Dan Trachtenberg continues to solidify his vision for the Predator franchise with a superb follow-up to 2022’s Prey.
Predator: Badlands
Starring Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi, Ellen Fanning
Directed by Dan Trachtenberg
Runtime: 1 hour, 47 minutes
Synopsis
Exiled from his clan as a runt, young predator Dek (Schuster-Koloamatangi) heads to the planet Genna to conduct his first hunt and earn his clan’s cloak. Just as he arrives, Dek has his hands full with the deadly, local wildlife and the Weyland-Yutani corporation, who also desire Dek’s chosen creature: the Kalisk, a regenerating beast that has killed every predator it’s come across.
Predator Family Values
What if your alien dad was a terrible role model?
I never thought I would type that description for a Predator movie, but it honestly fits. Dek, the runt of his clan, has earned his father’s disdain, and we quickly see him attempt to kill Dek and cull his clan of perceived weakness. I never expected the Yautja (in-universe species designation for the Predator) to be exactly kind to one another, but this type of callousness was rough even for them.
It also helps explain why a young predator would pick such a dangerous mission for their first hunt: Dek has to swing big or else he’ll have nothing but death to look forward to when he returns home. Badlands wisely uses this throughout the movie, as Dek reflects on his brother, who defended his right to live and do his first hunt, a belief he carried to his death. It also creates a great dynamic between Dek and other characters he meets on Genna, like Thia (Fanning), who doesn’t have that same allegiance and can’t fathom why he would continue to serve a code / clan that doesn’t respect him. Dek starts off rigidly obedient to the tenets of his clan, similar to Din Djarin in The Mandalorian (2019-) series, but eventually finds that on such a dangerous planet, rigidity in method and values will get him killed.
Credit: 20th Century Studios
Dek’s character arc isn’t revolutionary for a sci-fi action flick, especially when it comes to tribal warrior societies in media, but it works extremely well for an independent Predator experience. Here, Trachtenberg’s creative vision shines by realizing that the previous lore is a loose guide, not a hard rule to stifle his creativity. Sure, he has a healthy respect for series’ staples / conventions, and the scripts for Prey and Badlands reflect that. But he’s not so beholden to them that he can’t have a character end up in a completely new space, as Dek does by the film’s conclusion.
Similar to Prey, Trachtenberg and co-writer Patrick Aison do a great job setting up dominoes in the first half of the film, making sure they fall in the second half. We see Dek learn the hard way how to combat different creatures and environments because he’s quite a stubborn character. Later, once he embraces being more flexible in his hunting, his experiences aid him in making better choices to exploit the planet’s conditions and creatures to his benefit. Sure, this type of structure should be screenwriting 101, but it’s often lacking in so many projects that seeing it done well should be celebrated.
Fanning Duel
Elle Fanning’s supposedly “secret” double role in this film was neither a secret nor that unpredictable. If you play one synthetic character in an Alien / Predator movie, there’s a high likelihood you’ll be playing a second one, either in the same film or later in the franchise (look at characters Bishop and David8 as the biggest culprits).
Credit: 20 Century Studios
Fanning plays two android sisters, Thia and Tessa, charged by Weyland-Yutani to secure the Kalisk specimen for their research. Thia displays more emotions than we’ve come to expect for typical androids which is a complicated dynamic, in and out of universe. In-universe, we don’t learn until later that Thia and Tessa were given more emotions to better relate to the planet’s creatures. However, this means Thia (who we spend the most time with) comes across less robotic than even recent androids in Alien: Romulus (2024) or Alien: Earth (2025-), and it comes off a bit weird.
Out-of-universe, having a woman be the more empathetic, emotional character leans into lazy, gendered movie tropes that will likely make more than a few audience members roll their eyes. Don’t get me wrong, Badlands uses Fanning extremely well in this role (her “detached” fight scene near the end stands out) and makes it harder to imagine a typically cold android achieving the same level of teamwork with the fiery Dek. And having a woman being empathetic in any movie isn’t inherently problematic, but given the sci-fi genre’s repeated problem with this issue, it’s not surprising that this was the direction chosen for her, an all-too-familiar choice many times.
The Beauty of Genna
Back in 2022, when Trachtenberg was crafting Prey, we were treated to the amazing landscapes of Alberta, Canada, where the majority of the movie was set. As Amber Midthunder’s Naru attempts to escape and later kill the predator, we are swept away to various waterfalls, long shots of the Northern Great Plains, various mountain ridges, and more. All of these location shots help the movie feel more grounded despite the sci-fi elements and tropes the series is known for.
Credit: 20th Century Studios
What’s surprising about Badlands, despite it being on an alien planet and featuring a wild gamut of creatures, is that a similar grounding effect happens here. The CGI artists and location scouts responsible should take a bow for creating something memorable. Yes, we know we’re looking at something fake, but it certainly feels more inhabitable than plenty of poorly executed CGI worlds we’ve seen the past few years. In a moment when the CGI industry is fractured and AI is poised to cut off these artists, it’s refreshing to see an example of competent, well-designed sequences and locations.
Conclusion / Recommendation
Dan Trachtenberg is cementing himself as the singular voice of Predator, and for good reason. He’s leaned into what made the original Predator great: a solid, action movie with some sci-fi elements while carefully laying out his own mythology to great effect. There’s nothing mind-blowing in Badlands, but that’s also okay; sometimes focusing on great execution and an enjoyable story is better than swinging for an unnecessary twist or overcomplex universe.
You’ll be kicking yourself for watching this at home, there’s plenty of great setpieces and action scenes, particularly in the film’s latter half, that are deserving of the biggest screen possible. As of writing, I was not able to watch this in IMAX due to my double screening with Prey, but my normal widescreen experience was more than satisfactory.
Score: 8.3 out of 10
- Dek’s Wild Ride- 8
- Badlands clocks in just under 2 hours, it’s lean and doesn’t overstay its welcome, and it’s genuinely the best fun you’ll have this November.
- Synthetic Relation- 8
- Badlands takes some steps forward exploring Tessa / Thia’s unique android version and Dek’s weaknesses as a Predator, their budding friendship, but some of it ultimately falls a bit flat.
- Fresh New World- 8
- It’s not as visually immersive as, say, James Cameron’s Avatar franchise, but the film’s effort to create a unique world doesn’t go unnoticed
- If It Bleeds Like a Yautja- 9
- While it’s not original enough to knock down Predator (1987), it’s easily unique and well-made enough to contend with Prey (2022) or Predators (2010) for the number two spot.
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