In Predator: Badlands, director Dan Trachtenberg once again proves that the Predator franchise works best not as a blockbuster spectacle, but as a stripped-down survival drama. Following the critical success of Prey (2022), which set the alien hunter loose in 18th-century Comanche territory, Trachtenberg returns with a new setting, new characters, and a familiar premise: when Earth’s future technology meets the Predator, the battle is never just for survival — it’s for the soul.
