Predator: Badlands review – can a PG-13 hunt still feel lethal?
- An exiled young Predator called Dek crash-lands on the death planet Genna and decides the best way to impress his dad is to fight the deadliest thing there.
- He teams up with Thia, a damaged Weyland-Yutani android played by Elle Fanning, because nothing says “healthy life choices” like befriending a corporate murder robot.
- The film swaps jungles for toxic deserts, neon storms and a regenerative apex beast called the Kalisk, turning the hunt into a brutal sci-fi survival quest.
- Weta’s effects team go wild with cloaking, sand and alien wildlife while the PG-13 rating leans on green and acid blood instead of the usual red spray.
- Underneath the carnage there’s awards chatter for Fanning, a genuinely introspective look at Predator culture and a finale that quietly begs for a sequel.
From cult franchise to last month’s surprise sci-fi hit
Box office bite from a long-running hunter
Predator: Badlands crept into UK cinemas at the very end of October and launched wide in the US on 7 November, looking at first like another niche franchise entry. A few weekends later, it had quietly hauled in around $174 million worldwide against a reported $105 million budget, making it the highest-grossing Predator film to date.
In a month dominated by Zootopia 2 and Wicked: For Good, Badlands settled into that sweet spot of “not the loudest film in the room, but definitely holding its own”. For a series that has veered between cult classic and chaotic mess over the years, this outing plays like a course correction with actual long-term ambitions.
A very different kind of Predator movie
Instead of dropping another alien into modern Earth with helpless soldiers, Badlands heads fully off-world. The action unfolds entirely on Genna, a hostile planet that looks like Dune’s angry cousin and has absolutely no interest in supporting life, let alone honourable duelling.
There are no human characters at all, which is a first for the mainline franchise. That puts the spotlight entirely on Dek and Thia, forcing the film to make a Predator and an android emotionally engaging rather than just cool silhouettes on a poster.
Story without ruining the hunt
Exiled Dek, the Kalisk and the planet that wants everyone dead
Dek starts the film as a runt from an exiled Yautja clan, desperate for approval from his father, clan leader Njohrr. He vows to travel to Genna and kill the Kalisk, a supposedly unkillable apex predator that has turned the planet into a training ground only lunatics and executives would love.
Things go badly quickly, because of course they do. Dek is shipped off against his will, crash-lands, loses most of his fancy gear and discovers Genna is full of wildlife that regards him as a mobile snack rather than a noble warrior.
Android allies, corporate science and a baby monster called Bud
Enter Thia, a Weyland-Yutani synthetic who has survived a failed corporate mission to capture the Kalisk and is now literally in pieces. She strikes a deal with Dek: she helps him track the beast, he helps her complete her mission and maybe find her twin unit Tessa, who is almost certainly up to no good.
Along the way they pick up Bud, a deceptively cute native creature who turns out to have a very intimate connection to the big monster everyone wants to kill. That relationship becomes the film’s moral centre and one of the key places where it nudges viewers to ask who the real “predators” actually are.
Themes of honour, family and who deserves to live
Without diving into full spoiler territory, the film gradually dismantles Dek’s simple idea of the hunt. The Kalisk is not just a mindless boss fight; Weyland-Yutani’s motives are not remotely noble; and the clan’s idea of honour looks more like abuse with better armour.
Badlands keeps the plot readable even if you have never seen a Predator film, but layers in enough lore about exiled clans, trophies and ritual combat to reward long-time fans. The end result feels less like “big alien kills things” and more like a coming-of-age story wearing a very sharp set of mandibles.
Performances: heart under the bio-armour
Elle Fanning’s Thia and Tessa – awards buzz in a genre shell
Elle Fanning pulls double duty as Thia and her colder twin Tessa, and she is a major reason Badlands is being taken seriously beyond the genre crowd. As Thia, she plays glitchy empathy and emerging free will with small, precise choices that make the character feel haunted rather than just quirky.
As Tessa, she leans into the unnerving calm of a corporate enforcer, turning casual cruelty into something quietly chilling. The contrast between the two synthetics fuels much of the film’s emotional punch and has already put Fanning into early awards chatter for genre-friendly critic lists and, if the universe is feeling generous, a supporting nod somewhere more mainstream.
Dek, Njohrr and a clan that needs therapy
Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi has the unenviable job of making a masked alien teenager relatable, and he largely succeeds. Through body language, vocal performance and the occasional unmasked moment, he sells Dek’s mixture of swagger, insecurity and furious loyalty.
