“ALIEN COVENANT”

I really like the Alien movies, they are good fun, well at least the first two are. Ridley Scott really started something with this franchise and it seems like being a director or writer in this franchise often leads to great things. Aliens was directed by James Cameron, David Finch got his early start with Alien 3 and Joss Weedon wrote the script for Alien Insurrection, though we won’t hold that against him. Now granted, the Alien franchise was rather untouched for quite a while, having only re-immersed itself in the 2000’s for the rather lame Alien versus Predator crossover series of films, directed by Paul W S Anderson, the hacked director behind the Resident Evil films, and guess what, he did a terrible job bringing the ultimate clash of sci-fi nerds to the big screen, twice no less!! After Alien versus Predator Requiem was a total disaster at the Box Office, it meant that anyone who actually liked that movie would never get to see the result of the cliffhanger at the end of Requiem. Sucks to be you guys!!

The franchise did make a brief return in 2013 with Ridley Scott returning to the franchise to direct the prequel Prometheus, explored the space jockey’s better and it was a pretty bad movie too. It wasn’t awful from start to finish, but it was hyped so well and we got our hopes up so high that it meant that our inflated expectations allowed us to judge it even harsher, but to the honest, I didn’t like the movie either. I do stand by my opinions on that one.

I was genuinely looking forward to this film. There are several writing credits to this story by Jack Paglen and Michael Green who are currently developing the story for Kong versus Godzilla, but the screenplay is by John Logan, who wrote the screenplays for Spectre and Gladiator and is reportedly doing the screenplay for the next Bond film and Dante Harper who makes his writing debut for this film. With all that being said however, could Ridley Scott really strike back with the Alien franchise, considering how badly he screwed up Prometheus.

As the title suggests, Alien Covenant follows the colony ship the Covenant. The ship is manned by the robot Walter (played by Michael Fassbender), as the crew makes their way to a plane that has deemed as ideal for colonisation. Oram (played by Billy Crudup) becomes the captain after an accident causes the death of the original captain and in their haste to get the mission solved they follow the signal to a distant planet that seems ideal for colonisation. Joined by several of the crew members including Daniels (played by Katherine Waterston), they head to the planet to discover that it is a hostile environment with the native Aliens attempting to kill them. However, they discover the planet is inhabited by the robot David (also played by Michael Fassbender), who has been stowing away there ever since the Prometheus went missing. Now it is there mission to make contact with the covenant and get the hell off this planet.

“stop reading this review and go and see it now”

The best part of this plot is the interactions between David and Walter. It’s almost like a multi-generation gap conversation because Walter is a much later constructed robot and therefore programmed differently, so as a result, they have very different views of the world which leads to some very interesting conversations. Fassbender really sells in a performance which is very difficult to do, he essentially has to act with himself and have amazing chemistry with himself and the special effects allow him to do that expertly. One thing that really does the film in though, however, is that some of the characters feel rather under developed. They are better than the Prometheus cast, but it feels like the only developed characters are Daniels, who risks being a Ripley clone, though just manages to have her own identity, which is more than I can say for Jessica Chastain’s Dr Shaw from Prometheus, Tennessee played by Danny McBride, who is a rather interesting character with interesting motivations and Oram who is the put upon captain, who feels out of his depth being placed into a role he never expected following the death of the original captain. These characters, you want to see come out alive, however, some of the other characters don’t feel like they leave much of an impression and feel like they are there just for the body count. If that’s the worst thing you can say about this movie, considering what we have had so far, that is pretty dam good.

I really enjoyed everything about this film. The fight for survival, the enclosed environments, they even did some interesting ideas later on with the covenant. I don’t want to go into too much detail as I don’t want to give away spoilers and I think I have already done enough, but believe me the motivations in this film are really strong and I enjoyed the plot overall. It didn’t skimp on some interesting plot ideas and it was for once, rather interesting to see an origins story. Not everything works about it, but it feels like the strengths outweigh the weaknesses.

The acting is pretty dam good. I have already gushed about Michael Fassbender who is by far the best performance in the entire film, but I expect nothing less from him considering what a fantastic actor he is. Katherine Waterston steps into a role which feels like she might be out her depth, but she succeeds for the most part. Billy Crudup is given a lot of screen time and does an excellent job in his role. I really enjoyed Danny McBride in this film, who I think is a rather underrated actor. There are also a few cameos in here that deserve mention, but are uncredited in the end, for example Guy Pearce returns as Peter Whalen from Prometheus, but he is only in one scene at the beginning and doesn’t impact the movie at all, you don’t even get a sense of his presence like you did in Prometheus. James Franco also has an uncredited cameo as the original captain, which feels rather pointless considering what a talent he is. The rest of the cast is pretty good for the most part. I don’t think there is a bad performance in the film.

As for the action, however, that’s where things get a little tricky. Ok, I am going to get it out right now, she special effects in the film are pretty good, the background and the set designs are fantastic and some of the location shots in this film are superbly done and have beautiful environments. The location manager and set designers deserve an award for this film and I would argue the special effects could easily get nominated for the Oscars for best visual effects next year. It was all going so well, and then the action happened!! Now the action for the most part is pretty well choreographed and I could tell what was going on for most of the time. This film suffers from quite heavy shaky cam. Granted, it feels more fitting in this film than it does in a lot of other films, that are using it to cover up the fact that they have no action budget and want to cover up the fact that their choreography sucks, say a film like Battle Los Angeles. This is another example where shaky cam could fit a scenario, but it takes you out of it because you are struggling to tell what is happening. The first Hunger Games film suffered from this issue and it’s a very similar issue I have with this film, though granted it was much worse in Hunger Games. The problem is that Saving Private Ryan is the only film who has used it to a great success. I did like some of the new designs of the Neomorph’s and of course the Alien still retails its H R Geiger look and it looks fantastic.

Is Alien Covenant a perfect film? No, it doesn’t quite become a perfect film. Is it a good Alien movie? Hell, yes, this has been the best film in the franchise since James Cameron’s Aliens, and while I don’t think it is on a par with the original two films, it still stands up well and is a good addition to the franchise. I dare even say I think this is one of the better ones. It certainly better than any of the recent sequels to date and better than Alien 3 and Alien Insurrection. It kind of suffers from some under developed characters and way too much reliance on shaky cam, but as a film it feels like a rather decent film and I had a good time seeing it. I recommend it, especially for science fiction fans. Of course, the thing that makes sure this film is not underdone is the fact that the film has an R rating, if this film had been PG13 it wouldn’t nearly hit as well as it does because the special effects are fantastic for the film. Check it out if it is playing in your area. Between this and the Martian, Ridley Scott is back on good form.

And don’t just take my word for it here’s Ren Bromiley thoughts on the movie too:

Alien Covenant shares a lot of similarities with Romantic and Gothic literature in its portrayal of nature.

The infinite vastness of space, freezing temperatures, crushing vacuum, and its lack of gravity make it completely uninhabitable by humans – in fact it’s so far from any sort of environment that we could exist in we would literally die instantly if we were to venture out unassisted.

Being such a barren environment, space evokes feelings of helplessness ( ‘In Space, no-one can hear you scream.’ ) as it is isolated, dangerous, and unpredictable.

Added to this a very Gothic-Lovecraftian element of the unknown (beings and powers beyond our comprehension), humans are highlighted as completely powerless and unprepared to deal with what exists beyond the comfort of our understanding.

– Tonnes of biblical and creationist references from the characters, continuing from Prometheus.
 The genesis of a new life form, David seeing himself as a guiding (perhaps godlike) figure for the Xenomorph species, washing of Weyland’s feet (Prometheus), meeting humanity’s creators (Prometheus); Wagner – Das Rheingold – Entry of the Gods Into Valhalla, the title
‘Alien: Covenant’.

I feel like Alien: Covenant actually made Prometheus into a lot better of a film – a lot of scenes in Prometheus made more sense, and added to David’s character and the position he is in in Covenant.
 The film was thoroughly enjoyable – a lot of theories were confirmed and thrown away over the course of the film. Covenant did a good job of tying together loose ends.

A couple of over-used tropes – David and Walter fighting, ending up in the ol’ switcheroo as David ends up on the ship with Daniels and Tennessee.

Stupid and careless captains in the Alien franchise have been worn to death – although Captain Oram’s idiocy was explained through his religious beliefs (ba-dum tss).

Fantastic ending and cliff hanger pave the way for a menagerie of budding Alien films, and a potential return of Michael Fassbender (though whether or not they’ll continue along this avenue remains to be seen).

Fassbender portrayed well the maddened android David, however in the role of Walter I thought he shined best. Aloof and not quite as human as David, you could see that his character struggled to come to terms with possessing human emotions and feelings.

Katherine Waterson as Daniels (though not quite as durable, or unlucky as Elizabeth Shaw in Prometheus) performed an excellent role as replacement Sigourney Weaver. Her character was badass, level-headed (once she’d accepted her partner’s death), and quick-thinking.

Tennessee was actually probably my favourite character in the film – it was interesting to see Danny McBride tackle a non-comedy role, and I thought he performed it admirably. He was believable in many aspects of the role, though his song recognition (Shazam) for Take Me Home, Country Road seemed a little too on point.

Overall, fantastic addition to the Alien franchise. Felt a lot more like the original film, while also taking a lot of the more interesting aspects of Prometheus in tow.

Once again, no mini reviews this week as I have been attending my friend’s wedding.

Next time I will be giving my thoughts on the latest film directed by Guy Ritchie “King Arthur, Legend of the Sword”.

Thanks for reading my review. I hope you have enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it, and as a tribute to the late great Robert Paterson “game over man, game over”.

Calvin – Nerd Consultant

“THE BOSS BABY”

I get a sense that Dreamworks is really slumming it with their current line-up of animated films. They seem to be going down a similar route to what Pixar was doing before Inside Out came out, churning out any rubbish that looked like it would make a quick buck of kids. The thing is, though, I don’t want Dreamworks to decline because they have made some brilliant animated films, in fact some of my favourites, The Prince of Egypt, the first two Shrek films and, of course the Kung Fu Panda movies, which are some of my all time favourite animated films.

The Boss Baby was exposed to me at first when I went to see Trolls, as it was one of the trailers that was played before it and I thoroughly did not want to see it, based on that first trailer. This looked like one of the dumbest ideas ever and I was going “right, I am done, Dreamworks obviously doesn’t care any more”. But, of course, I have a job to see and I pretty much review every animated film that come out, since I am big believer that animation is a brilliant medium to get ideas across. So, work with what you have got.

