Predator: Badlands
2025 • Science Fiction Action-Thriller
Director: Dan Trachtenberg
Cast: Elle Fanning (as Thia/Tessa) and Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi (as Dek)
🎯 Verdict
"Dan Trachtenberg has been having a field day with these predator projects. Doesn't he? The absolute best and my new favorite Predator movie since the original 1987 one starring Schwarzenegger and Cal Weathers. It's been a long time coming."
✍️ Full Review
A Matt Reeves’s Apes duology makeover of the predator franchise.
Trachtenberg keeps on cooking one banger after another and continues the lore of the Predator beyond humanity while keeping the humanized traits, such as- pride, honor, grit, brotherhood, empathy and humor intact.
After Killer of Killers, one would think that Dan here might be out of fresh ideas and concepts, but he flips the John McTiernan script that started 38 years ago and creates a riveting imaginative world full of natural hurdles beyond ordinary anthropic comprehension while designing cinematic action sequences amplified with intense heart-pounding music composed by Sarah Schachner and Benjamin Wallfisch.
Badlands keeps the franchise’s core conception unmarred by building up a new game arena that rewards its survivor who dominates the excitingly fresh treacherous land but with a new-found grammar over the outdated misconstrued theory of alpha in the pack.
The latest iteration of this standalone sets the stage for possible sequels resembles the vibes of a Hideo Kojima game sheds its cookie-cutter battle royale mechanics and has instead embraced an electrifying campaign mode led by a venturous but unlikely protagonist who usually gets relegated to the abominable side.
I hope the new director’s moxie doesn’t subside with his upcoming projects and he continues to churn out new variations of screenplays equipped with our favorite trophy hunter written by Patrick Aison.