'Predator: Killer of Killers' review: Dan Trachtenberg teases bigger plans in spectacular Yautja anthology
Before Dan Trachtenberg breathed new life and injected fresh blood into the Predator franchise with the prequel Prey, it had seemed like there was nothing new that anyone could do with the Yautja universe — that brand of menacing humanoid extraterrestrials that don't do what the other popular brand of humanoid extraterrestrials, Xenomorphs, do. Given the immense reverence for the first Predator film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, now a classic, anything that followed paled in comparison — until Prey came along and showed that you could not only take it in hitherto unexplored directions in terms of setting but also generate the kind of thrills and memorable imagery largely absent in action filmmaking today, except for the likes of George Miller and his Mad Max films and James Cameron with the Avatar films.
Trachtenberg proved with Prey that he possesses the same degree of virtuosity as the above filmmakers when it comes to creating immersive spectacle. And now, with Predator: Killer of Killers, streaming on Jiohotstar, he firmly re-establishes himself as a visionary who seems to have a vast reservoir of brilliant ideas waiting to be unleashed in due time.
An animated triptych comprising encounters between three different forms of the Yautja and warriors from three eras — one a Viking, another a samurai, and the third a World War II pilot — each tale in Predator: Killer of Killers is marked by lively animation, eye-popping colours, and inventive action choreography with a clear sense of geography that recalls James Cameron's work in the first two Terminator films. And some of that carnage, I imagine, would've been impossible to pull off in live-action. The budgetary concerns could've been another reason for opting to do the whole thing in animation.
A mother and son lead the Viking tale. The samurai tale, wordless except for one line, focuses on two brothers. The 1942 story is a battle between a human fighter pilot and a Predator pilot. By the end of these three tales — all bound by a common, recurring idea in the Predator franchise: the interference of aliens in human vs human conflict and the realisation that these creatures are scarier adversaries than those belonging to our kind or anything we may stumble upon in the wild — we realise that Trachtenberg has a damn good reason for bringing them together. Bigger plans for the franchise are teased, with an expansion of the Predator lore in a manner that resembles the direction taken by the recent Planet of the Apes reboot.
The surprises that Trachtenberg springs in the finale tease potential connections to earlier entries in the franchise. It remains to be seen whether we'll get to see any of the franchise's favourite human warriors or elements from Prey and Predator: Killer of Killers in future instalments, especially in Trachtenberg's upcoming live-action feature Predator: Badlands, which will not only have a Predator protagonist for the first time in the franchise's history but also a connection to the Alien franchise in the form of an android character manufactured by the Weyland-Yutani corporation. Exciting times ahead!
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