Predator: Badlands Review: Drifting Far from the Original Predator Spirit

Predator: Badlands has hit theaters, and even the trailers raised concerns within the fan community. A PG-13 rating; a Yautja resembling a barista more than the famous human hunter; plus a clingy Weyland-Yutani android. Did it work out? Oh boy, yes! On screen is a spectacular attraction of special effects and monsters tearing each other apart. But don't celebrate too soon. If you were hoping to see a continuation of the legend, you're expecting too much from Prey director Dan Trachtenberg. Why? We answer in this article!

The action in Predator: Badlands doesn't bother with contrived pretexts for fights — the director immediately throws the viewer into the whirlwind of events, the camera barely keeping up with the characters. The battles are staged furiously, tightly, juicily — every strike, slap, jerk pulsates with energy and adrenaline. Everything gets used: from fists and cold weapons to improvised objects and Gemma's deadly flora, whose biologically aggressive biomes add an element of survival.

The choreography is believable: you feel the inertia, the mass, even the fatigue to some extent. The heroes aren't supermen — they miss, make mistakes, get bruises and lacerations. Sometimes they simply have bad luck. The lightning-fast attacks of the Yautja and local creatures create an excellent visual rhythm, while firearms and explosions add variety to the action.

Two scenes from the battles are particularly memorable. The first is the main character's fight with the local "helicopter boss," staged in the spirit of Dark Souls: the viewer, together with the protagonist, learns the opponent's weaknesses and strengths. The second is the android companion's fight, when the separated legs and torso move in unified rhythm, turning the battle into a strange, tense dance.

The pace is impressive: over 107 minutes of runtime, you won't be given a chance to rest or get bored. And when in the final third the director releases the brakes and gives the viewer 20 minutes of non-stop brawling — at that moment you realize: the ticket paid for itself before the credits. The 3D implementation in IMAX is top-notch. The effect isn't flashy, but creates sustained immersion. The volume isn't used for cheap lunges into the audience during fights, but to form depth of frame with almost physically tangible space, strikes, and movements. The graphics are flawless: creatures are detailed, environments look organic, CG doesn't sag even in the most packed episodes.

Alongside the dynamic battles, the visual component is another strong point of the film. The CGI team under the director's leadership created a mesmerizing world: perhaps not at the level of Avatar (2010), but definitely better quality than most blockbusters of recent years.

The landscapes of planet Gemma, shot in New Zealand, are a rare fusion of real nature and aggressive digital forms that evoke both awe and anxiety simultaneously. Bizarre rocks neighbor tropical thickets and patches of temperate forests. Among giant trees and deep rivers under a sky streaked with crimson veins, nature isn't just a backdrop — it's also an opponent, ready at any moment to rise up against uninvited guests.

Ordinary grass here cuts like a razor; bushes release paralyzing thorns; vines and roots move as if alive, seeking out prey. The fauna doesn't lag behind — a mixture of Earth animals and nightmares. Pterodactyls and dragons soar above the canopy, enormous one-eyed squids hide in the trees, and armored ungulates roam the plains. A curious moment — during the screening, in one of the scenes, a... barnacle escaped from Half-Life was spotted?

Despite the abundance of action, cinematographer Jeff Cutter ensured clean footage without shaking and clear editing. He also achieved a genuine effect of presence — the viewer seems to walk alongside the heroes, traversing their entire path from tight gorges to Gemma's damp jungles. In the transitions across steppes and hills, echoes of Fellowship of the Ring can be heard: it seems the director and cinematographer couldn't resist a slight bow to New Zealand and its epic.

The sound environment is excellently detailed: from the crunch of broken branches under the heroes' feet and the booming punches in hand-to-hand combat, to the whistle of flying spines and the roar of alien creatures. In IMAX, an effect of complete presence is created: as if you're pushing through the jungle yourself and feeling the vibrations from the impacts.

If everything listed has impressed you — go ahead to the cinema. But... I hope you suspect that "simple and good" never happens with Predator?

In 1987, Arnold Schwarzenegger embodied the archetype of the perfect action hero — physical strength, predatory gaze, and absolute confidence turned his Dutch into a dangerous and captivating figure. By the mid-2020s, this image became a cultural anachronism: the trend now is for sensitive, empathetic men raised on critiques of "toxic masculinity." Today, Hollywood simply cannot make a film about a "hunter-man" without risking accusations of promoting violence.

Well, you might say, but this film is about a Yautja, surely "the agenda" doesn't apply to aliens?! Alas, males don't dominate even among monsters in this world. As in Prey, Trachtenberg again bets on female characters — now this looks not like a fresh move, but like a deliberate formula. The android Thia acts as mentor and guiding force; antagonist Tessa is a corporate analog of Ripley, right down to the final battle in a loader robot from Aliens. Both are independent, decisive, physically superior to their surroundings. Dek is a student, a follower, vulnerable. His role is reduced to absorbing the lessons patiently taught to him.

