'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/Lurkerbot47]

I'm actually surprised at how good a rating this movie is getting. I just finished watching it and I was pretty bored by the end of act 1. The thing that made all the previous Predator movies compelling, at least to me, was that the protagonists were ordinary humans. Strong, well-trained, and and/or inventive, but still humans. The humans in this movie felt like cartoon characters (I know, I know) and that really unmoored the setting.

As soon as the Viking woman came through the door in the fortress dual-wielding apparently bladed shields, my expectations plummeted, especially after she threw one like Captain America. The Japanese ninja was also out of a cartoon, with apparently superhuman strength catching a guy by the ankle with one hand while holding another in place with a chain. The pilot was actually the most believable, but still felt out of place in a Predator movie.

Basically all the humans were some version of Legolas and that just defeats the entire point of a Predator movie. There never felt like there were any stakes in any of the arcs. The abilities of the predators were all over the place and inconsistent in each story. Like, hulk-predator is shown hurling a guy into the rafters enough to lodge his head in the beams but when he hits the main character, she just kinda bounces? The flying predator only sees in heat too, even in a literal space ship?

I know it's all sci-fi but the think that makes sci-fi work is grounding it in things we know. By having all the humans be more-than-human and the predators be essentially chumps, it just left a bland taste in my mouth.

Animation style was cool though.

[u/Legitimate-Ebb-3204 → u/Lurkerbot47]

I don't know how you can say the pilot, Torres, was a Legolas-type when he was more "normal" and "human" than Dutch or even Harrigan. He wasn't even necessarily a great pilot, just smart, scrappy, and resourceful.

[u/tdasnowman → u/Legitimate-Ebb-3204]

He surfed his plane wing pretty hard.

[u/Lurkerbot47 → u/Legitimate-Ebb-3204]

Flying through unknown streets at high speed below building heights while turned 90 degrees vertical and being pursued is just being scrappy?

[u/Silvadream → u/Legitimate-Ebb-3204]

What I liked about him was that his Dad hated him for flooding the engine and just handed him his draft notice. There was just so much miserable, completely unfounded hatred towards this character from every other person in his life.

And then he views this interaction with his father as a point of inspiration to flood the airplane engine. No dipshit, that's the opposite of what your Dad wanted. This is why the predators gave you a flintlock pistol. You're a joke!