Predator: Badlands' early Rotten Tomatoes score revealed following first wave of reviews from critics

In recent times, Dan Trachtenberg has very much revitalised the Predator franchise. After years of disappointing sequels and spin-offs, his 2022 prequel Prey – released straight to Disney Plus – breathed new life into the series, delivering a pared-down action thriller that brought the iconic creature to the Comanche nation in 1719.

He followed that up earlier this year with Predator: Killer of Killers, another straight-to-streaming affair that served up a triptych of animated stories set against different historical backdrops – which again launched to strong reviews.

Now he's returned with another new film that again explores brand new territory. Predator: Badlands is the first film to make a member of the Predator species the protagonist, following young outcast Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) after he's sent to a remote planet and strikes up an unlikely bond with a synthetic human named Thia (Elle Fanning).

So, has Trachtenberg gone three for three when it comes to making successful Predator films? Well, the early reviews indicate that the answer is a resounding yes.

At the time of writing, Badlands sits on a score of 89 per cent on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes based on 75 reviews, with positive reviews from a number of prominent publications including Empire Magazine, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Time Out and RogerEbert.com.

However, there are some notable outliers, including The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw, who awarded the film just two stars.

On Metacritic, the film holds a slightly less positive score of 69 per cent, which still suggests the majority of reviewers have given positive assessments. So it looks like the revitalisation of the Predator franchise continues apace!

Of course, the series first launched with the original Arnold Schwarzenegger film back in 1987, and was followed up by Predator 2 in 1990, Predators in 2010 and The Predator in 2018, all of which performed relatively poorly with critics. Then there were the two Alien v Predator films, in 2004 and 2007 respectively, which were both met with overwhelmingly negative reviews.

Interestingly, the new film does hint at further crossovers between Alien and Predator in the future, with Fanning's character being a Weyland-Yutani synthetic, as seen in the former franchise.

The full synopsis for the film – which arrives in UK cinemas on Friday (7th November) – reads: "In the future on a remote planet, a young Predator, outcast from his clan, finds an unlikely ally in Thia and embarks on a treacherous journey in search of the ultimate adversary."

Predator: Badlands is released exclusively in cinemas on Friday 7th November.

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