PREDATOR BADLANDS by Dan Trachtenberg: the film review

Nom : Predator Badlands
Father : Then Trachtenberg
Date of birth : 05 November 2025
Type : theatrical release
Nationality : USA
Size : 1h47 / Weight : 105 M$
Genre : Fantasy, SF, Action

Family Booklet: Elle Fanning, Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi, Stefan Grube…

Special signs: So original that it’s more Predator…

Synopsis : In the future on a distant planet, a young Predator, excluded from his clan, finds an unlikely ally in Thia and undertakes a journey into hostile territory, in search of the ultimate adversary.

PREDA-TASTING THE MYTH

OUR OPINION ON PREDATOR BADLANDS

Say, what if we left Predator alone for a bit? Like just a little, not for long… Right? Well Ok too bad, we’ll have tried. Here we go again, the most famous rasta in space is back in action for the fourth time in seven years. There was the disastrous The Predator by Shane Black in 2018 then the Dan Trachtenberg era with Prey in 2022, the animated Killer of the Killers in 2024 and now this Predator Badlands which takes the point of view… of a Predator. An original bias to say the least which reverses the usual scale of value and attempts to develop the mythology of the Yautja by making the Predator no longer the antagonist to fear but the hero to love. For now, we cannot blame the producers and Disney for lacking courage, because we have here a hell of a turnaround in the scenario.

Rather than reproducing the eternal formula of the extraterrestrial creature which stalks and zigzags a new group of humans, Badlands follows Dek, a young Predator rejected by his clan because he is considered too weak. To prove his worth, he decides to go hunting for the ultimate adversary and lands on a hostile planet populated by dangerous creatures. Along the way, Dek will find an unlikely ally in Thia, an android on a space exploration mission for Weyland-Yutani. Yes, yes, you read correctly, the Weyland-Yutani of the saga… Alien. You don’t have to be Einstein to guess clearly enough where the franchise is heading in the short term. Predator…

Boldness is good, but it doesn’t necessarily make a good film. Had to be bold to adapt DragonBall in the cinema, it doesn’t mean thatEvolution is not a purge (yeah the tackle is free). This Badlands wanted to propose something else, we will give him the merit. The trouble is that by wanting to be new and original, he also runs the risk of being accused of high treason. The most serious crime. Humanize it Predator it is already withdrawn to Predator everything that did Predator. In the past, just his name was a source of anxiety. Today, the franchise has left the lands of terrifying horror to embrace those of fantastic… and comic action adventure. Summary, with its dinosaurs lurking in the Vietnamese jungle and tracking down Marines on mission, the recent Primitive War already makes Predator more than Predator itself. We already had to swallow the funny buddy movie aspect between a combative alien and an ultra-talkative robot and the rubber masks that look like bad cosplay straight out of a comic con shop (the mouth like a Quechua tent, we couldn’t get over it)… And because we are no longer heresy away, leave behind the simplicity of playful and bloody stalking, and welcome to the kingdom of Disney. With Badlandswe must also stuff ourselves with a concise morality explaining that we cannot achieve anything alone and that it is by combining our forces that we can accomplish the impossible. And as the film brings together two outcasts/fallen people rejected by their loved ones, it is by uniting that they will be able to rebel and overthrow the established order. Damn, but wouldn’t he try to be political?! We walk on our heads.

On paper, Predator Badlands could have avoided the shame. And this, even if in terms of writing, it boils down to imagining creatures on a hostile planet and putting them one by one in the way of our protagonists. And that’s it, nothing else on the menu. We are not very sophisticated but at the same time, Predator was basically a B series whose cult following comes from its simple and formidable effectiveness. This new opus by Dan Trachtenberg could have claimed the same thing. Perhaps if it had been better written, we could have gotten over the feeling of seeing another film than a Predator. So yes, there is an intention, yes it is generous in spectacle and yes Elle Fanning is very good in a dual role of good/bad android. But hey, did we need and especially want this film?