Fathers and Brothers, Sisters and MU/TH/UR: A Review of Predator: Badlands

Spoiler alert: This article contains spoilers. Predator: Badlands.

Unashamedly, the movies I’m most looking forward to in 2025 are: Predator: Badlands—Seriously, I already pre-ordered image. It’s no secret that it’s original Predator (1987) is one of my all-time favorite science fiction movies, and it goes without saying that it’s subversive and smart in every sense of the word. It’s also wonderfully pulpy in a way rarely seen in blockbusters of the past 15 years or so. I also have some weaknesses alien vs predator (2004), for its troubling ambition. But I long ago came to terms with the idea that this series, like many others, had become a machine designed to reheat nostalgia. of endless parade Soft reboots, prequels, legacy sequels, and cinematic universes have taken away the joy of discovery, at least for me. Every studio “event” film feels like homework, just another brand trying to remember why it’s important in the first place.

Then along came Dan Trachtenberg. and prey (2022), after developing the direct-to-streaming feature, he quietly began redefining what franchise filmmaking could be. What he took was Predator The concept was created by going back to its origins. interesting Again, I don’t feel the need to “tie everything together.” It worked the way the original worked as a lean, mean-spirited action-adventure movie that featured monsters. Trachtenberg then veered off in a different direction with his more recent works. Predator: Killer of Killers (2025) is an animated anthology of stories that continues to drop the titular Predator into different periods of Earth’s history, expanding on its lore through allusion and using the monster as an interesting foil to relatable human characters.

Now, Predator: Badlands” sees the series return to screens for the first time in nearly a decade. And director Trachtenberg delivers his boldest, weirdest, most ambitious take on the film. Sure, this is a story about hunting, but it’s also a story about heritage, inheritance, and family. And what emerges is something mythical and strangely intimate: a cosmic family drama disguised as a sci-fi monster movie.

The movie begins on Yautja Prime, the homeworld of Yautja Prime. predator species (Yauja). Here we meet Deku (played by Demetrius Schuster-Koloamatangi). Deku is a ferocious warrior, but he’s also a Predator runt, a little too small and a little too weak. He takes an oath to hunt the legendary Calisk on the dead planet of Genna, a feat that even the fiercest Yautja deem impossible. However, by accomplishing such a mission, Deku hopes to gain the approval of his domineering father, Nyor (also Dimetrius Schuster-Koroamatangi), who sees him as the responsibility and source of shame for the clan.

Things take a disturbing turn when Gnoll orders Deku’s brother Kwei (Michael Homick) to kill him. His loyalties are suddenly divided, and Kwei attempts to intercede on Deku’s behalf, only to incur the wrath of the Gnoll. As a result, Kwei is brutally executed at the hands of his father, and Deku is exiled to Jenna. Given the planet’s reputation and Deku’s low status, it is inconceivable that Gnoll would allow him to escape Genna alive.

Below are the recognizable ones hero’s journey In the arc, Deku fights to survive Genna, steal Calisk, confront his father, and avenge his brother’s death. Trachtenberg uses a familiar architecture. Predator It’s a lonely hunter versus an impossible quarry, but here it’s repurposed to explore the kind of intergenerational drama you’d expect from Greek tragedy. Gnolls are towering, ruthless figures, the epitome of greedy chieftains. His law is absolute. Only the strong deserve to live, and the weak are a kind of blasphemy against the natural order and deserve to be weeded out. We see a glimpse of Yautja culture here, so wrapped up in a religion of strength that it turns love itself into a test of control. And as much as Deku is fighting to prove himself a warrior worthy of the mantle of true Yautja, he is also fighting to escape the weight of his father’s expectations. Every conflict in Jenna becomes a small rebellion against the beliefs that shaped him.

What’s remarkable about this film is how much attention it takes from such a deeply human story. Not a single human character appears. Strip away the mandibles and what you find is a drama about what shapes us (and breaks us): family, acceptance, the impossible distance between who we are and what we are told we should be. Wisely, Trachtenberg does not try to humanize the Yautja through sentimentality or cheap irony. He doesn’t wink at the audience or try to make the creatures “sympathize” with sticky sentences. Instead, he lets their rituals and violence speak for themselves. The result is something surprisingly honest, sincere, and at times quite humorous.

The film understands that the desire to be seen is universal, and the hunt for Karisk becomes a kind of language for expressing that particular kind of yearning. It gives these inhuman characters a strange kind of dignity. The irony, of course, is that Jenna’s supposed “dead planet” ends up being more alive than the culture that exiled Deku. Yes, it’s tough, but it allows for growth, adaptation, and even compassion. While the Yautja world values ​​domination, Jenna values ​​cooperation.

