Film Preview: Predator: Badlands (2025)

Film Poster

Page Revisions:

(April 27, 2025) Original
(July 27, 2025) New Trailer (#2) — New Poster (#2)
(October 12, 2025) New Trailer (#3) — New Posters (#3-#7)
(October 26, 2025) New Trailer (#4) — New Posters (#8-#13)

Release Date:

November 7, 2025

Synopsis:

From IMDb: “A young Predator outcast from his clan finds an unlikely ally on his journey in search of the ultimate adversary.”

Poster Rating: C / C / C+ / B- / C (2) / C+ / C+ (5) / C

SEE ALL POSTERS BELOW
Review: (#1, C) Setting is barely referenced and colors are poorly conveyed. This design wants minimalism but doesn’t know how to handle it.

(#2, C) Into the mouth of the beast. The background is slightly appealing but the simplicity of the design is its downfall.

(#3, C+) Simplistic designs aren’t inherently bad and this one works surprisingly well despite its lack of background elements but where it could be exciting, it feels rather tepid and limits itself to the blue-and-red aesthetic that has dulled poster designs for action movies for years. (#4, B-) A definite improvement with a balance of images presented in unique ways, the poster has a lot of unnecessarily empty space and the lower third looks a bit cheesy for a major motion picture. (#5-#6, C) Although the two designs differ in their background elements and finer details, the central image is vaguely the same making them feel like a pair. That said, the somewhat amateurish embellishments and lack of fine-grained detail make them feel wasteful. (#7, C+) A slight deviation from the prior two, reversing the direction at which Elle Fanning’s torso is facing, doesn’t do a lot different from its immediate predecessors but does feel a bit more organic and fundamentally creative even if the cheapness of the production still shines through.

(#8-#12, C+) A series of more or less interesting format posters that use varied techniques without cohesion or enticement. (#13, C) Getting your audience to visualize the monster in a film about it might intrigue some but it ruins a sense of suspense for others.

Trailer Rating: C / C+ / C / C+

SEE ALL TRAILERS BELOW
Review: (#1, C) Whether this is a natural successor to Prey or a stand alone adventure isn’t quite clear. That film is referenced but the setting is mismatched. There are a couple of intriguing images in this trailer but there’s not enough plot available to understand the point of the film in the first place.

(#2, C+) The plot is fully fleshed out now. It’s nice to see Elle Fanning in a potential blockbuster and her character is at least interesting in a Alien kind of way but the non-stop action violence seems pervasive and less than appealing unless you’re already a fan of this series.

(#3, C) If you’re wondering what the film is about, there’s no need. If you’re a Predator fan is all that matters. Building on a mythology created in those films but focusing on the killer humanoids rather than the humans saving their own skin. Leaning less into the fallible and trying to find vulnerabilities in these hunters will only really bring in those excited by that and as such there’s not a lot here to excite anyone else.

(#4, C+) There is a point of diminishing returns for all action films, especially those like this one. They toss out so many scenes in such rapid succession that it’s not entirely difficult to follow but struggles to maintain a sense of cohesion or excitement.