Predator: Badlands Is A Crowd Pleaser, Shelby Oaks Is Horrible & Other Reviews

Frazer Harrison. Getty Images.

The Predator IP was in rough shape to start the decade. Director Dan Trachtenberg has now built it back up to something that is making a ton of money (opened at $40 million dollars this past weekend) but also being a quality product. Prey was a good movie that was released directly to Hulu in 2022. Predator Badlands is also good, but in a kinder, gentler way. 

Below is a mini-review of Predator Badlands along with Shelby Oaks, Truth & Treason, Soul On Fire, Blue Moon and a bonus review of A House Of Dynamite.

Predator: Badlands keeps up the quality of Prey thanks to director Dan Trachtenberg (who helmed both and revitalized the franchise). The big difference here is this is a softer Predator movie than we’ve seen. Don’t get me wrong. This isn’t a Disney movie but it is the most heartfelt of the franchise. 

It’s also rated PG-13 but it doesn’t feel like it’s dialed back the gore too much. It certainly doesn’t dial back the action. They do a nice job keeping the pacing up for most of the movie.

Elle Fanning does a nice job and is the heart of the movie. She’s a good enough actress to make this all feel real despite playing off just The Predator for most of the movie.

I did appreciate the world building especially on The Badlands. I don’t have this as high as Prey mostly because there was just so much CGI here, but it’s just right behind it. Of course, it doesn’t touch the original (which holds up really well), but few movies do. But those three movies are by far the best of the franchise. If you enjoy the Predator movies at all, this is worth watching.

Predator: Badlands: B

Shelby Oaks is one of the dumbest movies you’ll see get a wide release. How dumb is it?

-Someone gets shot and blood splatters all over a woman’s face. Hours later, this woman is on the couch with her husband with the blood still all over her. 

-A town is completely abandoned in the early 2000’s despite having an amusement park (??) and a large active prison. Did these thousands of people just stop paying their mortgages en masse and leave? No explanation except for “some people went missing”

-You also get a roughly 10 minute scene of a woman walking down a hallway with a flashlight. 

This feels more like a student film than an actual movie for most of its run time. Nothing is explained and the last minute of the movie is bizarre and hilarious. The MST3K guys would have had a field day with this one.

Shelby Oaks: F

Blue Moon is not a movie for everyone. It’s a character study about a guy self-destructing in front of you. It all takes place in a single bar/restaurant in a single night. It’s also about the brains behind 1930’s & 1940’s musicals. Like I said, this may not be your cup of tea.

But if you haven’t been scared off my the description, there’s so much here to appreciate. This might have the most clever screenplay of the year. Ethan Hawke plays a failed genius in Lorenz Hart perfectly. You can see his greatness but also believe that he’s a giant fuck up. That’s not easy to pull off.

The supporting cast is excellent from Andrew Scott playing someone who is disappointed, guilt-ridden and professional Richard Rodgers to Bobby Cannavale as a perfect bartender.

I love that Richard Linklater can do so many different things and takes such big swings. Most movies are about someone doing great things. This movie asks what happens after.

Blue Moon: B+

Truth & Treason is the most intense Angel Studios movie I’ve seen and it might be the best. It pulls no punches and tells a very interesting historical story that I had no idea about.

This takes place in 1941 Germany and is about a teenager that has a Jewish friend taken in the Holocaust. The young German then starts writing and distributing anti-Hitler pamphlets at night. This movie feels like it’s from the early 1980’s with its slow pacing. But I think that’s a good thing, not a weakness.

I was not familiar with a single actor in this movie but all did a nice job especially Ewan Horracks (as the teen) and Rupert Evans (as a Nazi guard).

If Angel Studios is going to make quality movies like this and Sketch (from earlier this year), I’ll start getting much more excited about their movies.

Truth & Treason: B-

Soul On Fire is one of the most poorly made movies to come out in 2025. It also has wildly uneven acting. It’s a very badly made movie. I can’t hate it though. It’s too nice.

This tells the story of a boy who accidently sets his house on fire and himself in the process. The movie is at its best when it shows him recovering from those injuries. The movie is at its worst when it spends the third act showing how that little boy grows up to be a motivational speaker.

