Predator: Badlands (2025)

PG-13, which is wild because I never thought that I would see the day that the Predator franchise would go PG-13.  I mean, I mostly agree with that breakdown.  Yes, the movie is incredibly violent.  At times, it could be read as "gory."  But while this feels authentically set in the Predator universe, the movie doesn't linger on that gore.  It happens more in the Paul Greengrass way.  The violent thing happens and then the camera immediately pans to the next action.  But, yeah, the movie is still pretty darned violent.

DIRECTOR:  Dan Trachtenberg

I never thought that I would be seeing a movie like Predator: Badlands.  Honestly, just give Dan Trachtenberg whatever he wants when it comes to Predator movies (which I'm sure they are doing.)  They took a franchise that I didn't give a crap about and now have me waiting for the next movie.  And the absolute insane thing about these movies is that they are all fundamentally different films all set in the Predator universe.  

The lesson that all franchises should learn from Dan Trachtenberg is that there's a way to honor a franchise without being shackled by it.  Out of all of the big sci-fi franchises, I never thought that Predator would be the franchise to get it.  Predator, as a concept, is restrictive as heck.  It's why we don't have too many Klingon properties.  The Yautja (and thank you for making them have an actual race that is canonical) are limited by character arcs.  When one of the few things that we knew about these creatures, based on Predator 2, is that they are an entire warrior race that hunts almost exclusively, where is the story?  Apparently, Dan Trachtenberg knows.  Now, like with the early entries, he mostly sticks to people interacting mostly with the Yautja's target.  I mean, it makes sense, given the long history of sci-fi horror coupled with the fact that it is hard to make your protagonist an avatar for the audience if the audience...um...doesn't hunt people?

But somehow he did it.  Now, I know some people would probably read the follow thing with the wrong intention, but I can't help but view Predator: Badlands almost as the Star Trek: Prodigy of the franchise.  Again, with how violent this franchise tends to be, it's mind-boggling that there's a PG-13 entry to the series.  For me, that is the equivalent of at TV-PG entry for a series.  It's not like Badlands is childish.  I don't think that would be fair at all.  It's just less horror-heavy.  I can imagine, especially for some die-hard Predator fans, that it might be a dealbreaker to have a Predator movie cut back on the horror elements and play up the action elements.  But I gotta tell you, it's the only way that a franchise can survive.

I honestly think that the Predator franchise might be one of those life-support franchises.  Despite the fact that Dan Trachtenberg keeps turnining in banger-after-banger when it comes to these movies, it's not like the general public talks about Predator that much.  Even with the Wayland-Yutani stuff littered throughout Badlands, it really does seem like Alien has more prevalent role in the cultural zeitgeist.  Even that seems strained, given so many weak entries in the series.  (Not Alien: Romulus, though.  That movie slaps.) The only way that we're still making Predator movies in 20 years is to make movies like this.  This is an accessible entry to the series that is just a fun watch.  Yeah, it's comic at times.  I don't deny that.  I like that.  (Okay, I didn't love how cheeky the movie got.  Some of the humor fell flat.)  But that's how franchises survive.  They don't feel shackled to previous movies and that's what makes Badlands a nice add-on.

It almost feels like kismet that I watched Good Boy right before this.  Both are stories that take a traditional way of telling a scary story and change how the film is approached when we shift perspectives of our protagonists.  Dek, as a Yautja, should be a hard sell.  I mentioned the Klingon thing already.  But with Dek, he's got to make the protagonist someone that we can at least pretend to get behind.  By any litmus test, we have to see that the goal that Dek has is both simultaneously insignificant while somehow being life-or-death.  Ultimately, this is a story about high-risk, low-reward based on what the protagonist needs to accomplish.  Dek doesn't need to get the Kalisk, at least from a human point of view.  From our point of view, it actually makes sense that Dek never return home considering that he is the runt of the Yautja clan.  Really, from a human perspective, Dek actually avoids the consequence that we'd all be fearing: death.  When Dek's brother saves him and ships him off in a spaceship, technically Dek can go anywhere.  And, yeah, Dek does have an arc.  He goes from being a solo predator to being a predator with family.  Sure, it's a story about found family and that's weirdly adorable for a Predator film.  But the real message --again, from a human perspective -- should be about how we don't have to feel locked into our family's cultural values.

Like, I kind of love that?  Don't get me wrong.  I'm absolutely on board shedding cultural expectations for the sake of following one's own calling.  But in a movie like Predator?  Predator films traditionally only have the message, "Embrace violence, but not with weapons."  There's something incredibly cheeky about the notion that a Predator movie has a message, but intentionally pulls the leash back on it to avoid getting saccharine.  Yes, the found family stuff is great and for people who don't watch it with a sense of irony (normally something I encourage!) there is enough heart in the movie in the dynamic between Thia and Dek that even a first time viewer of the Predator franchise could appreciate something, even if they don't watch any of the other entries.  Sure, we also have themes of The Little Engine that Could, but that is way more secondary to the fact that we now have a Yautja talking and conversing with other characters with emotional needs.  Many would scoff at this, but I think it works overall.

It's not a perfect film. The funny thing, I have having this debate with Henson and he said it's his fourth favorite Predator film.  I initially got really annoyed by that, but then realized that's more of a compliment than I realized it was.  Three of those films were Dan Trachtenberg movies.  Like, yeah, it's Trachtenberg's weakest entry and it's still pretty darned good.  It's weird that we're all becoming Predator fans again.  I'm sure the '80s Die Hards will be angry that I'm saying it.  But I'm also an "All Trek is good Trek" guy.  Just because something is new doesn't mean it's bad.  Dan Trachtenberg has made some of the most compelling Predator stuff to a point where I'm actually excited to see what the franchise offers next.  Yeah, it's not the same as the other ones, but that's a good thing!