Holy crap! I don’t think I’ve ever been this excited to see the future of the Predator franchise play out. After an incredible revival with Prey, director Dan Trachtenberg’s Predator universe keeps getting more and more exciting, as evidenced with his latest creation: Predator: Killer of Killers!

What could have easily been written off as a DTV cash grab, ala The Animatrix or Batman: Gotham Knight, what Trachtenberg, co-director Josh Wassung have crafted is something way more ambitious and way more interesting. Trachtenberg, Wassung, and team have easily expanded on the history, present, and future of the Predator series in a single film, while still balancing terrific character development, action, and storytelling. Killer of Kilers is a testament to the potential of what can be done right with a franchise if the filmmakers actually care enough. And as a result, it’s gotten me even more excited for this November’s Predator: Badlands!

A technical anthology, Predator: Killer of Killers is split up into four distinct chapters: “The Shield,” “The Sword,” “The Bullet,” and an overarching story that blends all three previous chapters together. “The Shield” is set during the Viking era. “The Sword” is set during feudal Japan. And “The Bullet” is set during World War II. Each chapter follows a specific, interesting, badass character, as they each come into contact with a specific Yautja (Predators), and must do everything they can to battle the most brutal and survive.

Off the bat, Predator: Killer of Killers gets you invested in each of its central characters. Each chapter reveals their backstory, and gets you to connect with each chapter’s protagonist almost immediately, and often with very little dialogue. It’s a testament to incredibly lean yet efficient storytelling. “The Shield” is by far the most brutal of the installments, featuring the best action sequences in the anthology, with, by far, the most brutal of the three protagonists, Ursa. The action in this one is relentless, owing as much to games like God of War as the core Predator franchise. It’s lean, exciting, and features some of the most clap-worthy moments in the entire anthology.

“The Sword” is perhaps the most emotional and well written of the four segments. The segment is told mostly through action and expression, with very limited amounts of dialogue. Yet the relationship between the two brothers in the story is perfectly defined enough to get you invested in this tale of power, tragedy, and compromise. It’s deeply poetic, and yet, incredibly bloody and exciting as well.

“The Bullet” features, probably, the most comedy of the three segments. And while the primary character, Torres, is, in a way, the most obnoxious of the three, he’s also the most charming and innocent. In a lot of ways he’s the most relatable of the characters, being just a regular kid trying to make a name for himself and ultimately do the right thing. Like the preceding three tales, the action is also quite spectacular, featuring some aerial sequences that can absolutely only be done in animation.

Speaking of animation, the film features a gorgeous comic-inspired aesthetic which beautifully evokes the Spider-Verse style. The human characters look a bit more gritty and realistic than your average Pixar or Dreamworks film, which reinforces the type of mature animated filmmaking on display here. However, the explosions, gore, and action is swift, fast paced, and dynamic! It’s an absolute testament to the amount of talent and hard work the team behind Killer of Killers puts on display here. Case in point, there is a *spectacular* segment during “The Shield” that depicts the character Ursa storming a rival lord’s camp. It’s hands down one of the most brutal and coolest moments I’ve seen in animation or in any Predator movie. The way the film even depicts things like the Yautja’s cloaking look terrific as well. It’s astonishing that they were able to pull this all off in a lower budgeted animated film.

I need to also call out the awesomeness that is the world building on display here. We’ve definitely never seen Yautjas in these different eras. And Prey really started something out here that’s both intriguing and fun. If you can’t find the joys in seeing a Predator fighting a Viking, a samurai, and an ace WWII fighter pilot, you might be dead inside. However, there are definitive Easter eggs all over this movie that tie into the grander mythos of the Predator franchise that are just delightful, as well as clues that will likely hint at what we see in Badlands. Furthermore, Ursa, Torres, and Kenji are as dynamic and interesting as characters as Amber Midthunder’s Naru! My hope is that we potentially get more from these characters in live-action someday. We also get at least 3-4 different types of Predators in this that are brutal and ugly. I love it! And I have a feeling we’ll be seeing a lot more of these different types of Yautjas in future installments, as well as the mythology surrounding their collections and customs!

Killer of Killers, like Prey, also needs to be highly commended from a representation perspective. We have 3 unique characters from different backgrounds that exist outside the “straight White male action hero” model. We get the tough-as-hell older woman in Ursa, a period-accurate shinobi in Kenji, played by Japanese American actor Louis Ozawa, and an ideallistic Latino pilot played by Arrow‘s Rick Gonzalez. The fact that Trachtenberg is completely invested in telling the stories of characters outside of a straight White male in this universe is a welcome change of pace, and adds so many layers to the cultural backgrounds and areas for this universe to explore. And he does this with reverence and emotion. It’s just as good as what he did with Prey, and it makes the mythology so much richer.

Overall, Predator: Killer of Killers is an absolute gem! It’s hyper-violent, gorgeously animated, and brilliantly scripted! Each story is exciting and intriguing all at once, exploring different areas of the history of the Predator universe we’ve never seen before. And it does so with engaging characters that have spectacular stories and moments to shine. My only wish/hope is that this ties into Badlands seamlessly, and hope that film rewards us for seeing and enjoying this animated anthology. If you are a Predator fan, you absolutely have to see this one, and even if you’re not, I can guarantee you’re going to have a killer time!

Overall Score (on an entertainment level): A-
Overall Score (on a representation level): A