Njohrr, meanwhile, is the sort of father who treats attempted filicide as a character-building exercise. Their dynamic gives the film a Shakespearean streak, right down to a final confrontation that plays like a blood feud filtered through space opera and a very angry pet.
Any Oscar potential beyond the acting?
Realistically, Predator: Badlands will be fighting in the technical trenches rather than Best Picture line-ups, but that is not a bad place to be. The creature design for the Kalisk, the intricate soundscape on Genna and the blend of practical and digital work make it a genuine contender for visual effects and sound consideration.
The score, a collaboration between Sarah Schachner and Benjamin Wallfisch, mixes tribal percussion, synth and mournful brass in a way that feels surprisingly elegant for a film that also features heads being bitten off. It may not be the sort of music branch favourite that sweeps ballots, but it adds real atmosphere and could sneak into discussions if the film’s momentum holds.
Special effects and action: sand, cloaks and savage ballet
Genna as a living, hostile stage
Visually, Badlands is a significant step up for the series. Genna is rendered as a massive, hostile ecosystem of sandstorms, bioluminescent swamps and jagged rock formations that always look one bad decision away from killing someone.
Weta FX lean into the iconic Predator cloaking tech by tying it to the environment, using dust, oil and sand to reveal shifting outlines. It gives the action a pleasingly tactile feel, like the planet itself is constantly trying to snitch on whoever is hiding where they shouldn’t.
The Kalisk, Weyland-Yutani toys and that final fight
The Kalisk is a standout creature design, somewhere between a dragon, a deep-sea nightmare and a tank that grew its own armour. Its regenerative ability is visualised in a way that is both grotesque and weirdly beautiful, especially in close-quarters encounters where limbs grow back mid-strike.
The climactic sequence, reworked late in production, turns into a full-on sandstorm ballet of silhouettes, cloaks and flares as Dek faces his father and the legacy he represents. It is stylish without being incoherent, and it finally gives the franchise a finale that looks as big as the posters always promised.
The PG-13 question: too soft or cleverly vicious?
Fans were understandably wary when Badlands became the first mainline Predator film to carry a PG-13 rating. The good news is that the restriction rarely feels like a creative muzzle so much as a shift in emphasis away from red meat and towards style, tension and beautifully splattered neon liquids.
There is still plenty of violence, but most of the nastiest moments happen to aliens with green or acid blood rather than humans, ducking the strictest ratings rules. If you watch Predator for entrails and only entrails, this will feel tame, but if you care more about choreography and dread, you may not miss the extra viscera as much as you expect.
Who Predator: Badlands is actually for
Franchise veterans and curious newcomers
Long-time Predator fans should find enough familiar DNA here to feel at home: honour codes, trophy culture, cloaked showdowns and corporate humans being the real villains for once. At the same time, the focus on Yautja society and android free will makes this feel fresher than yet another special forces unit getting annihilated in a forest.
Newcomers can comfortably start here, because the plot is self-contained and the emotional arc is simple enough to follow. You may miss a few nods and easter eggs, but the basic story of an outcast trying to redefine what strength looks like is clear and effective on its own.
Age range and tolerance levels
The 12A/PG-13 approach makes Badlands a plausible choice for older teens who like sci-fi but are not ready for full horror nastiness. The film is intense, with some frightening imagery and emotional cruelty, but it stops short of the kind of graphic detail that lingers in your brain for weeks.
Adults who enjoy genre cinema will find a nice balance of pulp and thoughtfulness, with enough humour to puncture the gloom. Hardcore gore-hounds may grumble about the rating, but most will grudgingly admit the action still hits hard, even if it stains the sand green instead of red.
Verdict: is Predator: Badlands worth your ticket?
Final thoughts on a leaner, meaner hunt
Predator: Badlands manages something impressive for a seventh entry in a franchise that has seen more reboots than most laptops. It keeps the core appeal of the Predator mythos intact while reframing it as a character-driven survival story about outcasts, found family and refusing to play the game the way your parents did.
The film is not perfect; some character beats are a touch on-the-nose and the pacing dips briefly in the middle while everyone pauses to argue about ethics in a murder desert. Yet when it works, it really works, delivering muscular action, striking visuals and genuine emotion in a package that still feels like a proper Predator film.
If last month you wanted something louder and weirder than awards-season dramas but smarter than a mindless splatterfest, Badlands was a strong choice. For anyone who has ever looked at the franchise and thought “what if the hunter had a heart and a therapist?”, this is the closest you are likely to get for now.