Predator: Killer of Killers has been officially released! Formally announced just a couple of months ago, the new animated Predator film can now be watched on our TV screens. Directed by Prey‘s Dan Trachtenberg and Josh Wassung, with a script written by Micho Robert Rutare, and animation by The Third Floor, the film is an anthology telling three stories.
The first story tells a tale of a Viking raider guiding her young son on a bloody quest for revenge. The second is a ninja in feudal Japan who turns against his Samurai brother in a brutal battle for succession, and the last story is of a World War II pilot who takes to the sky to investigate an otherworldly threat to the Allied cause.
For those in the United States, you can find the film now on Hulu and Disney+, while international viewers can find Predator: Killer of Killers on Disney+.
Critic reactions have been very positive on the whole, praising the stories, violence, atmosphere while the animation style does get some getting used to.
What did you think of Predator: Killer of Killers? Sound off in the comments below.
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The ninja scenes and the ninja vs predator were my favorite parts.
Wasn't anything mind blowing but it was entertaining enough.
Although I think it would have been better suited as a series, that way the characters could be fleshed out more and the predators could have been more methodical and tactical with their hunting instead of just jumping down and mowing people down by the dozen.
Exactly. Anyone quoting critical drinker loses credibility in my eyes. Heck, Mr. H (which I have included in videos before here), while hardly perfect either, would seem like a film school professor compared to the critical drinker.
If any of the rumors you say about the plot is true, I am glad that AVP anime will never see the light of day.
It does have flaws but I think its shortcomings are easier for me to overlook because it's an animated series. I'd be up for a story continuation in the future.
The Sword was absolutely my favorite section though. I'd love for a future installment to revisit feudal Japan.
Yep.
Critical Drinker, really?
I wish I was kidding. I don't have the links handy, but the limited info we have on what it contained has been summarized somewhere around here.
Say WHAT
The Predator 2: Xenomorph autism.
We dodge the biggest bullet since Alien 5, but actually 3 again.
Well we know the anime has an autistic half-Alien magical girl raised by an engineer.
I set my expectations with the news that this was going to animation, and I can accept animation as a full grown medium that nonetheless is different from written page, drawn page and motion picture.
They smartly used the most of the medium.
I liked the silliness of Killer of Killers and I don't even think that I would have liked the AVP anime.
One sincere nitpick I had was the predator dialogue. Not really sure where all the sibilance comes from considering they have no tongues and the voice acting sounds like people using tongues to make S sounds. There was already a verbal language established at the end of Predator 2 that sounded unique, but I guess it would be too unoriginal to try to expand on that! I don't know, man. Some of the mystique surrounding lore in the Alien and Predator movies...it's starting to feel like that moment in a Scooby Doo where they pull the mask off the villain only to reveal it was just the janitor or whatever, except the reveals here are...yeah. I'd have more to say on a different board.
Actually no I have another nitpick, the film score felt so anonymous they could've just stuck with whatever Marvel score they temp'd this with and saved some cash. It wouldn't have changed anything about the moments where they drop in motifs from the original film that felt shoehorned in to add a familiar texture that was nonexistent.
The animation itself, I got used to it after a while but I wouldn't say I would look forward to seeing it again. I think the philosophy of the animation being used to create a bunch of insanely elaborate, over-the-top set pieces was ironically pretty boring. If everything in the movie is an over-the-top sensory overload, then nothing actually is, and in turn it becomes pretty easy to fall asleep when it's the 8th Predator movie you've seen. Free the AvP anime!
Yeah, it definitely earns a solid 4 from me. I still have some issues with the final arc, but overall, I really enjoyed it. The animation is slick, the action is exciting, and the characters are easy to connect with. I do wish some of the stories were expanded into full-length features, but I'm happy with what we got.
Dan's the right guy for this universe. I'd love to see him co-direct the new AVP with Alvarez and eventually pass the torch to the next director.
Klingons have a ton of internal politics and conspiratorial backstabbing within a well organized Empire.
The Warlord and the people we see feel closer to Mad Max's little isolated "nations"
in the larger wasteland.
Predators still have their own flavor.
After a second viewing I felt like I could finally get on with a review.
I liked the stories, pretty much on par with many Dark Horse comics.
The shield
Well done, taps into the Beowulf/Grendel lore of old and plays with the variables. The story is fairly straight forward as s revenge story but it works as a backdrop for the Predator to drop in. Like AvP, cold is no longer an issue despite the creature being virtually naked.
The fights are well animated, if not hyper stylistic in nature since it *is* animation.
The way the chase of the Predator is built up lends itself perfectly for some iconic shots, but that is another discussion altogether.
As per the series standards, the predator gets cocky before the protagonist sees an opportunity which leads to her survival.
7/10
The Sword
We follow the story of two brothers in feudal Japan, in a tale about honor and dishonor, and about getting even in mutual respect.
A masterclass in visual storytelling. From the wide variety in camera angles, fight choreography, to pacing, humor and foreshadowing. It's amazing that this part is largely pure visual as there's hardly a spoken word. Here too: a predator get's too cocky for it's own good and runs out of luck after being cornered.
8/10
The Bullet
We open on the plot of a adolescent wanting to be a pilot, who gets drafted for service but remains more of a mechanic than a pilot. Out of the three stories this one is the most hyper stylistically animated, but the story and visual storytelling are pretty solid still. It leans hard on 1940's foo fighters sighting and we don't mean the band. Aerial acrobatics and even a callback to Star Trek General Chang in place, new weapons that have serious impact.
