The most recent Predator tale crosses time and space as Alasdair Stuart meets the Killer of Killers as we prepare for the next movie in the Predator franchise, out today…

Three warriors, three time periods. All prey.

The first animated part of the franchise and Trachtenberg’s second Predator is another corker. A Viking warrior woman named Ursa, a disgraced former Samurai named Kenji and a frustrated would be US Navy fighter pilot, John J. Torres, find themselves facing a Yautja in the middle of their own personal wars. Micho Robert Rutare’s screenplay cleverly melds the three time periods together and the animation ensures the characters and the Predators they face are distinct within that unified narrative. Ursa faces a hulking bear of a warrior in a fight that elegantly transitions from massive to personal, subtle to the brutal simplicity of who wants to live more and the complex grief of who doesn’t. Kenji faces a lithe, offhandedly vicious killer, scything their way through what should be a Samurai revenge movie and instead becomes a slasher with a sincere, open heart. Finally, Torres faces a Predator cyborg, their body shot away from too many hunts who fuses with their ship to hunt mechanical prey. This last one is the standout for me, and the graceful, increasingly terrifying fight in the skies feels the most human and fragile, and dangerous.

But the movie isn’t quite done. The coda here sees the three unfrozen from suspended animation and set against one another to see who will have the honour of fighting the Grendel King. This leads to the exact thing you’d expect, as these three gifted survivors team up to escape. Not all of them make it, but much like Royce, and Isabelle, they have a shot and they take it. Survival is victory sometimes.

It’s a script that riffs on elements of the previous films and finishes now with a cheeky nod to all of them, suggesting that we may yet see some of the franchises’ previous leads back in action. It also cleverly places us at an undetermined point in the future and, while it’s not been confirmed, I can’t help but wonder whether these characters might pop in Badlands. Not long until we find out now.

Verdict: A lean, tight action heavy script and one that wastes nothing. 9/10

Alasdair Stuart