Director Dan Trachtenberg has crafted a legitimate “Predator” film that’s almost a kid-friendly Disney film as well. The joke – stated with some concern – was that “Aliens/Predator” would get Disney-fied when the Mouse House purchased Fox, but those fears haven’t come to fruition through three films and a TV show. “Predator: Badlands” (2025) feels the most Disney without compromising as much as you’d assume.
Though it’s legitimate to question whether all “Predator” films should aim for a PG-13, “Badlands” itself is a remarkable achievement. It touches upon themes of morality, loyalty, decency, brotherhood and makeshift families. It avoids scenes of humans being killed not by dodging violence but rather by having every character be a Yautja (Predator) or synthetic Weyland-Yutani android.
Trachtenberg and co-writer Patrick Aison have gone big-time by going small-scope. Following their Native Americans-vs.-Predator story in the R-rated and slightly superior “Prey” (2022), we take the POV of a Yautja named Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi and seamless CGI), the black sheep of his family.
“Predator: Badlands” (2025)
Director: Dan Trachtenberg
Writers: Patrick Aison (screenplay, story), Dan Trachtenberg (story)
Stars: Elle Fanning, Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi, Ravi Narayan
The world-building is tremendous, but not in the sense that the filmmakers are building a grand mythology or storyline. Only in the sense that the planet Genna is so thoroughly realized that Newt Scamander would be blown away. We see nature is red in tooth and claw through fauna and even flora that can kill Dek and seriously damage his synthetic ally Thia (Elle Fanning, with special effects erasing her lower half). The planet’s food chain, but also friendly parasitic relationships, is fully realized and fascinating.
A dynamic trio
The character work is basic but effective, plucking our heartstrings with three mismatched outcasts. Dek sees Thia as a “tool” he must carry around on his back because she knows where to find the Kalisk, Dek’s monstrous target. Joining them is jungle-smart monkey-ish creature Bud (Rohinal Narayan). Dek is annoyed by his companions but we know he’ll warm up to them, and that predictability is OK with me.
Bud is totally CG, Dek has a CGI face and Thia is partially erased in the computer, but they’re as believable as the simians in the recent “Planet of the Apes” pictures. I can’t point to a moment where anything looks “wrong,” but I have to admit I’d still pick non-CGI Arnold-vs.-Predator fights.
In this beautiful but undeniably tech-assisted landscape, Trachtenberg replaces sweaty tension with inventively cheeky fun, from darkly humorous revelations about the unkillable Kalisk to the unique way Thia gets in some blows against her enemies despite being split into upper and lower halves.
Ironically, “Badlands” is more cartoony in flavor than “Predator: Killer of Killers,” an R-rated animated movie with a dark storyline that Trachtenberg made in the same production window. Maybe everything is so grim in Yautja culture that you have to chuckle to get through it, and the talkative Thia encourages us to do so. She’s a deliberately crafted character, and so is Dek, the Predator with a heart of gold.
I might roll my eyes at all of this in theory, but “Badlands’ ” filmmaking is too gorgeously slick for me to protest. Trachtenberg pulls neon crayons from his box, but he knows the “Predator”-verse and creatively colors within the lines.