The film itself is directed by Tom McGrath, who directed Mega Mind as well as all three of the Madagascar films, though he did not return to direct the Penguins of Madagascar spin off. He is an ok director in my opinion, but he’s not the greatest director. The screenplay, however, has been written by a former Saturday Night Live writer, which give me a bit more hope, Michael McCullers, who also wrote the first Austin Powers film, The Spy Who Shagged Me as well as providing additional material to the recent Mr Peabody and Sherman film, which were both ok films. He hasn’t got an amazing track record, however, he also wrote the screenplay for the woefully bad, live action Thunderbirds film as well as Gold Member, the rather underwhelming Austin Powers sequel, and he is also writing the screenplays for next year’s Hotel Transylvania 3, which already feels incredibly necessary, despite the fact that I did enjoy both of the Hotel Transylvania films and Shrek, the second one may have been weaker, but I thought it was an ok film and got way too much of a bash from the critics and the incredibly unnecessary and clearly only in it for the money film Shrek 5!! Seriously, until I started doing research for this review, I didn’t know Shrek 5 was even on the cards, I know this is a money maker for Dreamworks, but please let it die!!! Back to the Boss Baby, this may be a woeful concept, but I think a Saturday Night Live writer and the director of the Madagascar films might get something out of this, even though I am not a huge fan of the Madagascar films and actually think are one of the prime examples of why celebrities and animated films don’t necessarily go together. But, let’s see how The Boss Baby turns out.

Ok, stay with me, because The Boss Baby’s plot sounds ridiculous! Young Tim ( voiced by Miles Christopher Bakshi) is enjoying life with his mum and dad, (voiced by Jimmy Kimmel and Lisa Kudrow). He has a problem, however, one day a taxi arrives, delivering his new baby brother The Boss Baby, (voiced by Alec Baldwin). As he starts taking over his life, he is horrified to discover that the baby can actually talk and is here on a mission. He is a member of Baby Co and he has to discover what the infamous Puppy Co is up to and how they are stealing the love away from babies and giving it to puppies and must stop the CEO Frances Frances, (voiced by Steve Buscemi). Did you get all that, no of course not, because it’s ridiculous. I wasn’t minding this plot so much until towards the end. The film actually starts out with the idea that Tim has a very overactive imagination and I imagined (no pun intended) that this whole thing was a child’s perspective of what it would be like to have a younger sibling come into their life. This is something I haven’t experienced myself, being the younger brother. Maybe I could have related to Tim more if I had been in that situation. However, the problem is that the film doesn’t go down that route. I am not going to go into too much detail, but with trying to spoil as little as possible, it’s not all in his head. This entire thing is played 100% serious, or as serious as a Dreamworks Animated film aimed at kids can get. But that’s the point, this whole thing is played as if this is the actual reality of this world and it makes no sense!! I am sorry but by the end the whole thing doesn’t tie up together. I am not saying that this concept couldn’t work, I think it probably could, the problem is that they don’t explain it well enough, so as a result, the whole thing kind of falls down. It’s almost like a game on Jenga, it’s all going pretty well, then somebody moves a piece and the whole thing is going to fall down. Granted, I kind of like the concept as a whole. Despite the fact that it is a stupid concept, if they had taken this idea a little less seriously, it could have led to some pretty funny jokes. The downside is, because they do take it so seriously the jokes are all groan inducing more than funny.

I am not saying that every kids film has to be Inside Out, that’s ridiculously impractical and inflates too much expectation. But I just expect, that if you are going to deliver a plot like this, you can’t leave a lot of these plot lines hanging. For example, they never really establish how everything in this world works. There are a lot of things we are meant to accept without asking for an explanation, and these moments are way too numerous off the top of my head. On the plus side, there are some good points to this film. I actually kind of like the relationship between The Boss Baby and Tim, if anything, their interactions are probably the best part of the whole movie and that’s what stops me from hating or disliking this movie, because that’s the main focus, it’s just about two brother coming together and bonding with one another.

There are a couple of problems that I have with the film. The first being, the villain, no offence to Steve Buscemi, he is doing what he needs to do, but Frances Frances is such a bland and forgettable villain, they try to give him a decent back story and I will admit, it’s actually a decent twist that I didn’t see coming, but his presence really adds to the over ridiculous nature of this film and the fact that everything that is happening is 100% real, means that the whole thing feels ridiculous. Granted, while I may have said that, there was a moment at the very end of the film where I felt this film had a saving grace, without going into too much detail because I don’t want to spoil the film for anyone who wants to go and see it and it just about rescued the entire movie for me. The problem is, that it is completely ruined two seconds later, and then roll the credits!!! That’s all I can really say about the film. This was my biggest fear going into the Boss Baby, that the whole thing wouldn’t go ridiculous enough and that really is the problem. If it wasn’t for the rather likeable main characters, I think this whole thing would just sink for me. Fortunately, it doesn’t entirely sink, there are genuinely good points to the film, but man, was this a bland film. The plot itself is really a “been there, done that”, in fact I actually recognised a lot of scenes that felt very similar to a lot of cartoons that I watched when I was a kid. The plot is incredibly recycled, it has certain “Men In Black” qualities to it, again I can’t go into too much detail about what I mean. The other factor that promotes this film is the fact that there is very little pop culture references and there is no current pop music, which means, at least the film won’t date itself appallingly in that regard, like many other kids films now do.

“what the hell am I watching, and could you please explain that to me again because I don’t get that point and how does that work”.

As for the actors. There is a pretty decent selection here. I did enjoy Alec Baldwin in the role, he really commits himself to this performance and sells it well, I think people forget what a good comedic actor her can be. Steve Buscemi is once again trying his best, but his part is badly written, so he is not allowed to deliver his parts very well. The casting of Jimmy Kimmel and Lisa Kudrow really feels like they were added in purely for the celebrity factor and to add their names to a poster, they don’t provide much extra to the film and in fact I felt they were rather underwhelming in these performances, though that might be because they are not given that much to actually do. I felt Miles Christopher Bakshi is very good as the young version of Tim, since he gives a decent performance in the role and has a good chemistry with Alec Baldwin. You notice I said ‘young Tim’, the film is actually narrated by an older version of Tim, who is voiced by Tobey McGuire, however, he only shows up at the beginning and briefly a bit into the film, then vanishes until the very end. You would think a former Spiderman would get more to do than just this!!

Ok, let’s talk about the animation. I gave Trolls a lot of ‘crap’ for its animation because I felt it was too bright and colourful and the character designs were too obnoxious. I will say that at least this one tries a bit, but my goodness, the characters look ugly. Seriously this is some of the most butt ugly animation I have seen in a major motion picture in a long time. The character designs for me are just weird. The uncanny valley is definitely an effect. The eyes seem a bit too big for their heads and they all look like they have very weird proportions. I know animated characters don’t have to all look incredibly realistic, but they don’t have to look like this!! The environments feel really plastic. The whole thing kind of looks like a Play Doh set!! As a result, it makes objects look like they don’t have much weight to them. Granted, I have seen a lot of Spanish Animated films that should have gone straight to DVD as well as other examples where the film looked well worse than this one and at least it looks like it should belong in a major motion picture, but that doesn’t change the fact that I find it rather off putting. Maybe other people won’t have the same problem I do, but this wasn’t a pleasant environment to be in, it got much better when we went to Tim’s imagination and there was a lot more of the computer animation having to be mixed with the hand drawn animation.

By the time I got to see The Boss Baby, it wasn’t playing in 3D, so I only saw the 2D version, but my advice would be, if you can see it in 3D then do so because there are a lot of moments that are clearly intended for the 3D conversion and those moments feel rather gimmicky when the screen is entirely flat.

The soundtrack is another thing to note. I already mentioned there aren’t a lot of current pop songs in it, but I never really cared for the over use of the song Blackbird and if I am honest, I didn’t really like the cover of “What the World Needs is Love” in the closing credits.

The Boss Baby is a film that both has a ridiculous concept and takes itself way too seriously, which is its biggest issue. This could have been a very interesting idea, but the film doesn’t play it that way and as a way it fails instantly. There are some good points to it, like the relationship between the two brothers and a couple of jokes did make me laugh, but other than that, it’s a real bore of a movie. It’s just there. I found the character designs and the animation were not that great. The film is just a bit of a “ehh” movie. I can’t muster up enough dislike to hate it , but I don’t muster enough enjoyment to feel anything about it. It’s certainly not one of Dreamworks best, but I did like it better than Trolls because at least this film didn’t feel like an insult on my senses every second!! I am certain there are going to be people who are going to like The Boss Baby and it’s not incredibly harmful to take your kids to see it, but I would actually hold out on your money because there will be better films coming out later this year. But considering that the next Pixar film is going to be Cars 3 and the next Dreamworks film after this is an adaptation of Captain Underpants, so I wouldn’t hold out much hope if I were year. Maybe by the end of the year I may be saying that this one was half decent!!

My advise, at this point stick on a DVD and hope that Lego Batman comes out soon.

Well these are my thoughts on The Boss Baby. No mini reviews as I was pressed for time as I am attending a Wedding.

Join me next time, where I will be giving my thoughts on Ridley Scott’s Alien Covenant.

With all that being said thanks for reading I hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed writing and for crying out loud I’m now begging for DreamWorks to make Kung Fu Panda 4

“GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOLUME 2”

Up until the Summer of 2014 nobody really knew who the Guardians of the Galaxy were. Let’s face it, even in comic circles, they were rather an obscure team. However, this franchise was always primed for a success considering that Marvel would have to eventually bring in the cosmic side of its comics into the Cinematic Universe to prepare for the upcoming Avengers Infinity War. Many people were not incredibly excited for Guardians of the Galaxy when it first came out, but when everyone saw it, they loved it, myself included, all you have to do is read my review of it.

Guardians of the Galaxy 2 was one of the early announcements when Marvel announced the first three of its Cinematic Universe and it would be rather early into the run, presumably as further build up for Infinity War. It was also announced that writer and director James Gunn would return for the project. Now you bet I was really excited to see Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2, I thought the original was a fantastic film, it made my Top Ten Best Films of 2014 and it was generally a fun film without being insulting to its audience. However, there was always the question “could lightning strike twice” ? The trailers looked like it was going to capture the original feel of it. The difference is, though, the first Guardians of the Galaxy didn’t give us much expectation because we weren’t prepared for it. This film, on the other hand, has a lot more to live up to with the added fandom. Is Volume 2 a worthy follow-up to the original film, we all certainly hope so, but how did it really turn out?

Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2’s plot takes place not long after the first film. After a botched mission with the Cylons, the Guardians, Peter Quill aka Star-Lord, Gamora, Drax the Destroyer, Groot and Rocket Racoon (played by Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel and Bradley Cooper respectively), are stranded on an unknown planet. They are then approached by Ego (played by Kurt Russell) and Mantis (played by Pom Klementieff). Ego reveals that he is in fact Peter’s father and that he wants to take him back to his home Planet in order to get closer to him. Rocket and Groot stay behind, however they have to deal with their prisoner Nebula (played by Karen Gillan) as well as Yondu (played by Michael Rooker) and his men. Something on Planet Ego doesn’t feel quite right!