The odd element in all of this is William H. Macy playing legendary Cardinals announcer Jack Buck. Macy is far too good of an actor to be in this rubbish.  It’s also weird (and very sweet) that this family has Jack Buck hanging around.

That should have been the movie! Make this a half hour shorter and just show that relationship. Everything else felt stale and played out like a bad soap opera. Shame on Sony, a major film studio, for putting something out that looks this cheap.

Soul On Fire: C-

House Of Dynamite has potential and a lot of the right ingredients. Unfortunately, the structure of this movie makes for a frustrating watch with a terrible ending.

It’s fascinating to think about how close we are to total world destruction and this movie does a solid job showing both that and how quickly and grave that can become a reality. The Rebecca Ferguson-led first act does a strong job showing all of that.

This gets into trouble when it feels the need to endlessly repeat itself from different perspectives. I get that a potential nuclear war would affect different people in different jobs but this instead shows stressed faces by people all reacting in more and more similar ways.

This is a clear case where a bad script let a good director like Kathryn Bigelow down. Maybe the better question is why should chose this screenplay at all.

A House Of Dynamite: C

2025

1)Sinners

2)Weapons

3)One Battle After Another

4)Caught Stealing

5)The Long Walk

6)Presence

7)The Life Of Chuck

8)Black Bag

9)The Ballad Of Wallis Island

10)Warfare

11)Friendship

12)Superman

13)Mission Impossible 8

14)28 Years Later

15)Novocaine

16)Fantastic Four

17)Roofman

18)The Naked Gun

19)BLUE MOON

20)Final Destination 6

21)Frankenstein

22)The Amateur

23)Drop

24)Dangerous Animals

25)PREDATOR: BADLANDS

26)Together

27)Black Phone 2

28)Death Of A Unicorn

29)The Accountant 2

30)The Damned

31)One Of Them Days

32)Materialists

33)Lilo & Stitch

34)Paddington 3

35)Thunderbolts

36)F1

37)The Smashing Machine

38)Clown In A Cornfield

39)Bring Her Back

40)TRUTH & TREASON

41)Hell Of A Summer

42)Karate Kid 6

43)Good Boy

44)Downton Abbey 3

45)Fight Or Flight

46)Valiant One

47)Sketch

48)The Roses

49)How To Train Your Dragon

50)Elio

51)Rule Breakers

52)Heart Eyes

53)The Conjuring 4

54)Mickey17

55)The Surfer

56)Relay

57)Tron 3

58)Last Breath

59)Flight Risk

60)Minecraft

61)Den Of Thieves 2

62)Dogman

63)Companion

64)Eddington

65)Good Fortune

66)Jurassic World Rebirth

67)The Senior

68)KPop Demon Hunters

69)Spinal Tap 2

70)Bone Lake

71)The Toxic Avenger

72)Ballerina

73)A Working Man

74)The Last Rodeo

75)Taylor Swift: Showgirl

76)Shadow Force

77)The Alto Knights

78)Honey Don’t

79)The Bad Guys 2

80)The Penguin Lessons

81)The Chosen Part 2

82)Looney Tunes

83)Opus

84)M3GAN 2

85)A Big, Bold, Beautiful Journey

86)Becoming Led Zeppelin

87)Captain America: BNW

88)I Know What You Did Last Summer

89)Until Dawn

90)SOUL ON FIRE

91)After The Hunt

92)Ne Zha 2

93)The Chosen Part 1

94)Riff Raff

95)The Home

96)Kiss Of The Spider Woman

97)Freakier Friday

98)Inheritance

99)Nobody 2

100)The Chosen Part 3

101)The Wedding Banquet

102)Smurfs

103)The Legend Of Ochi

104)Night Of The Zoopocalypse

105)Demon Slayer

106)The Phoenician Scheme

107)Sneaks

108)Ash

109)Jujutsu Kaiden

110)The King Of Kings

111)The Friend

112)Dan Da Dan 2

113)Light Of The World

114)Snow White

115)The Unbreakable Boy

116)Gabby’s Dollhouse

117)Brave The Dark

118)Wolf Man

119)Hurry Up Tomorrow

120)The Monkey

121)Love Hurts

122)Him

123)The Strangers 2

124)The Last Supper

125)Woman In The Yard

126)Bride Hard

127)SHELBY OAKS

128)Juliet & Romeo

129)In The Lost Lands