Thus, the franchise that once embodied primal power and fear is forced to adapt to an era where traditional masculinity is taboo and an R rating is commercial suicide. Trachtenberg accepted the rules of the new era and bent the franchise: not to shock, but to captivate; not to frighten, but to impress. Admittedly, he has no shortage of creative dexterity. The film watches great in theaters: dynamic and spectacular, but conceptually it has lost its essence — that very primal brutality that made everyone fall in love with Predator in the first place.

The new concept is an "outsider predator" who seeks himself through self-discovery and emotional connections. This Yautja really does sip lavender lattes on coconut milk without sugar — but at least he doesn't traumatize anyone with his image.

Why an outsider? Dek is a failed specimen by Yautja standards. Weaker, slower, shorter — five foot eleven versus the standard eight feet plus. His brother Kai, kind-hearted and noble, tried to protect Dek from inevitable death, but Dek could never defeat him in ritual duels despite years of training. Their father passed judgment: "Throw this genetic reject on the trash heap." Kai disobeyed and saved his brother, paying with his own life.

Heroic? Undoubtedly. But the story has a nuance: Dek is a vain and ambitious upstart. Instead of simply running away, he craves to pass the initiation and take a place in the clan worthy of his ego. And he chooses the most dangerous monster on the Planet of Death — Kalisk. A creature with incredibly fast regeneration, colossal strength, and rudiments of intelligence, which even renowned Yautja warriors couldn't defeat. The level is a Dark Souls boss, not a sparring partner for a loser.

Dek's real level is fights with Weyland-Yutani androids. Lifting an enemy overhead and tearing them apart with bare hands, like a true Yautja, he's incapable of. You know what, forget about classic Yautja entirely — perfect hunters, embodiments of primal strength. Dan offers to look at an "alternative path to greatness" — through cooperation, adaptation, intelligence, and emotional bonds. A beautiful formula, but for some other franchise.

The narrative is built around an alliance between a Yautja named Dek, a damaged android Thia — a Weyland-Yutani researcher who spent two years studying Gemma — and an unknown creature that joined the hapless adventure seekers a bit later. They travel across the planet with the goal of killing Kalisk, but midway through the film the plans change. The story has an emotional core: a monster-protagonist, an outcast fighting for honor and avenging his brother. The film concentrates not on the hunt, but on Dek's internal drama and his relationship with Thia. The goal is not to frighten, but to make you empathize, turning the struggle for survival into an epic about acceptance and redemption.

At some point, Thia gets the idea to form a clan of "outsiders." She patiently explains to Dek the basics of "modern leadership": the strong one isn't who kills the most, but who cares and helps. For the first half of the film, Dek, as befits a "traditional" Yautja, ignores this chatter and acts alone — as a result, he loses the fight to Kalisk and nearly dies. If not for Weyland-Yutani's intervention, everything would have ended there.

But once he absorbs the "progressive behavioral model" — things miraculously start looking up. A cheerful upgrade follows: bone armor, blades from fauna, darts from razor-sharp grass, and an acid-spitting amphibian moray. Then comes a series of battles where each ally contributes to beating up the extras — and practically inevitable victory.

I don't want to moralize, but Badlands suffers from the same rot as most modern Hollywood stories. It's a typical "I'm special and the world must understand me" conflict. Instead of maturing — self-justification, instead of guilt — the pose of offended talent. Dek becomes an outcast not by fate's will, but because of his own vanity and inability to accept defeat.

The logical finale would be acknowledging weakness: "I didn't become a true Yautja, father was right, and I'm a fool who got my brother killed." But the writers substitute repentance with self-satisfaction. The hero returns not changed, but even more embittered, demanding recognition. He brings back the android's head instead of the promised Kalisk — breaking his own oath — and hears from his father: "You shame us with your existence." In a normal film, this would become the culmination of realization, but here it's the opposite: Dek decides he deserves more and begins to take revenge. This is how a false hero is born — not strong and not smart, just offended. How can the viewer empathize with him?

Honestly evaluating the acting in Predator: Badlands is difficult. Essentially, the entire human element is concentrated on one actress, Elle Fanning, who embodied both the heroine Thia and the antagonist Tessa. She did a decent job with both images: both the unexpected ally and the cynical corporate bitch, adding depth through facial expressions and emotional outbursts — which saved the film from a CGI takeover.

The remaining "roles" are pure computer graphics and motion capture. Dek, played by Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi in a motion-capture suit, looked convincing in terms of physics, but his "performance" boiled down to growling and poses — the voice is synthesized, emotions minimal. The monster Kalisk and other fauna are pure animation, without actor contribution.

In the end, Trachtenberg's team deserves praise for integrating actors with CGI: Fanning became an anchor of humanity in alien chaos, and Schuster-Koloamatangi's motion capture added realism to the Yautja. But for a franchise where Schwarzenegger and Danny Glover once shined, this looks like a step backward — too many pixels, too little charisma.

Badlands marks the final break with the cult first film. The franchise where the strongest won now asserts that "the most caring" is also worthy. The attempt to overcome the series' fatigue through genre shift and moral reformation succeeded — but at the cost of losing its identity. For fans — disappointment. For the mass PG-13 audience — popcorn entertainment.