Predator : Badlands

Language : English / made-up language Yautja

Year of release : 2025

Run time : 1h48m

Genre : Sci Fi / Action / Adventure

Cast : Elle Fanning

The movie marks the 7th installment of the Predator franchise, and is a sequel to the 2018 movie,The Predator .

Dek is part of a Yautja clan on the Yautja Prime planet. He is small for his species' size.

The movie opens with Dek's father who orders his brother to k1ll him, for he's too weak for their species. His brother refuses to, so his father fights his brother, and k1lls him! Before being k1lled, his brother activates the ship to transport Dek to Ganna, a death planet, for Dek wanted to prove himself to his father by k1lling the Kalisk, an apex predator.

The planet is dangerous indeed, as the plants are carnivorous and are hunting Dek, once he lands in their area.

Escaping the forest with carnivorous trees, Dek ends up in a field with plants with needles which paralyses the prey. He meets Thia, who tells him she can help him, if he helps her. Dek tells her Yautja hunt alone, to which she replies Yautja die alone too.

Being stung by the needles of the poisonous paralysing plants, Thia promises to give him the antidote to the poisonous plants if he throws her a weapon so she can release herself from where she was tied up to. He throws her one of his weapons at the last moment, and she k1lls the dragon trying to eat him.

Thia is an android of the Weyland corporation who is missing her bottom half of the body. She asks Dek to help her get her legs back and in return she'll take him to the Kalisk's den.

Thia tells him she is a scientist and predatory species are her field of expertise. She tells Dek her crew, made entirely of synths, has been on the planet for 2 years, and her and Tessa are the ones in charge of the mission, and are like sisters. Thia is the brain (as she spent her time in the lab) and Tessa is the muscle (as she was the one on the field).

Tessa, who was completely mangled by the Kalisk, is being repaired by the base's computer. She is told she almost failed her mission and she will be decommissioned if she continues to fail.

Thia and Dek reach a razor grass field, trying to hunt a creature walking through it. They are caught by a lunar bug (I don't know if I understood correctly) and rescued by a creature Thia calls Bud, that Dek was previously fighting with (I think the small creature was also hunting the big creature eating the razor grass).

The lunar bug is hunting Bud now, and Dek rescues Bud by k1lling the lunar bug.

Bud is staying with them now, and Thia is excited about it, calling themselves the dynamic trio. Bud marks Dek with her spit, making him part of its clan, thing important later in the movie. This is a new thing for Dek ,as he never had a family looking out for him before.

Tessa finds Dek's ship and weapons.

Early in the morning, Dek takes Thia and leaves without Bud, although Thia is pleading to take Bud with them.

Dek tells Thia about his clan (which seems to be everyone for themselves), and Thia tells him about the wolf pack, with the Alpha, who's not the wolf who k1lls the most (like Dek thinks, based on his mentality), but the one who can protect the pack best.

Finding what's left of her team's base, Thia is trying to put her body back together. Talking to Dek ,she tells him she called Tessa, and he needs to leave. She also tells him her team were sent to the planet to k1ll the Kalisk for its regenerative powers, but it can't be k1lled.

Dek feels betrayed and starts a fire with his fire sword, challenging the Kalisk on his own.

The movie for me was so and so, as we have animals who can't be k1lled as they regenerate even when they lose their head! I didn't appreciate they come to this planet to k1ll animals just for existing. And the android's legs can work on their own, without her upper half attached.

The first 20 minutes of the movie is in the Yautja language, then Dek is talking in his language while Thia talks in English,so less than half of the movie is in English, more than half in the invented language.

The acting was good, I really liked how Elle Fanning played both characters, Thia and Tessa, I think these were her best roles from all the movies I saw her in.

The visual effects were good.

The soundtrack was good.

The movie grossed so far, 184.6 million dollars at the box office, against a budget of 105 million dollars.

The movie received positive reviews from critics with a percentage of 86% on Rotten Tomatoes, and a score of 71 on Metacritic. Cinema Score audiences graded the movie an A-.

Rating : Could have been a contender !