Predator: Killer of Killers
Review: I’ll be honest this movie absolutely stunned me. It was AWESOME, the best animated filmI’ve seen this year, and one of the best overall movies of the year. If you’re unfamiliar this newest addition to the long-running ‘Predator’ franchise was actually kind of a surprise release. Director Dan Trachtenberg, who has taken over some creative decisions for the franchise after his film, ‘Prey’ was incredibly well received directed this animated film that’s broken up into three stories. The three stories feature some of the best warriors in human history, a viking, a samurai, and a World War II fighter pilot as they each take on a Predator. Each story was really well done, with my personal favorite being the third, featuring the WWII pilot, Torres, whose character I was a big fan of. I have not yet watched all the Predator films, but of the ones I have seen, this is my favorite.
High: I’m a big believer in the school of thought that animation isn’t just for kids and this movie helped add to that. It is often thought that animation is a precursor to live action (see Disney’s live action remakes as a prime example), but this film showed that the decision makers behind this franchise believe animation can help improve their franchise. I would say that honestly this franchise works BETTER in animation. The animation style was cool and felt very video game-esque. The fact it was animated led to them being able to pull off cool character models, gadgets, & weapons that would’ve been tough in live action. Plus some really great kills that would’ve been even tough to pull off (like that slicing lasso that was used in the WWII portion of the film). I also feel that this is a good place to throw in that the character design of the Warlord Predator (from the final act) was SICK.
Low: When I first heard about this film I really questioned its release being less than six months before the next live action Predator film, ‘Predator: Badlands’ which is set to release in November & also directed by Trachtenberg. But it worked so well & honestly got me excited for Badlands, which I was shocked that this movie maybe tied into? Or at least tied into other live action Predator films. I will say my low is that this movie didn’t get a theatrical release, though it surely would’ve underperformed at the box office.
Rating: 9/10
Rec: I just remembered I was planning on doing recs on my reviews. Oops. For an adult animated film that came out this year, check out ‘The Witcher: Sirens of the Deep’ on Netflix. That film is admittedly underwhelming, especially compared to this one, but has a modest runtime of 91 minutes so not too much of an investment. I’d also throw out ‘Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim’ which can be streamed on HBO Max. A film that was heavily watched, it includes some light tie ins to other films in Middle-Earth, but again, was not nearly as well made as this film.
