Predator: Badlands (dir. Dan Trachtenberg)

By: Adam Freed

How many times can Dan Trachtenberg go to the Predator well before the writer / director finds it has run dry?  After the stunning success of the direct-to-streaming Prey (2022) and this year’s inspired animated delight Predator: Killer of Killers, Trachtenberg has certainly earned the right to once again dive deeper into the seemingly endless depths of the fascinating species of apex hunters.  Predator: Badlands is a massive step forward in financial risk for 20th Century Studios, an investment that without question marks a well-earned vote of confidence for Trachtenberg (10 Cloverfield Lane).  The result is a major swing for the franchise, one that rockets the decades-old intellectual property into unfamiliar territory by centering its story around a single member of the Yautja (Predator) species, and shuffling the deck on its reliable narrative structure.  By converting the Predator, predictably and impactfully the primary antagonist of the franchise, into the protagonist, Badlands has unfortunately crossed a rubicon that ultimately proves to be its undoing.  There is a great deal to admire in the laudable initiative shown by Trachtenberg and his production team as they allow their imaginations for the franchise to spin in an untethered new direction, but ultimately Predator: Badlands strays too far from the necessary humanity present in his previous franchise installments.

The removal of human characters shouldn’t sound any alarms for a science fiction film, but in the case of Predator, the removal of human emotion also erases the necessary wave of mirror neurons that human prey serve to an audience.  The overmatched and undersized protagonists that find themselves in the Predator’s crosshairs are a crucial piece of the connective emotional tissue that has now been removed.  From Arnold Schwarzenegger to Amber Midthunder, the battle of hunter vs. hunted has played out in fascinating fashion, a successful string that ends with Badlands.  The complex alchemy of fear and wonder that struck the foreboding note of brilliance in John McTiernan’s genre-defining Predator (1987) as well as Trachtenberg’s recent installments is noticeably vacant.  In place of the reliable adage that Predators are to be feared, is a script that demands an empathetic consideration in the direction of a member of the murderous extra-terrestrial species.  

With a proven character dynamic now augmented, Predator: Badlands places the balance of its dramatic tension on the film’s location, the “death planet” of Genna.  The production design of the ominous landscape is a fascinating combination of inhospitable and inhumane. Around each corner the young Yautja warrior, sent to Genna in search of a trophy kill worthy of earning his place amongst his tribe, faces certain death at the hands of the lethal terrain.  At its best, Genna is an imaginatively constructed killing field, full of ecological dangers.  As a product of its ballooned budget, Badlands departs from the tactile practicality that audiences have come to expect, in favor of a robust dose of computer generated friend and foe.  With the minimalist earthly appeal of Prey abandoned, there is very little to tether even the most avid of franchise fanatics to the latest Predator adventure.  

Target Score: 4.5/10 - There are elemental celebrations to be found in Dan Trachtenberg’s Predator: Badlands, but not enough to overshadow its glaring miscues. The director’s third franchise installment dreams big, and in the process, abandons many of the tried and true elements that have made Predator a science fiction delight for decades.