Nerdly » ‘Predator: Badlands’ Review

06th Nov2025

‘Predator: Badlands’ Review

by Matthew Turner

Stars: Elle Fanning, Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi, Rohinal Nayaran, Mike Homik, Reuben De Jong, Cameron Brown | Written by Patrick Aison | Directed by Dan Trachtenberg

Prey director Dan Trachtenberg returns to the Predator franchise with this inspired entry in the series that’s essentially an unlikely buddy movie without a single human being in the cast. By turns thrilling, charming and laugh-out-loud funny, it’s enormously entertaining from beginning to end and the best Predator movie since the first one back in 1987.

Predator: Badlands begins on the home planet of the Gautja (the species name for the Predators), where tribe “weakling” Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) is about to be killed by his stern chieftain father, only for his older brother to be killed instead when he tries to intercede. Desperate to prove himself, Dek jets off to Genna – known as “the death planet” because of its deadly flora and fauna – intending to hunt down and slay a supposedly unkillable beast known as Kallisk, that even his father is afraid of.

Upon landing, Dek is attacked by a multitude of deadly plants and creatures, which is how he ends up accepting help from Thia (Elle Fanning), a legless synth robot made by the Weyland-Yutani Corporation (from the Alien movies). Equipped with a handy universal translator, Thia offers to help Dek hunt and kill the Kalisk, if he will help her get her legs back. Thia is also keen to reunite with her synth sister Tessa (also Fanning), but Tessa has orders from Weyland-Yutani that put the trio on a deadly collision course.

The key trick Trachtenberg pulls here is to make the Predator the likeable protagonist, rather than the deadly antagonist they have mostly been in the previous movies (with the exception of 2004’s Alien vs Predator). It’s a testament to Patrick Aison’s excellent screenplay that Dek is already a sympathetic character even before Elle Fanning’s character shows up, largely thanks to the traumatic family that unfolds in the opening scenes.

However, it’s Elle Fanning’s twin performances as Thia and Tessa that make this movie such an unmitigated joy, and that’s not something you can really say about any other Predator movie. As Thia, she is utterly delightful – warm, funny, charming, resourceful, inquisitive and relentlessly chatty, while also getting to play the polar opposite as Tessa, who is cold, calculating, ruthless, deadly and ultimately the movie’s real Predator.

Trachtenberg’s direction is consistently impressive throughout – in particular, he orchestrates some thrilling action scenes, including a stand-out sequence involving Thia’s disembodied legs that’s both inventive and laugh-out-loud funny. In addition, the world-building is imaginative, and one of the enjoyable aspects of the screenplay is the way in which Dek adapts to his surroundings, using the deadly flora and fauna to his advantage.

Indeed, Predator: Badlands is so good that it even gets away with introducing an entirely CGI alien sidekick character (nicknamed Bud), that could easily have derailed the whole thing, Jar-Jar Binks-style. As it is, that character ends up endearing itself to both the characters and the audience in surprising fashion, another one of the screenplay’s many pleasures.

In short, Predator: Badlands is a thoroughly enjoyable sci-fi thriller that breathes new life into the Predator franchise, not least by introducing welcome notes of warmth and humour. As for Elle Fanning, she’s so utterly fabulous here that you start wondering why they don’t just put her in ALL the franchises.