‘Predator: Badlands’ Review: A Savage Ballet of Beasts and Machines

There’s something oddly poetic about movies that consist, at their core, of a long string of battles. At first, the relentlessness can feel excessive—even exhausting—but as the minutes go by, the tedium starts to fade, and one begins to feel as if watching some sort of bloody experimental ballet, a symphony of movement, color, sound, and yes, fighting. It becomes a kind of hallucinogenic trip, one you fall into, get lost in, and occasionally resurface from.

That strange, occasionally inspired boredom is what Predator: Badlands produced in me—a new expansion of the Predator universe that plays out as a collection of physical showdowns between creatures of various origins (animal, synthetic, mechanical—take your pick) staged in a series of misty landscapes that look less like any recognizable reality and more like some bizarro Renaissance painting conjured by artificial intelligence.

Amid all those dusty, chaotic battles—imagine Mad Max fused with a kaiju movie set on some indecipherable planet—there’s a loose narrative thread that slowly gains weight, bringing a touch of humor and odd charm to the carnage. The story, in short, follows a young Yautja (the proper name of the species we know as Predators) named Dek (a CGI-disfigured Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi), deemed weak by his father, who watches in horror as the old warrior kills his older brother for protecting him instead of finishing him off, as Yautja tradition demands of the frail.

That grim, biblical opening sets in motion Dek’s own fight for survival, as he’s banished to a mysterious and dangerous planet called Genna. There, he must not only stay alive but also capture a mythical beast known as Kalisk—a creature no Yautja has ever managed to kill. Earning that trophy would prove Dek’s worth. What follows is a series of brutal chases and desperate escapes as he battles killer plants, deadly animals, and other assorted threats while hunting for the elusive monster.

What he finds first is Elle Fanning, who plays Thia, a synthetic android built by the famed Weyland-Yutani Corporation (a deep-cut nod to Alien lore—the same company that crossed paths with the Predator saga in those not-so-successful films, along with dozens of comics, novels, and even video games). Thia has lost her legs and is stranded in a strange no man’s land. Reluctantly, Dek—whose main form of communication is growling through his oversized jaw and enormous teeth—joins forces with her. She claims she can help him locate the beast; he agrees to escort her as she searches for her missing limbs.

And so, the fights, the clashes, and the surprises continue—characters appear (sometimes in pieces), new creatures emerge, expected and unexpected, and the film evolves into a story about those strange surrogate families that form when a disowned monster, a legless cyborg, and a few other unspeakable beings cross paths.

Dan Trachtenberg, who revitalized the franchise with the superb Prey, shifts the scenery completely but keeps his focus on movement and momentum—on action as pure storytelling. Fanning adds charm and humor, while certain supporting characters bring a slightly lighter, almost Mandalorian-like tone. Still, at its heart, Badlands remains a ferocious engine of destruction, leveling outposts, creatures, and the mass-produced creations of the sinister Anglo-Japanese conglomerate that hovers over everything.

Some will be tempted to compare Predator: Badlands to Mad Max: Fury Road, given the vaguely similar aesthetic and the idea of nonstop, forward-driving action. To me, that comparison feels a bit overstated—George Miller’s sense of rhythm, spatial choreography, and visual imagination are on another level—but it’s clearly the touchstone Trachtenberg is chasing. He’s still a filmmaker who believes in the power of images to tell a story. And if he can resist the temptation to crash his action figures together like a kid with new toys, there’s a great filmmaker in the making here.