The new Apple TV+ feature "Mountainhead" is about how tech billionaires have become the villains of modern society. We've had plenty of films about how the rich are awful and disconnected from the rest of humanity, but "Mountainhead" is specifically about the behavior of those reprobates on the very, very top. Randall (Steve Carell), Souper (Jason Schwartzman), Ven (Cory Michael Smith), and Jeff (Ramy Yousef) are four ultra-wealthy tech CEOs who have convened at the newly finished mountain retreat of Souper, dubbed Mountainhead, for a weekend of playing poker and manly bonding. This happens right as Ven's social media platform is sparking social unrest around the world due to its new AI tools being used to generate large volumes of misinformation.
The four CEOs are not based on specific people, but you can definitely tell who's supposed to be the Elon Musk and the Warren Buffet and the rising star and the low man on the totem pole. As the apocalypse looms large, the four of them are revealed to be selfish, self-absorbed, and toxic in the extreme. They're obsessed with status, which they measure by net worth, and fixated on how to make deals and save their own skins to the detriment of everyone else. They have absolutely no regard for other people, and discuss the unfolding global disaster in the most callous terms possible. The first half of the film where we watch them as they watch the world catch fire is marked by creeping dread and moments of pitch black humor. The second half of the film is less successful because the scope narrows and the tone shifts to much broader, absurdist, and slapstick comedy. It didn't really work for me, though there were some good individual moments.
"Mountainhead" was written and directed by Jesse Armstrong, the showrunner of "Succession." I'm generally not a fan of shows about terrible people doing terrible things, but two hours is usually fine. I found the "Mountainhead" quartet well-observed in their immature frat-boy preoccupations, and I'm glad that there were references to topics like accelerationism and transhumanism that the Silicon Valley set get all worked up about. However, as a comedy I wanted the plot to get more extreme, more cringey, more absurd, or more anything. The first half was a great setup, but then it felt like Armstrong got preoccupied with undercutting his characters' egos, and showing how they really were a pack of ineffectual twits in a real crisis, and wound up removing the possibility of anything too dark or too politically incendiary. Recent events have shown that tech gurus can do some real damage, and the last thing I want in a satire about tech gurus right now is something that plays it too safe.
Now for something completely different. Animated movies based on primarily live-action IP have a very mixed track record, and for every "Spider-man: Into the Spiderverse" there's been a "The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim." The new "Predator: Killer of Killers" anthology feature, however, is one of the good ones. Dan Trachtenberg, the director of "Prey," returns for a collection of very violent animated tales of alien Predators doing battle with different human warriors throughout history. The first features a Viking warrior named Ursa (Lindsay LaVanchy) and her son Anders (Damien Haas) tracking down a rival clan leader, Zoran (Andrew Morgado). The second is about two brothers, Kenji and Kiyoshi (Louis Ozawa), and their rivalry in feudal Japan. The third is about a WWII airplane mechanic, Torres (Rick Gonzalez), who tries to warn his squadron of a Predator attack over the Atlantic.
I'm not a big fan of the Unreal Engine-produced animation, which resembles the style of Netflix's "Arcane" and the recent "Flow" animated feature. The characters aren't very expressive, and the visuals tend to look murky and unfinished. However, it's a good style for action scenes, and "Killer of Killers" is pretty much wall to wall action sequences. There are elements that just look better in animation than live action, including over-the-top violence, crazy science-fiction weaponry, and plenty of stylized blood and gore, with all kinds of creative kills on display. The three main characters are never given much depth, but there's actually more of a cohesive story here than I was expecting, and everything ties together in a satisfying way. "Killer of Killers" is easily better than three of the five live action "Predator" movies, just on a script level. Based on pure action, it might even be the best one.
Trachtenberg has another "Predator" movie coming out in a few months, the live action theatrical feature "Predator: Badlands." There's been no indication that its story is tied into "Killer of Killers" in any meaningful way, but I expect that it won't be entirely standalone either. And based on Trachtenberg's work with this series so far, I'm looking forward to it.
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