Predator: Badlands goes old-school with punchy sci-fi action and a Predator worth rooting for

Predator: Badlands flips the hunt, tracking a young Predator and a busted android across a planet that wants them dead. Lean, old-school, PG-13 with teeth, and it's got heart.

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Review: Predator: Badlands is a lean, old-school sci-fi hunt with heart

If you grew up tearing through Bradbury paperbacks or weird, wonderful short stories from Robert Sheckley and Roger Zelazny, this one hits a familiar nerve. Sharp premise. Strange planet. Big feelings hiding under bigger monsters.

Predator: Badlands flips the usual script by telling the story from the hunter's side. Dek, a younger Predator (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi (movies and tv series)), lives in a culture where strength is everything, and he doesn't measure up. He's smaller, sidelined, and seen as an embarrassment by his father. So he bolts to prove himself - straight to a kill zone nicknamed The Death Planet.

Everything on this place wants you gone. Even the grass. Dek almost doesn't make it off the landing pad, and that's before the real apex threat shows up: the Kalisk, a massive killer that's already taken down every warrior sent before him.

His unexpected ally? An android - or what's left of one. Thia (Elle Fanning (movies and tv series)) has been separated from her legs, and Dek figures out a way to carry her as they trek toward the Kalisk. It turns into a rough-edged buddy story: a quiet, laser-focused Predator and a chatty, disarming machine learning to read each other, literally, one word and gesture at a time.

There aren't any human characters here, which is a gutsy choice and, honestly, refreshing. The world-building leans into creatures and plant life that are small but deadly, with set pieces that feel inventive instead of noisy.

Director Dan Trachtenberg (movies and tv series) - who steered the franchise back to form with Prey (2022) - knows how to make opposites click. He lets silence do some of the talking, then cracks it with a clean action beat or a sardonic line from Thia. You get purpose behind the spectacle, which is rarer than it should be.

The rating might raise eyebrows. It's PG-13, but if the same level of damage had been done to humans, you'd expect an R. The film threads that needle by keeping the worst of it just off-center, without dulling the impact.

Here's the part fans will care about: the last couple of seconds tease what's next. It's quick, but it lands. Feels like the franchise knows where it's headed.

Bottom line: This is a straight-ahead sci-fi action story told with confidence and a little warmth. Not perfect, but sturdy and satisfying - especially if you've wanted the Predator to be more than a silhouette in thermal vision.