Josh Reviews Predator: Killer of Killers

2022’s Prey was an absolute delight — an out of nowhere kick-ass Predator sequel!!  Prey was directed and co-written (with Patrick Aison) by Dan Trachtenberg, who made a number of bold choices, such as setting the film in 1719 and centering the story on a young Comanche woman.  The result was a home-run; a thrilling story that was a brilliant reinvention of the Predator mythos.  Later this year Mr. Trachtenberg is releasing his follow-up, another Predator film called Predator: Badlands.  But Mr. Trachtenberg ALSO directed an animated Predator film that came out over the summer on Hulu — it’s called Predator: Killer of Killers, and it’s pretty great!  (The film was co-written by Micho Robert Rutare.)

Predator: Killer of Killers is actually an anthology film, telling three stories set in three different time-periods.  In the first section, we’re in the frozen landscape of Scandinavia in 841.  A Viking warrior-woman Ursa leads her fighters (and also her son, Anders), to find and kill the man who murdered her father in front of her when she was a little girl.  In the second section, we’re in Japan in 1609.  Two estranged brothers, Kenji and Kiyoshi, reunite after their father’s death for a fight to the death.  Then, in the third section, it’s 1942 and we’re with a group of U.S. fighter pilots in the North African campaign.  Young John Torres is a grounded wannabe pilot, but when his captain’s squad is decimated by a mysterious ship in the skies, Torres has to jump into action.

Obviously, all three of those stories are interrupted by Predator mayhem!

I love all three choices for the settings.  Mr. Trachtenberg and his team have taken what was fun about Prey — putting the Predator monster in a new and unexpected time and place — and they’ve come up with three wonderful new times and places!  Frankly, each setting is such a good choice for a Predator story that they could have each supported their own film.  (There’s part of me that wishes they’d just chosen one of these to develop more fully into its own feature-length adventure.  I’d have loved to have seen all three of these scenarios explored in more depth.)

The animation is gorgeous.  There’s a tremendous amount of detail in the character designs, but not so much that the characters don’t move smoothly.  There’s a pleasant amount of stylization, such that the film has a unique look to it, while keeping the characters in the realm of realism.  The backgrounds are gorgeously lush, with beautiful colors.  They did a terrific job designing the three settings to make them each look and feel distinct from the others.

I also enjoyed the way they redesigned the Predators to give the Predator in each timeline its own unique look.  I liked them all; it’s hard to pick a favorite!!

The action is spectacular.  There’s some great fight choreography in the film.  It’s just as much fun as you might expect to watch a Predator fight a Viking and a bunch of Ninjas!

The voice-cast all do good work.  I was particularly happy to hear the great Michael Biehn (The Terminator, Aliens) as the voice of Captain Vandy in the WWII story.  I wasn’t familiar with too many of the other voice-actors, but they all did strong work: Lindsay LaVanchy as Ursa; Damien Haas as Anders; Louis Ozawa as both Kenji & Kiyoshi; Rick Gonzalez as John Torres, and the rest of the ensemble are all very solid.

Watching these three segments, I thought the film was pretty much a masterpiece!  Sadly, it stumbled a little bit for me in the end. I’ll tell you why, but beware SPOILERS in the next paragraph.  Skip this if you don’t want to know.

There’s actually a fourth segment, one that is designed to link together some threads and characters from the three stories.  It takes place on the Predators’ home-world.  That’s a cool idea; it’s new ground for the series.  (I believe we see the Predators referred to as Yautja for the first time officially on-screen!)  But this final piece of the film’s story didn’t work for me.  First off, I didn’t need the stories to be linked; I think they were strong enough that they worked all on their own.  But if they were going to connect the stories in some way, I wish they’d taken another approach.  I don’t love the idea that the Predators have been cryogenically freezing some of the characters they’ve previously encountered.  That seems out of character from everything we’ve seen of Predators so far; plus, I want to believe that the few characters who survived previous Predator stories were able to have a happy ending after the events we witnessed.  (A short while after this film was released, they added an additional teaser scene at the end that gives a glimpse of some characters from other Predator films.  That was fun; I like the continuity.  But because I don’t like this plot device, it didn’t make me as happy as I’m sure the filmmakers wanted.  I didn’t want to see that these heroes from previous movies had been ripped out of their homes and times!)  I also think that there’s just no possible way that the characters could have survived this scenario among countless Predators on the Predators’ home planet.  It just stretched my credulity too far.

Despite my complaints about the last 15-20 minutes, I still really enjoyed this film!  It’s a very clever expansion of the Predator mythos!  The settings are cool and the action is tremendous.  It’s great to see some exciting new Predator stories!  I really hope the upcoming Badlands film doesn’t disappoint…!

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