Predator: Killer of Killers (2025) Review

“Let’s go hunting”

THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

Dan Trachtenberg succeeded in taking a step back to make Predator exciting again when having Prey take place way before the first movie, putting the Predator up against a different kind of warrior. What was his follow-up to this? Doing it three more times in a single movie. 
 PLOT


2025’s Predator: Killer of Killers is an animated anthology showing three different storylines that come together. 


The first story, The Shield, takes place in 841 Scandinavia where a Viking named Ursa and her son Anders (Damien Haas) defeat the opposing Krivich tribe led by Zoran (Andrew Morgado); who was responsible for murdering her father. Anders would be the one to finish him, but Ursa’s clan get overwhelmed by a Brute of a Predator that wipes them out. Ursa is able to defeat it via underwater duel, but would be heartbroken of losing her son in the process.


The second story, The Shield takes place in 1609 Japan and follows two brothers, Kenji & Kiyoshi Kawakami who were forced to duel to determine being the successor to their warlord father. Kiyoshi would win, but the former would flee in shame. 20 years later, Kenji’s who now lived in exile as a shinobi wants to confront his brother and pay him back in a duel by scarring his face. He doesn’t get to reconcile with him yet when having to face an assassin Predator, nicknamed Oni after the Japanese monster. They would succeed in killing the alien, but Kiyoshi would die from his wounds. 
 The third story, The Bullet takes place in 1942 and follows navy pilot John J Torres fly under the command of Captain Vandenburg (Michael Biehn). During the North African campaign, his squadron investigates a mysterious aircraft that destroyed another unit. A grounded Torres discovers it to be extraterrestrial and flies the battered Wildcat to warn them, only to arrive too late as they get outnumbered by the Predator piloting its warship, nicknamed the Pilot. It systematically annihilates the squadron to the point where Captain Vandy sacrifices himself to buy Torres time to escape. Torres is able to defeat it by outmaneuvering it and tricking it to destroy itself. Only after returning home to Florida at the end of WWII does he get picked up by another ship. 


The final chapter, The Battle, connects all three previous stories together into one. In a distant future, Torres wakes up and meets Kenji & Ursa who were all in suspended animation for some time. While none of them can talk to each other due to the language barrier, they’re all given explosive collars and taken to a gladiatorial arena. There, a predator warlord dubbed the ‘Grendel King’ demands the three to fight each other where the winner will face him and determine who is killer of killers. When the three join forces instead, the Grendel King summons a beast to kill them all. It devours Torres but Ursa & Kenji are able to kill it, allowing the former to escape and deactivate the collars. The latter two then face the Grendel King while Torres takes command of a spaceship to blast him away. As the warlord hacks off Kenji’s arm, other predators follow suit in trying to ground the ship with a harpoon launcher. Surprisingly, Ursa would sacrifice herself by sliding down the cable and destroy the launcher, allowing the other two to escape. The film ends with her being placed back in suspended animation next to aliens and other humans that have killed Predators such as Naru, Dutch & Mike Harrigan.


THOUGHTS


A animated anthology of a Predator movie is the fever dream you can dream of when many fans started watching this franchise from the beginning. Little did we expect Trachtenberg would be the one to pull this off after the momentum he got from Prey. The said animation from Third Floor Production is highly breathtaking because there’s so much creativity in terms of each Predator, the landscapes of each period we get to follow and all the violence that ensues. I was so into The Sword sequence the most due to how most of the action moves the story forward with minimum dialogue, whereas the stories need dialogue to move it all along. The fact these aliens actually collect past warriors that defeat their kind like the protagonists is indeed upsetting as that excuses their absence in other films, but it makes a lot of sense that they don’t take defeat lightly. I mean the fact Naru is in suspended animation explains how Rafael Adolini’s gun was given to Mike; The only takeaway would be the pointlessness of giving it to him when they knew they were gonna abduct him. It also makes sense to freeze past warriors because they wouldn’t want anyone else to know how they can be beaten. Keeping them around for gladiator purpose adds up too because there’s no way they would turn down an epic challenge when they know they can control the outcome because it’s certain the Grendel King would likely do so had he not freed three humans at once. While many past outings of this franchise have shown the gift of Brian over brawn, this one shows off how unity is just as much of a benefit when the going gets rough and the three protagonists that come together make a payoff of such a lesson. Rick Gonzalez made Torres the most upbeat and heroic since his goal is all about making a difference without over-relying on resources. Louis Ozawa Changchien was great as both Kenji & Kiyoshi for being two sides of the coin; the latter was pragmatic and aggressive while the former was stoic and compassionate despite defeat. Lastly, Lindsay LaVanchy was excellent as Ursa because she’s too proud of a warrior when it comes to completing goals. What they all have in common is that they’ve all went through loss which made them stronger than they realize. Ursa accepted this better than anyone because her decision to stay behind was her way to live without hate rather than keep on letting the grief get to her as both men reminded her of her son. Whatever happens to any of these characters going forward, I’m sure they’ll use their encounter to better their chances to be free of the fight that follows them. This movie kicks the right amount of ass, but there were still a few things I scratched my head about when looking back on it. For example, shouldn’t Ursa be a little pissed off that Anders killed Zoran? She was the one who explained how much she wanted revenge and although I hate the cliche of abusive parents, it’s a miracle she didn’t lash out on him because you kind of expect that of Vikings. Plus, is it really fair for the Brute Predator to wipe out her clan when he knows they’re all tired? It’s not really a fair fight if that’s what’s it’s looking for. Another thing, it’s not really smart to have a hidden stash of weapons in the floorboards if you have too big of a finger hole to access it. And while I’m pretty sure there’s good reason why they haven’t cracked the heat signature needed to see their targets, it’s totally a whole other problem for them to have their mines explode when located near the launcher. With their advanced technology, they should have a range limit that allows where exactly should they go off after thrown. That confuses me more than the need for the pilot Predator to possibly study human dogfights to give an alternative hunt. Ignore these things however, then you’re still set for a blast. In short, Hulu’s Predator: Killer of Killers succeeds in going all in with its creativity and giving exactly what the fans want, that is constant action in different varieties at once. If Prey either made you a new fan or gave you new optimism for this franchise, I promise this is worthwhile as well.