Predator: Killer of Killers Kills

This movie seriously kills the competition.

Puns aside, since Disney acquired and rebranded 20th Century Fox as 20th Century Studios in 2019, there has been a significant effort to revive more movies based on their dormant IPs. The 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger-led Predator cemented the franchise in pop culture with a simple yet compelling story, awesome one-liners, and thrilling action. Predator: Killer of Killers takes the series in a new direction, with a familiar director at the helm, Dan Trachtenberg, who also directed Prey.

Killers is an animated anthology story following Predators in different eras of human history, trying to find the perfect opponent to test their skills. This is a film made by people who want to add rich lore to this universe, as we see Vikings, Samurai, and World War II pilots go up against the predator. It’s proficient at visual storytelling, where huge chunks of the film have no dialogue. This works in Killers’ favor as the action can take over what could be white space in the script.

The action is where the film succeeds bar none. It is so awesome to see a predator running on rooftops in feudal Japan fighting samurai, and the filmmakers know this. The film’s main focus is the action, and it is some of the best of the year so far. Each set piece is nothing like the last, taking time to have fun. The gore benefits well from being animated as they can, essentially, find creative ways for the Predator to kill people.

The animation style takes some getting used to, at first feeling as if the framerate of the characters is lacking. The art design is solid, and keeps your eyes glued to the screen. Yet it just seems an odd choice for a movie with so much focus on telling small individual character stories, to have said characters move in such a way that this becomes distracting. Spending more time with the animation would have been a big help to keep you more engaged.

Where the film struggles is with pacing. Just as you begin to get invested in a particular character, it cuts to the next one. This leaves much to be desired; adding more depth to a singular story might have let the movie feel a bit more cohesive. Instead, it feels more like an excuse to have really cool action sequences. The idea of including these different areas of history is amusing on paper, but it holds the story back from being memorable. You will not remember the names of the main heroes, and the sad part is, it really doesn’t matter. They are simply place holders to set up a big action scene at the end.

Predator: Killer of Killers is a positive step in the right direction for this franchise. In many ways, it is a love letter to fans, and also has some Alien references, which was cool. The movie is fresh and doesn’t rely on nostalgia. Ironically, its own ambitious story structure keeps this from being excellent.