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2022’s Prey totally rewrote the book on the Predator series. After several attempts to bring things up to date and make the concept from the original 1987 Schwarzenegger machismo fest feel relevant and fresh, director Dan Trachtenberg finally delivered a smart and thrilling take on the simple idea of hunters from a race of warrior aliens coming to Earth to kill humans for sport. The two ways he managed this were simple but highly effective; first he made the hero a woman who wins with ingenuity more than strength (finally after six other movies) and he also set it in a different time period. 

Now Trachtenberg returns to the series, picking up on some of these ideas. Having explored the notion of a Predator fighting Native Americans, he is now giving us, perhaps a little obviously, a Predator against a Viking, a Samurai and a WWII Fighter Pilot. I assume Spartans, Romans, Medieval Knights, Ninjas and Zulus were all on the table too but they had to pick a manageable number to deal with. One of these mighty combatants is female again too. 

The key difference here is that unlike all the other Predator films, including Trachtenberg’s upcoming Predator: Badlands which is following quickly in November, this is a cartoon. This is far from the first time a major cinema franchise has made this switch. There was the animated Matrix series, delightfully called The Animatrix, and we’ve seen this treatment with Robocop, The Lord of the Rings, Marvel and Star Wars of course. 

This feels quite closely aligned to the last of these two with the What If…? and Visions Disney+ series, not only because it is on the same streamer but because it is similarly episodic. The different stories do come together at the end, which is also reminiscent of What If…?, but each historical soldier gets their own segment first. The first two follow the same model with a flashback to the childhood events that made each player the fearsome warrior they are and a little mission to demonstrate their battle prowess before the observing alien steps in to beat them up. The Viking segment, with a tribal leader trying to make their passive son step up has unavoidable How to Train Your Dragon vibes as well. The final part, with aerial dogfights, mixes things up a bit but each instalment is essentially a duel between the human in question and the Predator that has come to pick on them. There is not much predatory behaviour before they go in for the kill. 

All of this means that the narrative has limited time for build up or character development but it does okay with what it has and the fights are exciting. It is hard to really care about anyone involved (this was where Prey really excelled) but it’s entertaining and the animation is impressive. 

In the scheme of things this feels like a sidebar in the ongoing Predator saga, like the multiple comics and video games, but it is worth a watch. With Trachtenberg involved it links to Prey, but in a way that steals something from the end of that film in my opinion. It remains to be seen if and how this will play into Badlands or if this itself will get a sequel but it’s a nice, if ultra violent, diversion in the meantime. 

Hunt it down.