Ok, let’s get this started very quickly, I can’t go into too much detail on the plot regarding Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 without going into spoilers. But let’s just say, if you liked the original, you are going to like this one. It’s rather difficult this time around to really assess the success of the film since the first one was rather a surprise hit, whereas this one has a lot more expectation to live up to and I think that might sour it with a few fans because, let’s face it, this film does not outdo the original one! There are a couple of reasons for that. Off the back, I think there is a little too much comedy in this film. Ok, the comedy is very good and it’s all incredibly funny, however, it can be a bit too much. I know all the writers at this point are copying Joss Weedon’s style, but I stand by that opinion. I also think there is a problem that the film has a few too many characters and a couple of them feel underutilised. Mantis, for example, has very little to do in the plot except most of the exposition. Nebular fares a little better, she is in and out of the plot quite a bit, but she appears in the movie a lot more and has a lot more of a character arc to her, which is rather satisfying. I was actually rather worried by her inclusion in this film. Yondu also gets a much more expanded role than he did in the first film, presumably thanks to the Walking Dead success, however, Yondu’s part is very well written and his and Rocket’s interactions are some of the best parts of the entire movie. But, the show stealer, by far, is Baby Groot, one of the most adorable things to come out of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Bring your girlfriends to this film, they will be squealing in five minutes. I was also rather surprised that Vin Diesel came back to voice the character as well, you thought he was pushing it a bit with the first film, this time he has to have his voice amplified so you really can’t tell it’s him.

The biggest problem with the film is that I don’t think it caters to general audiences as much as the previous film, there are a lot more references to the Marvel Universe as a whole and a lot more references to future events, though strangely the Infinity Stones and Infinity War are largely absent from this. For example, without going into too much detail, several of the post-credits scenes made a lot of references and I went with three other people, who were instantly looking at me to explain something and I had to stop for about two minutes to explain what certain references meant. There is a rather pointless cameo by Sylvester Stallone, playing Stakar Ogord, who frankly feels like a waste of potential. It’s alluded that he is going to be appearing in the Marvel Cinematic Universe later, but man, does it feel wasted. I’m probably making it sound as if I hated this movie, GOD NO, I absolutely loved this film. Where Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 succeeds, it succeeds in spades. Ok Ego is kind of a weak part, anyone can tell he is going to be the villain of this film, despite the fact that his identity as Peter Quill’s father is a change from the comic, which is rather strange because I believe he could have played the character from the comic Jaysan, which is what his character is largely based on. However, he is one of the better Marvel Cinematic villains, not as good as Loki, Wilson Fisk, or Zebadia Killgrave, but he is at least better than, say, The Dark Elves from Thor the Dark World and any of the unforgettable Iron Man villains. However, the battle with him leads to a very thrilling climax. I won’t go into too much detail, but believe me, there is a plot twist further down the line that feels rather forced to say the least. I don’t think it’s a bad plot twist per se, but it felt like it was just there for shock value more than actual narrative reasoning.

The final climax is fantastic, I will go into more detail about the fight scenes in the aesthetic part of the review, but needless to say, I think the battles are very well done. Despite the fact that it has to cater a lot more to comic fans than general audiences, it does feel like it caters at least enough to general audiences to at least keep them happy and the first film’s success has led to that. My problem is that I think there are a few too many guardians this time around. I felt that last time the five man team was enough, this time we have at least eight guardians, which again reflects more the Adnett and Lanning era of the comic, especially with Mantis being a mainstay in the team, as she was a mainstay in the original comics. However, there are a lot of characters that are missing, for example, Cosmo still hasn’t made an appearance, Adam Warlock is still entirely absent from the Marvel Cinematic Universe and there is a lot of the citizens of nowhere that are also playing minor roles that have yet to make an appearance. These are not game breaking faults that ruin the movie, if anything, my best parts of the movie are when it is more restrained and more focused. While there are a few too many plots running around, the main plot is pretty solid and tight. Even though it does feel like we have seen this plot line done several times in cartoons, but the saying also goes “if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it” !! In short, the plot works for the most part, but the only thing I will say is that it feels more like a Star Lord movie than a Guardians as a whole. It’s only in the last portion of the film that it really feels like a Guardians of the Galaxy film.

As for the actors, they are all pretty dam good. Chris Pratt is making this role his own and this is one he is going to be remembered for. It’s no surprise that the character was pretty much recycled in Jurassic World and I really think he is going to be an action star in his own right. Zoe Saldana once again kicks it as Gamora. Dave Bautista is once again proving what a versatile actor he is having moved out of the world of professional wrestling to do this and what is amazing about him is that unlike most professional wrestlers who have moved into films, he has actually had acting lessons. Bradley Cooper once again makes Rocket his own and is the perfect casting for that role and while Vin Diesel is given less to do this time around, considering that he is not providing motion capture and that he, very few times, has to say, “I am Groot”, he is still doing a pretty good job in the role. Michael Rooker gives an excellent performance as Yondu and I will say that Kurt Russell is very good at playing Ego. I will say that Sylvester Stallone though, really needed to do a second take on the scene that he was in, I know he has a very distinctive voice, but I was really struggling to understand what he was saying this time. But the stand out performance in this film has to be, once again, Karen Gillan as Nebula, who, if you haven’t seen my previous review, you may recognise her as playing Amy Pond in Dr Who, who has once again shaved her head and got into some heavy make-up for the role and she really immerses herself in it, this film is her best performance to date and I wouldn’t be surprised if she gets more casting in action films on the back of it. Overall the cast is once again absolutely excellent. I have not even mentioned a lot of the side characters, they also give excellent performances.

As for the effects, well if you liked them in the previous film, you will like them here. There is very little done to the effects. I will say that as much as I think Groot is adorable, he does look more fake this time than in the first film. This just feels like a CGI cartoon that has been added in, an adorable cartoon, but still a cartoon nonetheless. Most of the fight scenes are well shot. They are not on the same level as Captain America Civil War, but then again, what action films are on that level! I was amazed by some of the practical effects that were being used, especially early on. I will say, however, when they actually get to planet Ego, you can really feel Green Screens in the background being used. There is no real attempt to make it look natural like say, planet Nova did in the first film, which is probably one of the many reasons why John C Reilly and Glenn Close aren’t in this movie. However, I actually felt the make-up effects were all fantastic especially on some of the various rangers and the Zion’s make-up was also fantastic. I would not object to this film being nominated for best hair and make-up at the Oscars.

There is a lot to also talk about in terms of the soundtrack. The soundtrack, once again, is fantastic. I was pleased that they resisted the urge to play Hooked on a Feeling, but the new song choices are all fantastic and suit the scene well, pick up the soundtrack, it will be an excellent road trip soundtrack.

I saw the film in 3D and for once, I am recommending that you do see it in 3D. This is not surprising since I recommended that you see the original Guardians in the 3D format. The 3D is occasionally a bit gimmicky, but it does blend in the environment well, so 2D audiences will not be missing out. So, if you can, pay the extra money for that. Though I am aware that if you see this film right now you are paying extra for it because of Odeon’s Blockbuster tax. If you are not aware of what this is, Watchdog have previously provided information that Odeon charge an extra £1.50 for highly popular films, which has made my job a lot harder.

Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 does not outdo the original film, but dam is it a good movie. The action scenes are well shot, the fight scenes are well choreographed, the plot, when it has a focus is a good narrative and flowing and I felt the film, once again, had a real edge to it that not many Blockbusters are doing right now. The plot is at its worse when it is not well focused and the comedy can be a bit off the ball and once again, the villain is not incredibly amazing, but better than usual. But, I still adored this film and I am loving the fact that Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 has already been commissioned because this is an excellent secondary team to rival the Avengers. It comes highly recommended on my part, go and see it.

No mini reviews this week. I had no time between this and Sword Art Online.

“FAST AND FURIOUS 8”

Eight, seriously, eight, they made eight of these! It’s not as if this is a long saga that requires tons of movies to tell the story. The original was just an LA based thriller that happened to have a street racing angle, which the series has moved far away from in recent sequels in the desperate attempt to keep the franchise going. Now, I was relatively kind to Fast and Furious 7 when I reviewed it, but I am going to be a little less kind to this one, this time. I am really starting to feel the pain of how many of these movies there have been. Even the trailers look like they are getting a bit desperate for reasons to have a sequel.

It’s got to such a stage that they are not even being numbered in America any more. In America, it’s called the Fate of the Furious, as if they are ashamed that they have made as many movies as they had. I outlined most of my issues with the franchise in Fast and Furious 7, but make no mistake, I am going to do my best not to repeat all the negatives I had with that movie. However, I can’t make any promises because this franchise really doesn’t seem to want to drift away from the recent trend that it seems to be moving towards, which is not one that I am enjoying. We also have had a change of director, once again, this film has been directed by F Gary Gray, who has directed at least one film that I absolutely loved, the previously reviewed ‘Straight Outta Compton’, but then again you have to remember that he directed the terrible Gerrard Butler action film ‘Law Abiding Citizen’, the awful John Travolta vehicle, ‘Be Cool’ and the abysmal ‘Italian Job’ re-make. Which is rather fitting, because it seems that since the fifth movie the franchise has been taking a lot of influence from the Italian Job re-make, so, in that sense, he is probably the right person for the project. The screenplay has been written by Chris Morgan, who has written all the films since the third movie, so that doesn’t inspire any confidence in the amount of possible change, though I would pay attention to it because he is also writing the screenplay for the next adaptations of Conan The Barbarian and Gears of War. So, if he is doing bad writing here, what chance have those movies got. Not to mention that he wrote the screenplay for the rather disappointing 47 Ronin.

So, has this franchise changed in any way and did this film deserve its, admittedly rather strong initial Rotten Tomato’s score, let’s make a car related pun and find out!!

Fast and Furious 8 takes place shortly after the events of 7. Dom (played by Vin Diesel) goes rogue and botches the mission for the group, turning to the side of the rogue hacker Cipher (played by Charlize Theron). Now Mr Nobody (played by Kurt Russell) assembles a new team, including Hobbs (played by Dwayne Johnson), Letty (played by Michelle Rodriguez), Roman (played by Tyrese Gibson), Ramsey (played by Nathalie Emmanuel), Little Nobody (played by Scott Eastwood) and Deckard (played by Jason Statham). Now the mission is on to find out why Dom has gone rogue and put a stop to Cipher’s plans which could have a devastating effect on the globe, as a whole.

Dude, this guy spent the entirety of the last film trying to kill you and everyone you cared about!!

