Predator: Killer of Killers (2025)
Hunt the enemy before they hunt you!
Another one came out, and like some pocket-size monster I have to collect them all. For a long time I've loved the franchise, watching the movies and playing the games, even going as far as to checking out the books and comics. Yes, admittedly I didn't go through every single one of them, but let it be told that I enjoy the stuff good and bad. When I heard we were getting an animated entry, I immediately thought to myself - well, I never thought about how weird it was this thing didn't show up in an anime with it's subject matter. Turns out, it still hasnt' gotten an anime - but either way we are getting out our muscle jokes and tuning in to Predator: Killer of Killers.
Another first for the franchise - at least as far as movies go - this one is an anthology. If you know me, you know I love anthology movies - a chance to try a whole bunch of usually interconnected (however loosely) stories with the full capacity to make you wish for more but not overstay their welcome if they aren't enjoyable. Here, it's banking on a lot of the ideas folks have had for a long time - and certianly you may have already seen some fan films about - in the classic Predator versus format - what if they fought a Samurai? How about vikings? Admittedly, I never personally thought predator air-to-air combat in my list of things that I really would love to see a predator movie of, but we get that here as well. Three stories, interconnected by one big ending wrapped. A viking woman out for revenge, and having to learn just what the cost can be. Fun fact - the vikings all call the predator Grendel. A tale of two brothers - one who becomes a samurai and one who becomes a ninja, and how a fateful run in with a predator might just change their entire outlook on each other. Our last individual tale is one of a world war 2 guy with dreams of being a pilot, and how his dream comes true in the most unfortunate way. Quick thinking is the name of the book if you want to stay alive this time around - but then again, it always somewhat has been hasn't it?
Acting is done pretty good here, considering it's all just VO and animated bodies. The tales are more willing to interject some cheese into them as they go on - the most serious being the viking tale and the most moment's of wackiness being the World War 2 entry. Fans will recognize the fact that this isn't unheard of in the movies - pretty much every single one of them have had moments of humor, be it intentional or not. The real power of the franchise lies on it's ability to turn a tale on it's head - classic machismo commando guys suddenly turning into a horror movie, for example. This happens here as well, but the mileage is going to be a little hit or miss depending on how attached you get to the individual tale, despite the actors doing a good job either way. I don't feel like anyone really phone in their performances, but if you don't like the more playful pilot or samurai over the vengeful viking then it's gonna hit different.
I do suppose part of that falls more into the actual character writing then anything else. The actors are doing a great job, and some of the animation does a wonderful job of capturing the characters - even if perhaps they all can feel a bit stereotypical. Not that most really probably craved much else - you want the big violent vikings and the honor-focused straight-lined samurai or the largely serious ninja even if he has to put up with some goofy stuff. Heck, even the absurd situations the pilot gets himself into leaves plenty of character - it might be as annoying as young Luke Skywalker constantly complaining as he goes on a space journey with old Ben - but hey, to each their own right? The predators all have very distinct visual styling here. Some might not like this - others of us remember the absolute wild toy series that was way more intricate then just "slap a differnet mask on this and call him something else" and love it. Does it try to explain why they might look so differnet from each other? Nope. Does it need to? Not really - people come in all sizes, why not big old alien sport hunters? They are all still flat out the baddies of the movie, and although they are but one enemy - they are cetrainly the more dangerous ones.
Classic predator starting off with a cheap blow.
Animation carries a lot of possibilities with it. We've all seen stuff these days, and admittedly not everyone has watched things from every corner like hand drawn, stop animated, computer aided up to full rendered and motion captured. This one mostly feels right in that models-for-art category, where it's 3d models getting used but made to look somewhat drawn, and in turn it has this painterly kind of look similar to what you would see in Arcane. instead of one of the earlier Netflix CG-anime looks. It gives the entire thing a storybook feel, and I think it's pretty cool. Any still image ends up looking great - but as you might feel coming, there is always a but. In motion, the movie likes to seemingly at random swap between being a nice and smooth framerate and dropping down almost stop-motion chop. If it was consistent, I would just think that's what they were doing is animating to look and feel like it's stop animation, but it's not consistent and it's going to for sure put some people off to it. When it's good it's great, when it's not it's questionable - but beyond the frame rate things are animated quite well
Fights especially get some fun animations. The viking set get's this neat little emulated one-shot when they storm an enemy fort, the Japan segment gets both a sweet ninja hide-and-seek speed battle and a nice drawn out samurai fight, and there's plenty of wild air-crobatics. Yes, they aren't free from the frame-rate stuff we just talked about, but some of the scenes would absolutely be getting applauded if it was just shot live-action style. It seems a bit redundant to talk about effects when the entire thing is animated, but it knows that Predator is the kind of franchise people expect an R rating for, and with all the violent fights it doesn't cheapen the play to try and draw a wider audience. It's also somehow not overly graphic - I mean, you'll get some guts in there now and then, and people are absolutely getting eviscerated - but it'll still make a person far less grossed out then any zombie movie. Being animated, it's not like there is costumes and props necessarily either - but what's here does look great in the "Fits what you'd expect" department for the human characters while also giving plenty of neat Predator weapons we haven't seen and interesting versions of weapons that we have seen.
Audio is good. Balance is fine, no problem hearing things here. Admittedly, I do wish Hulu itself had a bit higher volume on it's slider, as it's a bit quiter then other things for whatever reason - but that's the service not the movie itself. Some songs are in there that stick around, like our intro song to the pilot's part - but for the most part it's that classic background building kind of stuff. There is also some references to the classic Predator jungle riff as well, but it's good to see that they didn't just spend all the budget on getting the latest pop songs to round out your audio soundscape. The sound effects all work great as well. I will say that after someone pointed out that a certain predator death sounded like that one fart sound effect people play on sound boards all the time, now I can't unhear it. Now, you would expect me to say there's nothing here for thinkers - but it's actually got a decent amount in here. Yeah, the basic stuff - revenge, honor, confidence - that kind of stuff. There is more there as well if you look for it though - not that you have to, it works solidly well without thinking very hard into it at all. You can sit there and enjoy the ride with some popcorn and have as good if not better time then anyone looking to try and write a thesis about it.
Exquisite painting, or dangerous pretend statue?
Did I enjoy it? Yeah. It's not without it's flaws, and it did really make me want a Predator done up like an 80s/90s anime, but it gave me a bunch of stories in a shorter format, and it works really well with the predator being involved. Yes, some could be drawn out to feature length and give more character development - but that doesn't always make for a great movie and could actually hinder it with pacing. I would love to see more like this - although perhaps with a far more consistant frame rate feeling out of the animation - as we just jump around different time periods and regions, maybe even branching out to diffrent creatures and planets altogether. Will it happen? Who knows, but at least we got a pretty good flick that feels like it ended up being more than just a money grab or proof of concept.