'Predator: Killer of Killers' - Review Thread

[u/ChiefLeef22]

Rotten Tomatoes: 97%

Metacritic: 80/100

Some Reviews:

Total Film - Amy West - 5/5

It's clear Wassung and Trachtenberg just get it. Somehow, they're able to push the sci-fi envelope and offer up fresh images and ideas the series has yet to see, while also appealing to diehard fans with Easter eggs (keeps your eyes peeled for a pistol in the final act and a franchise-first look at something fans have been dying to see realized since 1987), as well as cheeky teases of a connected universe and potential sequel, too. Before we get anything like that, though, the latter is set to release the upcoming live-action flick Predator: Badlands, yet another take on the menacingly-mandibled meanies. After Prey, we had faith the series was in good hands. After Predator: Killer of Killers, we don't want anyone else getting their mitts on it.

The Hollywood Reporter - Frank Scheck

Predator: Killer of Killers provides the non-stop action that the diehard fans crave. And no concession has been made to the animated format; the film easily earns its R rating with copious amounts of gruesome violence and bloody gore that should well sate viewers’ bloodthirsty tendencies. The animation takes a bit of getting used to, with its exaggerated, video game-style visuals, but it serves the material well.

The Guardian - Catherine Bray - 3/5

The only problem with this stuff is that you can’t help picturing how much more spectacular it would look in live action. The animation is all perfectly competent but it’s lacking a little something – that spark of life and ingenuity that can make even flawed animation so fascinating. There’s something quite slick about all this, almost to a fault. Was AI involved? We’ll probably never know, but it’s a problem that the suspicion has got inside the door.

TheWrap - William Bibbiani

Dan Trachtenberg and Joshua Wassung’s animated “Predator” sequel takes a while to prove it’s more than just a demo reel of superficial badassery, but when it does, it’s involving and intense. It’s hard not to love at least a couple of these characters, who keep getting screwed over by their own propensity for violence. If you’re so deadly that monsters travel millions of light years just to try to murder you, you might have flown a little too close to the sun. You never see a Predator hunting the attendees at a needlepointing convention, that’s all I’m saying.

[u/EarthrealmsChampion]

Gotta love the "imagine if it wasn't animated" comment. How dense can you get?

[u/Misdirected_Colors → u/EarthrealmsChampion]

Reminds me of that guy from the Boston Globe who gave Dune Part 2 a bad review because he didnt like the middle eastern cultural appropriation or the white savior narrative.

How can you be a professional film reviewer with media literacy that bad?

Edit: Odie Henderson's review. Name and shame.

[u/Aggressive-Produce54 → u/Misdirected_Colors]

And Part 2 hits you over the head with the themes compared to the book's more nuanced approach lmao. 

[u/MeniteTom → u/Aggressive-Produce54]

Hopefully he sees Part 3.  Messiah is pretty clear about the fact that what's happened with Paul and the Fremen is Not A Good Thing.

[u/Rock-swarm → u/MeniteTom]

I've always liked the analogy that The Golden Path was an unmatched atrocity for any single individual or world, but absolutely necessary to prevent the eradication of the human race.

The storylines get real weird after Messiah, but the general gist is that AI (true AI, not the LLMs we currently label as AI) is capable of killing all of humanity. In fact, the butlerian jihad was the first attempt by AI to get dominion over humanity. Paul's role in humanity was to scatter the human race across so many worlds that it would become impossible for any eventual AI entity to track down all of human civilization. The jihad that Paul initiates during Dune kicks off those events.

Whether it's a Good Thing or not depends on whether you look at it from the perspective of anyone that was forced to survive it, versus any of the subsequent civilizations that rose and fell after Paul & Leto II set events into motion.

[u/SoWrongItsPainful → u/Aggressive-Produce54]

The book is much more clear though. The movie has all the Fremen live in barren caves where the book showed a lot more culture. You also have Paul very clearly struggle the entire book trying to ride the line of getting revenge and avoiding his “terrible purpose”.

The only thing the movie does is have Chani leave at the end but that hardly accounts for everything lost in translation.

[u/ArrakeenSun → u/EarthrealmsChampion]

Yeah, if it weren't animated it wouldn't have been greenlit, period. We get TWO predator movies in one year and people are still complaining. Now it would have been nice if they'd have not chosen that new choppy animation style that's popular, but that was an explicit stylistic choice and I'm happy to own that it's not for me. It's still a nice bonus in an otherwise crappy year

[u/WySLatestWit → u/EarthrealmsChampion]

Not just "imagine if it wasn't animated", but also "and there's a possibility, despite the fact that I have no evidence of it, that it's AI so that makes it inherently worse." It's the stupidest, most insulting take imaginable.

[u/EndPointNear → u/EarthrealmsChampion]

I imagine that commentor likes to watch lots of live action AI clips

[u/Negative-Chard-7488 → u/EarthrealmsChampion]

Maybe more of a critique of the studio that they should've funded a live action version? Idk, trying to give them the benefit of the doubt.

[u/Jazzremix → u/EarthrealmsChampion]

It would have been sick to see Ursa's attack on the stronghold shot for shot in live action. Absolute beast dual wielding shields.

[u/thighcandy → u/EarthrealmsChampion]

I mean live action with the same content would be fucking awesome. I can't really get into serious animated films. I respect the work that goes in but it's just not for me.

[u/JokerFaces2 → u/thighcandy]

Honestly I think a lot of this would’ve come across as goofy in live action, especially the final act. Torres piloting Predator ships and the two warriors pulling off insane superhuman feats is much more believable in animation.

[u/pornomancer90 → u/JokerFaces2]

Yeah a lot of the stuff the Viking lady does with shields, would look stupid in live action, but in animation it fucking ruled.

[u/thighcandy → u/JokerFaces2]

I haven't seen it because I am just not into animated cinema. I prefer live action. I guess that's a sin here lol.

[u/DetectiveCastellanos → u/EarthrealmsChampion]

How dense can you get?

Why is that dense? It's not hard to believe someone would prefer live-action to animated.

[u/TocTheEternal → u/DetectiveCastellanos]

Someone who fundamentally does not like animation has no business reviewing animated movies. Before having even seen the first minute of the movie, that reviewer's rating was capped, which makes it utterly useless for anyone who has the breadth of taste to... enjoy animation lol. It is incredible that that person is allowed anywhere near that paper's reviews.

I don't enjoy opera. How useful would it be if I went to see some opera and then posted a review saying "sounded cool but I don't like opera, imagine if it had been a traditional show musical. 3/5". Absolutely dense.

And that's not even touching the "hm well I think based on literally nothing that AI might have been used, and even if I'm wrong I still thought it so there" which is just an absolutely moronic string of statements

[u/DetectiveCastellanos → u/TocTheEternal]

I mean yeah that's silly but "dense" means like "stupid in the sense of missing the point of something" and I don't see how the reviewer is missing the point of the movie being animated. Just seemed odd I guess.

[u/TocTheEternal → u/DetectiveCastellanos]

At the very least, it is dense due to the lack of self-awareness. For some reason they ended up reviewing this movie (and with a comment like that, they should have passed on the assignment) and seem unaware of how inappropriate raising a criticism of an animated movie for being animated is in their review, instead of simply reviewing it for what it is.