Charlize Theron, never steps behind a vehicle, she is basically a bond villain and this is done as a way to seem “edgy”. Frankly this whole thing feels like it’s trying to mould itself into an edgier James Bond, which was a similar thing to the recent xXx sequel, which, as I commented in my review of it, was leaning very heavily to the Fast and Furious franchise and the Deja vu is felt even more here. Charlize Theron’s villain is dull as hell, especially considering her minions and more importantly Dom does much more of the action. Granted, many people have gone into it wanting to see Dom going rogue, and that part is actually quite good, we see what happens when this guy, who seems to take on impossible challenges, goes to the dark side and frankly, it’s rather effective. It just doesn’t really work in its entirety, because, if resolved, it detracts from the main villain, which as a result, also detracts from the climax, and, my god, these films are still really stupid. There was some stupid stuff in the last film, but this one I think, is even worse.

It’s frankly astounding some of the things they are expecting you to buy with this film. The is suspension of disbelief and there is insulting my intelligence!!! There is a scene where a character picks up a torpedo and throws it at another car, YOU CANNOT DO THAT!! Also, there is another scene, in New York, where several automated cars are being controlled to take down a limousine with a Russian politician. One, this technology is not nearly as prevalent as this film makes out and two, you would not be able to control all those cars at once, no matter what computer system is in place, I don’t care who you are, that is stupid! That’s only the tip of the iceberg, it also makes me feel upset that there is way more reliance on CGI this time than practical effects, especially considering how some of the practical effects have been fantastic in previous films.

Ok, where is the positive in this one, well for one thing, I actually liked the way they got Dom to go rogue, it’s not perfect and it’s kind of what you are expecting, but it at least makes a decent twist and colours the movie well, so I have to give kudos there. I also felt that the cinematography, when it was good, was very good, but as I said, most of the best points of this film are in the technical categories, because the characters are just not really that likeable anymore. They have become such cut outs that they are not interesting and there is no progression anymore. To such an extent that there are even cameos by several actors you would not believe would be in a film like this, which made me do a double take and adds very little to the final product. I use the word product quite aptly, because this thing feels like it has been put out to keep the money flow going and the actors are definitely in this, because, with the exception of Vin Diesel, Kurt Russell and Charlize Theron, this really is the only thing they have left. It’s kind of a mess, pure and simple, and more to the point, it’s become so predictable now, it’s DULL!! This whole thing is dull. I am so bored of these movies. If you have liked this franchise to date, there is something here for you, it’s just that I preferred the franchise when it was an LA based thriller that was about speed racing. This doesn’t work as a whole and I wish it did, ok, because this potentially could be amazing.

As for the actors, they’re not all that great either. Vin Diesel is doing his typical thing, playing Dom once again and I still really like The Rock as Hobbs, but that’s probably because he’s The Rock, he is one of the best character actors to date. Kurt Russell looks incredibly bored in this film and his Appearences are so sporadic that I wondered if he went back and forth between this and Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2. Michelle Rodriguez has never been a great actress in my opinion and this role is one of the prime examples of why I thought that. Jason Statham is doing his typical performance and I do like Jason Statham, he is one of the last pure bred action stars around, and his scenes in the climax are some of the best in the entire movie. Scott Eastwood is trying his best to make something out of his performance but he feels very much out of place and very much like a Paul Walker stand-in. The rest of the cast are “just there”. Charlize Theron is trying her best to give a decent performance but the script fails her repeatedly and that’s all I’m really going to say on the actors, they’re not much to write home about.

As for the technical, well, it’s all pretty good. I have already mentioned about the cinematography and how it’s pretty good and how I don’t like the facts that there is more CGI and green screens being used, but some of the scenes are very well choreographed and I at least could tell what was going on. The editing, however, really varies. Some of the scenes are edited brilliantly, where others have terrible editing. I would also like to point out that the product placement in this film is atrocious. It’s not just for the car companies, Coca Cola get several scenes that look like they are actual adverts that have been commissioned. I will say, the cars all look good and I appreciate the various car companies donating them because they are excellent to watch, however all this doesn’t do much to save the movie. The effects are just very mixed and the same goes for the editing. It’s all a bit of a mixed bag and I don’t really have much more to add to it.

Fast and Furious 8 is very much what you would expect from the franchise at this point, it’s virtually the same movie that the last three films were, so if you liked them, you will like this one and if you are tired of them, like I am, you won’t get much out of it. The storyline doesn’t make much sense and is rather bland, I wasn’t a fan of the rampant amount of CGI and I felt the whole thing was rather lacking. I didn’t even mention about the rampant sexism that is still in this film, by the fact that the women seem to only exist to be ogled at. It’s not an atrocious film, there are too much technical things that it does right, but I am so bored of the franchise as a whole, and I want it to go away now. But, I don’t even get that wish, because movie 9 is already in production and the film ends with a plug for it!! I am sick of this franchise, but I know I am going to be reviewing number 9 two years from now!! I would recommend that if your cinema has a D Box feature to take advantage of it however, because I think this film suits that format.

Right, mini review time. I saw this film while I was in London for the Autism Uncut Awards, Free Fire.

Keeping up with Anime April’s theme The Case of Hannah and Alice.

So, that’s my thoughts on these three films. Leave something in the comments section if you have an opinion on any of these films and I will get back to a main Anime review for next time.

Calvin – Nerd Consultant

“A SILENT VOICE”

Now, A Silent Voice is one of the Animes that I have been really excited to see because at one time, this was ranked higher on many Anime website boards that the previously reviewed Your Name, which, as you will remember, is a film that I absolutely adored. However, it has not had many cinema screening outside of its native Japan, prior to last month, when it received a ‘two days only’ screening. It had only been screened at Scotland Loves Anime Festival, where it received very positive reviews. The film itself is based on a Manga by Yoshitoko Oima, a rather young up and coming Munga writer and artist, who, prior to this, hasn’t really written much, although she has written more since. If you want to read the Manga itself, it has been translated into English and at the time of writing this review, the majority, if not all of it is available to purchase. Though, if you have a Crunchyroll account you are lucky because you can get the Manga in digital form off their website. When a successful Manga comes out, there is obviously going to be several animation studios that try to get the rights and turn it into a season long Anime and they would normally exist as purely a promotion for the Manga.

A Silent Voice though, was picked up by Kyoto Animation, who are a very unique company in terms of the Anime industry as they have paid staff, rather than unlike the rest of the industry, who tend to hire freelancers to do the work, as a result, you often see staff members going between various projects. So, you will often see one person’s name credited on several shows across the board. It is amazing also that Kyoto Animation didn’t hire anyone from outside, once again, they have stayed within the staff, once again working with director Naoko Yamada, whose previous credits mostly includes TV credits, including directing several episodes of TV series such as Sound Euphonium, which included its excellent series finale, as well as K-on and even one episode of Clannad. Her previous credits also include doing some movies prior to this, including the K-on movie and Tamako Love Story, which I won’t claim to have watched. The screenplay was developed by Reiko Yoshida, who is a rather interesting choice. She has written some good scripts including several episodes of Shirobako and also worked with Maiko for K-on the movie. She was also a screenplay writer for the Studio Ghibli film The Cat Returns, which I feel is one of the more underrated movies. You can imagine, with credentials like that, I was very excited to see this film. Could this film live up to the hype that it gathered? I will state though, I haven’t read the Manga that the film is based on, so I won’t be going through any of the changes from the Manga to the film and as usual, this will be a completely spoiler free review.

A Silent Voice is the story of Shoya Ishida (played by Miyu Irino). In elementary school he bullies the new deaf student Shoko Nishimiya (played by Saori Hayami) and after he is caught out, he is abandoned by his friends. Feeling guilty of his actions and despair at the loss of this friendship circle, by the time he reached high school, he contemplates suicide. However, he is given a new lease on life when a chance encounter with Shoko shows that she doesn’t feel any malice towards him and even extends out the hand of friendship. He then yearns to join this new circle of friends of his and try and gain back what he lost in life. But the question is, are some things too late to recover from?

A Silent Voice is very much an interesting film, in the sense that, it feels like ground that has been trodden, but rather unique at the same time. This isn’t the first time that Anime has explored themes like this. In fact after watching this, it felt very similar to another creative animation production, Clannad. Now comparisons between the two series isn’t exactly fair. Clannad was a 44 episode series, not including the optional OVA’s and the recap episode. Granted, there was a movie of Clannad made, which attempted to condense the majority of those 44 episodes, along with extra elements of the visual novel it was based on into an hour and a half movie, so you can imagine how well that turned out. But you have to now compare that to a two hour film, you are simply not going to have enough time to get out character development and story arcs. The difference is, though, that Clannad should always have been a TV series rather than a movie. Clannad, was mainly about the story of two people like a Silence Voice, was also about the story of several people, since it was based on a visual novel with several characters and several branching pathways and the creators wanted to get every single element in the series, which kind of led to poor pacing in the first season. Whereas Silent Voice is based on a four volume Manga that has a clear set path and a clear set direction, so therefore it suits the film environment a lot better, which means it tells a much more clear and coherent story.

Shoya is very similar in a lot of ways to Tomoya from Clannad, again the difference being that Tomoya is angry with the world, feeling that their actions have damaged him whereas Shoya is angry with himself, feeling that he has angered the rest of the world. I would also say that whereas Calannad was all about finding self and overcoming problems with family, this one is more about finding and overcoming self through friends and a circle of people. Granted, it wasn’t as if Clannad was completely devoid of that element, but it is a film that is prevalent here. It has a nice colourful cast of characters that all have very distinctive character types and all have their place, and to be fair, Shoya has a decent amount of interaction with all of them. Everyone feels like they have their place in the plot and it also doesn’t feel like any of them are insignificant by the end of the movie. Despite the fact that Miyu is showed as bullish about Shoya and Shoko, there’s a lot more to it than that. The reality is though, it’s all about Shoya and his group of friends. We have his best friend Tomohiro who is one of the most fun members of the cast, Shoko’s little sister Yuzuru, who is part of a wonderful joke towards the beginning of the movie along with some of his old elementary school acquaintances including Naoka Ueno, who seems to exist to give a bit of conflict with Shoko, though it’s entirely one sided. You are probably wondering why I am so interested in this main character, well that’s simply because he is not a typical archetype main character for this sort of film. In fact, he starts off as the sort of person who would normally be a side character, or one we would hate. They essentially want to give us a character that we should absolutely hate and very quickly make us feel sorry for him, and it succeeds very well. Shoya is initially portrayed as being an irredeemable little b……, who continues to torment Shoko despite the fact that she just wants to be friends with everyone. So the fact that this whole thing destroys him and drives him to near suicide, can make us realise that as much as we wish ill will on people like this, it can often go too far. How far are we willing to let that ‘ill will’ go. This story arc is not only one of redemption, but also of life fulfilment. I love the relationship between him and Shoko, it’s not necessarily portrayed as being a romantic relationship, there are several undertones of it there, but it’s not that necessary, we never see them go anything that is overtly called a date, but we can tell that he is determined to do right by her after everything that he has done.

