Predator: Killer of Killers

Throughout all of human history, warriors are born through conflict, trial by fire.  And in those moments, secret battles are waged between these champions and a race of Alien Predators known as the Yautja.  Their objective, their drive, to hunt the greatest killers, face them and become the ultimate Hunters themselves.  Those who survive to tell the tale face an uncertain fate.  In the end, only one can be called The Killer of Killers.

Much like many of it’s 80s action era brethren, Predator is another franchise ripe for the Anime or Animation treatment and it’s astounding it took us this long to get this kind of feature.  Coming to us from the same creative team behind the smash hit Predator prequel, Prey, including Prey Director Dan Tractenberg, Predator: Killer of Killers is an animated anthology feature that doubles down on what made that much needed breath of fresh air for the franchise so vital.  It enhances what we’ve come to expect from the titular hunters and strives to really make the viewers care about their new prey despite the short length of their respective tales.  Most of all, it shows we really need more of these kinds of stories from the Predator universe and then some.
 
Like any other anthology I cover, I’ll break down the offerings.  First up is The Sheild, which follows Viking Goddess Ursa who’s quest for revenge ends up netting her and her tribe on a Yautja’s fight card.  Second is, The Sword.  Set in Japan, this tale sees two brothers looking to settle an old score but have an unexpected interruption in the form of an other worldly foe.  Then there’s The Bullet, which sees WWII grease monkey Torres discovering a new kind of menace in the skies above the Allied Forces.  To top it all off, these three tales come together in an unexpectedly entertaining fashion that actually calls back to an original idea for a Predator sequel after Predator 2 that would have seen the return of the heroes of those films, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny Glover, in a new kind of battle against the Yautja on a bold new battleground.
 
The three main characters in Killer of Killers are the key to this features success (that, the animation, the action, let’s just stick with the characters for now).  Ursa, Kenji and Torres are all worthy follow ups to Prey’s breakout Comanche heroine Naru.  All three exhibit just what you want to see in a Predator hero: intelligence, capacity for adaptation, learning as things progress and pulling all of that knowledge together to bring down these beasts from beyond the stars.  It doesn’t matter what time period, be it the cold distant past of the Vikings to Feudal Japan to World War II, these three are proof that big guns and explosions aren’t always necessary to get the job done.  When need be, you have to work with what you have.  My personal favorite of the trio is Ursa, God what a woman.  It’s not like women haven’t fought against Yautja before but Naru from Prey was a huge step above the rest and Ursa is proof we need more bad ass female warriors in this franchise. 
 
The animation is a big draw since this is a first for the Predator franchise.  Unlike other anthologies like Halo: Legends or Star Wars Visions, Killer of Killers retains the same artistic style throughout all of its stories.  This isnt necessarily a bad thing as it forms a pretty strong connection between them and the style invokes the same excitement as watching the Spider Man: Spiderverse films or the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem film.  Sure it would be fun to see other art styles in play, but I’m sure that’s something that could be saved for a potential follow up.  One thing the film doesn’t skimp on is one vital element to a Predator feature: The Violence.  This aint no kiddie excursion and the Yautja have come to play.  Decapitations, dismemberments, even a disembowelment or two, all of the ultraviolence is here and it looks pretty freaking good.
 
While I overall think the film as a whole is great, one segment does tend to stretch credibility just a bit and that’s Torres’ story.  Hear me out, it’s not Torres, I love the guy and I love how he uses his ingenuity and the lessons taught to him by his father to figure out how to bring down the Yautja sky ace (the character work as a whole is freaking top notch).  No, it’s more the execution of the story.  I can buy a small dogfight between a Predator and WWII pilots but the short goes a bit more on the excessive side, with maybe a few historical inaccuracies here and there but that doesn’t bother me quite as much.  After the more personal and smaller scale battles with Vikings and Samurai, I think that despite the intriguing notion of a Yautja who hunts in the skies rather than the ground, could have been done far better, even if it gives us an excellent hero and things get back to way better in the final act.
 
Predator: Killer of Killers is both a strong follow up to Prey and a worthy entry in the legendary scifi franchise.  Emphasizing the hunted over the hunters, their personal struggles and intuitive greatness continues to be the key to making good Predator movies.  It doesn’t hurt that the stories are all gorgeously told and packed to the brim with the fun violent carnage we’ve come to expect from a Predator film.  It also more than succeeds in proving we need more of these anthologies stat.  Who knows what else the Yautja have taken on in the universe and what other time periods they’ve appeared in on Earth.  The door is open and the hunt is beckoning.
 
9/10