Predator: Killer of Killers
In what feels a little like an anthology series spliced together into a single film, Predator: Killer of Killers gives us three separate tales of humans each besting Predator attacks in different locales and time periods before uniting together in a Predator arena to fight it out and prove who the best, the killer of killers you might say, is.
There certainly are a few head-scratching moments here, most prominently why the characters from the three time periods are all together on one ship. For aliens without time-travel tech they certainly weren't "caught" on the same mission. We get an epilogue showing the race cryo-freezing prisoners like this, but, at least from what is shown, that doesn't appear to be the case for these three characters.
Why are these non-frozen prisoners, taken over centuries, brought together and taken to the location where the cryo-freeze exists, exactly? Despite nagging questions like this and where and when other Predators were sent to find, and somehow identify, each of the characters and take them prisoner, Predator: Killer of Killers works well enough as sci-fi action as plays into expanding the world of the original 1987 movie (and most recently explored in 2022's Prey which Dan Trachtenberg also directed).
"The Shield" presents a tale of a Viking war between two tribes where the winners then get attacked by the Predator. Ursa (Lindsay LaVanchy), having gotten revenge for her father, now loses the the last of her family to the Predator she narrowly defeats in the frozen wasteland. Along with being the first, it feels like the most fleshed out of the three stories.
"The Sword" gives us a family affair as well as the ninja Kenji (Louis Ozawa) returns to the kingdom ruled by his samurai brother. In a movie about aliens and battles across space and time, the ninja sequences are my favorite as Kenji fights his way through the fortress to best the brother her refused to fight years ago. However, much like the first story, the Predator pops up after a winner has been found and offers his own challenge.
And "The Bullet" gives us WWI mechanic John Torres (Rick Gonzalez) who finally gets his chance as a pilot only to see his friends and fellow soldiers mercilessly destroyed by a Predator ship far beyond 40s technology. Of the three, this one features the most daring moments, such as Torres attempting fixes to his plane in mid-flight, while using every trick he can think of to survive.
The pieces, strong individually in terms of setting up motivations for each surviving killer of the time period, come together in the final act. And each works well despite the limitations of the simplistic alien hunters who, by design, don't really do much other than hunt. We get plenty of action, but the animated version, resetting with a new story every 20 minutes or so, lacks the extended tension forged over the course of the original film.
The final battle puts all three warriors together on the alien homeworld where they are instructed to fight each other with the winner taking on the Predator final boss. Can they put their confusion and distrust aside to work together and defeat the common enemy, or will they just become more fodder for the Predators? The end, if a bit obvious, proves satisfying.
