The mainline Predator movies have stuck to a rigid template for almost four decades, in which human quarry find themselves in the tri-laser crosshairs of the galaxy's greatest hunter. But Predator: Badlands – director Dan Trachtenberg's follow-up to his 2022 franchise-reviver Prey – flips that formula on its head, positioning Yautja as protagonist on an alien world where even the trees are carnivorous.
On the surface, it's a radical departure for a series where the stock in trade is invisible killers slaughtering planet Earth's most dangerous game with razor-edged alien tech, but Badlands' about-face fits the franchise like a fishnet bodysuit. Die-hard fans may be disappointed this particular killer of killers doesn't rip out a single spinal cord (there isn't a human among the sparse cast of characters), but as a blockbuster action-adventure, Badlands kills it.
