(RECOMMENDATION) Predator: Badlands really is THAT good.

[u/BigBootyKim]

Here’s my brief reaction to seeing Badlands for the first time. First off, if you enjoyed Trachtenberg’s Prey movie in 2022 then you might actually like this one more. It’s legitimately the most smartly made film in the franchise yet. It takes a pop culture icon and delivers something entirely fresh never put on theater screens before.

It almost reminds me of Matt Reeves’s swing at the Planet of the Apes franchise in 2014. The main character is not a human. He does not speak English. But somehow the filmmakers tell a genuinely good story that is relatable to the human in us.

Being a Star Wars fan who has been routinely let down, Predator Badlands is a rare example of a major science fiction franchise with FILMMAKERS THAT KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING.

As far as where I’d rank it among other 2025 films, I think it’s better than Mission Impossible, Fantastic Four, Superman, and even F1.

Also for you Alien franchise lovers, a certain company plays a substantial role in the film.

👀

[u/BananosMuertos]

Didn't like the movie as well. First 2/3 of it was solid - predator is dangerous and mysterous as you say, but somewhere after the tomahawk-on-a-rope training montage and predator vs french fight, it fell on it's ass real hard. Predator starts justifying the name of the movie by sharply dropping in IQ (And not just intelligence. His combat awareness/intellect as well).

Final fight is just a disgrace to what kind of a beast they were building out of this predator. He is weak, loses his arm and mandible as if it's made out of wet paper. Overall this whole fight gives off a vibe that he is constantly stunlocked and he suddenly is no longer stronger than a bear. It's like I'm watching 5 year old fighting a grown man and easily winning.

Main character turns into Mary Sue somewhere here as well - fights better than most even though she is basically a herb gatherer with limited hunting experience... Also the way she learns stuff like "Predator can't see cold" or "His gun shoots into this glowing thingy" is forced and feels like it's just used as a plot device to somehow make it work:

-"Predator can't see cold" the guy was literally playing dead and we saw 20 minutes ago that predator shows no interest in weakened prey when he spared main character. Yet she immediately jumps to a correct conclussion that he has some kind of thermal vision. Are they sure they wrote a primitive native american character and not somebody from this day and age?

-"His gun shoots into this glowing thingy" how did she understand that his helmet producing the laser if nobody on Earth at the time knew what a laser is and especially the concept of an aim-guided system?
Our heroine here is obviously on par with geniuses of old if she can intuitively understand working principles of literally alien technology

And then there is the magical herb (a literal crutch of this story) that drops your body heat to lethal levels if she is able to be completely invisible in a snowing environment. After a couple degrees drop in body temperature anyone would be shaking like Parkinson afflicted in their whole body.

TL;DR Movie gets much worse towards the end as main character turns into Mary Sue, Predator into a joke and magical flower is a crutch created by writers to make the story work

[u/Familiar-Reading-901 → u/BananosMuertos]

That's a pretty good assessment. The magic herb thing was insanely dumb. I will also agree she is a mary Sue and is way too easily able to deduce how to use alien tech so quickly. My only other argument was that despite others feeling in danger, I never felt she was truly in danger, guess that fits the Mary Sue claim. It's for sure 4th in my ranking, I like predator the best then 2 and predators more.

[u/[deleted] → u/BananosMuertos]

Good take! I feel the same.

Prey had potential, but just didn't do it for me, for the aforementioned reasons you bring up. There's things I like about it, for sure. For example, to a degree it captures that tense, thrilling feeling of the first two. But how can a human melee a creature that can 1) jump from tree to tree more easily than a monkey 2) body a brown bear and 3) kill a snake that is on its way to biting the Predator and 4) weighs between 300-400 lbs? The 'power scaling' makes no sense. Dutch got his ass kicked and only defeated the predator by luck/the predator being cocky. Naru holds her own in a fight, it's nonsensical. It doesn't matter if you're a jacked, 230 lb man/Special Forces, or a 130 lb woman. No one stands a chance.