In the far future, on Yautja Prime, a young warrior named Dek confronts his father over their decision to remove him from the clan. Dek flees to the planet, Genna, where he plans to hunt one of the galaxy’s deadliest creatures, the unkillable Kalisk. If he can bring home the head of this creature, surely he will earn his father’s respect. Very quickly, however, Dek learns why the Yautja call Genna the Death Planet.
Virtually everything on the planet wants to kill him the moment he crashes onto it. Narrowly escaping one such attack, Dek is rescued by a synth, Tiah, a property of the infamous Earth corporation, Weyland-Yutani. Half of her, anyway. Missing her legs after Tiah and her team were attacked by the Kalisk, Dek reluctantly teams up with the synth, straps her to his back, her 3-P0 to his Chewie, and ventures further into this inhospitable and deadly landscape.
Both are intent on capturing the Kalisk and returning to their respective homes with it. It’s just the planet, and someone else, may have something to say about that.
Across their three projects — Prey, Killer of Killers, and Badlands — no filmmaker has ever provided us with this much Yautja culture on the big screen. While the Yautja have been explored in depth and written about on paper for decades, they have been one thing on film: the fierce, intergalactic hunters that we first met back in 1987. Unmatched in battle- but only to the point where the hero finally bests them in combat - movie watchers have only ever seen that one side of them.
Badlands is a full-on sci-fi adventure film where danger lurks in every corner. It hits the ground running, pauses at the right moments for an audience reset, then ramps up the action again, and again, building towards its bombastic climax.
But it’s more than that. Trachtenberg and company have created the first Yautja hero. Born out of tragedy and betrayal, this new character injects complexity into a franchise long defined by primal conflict. It’s an ambitious swing that redefines what a Predator story can be.
Family, or the sense of belonging to a group, is a central theme. There is a certain irony in a synthetic emphasizing to a Yautja the importance of family, that everyone needs a clan to belong to. Likewise, Fanning’s Thia longs to be reunited with her own ‘family’—though recovering her legs is pretty high up on that list of things to do.
Having wowed the world with their straight-to-streaming hit, Prey, Dan Trachtenberg reunites with Prey writer Patrick Aison to set the franchise in another fresh setting. Good news for the once-popular franchise that was running out of ideas and coasting on fumes. Trachtenberg has breathed new life back into the Predator franchise so well that you almost want to let him run it for the rest of time. In Trachtenberg We Trust? Maybe.
In Badlands, Trachtenberg employs the buddy road trip narrative structure: two characters who couldn’t be more different end up stuck together on a journey, and somewhere along the way, what starts as tension turns into trust. More discerning viewers will say it has been done elsewhere (Yes, that’s why we call it a structure), but there is comfort in this familiarity. It makes for easy viewing, as little effort is required to keep up with the minimal amount of plot development. Sticking to the formula, there are also comedic bits that are subtle and lift the mood at the right moments. In Badlands, it’s not the map, it’s the journey.
Near as we know, Elle Fanning’s Thia is only the second on-screen female synth in the films, following Winona Ryder’s Call in Alien Resurrection (we love and acknowledge the girls from Alien: Earth). Fanning plays with perspective and duality in fascinating ways. At times, there is the goofy, endearing charm of a synth whose sensitivity has been dialed way up to aid her in her job of identifying animals of worth for Weyland Yutani. Then there are the times when the authentic synth nature is present, that of cool calculations and pragmatic actions to complete the mission: make Muther and Weyland-Yutani happy.
Regarding Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi’s performance. We are left to ‘see’ the Kiwi actor on screen, delivering their performance from deep behind the guise of an alien hunter. Special effects enthusiasts will be eager to learn how this performance was achieved during filming and in post-production. What did Fanning interact with? All we see after the effects team has done their jobs is the predator’s face, expressive eyes, and working mandibles with a smaller mouth. That left Schuster-Koloamatangi with the responsibility to really express themselves physically, to communicate the young predator’s thoughts and emotions before the effects team took over and gave a face—that pretty, fanged maw–to his performance.
The design team did well with the primal beauty of Genna and the harsh, barren landscapes of Yautja Prime (even with waterfalls that defy physics by going up row upon row of Kirk’s Rock formations). As the jagged peaks abound on both planets, signalling inhospitable environments, Dek quickly learns on Genna that even the fauna is out to get you. It is the Australia of planets!
The script ebbs and flows between big action set pieces and quieter moments where Thiah attempts to break through Dek’s hardline thinking and tough exterior. This balance reflects the film’s themes of trust, redemption, and the struggle to connect in the midst of chaos.
And the soundtrack and sound design are intense and amplified to match the film’s large-scale action and deadly creatures, including the Kalisk. The sound team aimed for total immersion, crafting a wall of sound that mirrors the scale and danger of the world on screen.
Trachtenberg aims to give their audience the ultimate thrill ride. Golly, it's fun, loud, and bombastic. Every action set piece is designed to be big, with massive ranges of motion, defying physics whenever possible, each one having its ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ moments. We admit, there was a lot of apprehension before watching Badlands, after watching one of the early trailers, apprehension of an overwhelming glut of indiscernible special effects. We were glad that it had quickly dissipated after the first flora attack on Genna. It was this very vine scene that we saw in the first trailer that raised our first doubts about this new film. Fighting imaginary computer-created vines is hard for most, for some reason. Having seen it play out now, while some of that action was lost in the framing, there were just as many cool moments in it, and in an encore scene later in the film.
Trachtenberg dips again into the species’ lore just enough to create the context before letting the thrill ride commence. The Yautja have a code that they live by and die by. Dek has developed a taste for living and would like to keep on doing so. Great, now off you go to kill the unkillable beast and earn your place in your clan. Good luck with that. Cue the running, jumping, yelling, sliding, slashing, sliding and slashing, shooting, more yelling, and violence!
Badlands doesn’t just expand the Predator mythos — it reframes it. By centering the story on a Yautja outcast and pairing him with an equally displaced human creation, Trachtenberg and Aison explore what it means to belong, to fight for recognition, and to evolve. It’s the franchise entry that balances spectacle with soul. If Prey reminded audiences why they loved this universe, Badlands proves there are still thrilling, emotional stories left to tell in it.