6.5/10
Final act
Oh boy. After the ending of The Shield we see our protagonist sitting in a dim cargo hold of sorts with a lit collar on. Seen what happened in Predators I saw this as a somewhat clever way to link the franchise together. We also saw hints of the other protagonists sitting in the same hold, so how do they cover these spans of time.
I fundamentally disagree with the concept, and having yet another Predator that is literally twice the size (and possibly links to 2018's The Predator) just feels... icky, no matter how well done the character design. Same with the language: while well done and not overly human in nature, I feel it's humanization that we don't need.
The transitions gave the final act away, and it's not so much these three ending up in the arena (could be a tongue in cheek reference to the Mike/Dutch script that was floated in the nineties), it's the implication that *all* survivors get put in cold storage at the very end, which undermines the value of surviving.
5/10
Notes
I've been a fan since I got on the internet at age 14 back in 1997, been going over those films and comics since, and while most fan pages were/are filled with inconsistent information, largely based upon Perry's books. (Which largely rely on the excellent Dark Horse Comics, but added nonsense like a sophisticated honor system, them having castes, and a braiding ritual (that makes no sense biologically, since the dreads are likelier to be fully natural and much like a lion's mane it defends against blunt blows to the neck in a fight.)
Dan Trachtenberg seemingly took notes reading it or I might be wrong entirely, but we'll have to wait for Badlands to see about that.
IMO, predators have been turned into Klingons, while in fact they're far simpler in nature in film and comic alike.
The rules they do follow:
-no unarmed prey that doesn't pose any threat
-no children
-no pregnant females
Other than that? Free game.
The Thomas brothers on the Predator: intergalactic rednecks on a weekend hunting trip. They are in it to win it, they cheat, they play dirty, they are skilled but they play dirty.
If you survive? A modicum of respect that let's you walk.
Getting put in cold storage kind of undermines the value of surviving, as you just get tossed back in the ring, especially if their idea is to make it the Hunger Games to select the strongest (very random selection too).
I feel it's too narrow a corner to paint the franchise in, unless Badlands will make clear how the franchise can become more pluriform instead of this one concept. Which, as there's only one outcome, feels rather one dimensional.
About the time spans being covered earlier, there were some hints at that in the story and in the comics I believe. The dead soldier being from a gulf war if memory serves and the Russian fighting in Chechnya, which had been appeased and loyal to Russia by spending big money since around the turn of the century, at least a decade before the film released. Hard to tack down the other players in Predators.
So in that sense, I wasn't too alarmed when I saw the dogchains on their necks.
The ending of a full cold storage though... Dan better paint himself out of that corner and just work on a second Prey entry...
Pro's
+Visual language and designs
+animated well and knows how to maximize the use of camera, color and lighting
+damn decent designs for an animated feature
+three stories pretty much on par with anything Dark Horse put out
+sound effects and spatiality are superb in Atmos
+sound design is on point
Con's
-suffers from the one frame rate to manage it all that Spiderverse films also had, rather than to maximize use of frame rate depending on the animation
-fourth act brings something new but conflicts with earlier films for the most part
-cold storage which was referenced in the working title being as clearly the central concept is something that potentially paints the whole franchise in a corner. Fingers crossed that isn't the case.
Total score 7/10
She meant Valhalla, since she wanted to die in combat.
Even if he lived it doesn't really matter, since by the time his mother wakes up he's dead for a while.
It's too late to resolve it in a small way, if it was after Prey maybe, but not after Killer of Killers.
Yes, I think he's actually said this several times across interviews
Ah I should have been more clear, I was trying to refer to Dan not using Greyback for personal taste.
My bad, I thought that you believed that I was with the people who wants the comic recanonized.
Of course Dan isn't going to retcon Prey and I doubt he's interesting including predators as they were in previous films. Thats my point.
I don't think he wants to retcon his movie, but I thought that he was tired of seeing new predators looking identical to old ones and not the old designs specifically.
But I'm sure, regardless, he'll look to retcon his very succesful first predator movie, all for a decades old short comic that almost no one knows or cares about. He'll also be looking to go back to old predator designs and aesthetics that he said he was tired of seeing.
Unless he changed ideas, didn't he say that he wasn't going to direct the Prey sequel?
I also don't think Dan is ever going to be interested in circling back and showing Greyback from the Lost Tribe. I don't think any pre-Prey predator aesthetics are going to be showing up in his stories.
Totally. I love the comic book origin of the flintlock and would also like to see the Raphael from that story instead of the one that we got. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to imagine Dan retconning the "impostor" (lol) in another anthology, or who knows, maybe actually see the real Raphael in one of those freezer pods.
I would like to still see that the comic book explanation for the flintlock would be canon (that implies the Raphael from Prey is an impostor and somehow the pistol would end up again in Greyback's hands to be able to give it to Harrigan)
Not seeing why its so upsetting.
Perhaps if you aren't going to engage with the media itself don't engage with the bloody review thread for it.
Whenever the small minority that didnt like KoK try to explain why or express their disappoinment they are met with a wall of "You just hate everything", "Your just no fun", "you're just some predator purist, you don't get it". Then the odd statements that this place is just full of toxic fans that hate on everything when only a small number of people and posts of have been negative, especially compared the amount of postive threads and posts.
It makes me feel like if I didn't love it then my opinion is not valid.