Predator: Badlands (2025)
First Hunt. Last Chance.
Guess what came out on digital demand? Yeah, the latest Predator movie. Guess what I’m re-watching now that I can. Yep, that newest predator movie. Enjoyed it in the theater, lets see if I have any opinions that change after watching it at home where the image quality isn’t quite as huge. I mean, the ability to pause will certainly be nice for bathroom breaks, but who knows what things I’m going to figure out in this new watch environment. Start your clicking and show off your skulls, tonight is Predator: Badlands
A predator is out for a ride on his cool bike, hunting down the most fearsome of foes: a predator. Yes, it’s his brother, and yes it’s more like a training sparring match then an actual fight to the death, but when do predators not do life or death? The bigger one gets the little one to pick a hunt target so he too can officially become one with the clan - but pop shows up looking baller and has a much different approach. The big one was supposed to kill the little one, and he’s kind of upset he hasn’t done so yet. This starts a fight between the older and the dad, leaving one conceivably angry young predator blasting off to space, rocketing towards a death planet to kill an unkillable creature to prove that the runt isn’t a liability - and maybe even stick it that jerk dads face. Along the way meet some companions - like half a robot - and some enemies - like practically every creature and plant on the planet. See a predator in a new light.
Acting is pretty well done here. I’ll admit that I fee it could depend on the person watching as to if they agree with that statement more so than some other movies. Like, for example our lead predator Dek has a lot of times where he can come off as annoying or perhaps even toxic. This could lead to not liking him that much at times - but it’s the acting that’s really selling that side of it, so the acting is in fact well done, even if the character could in turn be rubbing you the wrong way. Likewise with the lead lady - I could see where it would come off as annoying cheerful or overly talkative, but it largely feels like it’s nailing what they wanted for each character and if that’s not good acting then I’m not entirely sure what is honestly.
The characters you get a little feel for just from the last section. Dek comes off like a young guy with a chip on his shoulder and way too much to prove - which is reasonable considering that effectively is his story - learning to either overcome it, deal with it, or what it all means. Or lead lady has multiple layers to her despite just being a synthetic - some of which brought about because shes a synthetic. The baddies and creatures all play out in a naturally nature kind of way or otherwise how you would expect. The dynamic between characters also leads into the general moral points of the movie - so it’s not like the characters are all super independent from each other either, as the combination of them leads to a classic sort of contrasting characters learning from each other to become better scenario. Yeah, that’s right - there’s character growth in your Predator movie.
A family gathering
Action is something that people are obviously going to be visiting a predator flick for. It’s good here. There’s plenty of different sections with different styles, both with weapons and with shenanigans. It’s nicely shot and well cut, so you won’t really get confused during the action segments. It does do a number on showing off all sorts of cool new gadgets to promptly pull them out of the playing field to make sure the story goes how it wants, but it doesn’t feel too forced regardless. You might not believe it - given the PG13 rating - but this thing is also no slouch for the violence. The body count by the end is incredibly high, and it gets around the entire rating systems in the most classic of ways - “if the blood ain’t red, then there’s nothing to dread.” It’s honestly the dumbest part of the rating system that as long as the violence isn’t an actual human then they just don’t care - so honestly it’s a hundred precent the most violent PG13 predator around.
The effects help support all the good action. That being said, I feel obligated to point out that despite the best efforts some of the effects - particularly the predator faces. They did a mix of practical and CG, and before people immediately jump on the “oh CG poo poo” band wagon, let me make my case. The logic for it is pretty sound - they want to really pull some emotion out of the face, and that’s incredibly hard to do with the predator’s face. Don’t believe me? Look how long we’ve gone with the mandibles looking borked on the poor fellas in the movie franchise. I mean, heck, the AvP movies couldn’t even get them too look like they weren’t on roids and ate about 800 pounds of food in the body mass, let alone the mandibles. So what I’m saying is that yes, there’s plenty of times you look at the head and go “Yeah, that’s probably not one of the real ones” but there’s just as many times that the practical effects will look great. Props and androids alike - and considering the amount of times there’s only half a robot flopping about with the predator, that means there is a lot of effects - and in the case of that, much like the face, a combination of practical and digital. It’s a great example of how effects don’t have to be one way or the other - the true great spot is a combination of both used to their strengths to provide the best experience on screen.
Audio is balanced well - although my headset twice decided to randomly burst up the audio levels. I don’t recall it happening at the theaters when I saw it, so I figure it’s just a classic attempt by my audio drivers to get one over on me again. For the thinking types, there’s plenty of stuff there. The old movies weren’t entirely slouches, but this one (being both a Disney production and more of a buddy-duo action adventure sort of movie) carries far more room for stuff. Family, honor, weakness, respect, nature, revenge - there is an absolute ton of stuff if you are into looking for it. For fans of the franchise, there’s also plenty of things as far as easter eggs go - call backs, nods, all that good stuff. Now then, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows - some of it can get pretty stupid. It’s super fun watching legs operate on their own, but it’s also a bit don’t think too hard about it.
Robot death field
It’s a good movie. I mean, i liked it in theaters and it’s not even a full year from when that happened, so it’s not like that should be a big surprise or anything, It’s got some good effects, it’s got some good action, and more than anything else it’s just plain fun. It has stupid moments, but the overall enjoyment factor more than makes up for any of that in my opinion. It’s great having a predator as the main hero-character in the movies for a change as well, even though we had a little taste of that back in the first AvP movie in that team up. Yes, it’s also happened all the time in the comics and books - but for the movies, it’s a nice turn. There’s a bunch you could complain about if you want to get real nit-picky about it, but quite frankly it’s quite a solid movie with plenty of entertainment value, so even if you are one to nit pick some of the details, you’ll most likely still have a good time here.