The films scenes of redemption are some of the best that I have seen in a long time. The story arc is well managed and well written, and even well visualised. There is an excellent visual metaphor in the film, which I won’t spoil, as to how Shoyo shuts out the rest of the world and believes himself cut off from the rest of his potential friends. There is a bit of slight forced conflict in the latter half, but it at least feels like it is organic and it leads to some decent moments. Without going into too much detail, this film really can bring on the feeling pretty fast. It can be one hell of an emotional trip. The characters are splendidly handled and their arcs are well made, all well written and well executed.

The film also doesn’t shy away from lighter humorous moments at the beginning of the film, which is good as it allows us to appreciate those moments, so that when darker moments happen, we have a desire to get back to those lighter moments and that’s where the film’s strength really lies. It allows you to bond with the characters in a very refreshing way. I would even go so far as to say that the film can be very powerful in moments. It’s not perfect, however, though all my problems with the film can be considered nit picks. For example, Shoko’s story arc, while decent, feels slightly underdeveloped at times, though it does get a decent pay off. I was also planning to say that I think the film outstayed its welcome since there was a moment that it could easily have ended on but it felt like it went on a bit longer into stuff that could even have been told in a silent cinema during the credits, as the Japanese cinema often does, however, there a several moments after that, that feel like they had brilliant resolution to the plot, including a final shot that is so necessary, I think the film would have been much worse without it, so while initially it feels like the film is outstaying its welcome, trust me, it’s worth it for those final points. There’s not really that much more to say about it. In fact, in order to talk more about it, I would have to go into major spoiler territory, which I obviously won’t do. So leave it out, I really, really enjoyed the plot.

As for the actors, well I saw this film in its original language with sub-titles. At the time of writing this review, all the Anime holds the licence, although who gets the licence in America will largely determine if this film gets an English dub or not. For example, Sintai film works is usually reluctant to give out dubs to Anima, whereas Funamation almost build their entire repertoire on dubbing Anime. Most Kyoto animation productions outside of Clannad and K-on rarely receive dubs, the recent Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid, not withstanding,(see Anime Amigo’sepisode 1 for our thoughts on that) so I suspect this film won’t get a dub, though if it does I will leave my comments in the comments section on what my thoughts on a potential dub are. As for the Japanese actors, they all do a fantastic job. Special mention should definitely go to Saori Hyami who does an excellent job, considering the character rarely gets any lines, but delivers that character’s minor dialogue brilliantly, and it also complemented by an excellent central performance from Miyu Irino. The rest of the supporting cast is very good, but I would say the other stand out for me was the brilliant performance from Yuki Kaneko playing Naoka Ueno and I really appreciated Kenesho Ono’s comical performance as Tomohiro Nagatsuka. The cast themselves do a decent job and I really feel that gave some great performances.

Now, as for the animation. If you are familiar with Kyoto animation you probably know what to expect from this. It is a very similar style to many Kyoto animations and it reminded me very heavily of another one of Kyoto projects, Sound Euphonium, though there is a slight difference in character design and animation between the shows. Many people have a problem with Kyoto animation as they view them as too reliant of the Moe style, which rubs a few people up the wrong way. This is ignoring the fact that Kyoto animation has also been involved in projects like Free Iwatobi Swimming Club, as well as Full Metal Panic. While it looks like Sound Euphonium, Sound Euphonium tended to go for a more crisp feel, whereas Silent Voice tend to go for a more water coloured look, which is to the film’s benefit, since Sound Euphonium had a secondary motive with its animation to convey the musical performances. Now the characters are all well designed, they all stand out, are very distinctive and allows us to tell the difference between each one of them and it also avoids the typical Anime trope of either giving characters incredibly weird hair styles that look like they defy the laws of physics, one exception in this film notwithstanding, or the multi coloured hair. The only downside to it is I felt a couple of characters looked a little too similar to Sound Euphonium characters, now I am willing to give the benefit of the doubt, since this is based on a Manga that already had predesigned characters that they had to work off and that Sound Euphonium was based on a novel so Kyoto animation almost had to design those characters from scratch, but I am sorry, but Naoka Ueno looks exactly like Reina from Sound Euphonium, they are practically identical. When she was reintroduced after the elementary school sequence and we were in the high school setting, I initially assumed it was a cross over with Sound Euphonium, or this was a cute reference. It took me a quick second to realise that this was a character established earlier.

But those are all minor nit-picks, I don’t have anything bad to say about this movie, I loved it. A Silent Voice is one hell of a well told story. It deals with subjects that people can easily relate to and it’s more about pushing on from adverse circumstances and knowing that life isn’t over necessarily because of a bad situation. It’s a really nice touching story and I really enjoyed it. I thing you should give it a go because is frankly one of the better Anime films to come out in recent memory. Unfortunately, because of scheduling to get Beauty and the Beast out, I had to actually publish my review a month after its initial release, so I urge people to pick it up on DVD and Blu Ray when it comes out in December. This is a fantastic movie. The animation is great, the characters are great, it’s very well written and I suspect this will probably be in contention for my Best Film of 2017. I would recommend you pick it up especially if you enjoyed both Clannad and Sound Euphonium. I would also recommend to fans of Studio Ghibli as well, because I think they will get a lot out of it. I also think the film has a real universal appeal, so please try this one out.

No mini review this week, because I reviewed this the week that I saw Beauty and the Beast, but I felt it was worth publishing around this time to keep up with the theme of the week and to keep things going and I didn’t want everyone overworked to try and get this one out the same week as the Beauty and the Beast review.

Well, that’s another week over and we need to move on.

Thanks a lot for reading my review. I hope you have enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing and A Silent Voice is on Amazon pre-order so order it now!!

Calvin – Nerd Consultant

“GHOST IN THE SHELL (2017)”

Let’s kick off Anime April with something that has been getting Anime fans both excited and worried the live action adaptation of Ghost in the Shell. Now I have already professed that I absolutely love Ghost in the Shell the film. It’s my favourite science fiction film and one of my favourite science fiction franchises. I loved the spin of series Stand Alone Complex, I even kind of liked the sequels and Ghost in the Shell Arrives, even though Arrives had its own issues. I announced ages ago that Dreamworks had purchased the licence for Ghost in the Shell with the intention of making a live action adaptation. The problem was, that was ages ago and Dreamworks has really struggled to get the ball rolling. It’s largely the reason why Ghost in the Shell 2 had very little of an international release, since part of the deal, they partially own the licence to that film. But just getting this off the ground was hard enough. As Bennett the Sage pointed out in his review of Speed Racer, this film took seven years before principal photography even began. This film has been in production for a long time. I think I agree with his point that the reason it took that long was that there are a ton of live action adaptations that are currently sitting on a shelf and are stuck in pre-production simply because people are afraid to actually make them. Several Anime from Cowboy Bepop to Battle Angel Arleta to Robotech have all been going through development hell and are unlikely to release anytime soon. A live action Akira has been floated back and forth on several occasions but it has had production start and stop five times! But really you can hardly blame them, live action Anime set to the standard that it has received outside of its native Japan, and even then the live action Japanese films have not been great for the most parts, you can see why they would be afraid to get the ball rolling. Keep in mind, the only big budget live action Hollywood adaptations of Anime have been the Wachowski’s Speed Racer, John Wu’s Dragon Ball Evolution and Astro Boy. With the bar set so low it’s no wonder the executives don’t think there’s much money in this. I think the only reason Ghost in the Shell got the ball rolling was, again, the success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, because it proved that nerdy licences could be successful. So hopefully if this film was good it would be the catalyst to produce more in the same way that Iron Man kicked off the new age of great comic films.

Now, Ghost in the Shell was a very interesting property for Dreamworks to license since it’s not as well known as other Anime brands, but the trailers made me have my doubts and I will go into detail later what I am on about, but I was very pleased to hear about them casting Scarlett Johansson in the lead role and director Rupert Sanders, seemed like an interesting choice, to say the least, though his only credit as a director to this was Snow White and the Huntsman, which was a film that I was not a major fan of. Not to mention that the screenplay was being penned by Jamie Ross and William Wheeler, the only credit prior to this being a film called Street Wars, but the latter has developed the screenplay for The Queen of Cats, which I have heard good things about and is currently going to direct the next Lego film. I must be honest though, I went into this film with a lot of trepidation, but yet also a lot of slight optimism, (see the first episode of Anime Amigo’s for my full thoughts going into this film). Now, how does this new Ghost in the Shell hold up

Ghost in the Shell takes place in a futuristic setting, in the not too distant future in Hong Kong where, new cyber neuro technology has been developed to create cybernetic enhancements to the human brain. The company Hanka has developed the first full prosthetic body, a human brain encapsulated in a completely robotic body. The first success story, known as the Major, (played by Scarlett Johannson) is given to the counter intelligence unit Section 9 which is partnered with Batou, (played by Pilou Asbaek). A year after her creation a new cyber terrorist named Kuze (played by Michael Pitt) is killing several senior officials in Hanka, but not before hacking into their brains for information, and what’s more, the Major is beginning to hallucinate glitches. What is the truth behind Kuze and how does it relate to the Major’s foggy at best, past. This part is fairly familiar to anyone who is vaguely aware of Ghost in the Shell and it follows the plot beats of past projects fairly closely, however, I am not really calling that much of an issue, mainly because, I actually kind of liked this. Yes, no joke, this one may not be doing much new but for what you got, this is a good film. Yes, I am just as surprised as anyone else. I fully went in to think this film would not have a plot that I would get invested in, but you know what, it kept my attention throughout its entire running time. Granted this has clearly been done by people who have a knowledge and respect for Ghost in the Shell but understand that this film is going to be marketed to an audience who have not seen Ghost in the Shell prior to this, hence why many of my friends who are not familiar with the original film or the franchise as a whole are excited to see this. This would raise the issue of why Dreamworks and Paramount distributors would spend so much money to gain a licence for a film that isn’t that popular, but in terms of the marketing, I think it works and I suspect this will play very well to people.

