Score: 4.5 / 5
As an only partial-fan of the Predator franchise, I initially had no intention of seeing a direct-to-streaming animated film under the title. The Hulu feature -- with Disney expanding its entertainment monopoly to include Alien as well, though I haven't yet seen Alien: Earth -- piqued my interest when, upon closer inspection, I learned that Dan Trachtenberg was at the helm. To paraphrase myself vis a vis his other franchise entry this year, Predator: Badlands, Trachtenberg is the only reason this franchise works in my mind, and I'll watch anything the man creates. Since 10 Cloverfield Lane, he's more than earned his place in my esteem.
Building on the franchise in increasingly fascinating ways, Trachtenberg here seems to take his brilliant impetus in Prey to a more extreme degree. Killer Among Killers is an anthology film, episodically exploring Yautja hunters as they visit various populations on Earth, stalking and slaying human warriors for sport in times of terrestrial trial and violence. It's a wonderful fleshing-out of the premise of the franchise that it's never quite embraced; moreover, it combines several different time periods and locations into one film, so that by its end you feel a certain epic scope to the whole thing.
Which says a lot about an animated film. The Third Floor, the animation company behind this artistry, has a long history of fantasy, sci-fi, and action films, especially for superheroes and monsters (like the MCU and Godzilla, respectively). Here, they accomplish the unlikely in winning over my attention and my heart with gorgeous animation that rivals most other 2D material out there. More importantly, and likely due in no small part to Trachtenberg's style, the film justifies itself as animation through its determination to "film" its action in ways that wouldn't be normal in a live-action feature. It would be possible, of course, especially in these days of CGI, but even the cinematography of this -- the framing, I suppose, fluid and shot-specific as if filmed practically -- draws attention to its own impossibility. In this way, the film seems to be reaching out to us skeptical viewers, encouraging us that this medium was the only feasible way to do this project.
And it works! After Prey was released three years ago, I hoped more would be made in the vein of Assassin's Creed, meaning applying the same concept to other human cultures across time and space. And what a concept: seemingly drawn to people in the midst of tension and violence, a monstrous Yautja hunter materializes, studying its prey while invisible, and gradually working up to claim their heads. Or, rather, their skulls and spines, which they tend to rip from corpses of lesser predators before spraying with some kind of acid to "clean" their trophies. Flesh isn't the goal here so much as pride.
In "The Shield," first of the three episodes, Viking warlord Ursa leads a campaign against a rival who killed her father. Not unlike in The Northman, she has sworn to avenge her father, just as she forces her son to do for her. At her moment of reckoning -- with no small amount of disdain from her nemesis about her gender -- an enormous, hulking Yautja appears, and a riveting, bloody battle ensues across a frozen lake. Second, "The Sword" is a mostly nonverbal story of ninja brothers, battling each other for succession under the watchful, abusive eye of their samurai father. The underdog, Kenji, returns years later for revenge on his brother, when a lithe Yautja begins grappling with them both. Third, "The Bullet" follows Latino fighter pilot Torres for the US Navy in World War II who discovers and battles an airborne Yautja destroying planes over North Africa. All three episodes are rigorously paced and immaculately conceived, less about worldbuilding than about building character and theme through action. Each episode features a main character whose search for validation, acknowledgement, and/or vengeance leads them to victory, yet they also undergo grievous loss before defeating their hunters by their resourcefulness, quick-thinking, and sheer guts. It's all very classical, actually.
And that's not all! There's a final, fourth episode of the film that ties all three together: some time after each encounter, the heroes are abducted by the Yautja in ships that leave crop circles. It's this kind of cutesy nod that really elevates the material to a certain metafictional sensibility. Ursa, Kenji, and Torres find themselves brought to a Yautja arena and forced to fight each other to the death. Hence the title, this will show the Yautja what kind of human is most dangerous and therefore worthy prey. Or, perhaps, the Yautja simply like gladiatorial entertainment so much that this arena is more of a victory lap. Lorded over by what Ursa calls their "Grendel King," the Yautja want to see blood. Much like us, in fact, which Trachtenberg knows full well. I cannot underscore enough how bloody this film is; not wholly unlike Zemeckis's Beowulf, this film surprises with its sheer brutality. And not just when the aliens appear! The human-against-human fight scenes are inventive and gritty, hypnotic in their flair while upsetting in their aggressive ferocity. I said 2D earlier, but there is a distinct 3D approach to the visuals here, and the filmmakers utilize that best when letting blood splatter across the boundaries between prey and predator: on the sheet of ice, on a papery screen, on a plane window.
Each episode is beautifully realized, especially in their attention to accents and/or language. Each story is perfectly self-contained narratively and thematically, and would work just as well without the alien presence. Yet when the beastie boys inevitably reveal themselves, they function as a necessary extension -- a logical intensifier, if you will -- of the primary thematic concern for their chosen hero to continue to battle. And then, when they're all thrown together in the finale, the language barrier between them becomes a much-needed source of light comedy before the gauntlets come off. There are plenty of nods, especially in this last bit, to the rest of the franchise (I think I counted at least one significant reference to each of the previous films in the franchise, including a certain French pistol), and its final shots of other Yautja-killers including Naru, Mike, and Dutch suggest that our heroes may yet return again. If the ominous and bleak ending of this film is any indication, the survivors will need all the help they can get!
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