Free Review

Predator Badlands

Genre: Action/adventure

Director: Dan Trachtenberg

Released 2025




     Predator Badlands is not a bad movie, but it's almost certainly not the movie you're expecting. Tension, horror, and a protracted contest between hunter and hunted have all been either stripped out or drastically scaled back to make way for a movie that is aimed less at the franchise faithful and more at the general audience of young, Marvel-reared filmgoers in search of the next big thing. Now, I don't mean to be dismissive; franchises are gonna franchise, and a new twist on an old formula is something I welcome in principle. In practice, however, it all comes down to the execution, and while there is plenty to enjoy about Badlands, its worst aspects are undoubtedly all the gloss, gleam, and irreverent humor grafted onto the film to broaden its appeal. 

     Badlands starts out incredibly strong. There's a simple but effective setup, a clear motivation for our Yautja protagonist, and a fan-freaking-tastic soundtrack. Dek, a young and unusually scrawny Predator, is sympathetic and believably cool, and I was getting pretty excited at the prospect of watching him fight and struggle in a hostile alien world to kill his reputedly unkillable quarry. 

     I should say that what's good about these first fifteen minutes remains good throughout the entire movie. Dek is cool, the action is slick and fun, and seriously folks, this music is electric. The problem for me, and what will likely decide the fate of the movie for you, is how much extra stuff the movie throws in. First up is Thia, a Weyland-Utani synthetic who, and this is not me trying to be sarcastic, is just a Marvel character. She abounds in quippy, ironic humor dispensed frequently and liberally, and while it's not deployed as thoughtlessly as in later Marvel installments, I still found her to be a puzzling addition. 

     Because this story works. This character works. This setting works. The whole thing works, so why complicate it by adding a straight man-funny man dynamic for Dek and Thia? She's not awful as a character, but she doesn't really add anything to the movie for me. Time that could have been spent building out Dek's character and motivations has to be dedicated to hers, meaning that the movie splits its focus. That's not a problem in and of itself, lots of movies have two or more characters who end up being fully fleshed out and compelling, the difference is that A. this movie strikes a poor balance, and B. Dek, being a Yautja, is obviously more interesting than what is, for all intents and purposes, just another human. 

     Things only escalate from there. We get a cute animal sidekick whose inclusion I did not appreciate, worldbuilding for the shared Alien-Predator universe, and a deeper understanding of Dek's target, and each time I asked the same question to myself: why? Why do we need Alien lore bait? Why do we need another funny man for our straight man? Why do we need to empathize with the Predator's prey? Again, none of this is terrible (aside from the cute animal sidekick), but it's not great either. It is, like so many Marvel products, usually fine, sometimes pretty good, and sometimes aggravating.

     The real frustration is that there is an exceptional movie at the core of a pretty good one. You see it when all the clutter and noise fall away and the movie hones in on the Predator doing Predator things. At those times, as in the movie's setup, I was hooked. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, it was thought that a whole movie of that wouldn't be enough. I would have to disagree. 




C+