Once again, the film plays out as almost like a cyber punk noir with attempted commentary on the nature of humanity, how far or close someone has to go, to be human and the whole destiny versus choice, innocence being what you are programmed for versus what you chose to do. It’s not incredibly interesting, all things considered, this film does try to do a lot of what the old film does but it doesn’t have quite as much of the nuance that the original Ghost in the Shell had. The original film had a ton of subtle references and a real feeling that it trusts its audience, this one doesn’t quite have the same effect. A lot more is spoken rather than just shown, it doesn’t quite get the idea that the original had ‘show, don’t tell’. It’s not as if this is entirely absent, but I would have like it if the film had trusted it’s audience to get it. It’s not as if the original doesn’t have moment when it feels like it’s holding your hand and walking you along, but those moments were few and far between. They feel familiar with the original and the Stand Alone Complex and even the recent Arrive incarnation, will recognise a lot of the scenes, many of them drifted very closely to their original Anime counterparts. The major scenes including several fights and the famous underwater scuba diving scene were apparent and the climax even feel relatively similar to that of the original film. The one thing I think this film does differently to any others is that it feels like a very personal story to the Major. The Major has always had at least some stake in whatever she is doing, however, this one felt very personal to her and must have a civic duty. This is not entirely absent from the franchise, again, the first film had a similar theme, but even then, it kind of felt like she was still trying to catch the public master out of a sense of duty and her job and not just to discover more about her identity. This film is almost completely focused on that. While we are on that subject, let’s talk about the villain. Kuze is an interesting villain, again, he is nothing new. He feels like a hybrid of two of the most major villains in the franchise, mainly the Puppet Master and the Laughing Man, mostly leaning towards the former. However, much like both seasons of Stand Alone Complex, which is clearly where a lot of the influence has been taken he doesn’t really factor too much in the climax as a whole. People who watched both Ghost in the Shell and the Stand Alone Complex will know what I mean, however, he is not entirely relevant by the end of the film, I just wish he had had a bit more to do in the third act, whereas I don’t want to give away spoilers. Incidentally, if you want my full thoughts with spoilers for this film, check out episode 2 of Anime Amigos which will be coming out later this month when myself, Reece and Ren, a new member of the Axia film society, Ren Bromiley, will be discussing our full thoughts on the film, and in that podcast we will be going into spoiler territory and giving our full thoughts.

The side cast is actually a rather surprise. Batou plays a huge part in the film, which is good, but the rest of section 9 fell rather second nature to the whole thing. Chief Aramaki, played by Takeshi Kilano plays a decent role, but characters like Togusai who is played by Chin Han, who you might recognise from the Dark Night is rather underplayed, which is a shame considering he was a major character in previous entries. Section 9 feels like a bit of an afterthought until later on and most of it is taken up by other task members like the Major’s mother figure Dr Ouelet played by Juliette Binoche and Hanka boss Cutter, played by Peter Ferdinando. These characters are fine in themselves, however, their extended roles have resulted in a slight distraction from Section 9. Luckily Section 9 still feels rather relevant to the remainder of the film.

If there is one thing that really aids this film, it’s the pacing. The plots pacing is rather good, although I will say that the third act does feel like it rushes to the climax rather quickly. It’s actually 20 minutes longer than the original film, which benefits it in this case as it allows the story to play out well as well as give the real back story that the film needs. But, as I mentioned, it’s not perfect. The plot has a few minor plot holes that it doesn’t quite cover up, also some things have been put in because they feel they are more for fan service than actual relevance to the plot. However, I was grateful for their inclusion. The other problem is that I don’t think the plot will appeal to long-time fans there’s really not much new on offer here, it’s giving you a lot of what you have already seen. In fact, fans with a large knowledge of the franchise will be able to guess the plot twists ahead of time relatively quickly. Believe me though, the twist are really worth it. They are paced well, built up properly, although they are not subtly foreshadowed in any way, subtle is not exactly this film’s apt word.

As for the cast, well that has been an interesting point. Now, the film does get down the nature of humanity as well as the spirit of the characters that were portrayed in the Anime an the Manga, but in order to get that down this cast had to be very good. Now I know there has been some controversy with some of the casting, that it has been reported that the majority of the cast are white actors. Granted, many of the major roles are played by white actors, however, this film knows it’s source and knows that this will have to play out to its audience in its native country, therefore, it has not neglected Asian actors. I was rather surprised and delighted to find out that a large portion of the cast is taken up by Asian actors and especially to realise that these were in title roles for major characters. Scarlett Johannson may have received a lot of criticism for being cast as the Major, but I think she is a really good choice to play her. She might not be as good as other actresses to play this role, and to be fair, I will only compare her to dub performances because I don’t think it’s fair, to compare it to the brilliant performaces by Mary Elizabeth McGlynn who managed to demonstrate the perfect blend between character and actor. Scarlett really embraced this role and shows off some excellent dramatic acting, I think she is rather under-estimated in her abilities, but in this film she manages to perform everything about the Major well, and this could easily have been in due is pure sex appeal, that being said, the writers never forget to at least have an element of that considering that does play a large portion on the franchises commentary on feminism in the modern day and the possibilities of it in the future with the idea of this woman laterally becoming and object through the process of her creation. I do think as well that Scarlett does look like the character. They really took a lot of care to make her look like the character. When her picture was shown to a lot of random Japanese people after the first images of the film were shown, and no one was upset by her casting, I don’t think there is any issue to be answered by her playing the role. In fact, I think her casting rather benefits one of the plot twists down the line as it further goes into another element of commentary the film is trying to put out, which is very relevant, and might even act as a commentary on the whitewashing nature of Hollywood casting, though if you want to know what that is about, you are going to have to watch Anime Amigos episode 2, but I would suggest going to see the film too so you know what I am on about!

The rest of the cast are rather interesting. Pilou Asbaek, an actor I was rather unaware of, has now caught my attention, he played a really good Batou and he gets the look down as well, though, as Ren pointed out when we saw the film, I do agree that his robotic eyes are a little too small. Takeshi Kitano is excellent as Chief Aramaki, he is the only member of the cast that speaks in Japanese, he has a bit of an issue though that no one replies back to him in Japanese, yet there seems to be a perfect understanding, I don’t know, it’s not a major issue, but it did feel like it was affecting my suspension of disbelief. Juliette Binoche is excellent as Dr Ouelet and Michael Pitt gives an excellent standout performance as Kuze, in the hands of a poorly casted actor, this role would have been much worse and you wouldn’t have been able to take the whole thing seriously. Chin Han is decent as Togusai, even though he is given a minimal amount of time to work with it. The only other one to really talks about is Peter Ferdinando’s Cutter, who is probably the weak link in the cast, though I think it’s because of his performance, more that his part was the worst written. There are a ton of side cast members that give good performances, but those are the ones I really wanted to discuss.

As for the presentation. Well, that’s where this film was really in a tough spot. Now the film is very similar to Blade Runner, a comparison I will probably be making even more when I see the Blade Runner sequel that is due out in October. Blade Runner was based on a Phillip K Dick story and the original Ghost in the Shell drew a lot of influence from Phillip K Dick, so I’m not appalled by the decision to make the aesthetic rather similar to that and to be honest, I actually think it looks like Ghost in the Shell. Ok it’s maybe a bit brighter and vibrant that the original film, but there have been massive changes in technology since the original was released in 1995, so that means, to sell a futuristic society, we have to up the game slightly. Ghost in the Shell, though, exists in terms of the scope of utopian to dystopian scale, and edges more towards dystopian future similar to that of Ridley Scott’s Alien. But instead, however, the set designs are excellent and the practical effects that are mixed in with the CGI make an excellent combination. I actually saw a lot of the featurettes about the practical effects and there is some real love and care put into them and it really benefits the film as a whole because it means, unlike a lot of the CGI effects, you feel like you can reach out and touch it.

The action scenes. Well nothing amazing, compared to some films I have seen recently, but they are still pretty dam good. There are a few too many quick cuts every now and again, but you know what, I can at least tell what is going on and they feel well choreographed, the action scenes are pretty good, all things considered. I will say that many of the scenes do very well at recreating scenes from the original Anime, although I would not go as far to say that these are as much of the shot for shot remake as the recent Beauty and the Beast film was.

Right, now we need to discuss the 3D. I saw it in 3D and if I am honest, the 3D is pretty much of a mixed bag. It does really work in certain scenes and especially with a lot of slow down which has been used, which, by the way, is way too often, but there’s also the fact that Ghost in the Shell can often be rather a dank and dark environment and the darkening effect of the glasses can make some scenes rather hard to see. I would advise in that sense that the 3D is take it or leave it. If you are a 3D fan you will enjoy some of the effects and the CGI works well. Aesthetically it really looks and feels like it fits into the Ghost in the Shell franchise, whilst at least having some of its own identity.

Ghost in the Shell is a film that will play very well to a general audience, though I think long-time fans will find a lot more fault with it. It’s a well told and well executed take on the original film and I must be honest, I kind of liked it, I thought it had a decent running plot, what it recreated it did well and it sold me on the whole thing. The performances from Scarlett Johannson and Michael Pitt really made the film stand out. Its only issue is that it sticks too close to story lines that we have already been told and it doesn’t have enough trust in its audience to not signpost things too much, nor does it have enough of the nuance that the original film had. That being said though, with the bar being set so low for Anime adaptations, this stands head and shoulders above its contemporaries and I hope it is a success because I would like to think it’s a lead to more films like it and I wouldn’t mind seeing a sequel. If you are a fan of Anime then I would say give it a go because it might have something for you,, though I would expect you to be a bit more critical than someone with no prior knowledge. This film is trying to get a balance between the two markets though I suspect it will succeed in one more than the other. In short, I think it’s a good film, but I’m not sure how it will stand up as time goes on, though I think it should be praised a lot more than it’s bashed.

Now since Ren Bromley just joined the Axia Film Society he joined me on this film and I asked him to put down his thoughts in conjunction with the original:

Original:

Expectations –
Classic anime, well-received. Lauded as one of the greats. Might have watched it through rose tinted glasses.

Reception –
Reminiscent of the grim-dark aesthetic possessed by Bladerunner etc. Dilapidated society collapsing under the weight of its own advancement, rendering evolution, and our understanding of life and sentience, obsolete. Overall, it challenges the status quo. Contextually, in the 90s, they were on the verge of an era in which computers become integral to many aspects of society – Ghost in the Shell asks how our evolution will continue past the point of creating sentience in an artificial body.

Did well –
Real philosophical issues are highlighted. Excellent soundtrack, aesthetic, animation (particularly for the time, considering the prevalence of large studios such as Ghibli producing feature length films), and backgrounds. Enjoyable and engaging characters kept the narrative running smoothly; suspense and surprise where necessary.

Did badly –
Too short for my liking (perhaps due to brevity of source material), some interesting characters didn’t get masses of development, and yet

Film:

Expectations –
Given the success of the original and the tendency of live action adaptations to suck, my expectations weren’t incredibly high, but I aimed for impartiality.

Reception –
As a stand alone action thriller, Ghost in the Shell would have been good. However due to the tie in with the former works, it felt lacklustre. The genre occupying the advancement of technology and human evolution has been run somewhat dry over the last two decades, with films like Limitless, Lucy, etc exploring many of the different angles that this film failed to do. Nice throwbacks and references to the original at times, and yet the whitewashing was hard to look past, even when an in-universe explanation was offered.

Did well –
Highlighted the divide between the high class living (illustrious human augmentation around the higher classes, deformity and lack of hygiene rife through the slums) very well, particularly with the architecture. Die-hard fans will enjoy the shot for shot similarity the film embraces at times, including the well loved spider tank scene, and the chase through the sprawling Hong Kong metropolis and building diving scenes. Beat Takeshi’s portrayal of Daisuke Aramaki’s character was excellent (though at times felt jarring considering nobody else spoke Japanese to him really) and succeeded in painting him as an old hard-ass character.