That cooperation is made possible thanks to Chia (Elle Fanning). damaged weyland yutani synthesis She was left behind by Genna. alien A corner of this shared universe. Like Deku, she’s broken goods (literally, she spends the movie finding her feet), caught between machine logic and something approaching empathy. Her synthesis team was wiped out trying to capture Karisk, and when she and Deku met, their alliance was initially purely transactional. She needs her severed leg back and Deku needs a guide who knows the terrain.

Throughout the tiers, it’s worth pointing out the following: badlands reconnect Predator to a larger mythology shared with the series. alien franchise. Sure, there are nods, familiar interfaces and computer chirps, but these elements feel more like ghosts than continuity checkpoints. The company doesn’t appear to be a corporate villain, but rather a deep-rooted idea of ​​humanity’s age-old desire to control and create. And Weyland-Yutani’s return brings something symbolic. MU/TH/UR (“Mother”), alien Responsible for monitoring and controlling the company’s crew and their missions.

If the gnoll represents a devouring father, here the mother is implemented as a ruthless, maternal intelligence. Tia and the android Tessa (also played by Elle Fanning), another composite who is reactivated later in the film, are products of the same lineage, but have different interpretations of their purpose. They are portrayed as something like “sisters”, and the film finds a mirror of Deku and Kwei between them. The symmetry is elegant and intentional, and what unites Deku and Tia is recognition. Both of them are trying to live beyond their creators. They have inherited beliefs and ideas that they no longer fully believe in, he the religion of strength, she the logic of practicality. And together we improvise something new.

When Tia turns against Tessa to save Deku, she is choosing empathy over function, a created being asserting moral agency against ruthless determinism, a spark of consciousness that transcends design. Through Deku, Tia learns that empathy serves a broader purpose of compassion, something Tessa and her mother could never teach her. Through Tia, Deku learns that dependence is not necessarily a weakness, but can be one of his greatest strengths. This is in contrast to the gnoll’s philosophy of seeing themselves as worthless. She helps reframe Kwei’s death as a sacrifice to protect him rather than a failure of power.

That symmetry between father and brother, sister and mother gives the film a kind of mythical weight. Trachtenberg is playing in a sandbox created from two of science fiction’s best-known series. What he does here is unearth both myths and show that parents continue to fail their children.

From a Biblical perspective, that failure is not new. The first chapters of Genesis depict similar breakdowns, from Cain’s murder of Abel to Lamech’s boast of revenge to the prevalence of violence in the ancient world. All of this plays out in a setting where the father imparts power but not wisdom. When you think about it, Yautja start to look quite familiar. It’s an old human creed dressed up in nifty alien armor. It is the belief that control equates to virtue and that power justifies one’s existence. The Bible gives this impulse a simple name, but it is the same sin that turns fathers against sons and brothers against each other.

Deku and Tia, Hunter and Machine are each products of a ruthless system, but together they manage something akin to compassion. The film seems to suggest that empathy is not a weakness or glitch in the system, but something buried deeper than programming or biology, and needs to be awakened by something outside of the system itself. This is an astute observation and a clearly Biblical idea, even though Trachtenberg did not name it as such. Biblical writers understood compassion and mercy as the perfection of justice (” Micah 6:8; Zechariah 7:9), not a denial of that. In a world obsessed with hierarchy, this film argues that empathy is actually a higher strength.

The Yautja Code and our obsession with efficiency are two aspects of the same theology: the worship of control. Both Gnoll and his mother stand as godheads, mistaking power for authority and order for purpose. In Biblical terms, they are Babel and Pharaoh, the building hands and the enslaving heart. what badlands It reveals how vulnerable such empires are to the smallest acts of mercy. Neither father nor mother can make such a choice. It’s not an instinct, and it can’t be coded. It’s almost a revelation. This movie doesn’t call it sacred, but it acts like it is.

that’s the paradox badlands It almost happens that that very compassion is one of the most alien acts imaginable, because it goes against everything the fallen world calls strength. It is the logic of the cross hidden in the characteristics of living things, that is, the weak rescue the strong. Essentially, this movie is about what children do with the tools (and scars) their parents leave behind. And that’s the kind of story that only someone like Trachtenberg would dare to tell on film. Predator In this film, the most alien thing on screen is not the monster, but the moment when the monster chooses mercy when violence would have been easier.