Avis Metacritic

This is wickedly exciting filmmaking. The rare, flashy studio blockbuster that doesn’t read like a laundry list of creative compromises, where the money went to telling a story about fascinating characters and putting them in impossible, gorgeous, and horrifically violent situations.

The series’ second-best installment and a rousing start to what appears to be a grand new franchise future.

The genius of the franchise-reviving “Prey” and last summer’s utterly awesome “Killer of Killers” is that they both cast the Yautja as a foil first and an antagonist second. Now, the super fun and fantastically spirited “Predator: Badlands” takes that approach to its logical conclusion by making one of these creatures the hero of a story in which he gets deprogrammed of his culture’s “The Most Dangerous Game”-inspired approach to other species.

If you can get on board with the paradigm change, this is an amped-up rock-gig of a movie and the most fun Predator since the original.

Sometimes silly but always propulsive, this franchise entry dares to give us an empathy-generating Predator, even if Elle Fanning’s robot steals the show.

Predator: Badlands may irk traditionalists, but it's a big swing that just about works. The odd-couple dynamic between Elle Fanning's busted synth and the more human Yautja adds laughs to the usual lacerations for a fun, propulsive, off-world action-adventure.

Predator: Badlands might not be the shock to the system that Prey was, but it is continued proof that putting Predator in Trachtenberg's was one of the smartest moves this franchise has ever made. The writer and director continues to find brilliant, fascinating ways to explore and expand the Predator movies to an exhilarating level, making this series better than it ever has been.

Dan Trachtenberg's third Predator entry is exciting, but also tonally askew in ways that prevent it from hitting its stride.

A solid outing for the series with plenty of satisfying thrills, all of which is sold by the terrific pairing of Elle Fanning and Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi.

The sheer pointlessness of everything that happens subtracts the oxygen and even Fanning’s imperishable star quality can’t save it.