Dan Trachtenberg’s Predator: Badlands doesn’t just stalk the franchise’s roots—it unearths them, flipping the script on a scorched alien frontier where the hunter’s the hunted. In this seventh chapter, outcast young Predator Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi, a revelation in motion-capture menace) clashes with his brutal clan, yearning for dad’s nod while dodging death for “weakness.” Enter Elle Fanning’s Thia, a damaged android with glitchy humanity and a mission to end the cycle of kills, forging an uneasy bond that crackles with forbidden spark.

The badlands? A brutal canvas of dust devils and derelict Weyland outposts, where thermal cams glow like hellfire and every ridge hides a trap. Action erupts primal: cloaked ambushes in sand-choked canyons, zero-G chases through derelict ships, a finale that redefines “trophy” with visceral, lore-expanding fury. Trachtenberg’s love shines—dumb-fun spectacle laced with heart, PG-13 edge that bites without gore overload. Fanning owns the soul, Schuster-Koloamatangi the snarl; it’s Prey’s spirit evolved.

Grossing $164M and praised as the strongest since the original, it’s ruthless reinvention. In the badlands, only the dead go untracked. Who’s your prey?

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