Did badly –
As previously mentioned, the whitewashing is slightly hard to ignore, and the culture of the setting feels skewed (robotic geishas and too many English speaking characters overlay the film with a poor sense of realism and integration). The less prevalent characters in section 9 get little to no screen time besides action scenes, and over all I feel would have been better left out, or at least be given a better opportunity to contribute to the Major’s narrative. Compared to the imagery and metaphors used in the original (shooting of the fossils during the spider tank encounter, angelic imagery associated with the Puppetmaster), the live action fell a bit short – as is usually the case with adaptations, as they are forced to sacrifice more nuanced implication for a more understandable story line.

Life: Life was an interesting film. I am not going to go into too much detail on it since my co-reviewer on this Ren Bromiley is planning to do a full review of the film and I would prefer to read what he has to say and leave something in the comments section. But to sum up my thoughts briefly, it was exactly what I was expecting it to be. It’s feels like a knock off of Alien, which wasn’t helped by the fact that the trailer just before the film came on was Alien Covenant, which I will be reviewing later this year. There’s not much really to say. It had some really good tracking shots, some decent performances and some decent effects, but yes, this will be a forgettable film, especially with another Alien film out later this year.

Well, that’s my thoughts on all these film. If you have any thought on Ren’s or my comments of these films then please leave something in the comments section. We love to hear all your thoughts, good or bad. We would especially like to get them in advance of our recording of Anime Amigos on 26 April as we would like to gauge the general response. Also, please tell us if you are a long-time fan of Ghost in the Shell in your comments or if you went to see it with no prior knowledge of the original Anime.

Anime April must continue. Next week I will be reviewing Silent Voice, the latest Anime movie from Kyoto Animation, which will be out on DVD and Blu Ray on 18 December.

Thanks for reading my review. I hope you have enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it and go out and check out Ghost in the Shell, it’s really worth your time. Not just the movie, check them all out, proceed with caution if you are reading the Munga as that has some pornographic scenes.

Calvin – Nerd Consultant

“POWER RANGERS (2017)”

If there was one show I watched as a kid it was Power Rangers. This was awesome. I was into things like Ninja Turtles, but these things felt like the spiritual successor to them, it had everything, fight scenes, super heroes, monsters to battle, giant robots. I knew the show was formulated, but it was a formula that worked. Rita Repulsa escapes from the moon, sends monsters to destroy city, stopped by teenagers from Saved by the Bell that had been recruited by Giant Head and the Tube, what’s not to love. Ok Power Rangers is very goofy and is completely over the top, but that’s the charm and appeal to it. It’s not made to be this amazing piece of work, it’s just made to be itself, right down to the fantastic theme song. Now many people say they dropped off after the initial run and didn’t go very far with it, but I wasn’t one of those people. I bought it up to Dino Thunder the ninth incarnation of the characters and I even went back years later to do the rest of the seasons. Basically, I’m a Power Rangers fan boy! Now, when I heard Power Rangers were going to be turned into a film I thought, brilliant, with the way franchises are going at the minute, this could be a very good film. The super hero genre is working out really well and there is a market for this, especially considering the level of 90’s nostalgia. It even suggested it would be a re-boot of the incarnation of the characters, since 90’s nostalgia is very “in” right now. This also presented a challenge because this is the second time that there had to be a Power Rangers project made using absolutely no footage from Japan, if you don’t know, Power Rangers is dubbed over footage from, what is known as Super Sentai shows. This will be the first time that there will be no reliance on that footage since the original Power Rangers movie in the 90’s. If you want my brief thoughts on that film, I thought it was very rather passable for the most part but nothing really to write home about, especially considering that anything that was long lasting that came about from it was Retcon and the TV series almost a couple of weeks later.

Now Power Rangers needed to be taken seriously if it was going to be a good film, so therefore, you want a good writer and director. Well, these guys are a mixed bunch to say the least. In the director’s chair we have Dean Israelite who only has one previous feature film credit to his name prior to this film, that being the 2015 found footage film Project Almanac. A film, which as you would expect from a time travel plot, full of a lot of plot holes and wasn’t helped by the fact that the characters weren’t all that likeable, plus was ruined by an incredibly stupid ending. However, the screenplay has been written by John Gatins, an Oscar nominated writer for the film Flight and he even developed the story of Kong Skull Island, which I reviewed a couple of weeks ago. However, he also developed the story for the profoundly crap Need for Speed adaptation. This film could go either way and it opened to rather lukewarm reviews at best, but that was always going to be the case, this was never going to be a film made for the critics. So, how did this film really turn out? I am going to be checking this film out from two perspectives, the first being a Power Rangers fan and the second being someone who is just slightly curious going to see the film.

If you have seen the original Power Rangers the plot is not too different from what you would expect. Taking place in the city of Angel Grove, five teenagers Jason, Kimberly, Billy, Zack and Trini (played by Dacre Montgomery, Naomi Scott, RJ Cyler, Ludi Lin and Becky G respectively), discover five Power coins embedded in a rock at the local gold mine. After they uncover them in the most destructive manner possible, they discover that they are developing powers, including super strength and increased agility. After returning to the site they discover a Spaceship which contains the alien consciousness of Zordon (played by Bryan Cranston) along with his assistant, a robot named Alpha 5 (played by Bill Hader). He informs them that they are the Power Rangers and they have to stop Rita Repulsa, (played by Elizabeth Banks) from resurrecting a monster called Goldar who can uncover and destroy the Zeo Crystal which would cause all life to end on the planet. Ok, firm warning here, if you have seen the trailer, you pretty much know what you are going to expect from this film. In fact, this is a very much a ‘the film is in the trailer’, there’s not much you can expect outside of it, but having said that, it’s pretty good. Yes, I’m not going to lie, this is an entertaining film. There’s nothing really amazing about this film’s plot, it is essentially the same five teenagers, though they are given a somewhat contemporary update. The film is a decent action romp. The five teenagers have an interesting dynamic. Some of them receive some interesting updates, for example, Billy the Blue Ranger is Autistic in this version and this isn’t saying he’s interpreted in that way, they outright state it. There is also a hint to one of them being an LGBT character, though that doesn’t really go anywhere, and I would say the kids are very complex to an extent. As I said, most of their issues don’t really go anywhere and if anything Jason is given a lot more screen time than most of the other characters. However, it’s at least a decent character arc. If there is one thing that I really liked about the film, however, it’s the fact that this feels a very fun film. It could easily have been a very dark re-boot and it chooses to avoid that. It never forgets what its source material was. The film is a very ‘paint by numbers’ action plot, it’s not going to give anything amazing that you haven’t seen before. I do think Power Rangers fans will get something out of this. There’s a few Easter Eggs, as most of the stuff is kept the same from the TV show, bar a few revised origins. The Zeo Crystal, for example, is slightly different to how it was in the TV show, however, there are no changes that I think will upset Power Rangers fans, but equally, I don’t think this will ‘wow’ any Power Rangers fans.

While the characters may have slight differences, I think the closest one to her Television counterpart is Rita Repulsa. It’s a darker take on the character than the TV show but she still feels like she has taken a lot of influence from the original character and the villain is written to be very devious and very threatening, it ticks the boxes. Zordon, however, really doesn’t come off being that interesting a character, he is less the kind mentor that he was in the TV show and he comes off more as being frustrated than anything else. He’s playing a character that feels like he is struggling to hand over the reins of his previous job to the new generation, yes, in this version Zordon was a Power Ranger from another team, I’m not too happy with this change, but only because I think it rather ruins the mystique of Zordon, I don’t get what was wrong with the space wizard. While there are a lot of Easter Eggs for the Power Rangers fans, there is also a lot of issue with it. For one thing, there’s not nearly enough Power Rangers in this Power Rangers movie. You thought it took a long time for them to morph in the Turbo Power Rangers movie, this film takes forever!! Most of the film is them just getting up to the stage of being able to morph, which, admittedly, is a decent excuse for having them not morph for a long time, which the Turbo Power Rangers did not manage to do and kept us going despite the fact that they were able to morph at this point in the shows continuity. When we do finally get to them being the Power Rangers they don’t spend too much time fighting many of the villains. I don’t want to get into spoiler territory, so I won’t explain about the climax of the film, but, to put it shortly, I can’t go into too much detail about the action scenes as a result, because most of them are reserved for the final portion of the film. This film definitely feels like it has taken a lot of influence from the Transformers film, which in the one sense could be a negative considering that I hate the Transformers films, but I will say that these films are much better than the Transformers films. I will talk about the reliance on the CGI and the special effects development, but there’s not nearly the amount of hateful characters and lurid sexism that is present in the Transformers films, oh and don’t forget the dialogue that someone in a focus group thought was funny, but when you actually play it out loud, you will find that no one is actually laughing!! However, there is weirdly a point in this film where there is a bestiality masturbation joke five minutes in, RATED 12A. The crude humour though, is rather toned down, there is some slight sexing up of the characters and I would be lying if I said there wasn’t a slight element of making one of the characters potentially LBGT was a way of appeasing “horny” teenagers. But if I’m honest, it’s much better than stuff we have had to deal with in the Transformers films, but I will be going back to my Transformers comparisons later in the review.

As for the plot structure, well it’s decent. It has a decent running plot, it has a clear beginning, middle and end and it doesn’t have too many plot holes, apart from one gaping one that made no sense to me whatsoever. Though there are a few things missing that I think will annoy Power Rangers fans, for example, the Juice bar isn’t around since, well, these kids are all in detention half the time so they are going to hang around there. There’s not that many cameos from former Power Rangers actors, which I thought was a bit of a mistake, and no Jason David Frank cameo, I would have thought he would be ecstatic to appear in this since he has reprised his role at the Green Ranger on a few occasions and has even played the character on the Internet in recent memory. But, more importantly no Bulk and Skull, what the hell, you make a Power Rangers movie and there is no Bulk and Skull, they were one of the best parts of the original show, you could not date them, you have got one bully in this one, one bully, and he wasn’t even called Bulk!! What are you doing!!! If this film gets a sequel, there must be a Bulk and Skull. But really, if that’s your biggest complaint, then really you have come off quite well. This film’s plot doesn’t reach many heights, but it doesn’t reach than many lows either. It’s fairly decent, all things considered.

Now, as for the actors. Well, they are a bit of a mixed bunch. I think the standout in the cast is Elizabeth Banks as Rita Repulsa who hams it up brilliantly as the villain. Bryan Cranston, however, looks bored out of his skull playing this role, his motion capture performance is at least decent, but he is only allowed to act with his face which rather limits a very good actor, even if one of the mean Tweets he has to read out on Jimmy Kimmels programme, described him as looking like Matthew McConaughy doing an impression of Jim Carey! Bill Hader is good as Alpha 5 and even gets a few aye, aye aye’s like he had in the original series, which was nice, though I’m not too keen on his redesign, more about that later. The main one to talk about is the five teenagers. Now the teenagers that were chosen to be in this film were all unknown actors and I actually think that benefits the film because it allow us to see them more as the characters. Let’s face it, it would be very difficult to find five named actors in the correct age range that could pull off this role, so I think the sacrifice was worth it. The standout would probably be RJ Cyler as Billy, he probably gives the best performance of the film. Though I think a lot of people will think that Dacre Montgomery is Zac Effron because at least for this film, he appears to have been carved into being Zac Effron 2.0. Overall, a fairly decent cast, all things considered.

As for the aesthetics. Well, it may be a bit CGI heavy, but at least the CGI is somewhat decent and I do like the designs of the new suits. I don’t think there’s enough of a mix of colours with them, like the original had, however, I do think they at least show a bit of love and affection to the designs of the original suits. However, I’m not that huge a fan of the redesigned Zorbs and the Mega Zorb looks like it’s straight out of a Transformers film, which is what most of the action feels like with the Zorbs. In fact there’s even a Transformers joke in the film. Now the Mega Zorb fight is pretty good and the Kung Fu fights are good, in fact some of the fight scenes are shot very well. Nothing too amazing, but still pretty good and I have certainly seen some worse action scenes this year. I certainly can tell what is going on better in this film than, say, Assassins Creed. The thing though, is that the CGI is not blended into the background brilliantly if I am honest and it can be rather distracting, however, there has obviously been a lot of excellent work done with the wire work and the stunt choreographers so there is some kudos to be handed out there. As for the redesigns, well they kind of vary. Alpha’s redesign isn’t brilliant looking although he does at least have some recognisable features of his TV counterparts. I am also not really a fan of the new Zordon look, I don’t see why Zordon couldn’t just be a head and a tube, I still think you could have got away with that instead of the pixelated head on a wall thing that they have going on in this film. I do like Rita Repulsa’s redesign though, it definitely suits the original character, whilst also adding its own edge. I will admit Goldar’s redesign is pretty good.

If there is one thing that really bugs me about this film though, it’s the soundtrack. The soundtrack is horrendous in this film. I do admit that this is a matter of personal taste, but the songs all feel out of place, don’t suit the nature of the film or the fight scenes and they’re all rather jarry. You know that iconic theme song, I was speculating all year who was going to do the famous theme song that Ron Wasserman developed ‘Go Go Power Rangers’, you know how much of this is in the film? Barely anything!!! They didn’t even get a new band or whatever to record the song, you just get a slight rip of it from the previous film and even then, it’s played in such a low volume, that it doesn’t mean anything. Come on, this is one of the most iconic film songs ever!! You could have got Megadeth in to re-record it or even Green Day would have been pretty good, someone, anyone!! Even the Ninja Turtle theme was covered for Out of the Shadows, it was done by a terrible boy band, but at least they attempted to have a cover of it in there.

The soundtrack is my biggest issue. Other than that, I actually kind of like it on a lot of levels. It’s not a great film, but it’s not as awful as some reviewers have made it out to be. Although I can only recommend it to a Power Rangers fan. It’s just not really anything, it does have some decent action scenes, even though they are a bit too infrequent, its comedy doesn’t always hit and the characters aren’t all amazing, but let’s face it, that’s always a problem for the TV series. I actually think this one is pretty good, all things considered, and I would gladly watch it again. It’s a nice film for Power Rangers fans, but it’s nothing that anyone else should go out and see. But, if you are expecting a really, terrible film, don’t see it for irony’s sake, there’s much worse films out there. I was never bored watching this and I always felt entertained. Stick around for most of the credits though, because there is a mid-credit scene that alludes to a sequel and I hope they get one because I would like to see this expanded out.

Mini review time. I have only got one this week and it’s the writing and directing film debut of Jordan Peel, Get Out.

So that’s my thoughts on these two films. Please leave a comment if you saw either of these films and I would recommend them both.

Thanks a lot for reading my review. I hope you have enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it and if this film has taught me anything, I need to call up 4 of my friends and blow up a gold mine, because then I will get super powers (I wish, not in the real world though).

Calvin – Nerd Consultant

“BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (2017)”

This is now the third in a series of live action re-makes of classic Disney films. The previous two being 2015 Cinderella and 2016’s The Jungle Book which I reviewed for the website last year. I have been enjoying the live action Disney translations, some of them have added some really interesting ideas and even improved in some areas on the original films. I even stated that Jungle Book was probably one of the best films I saw last year, even though it didn’t make my Top 10. When I heard Beauty and the Beast was on the list, I was genuinely excited. The original film is one of my all time favourite Disney films, I think it’s fantastic. I even re-watched the original for the purpose of this review, and you know what, it really deserves its adoration. It’s a very well told adaptation of Beauty and the Beast. It has some brilliant central characters, a couple with genuinely good chemistry and a well told romance. There is a reason this was the first animated film to be nominated for Best Picture at a time when there wasn’t even a Best Animated feature category. While I think the academy could do with adding more animated films for best picture, I personally think Beauty and the Beast should have won the Oscar even though it was narrowly pipped by a film that a like, that being Silence of the Lambs. The big question when wondering what this version was going to be like was ‘what changes will this film make’. Then I got slightly concerned by the choice of director. Now that’s not to say Bill Condon is a bad director per se, I would more describe him as a hit and miss director. Granted, he is a pretty good writer, having been a writer on the screenplay’s for Chicago and Dream Girls which he also directed. However you also have to take into account that he has also directed The Fifth Estate, which was a rather poor film saved by a brilliant Benedict Cumberbatch performance and let’s not forget the disastrous Twilight Saga Breaking Dawn movies, which, even fans of the franchise thought was a pretty poor way to end the series. How the direction and romance is done in the Twilight films, applying that to Beauty and the Beast would be disastrous. As I previously mentioned, I don’t think Bill Condon is a bad director, but you have got to look at the choice of directors for the previous Disney films. You had real interesting directors that were well known and had done some interesting films that suited their style. For example, Kenneth Brannagh is a very theatrical director and he brings that to Cinderella. John Favarro is very much a revolution in story telling for effects, as we saw in the Iron Man films. However, I did have some hope for it as the trailers looked pretty good and the casting sounded fantastic. Everyone seems very well cast. When all this is pushed to the side, how does this new version of Beauty and the Beast stand up to its contemporaries. Here are my thoughts on it.

I feel kind of silly giving a plot synopsis to a film as widely viewed as Beauty and the Beast, but to keep everyone on the same page I am going to do it for the five of you that haven’t seen Beauty and the Beast!

In a castle in France, a prince (played by Dan Stevens) rejects an ugly woman from entering his palace. After this, she curses him to have the appearance of a Beast until he can learn to love and be loved in return. Years go by and after escaping from a pack of wolves, Maurice, (played by Kevin Kline) seeks shelter in the castle. After an attempt to pick a rose for his daughter Belle (played by Emma Watson) the Beast locks him in the castle because of the theft. Belle travels to the castle in search of her father and after discovering him and the Beast, agrees to take his place in exchange for his freedom. Now the servants, who have been turned into objects as part of the curse, Lumierre, Cogsworth and Mrs Potts (played by Ewan McGregor, Ian McKellen and Emma Thompson) work on a strategy to make Belle and the Beast fall in love in order to break the curse. So, with time ticking away, will they succeed.

Beauty and the Beast is a story that has been told time and time again. There are lots of facets to go down. The downside is, this film really doesn’t do much of anything different. Now I loved the first film and I was able to watch the it a couple of days before I even saw this film, so it was very fresh in my mind and it’s amazing how little is actually added to the film, or changed or is any way even remotely different. Now of course none of these elements are bad. They were all good the first time round, the problem is that they kind of lose the point of the film. What is the point of doing it again, but in live action. Ok, fine, it’s interesting to see these actors in these roles but they are not given much room to flex their acting muscles considering that the majority of them aren’t even in the room. Again, this was something that was done much further in the Jungle Book which also only had one human actor and several motion capture performances and believe me, we will be getting into my thoughts on the motion capture later on in this review. It frankly feels like this film has been made by a lot of people that really like the original movie but are so afraid of the fan base that they are not willing to change anything, and that’s just not worth it. The reason I liked Cinderella and the Jungle Book is because they took a new spin on something I had already seen and it made an interesting companion piece with the original film, as can easily be seen in the Nostalgia critic’s old versus new of Cinderella which took a very interesting look at both films and compared them to see which ones did each element better. It was rather interesting to see how each film did certain elements better than the others. This one was a pretty clear case, the original does a lot better than this new one in virtually every field. That’s not to say there are no changes and not additions to the story, there are. The problem is that none of them are that good or interesting. One of the changes includes a magic book which transports you anywhere you want to go, which feels like it something that the writers completely pulled out of their a… This does lead to a great moment in the film, one of the few additions I liked, but it also feels unnecessary. That’s this film in a nutshell in fact. A lot of it is unnecessary. Because it is so much like the original film, the minor changes stick out a lot more and make you wish you were watching the original film, where these elements were done better! Most of these changes consist of an extra song being added in, every once in a while, and believe me, we will be discussing the music in the presentation section! As well as some very dumb decisions around various character motivations and some unnecessary extra characters, which felt like they dragged the plot down rather than improved it. One of the changes I do like about the film, however, is the beginning of the film, where in the opening monologue, where it is revealed that the curse that is put on the castle also made everyone in the surrounding area forget about the castle’s existence. This kind of helped fill in the plot hole about how no one remembers about this prince and castle in a forest not too far from their own village and I admit I kind of liked it. I also liked the fact that the castle is in perpetual Winter, which is a nice subtle touch, although it come up with another problem I have with the film, which I will get in to later.

The biggest change by far is Gaston and LeFou who are played by Luke Evans and Josh Gad, granted, Gaston’s story arc is rather similar to his story arc in the original animated film, the downside is, well, he’s kind of a weaker villain. The original film has him more be the town’s hero who slipped more and more into monstrous behaviour as he fails to get his way more and more. The new version has this too, but it’s less of a gradual descent and more a complete fall, it feels like the pacing of this story arc was severely rushed, it’s nothing that breaks the film, but for my opinion, it does make this version of the villain weaker. As for LeFou, well he’s the one that’s the most unrecognisable from his animated counterpart. Now there has been a lot of controversy, although it’s entirely unnecessary, surrounding the fact that the character is gay in this version, which feels kind of weird, considering that’s a complaint, when this is a story about a woman falling in love with a literal man-animal!! Now, I’m not going to go into the acting session yet, but Josh Gad plays this part very well. I’m not actually a fan of him as an actor, but this is probably his best role since Frozen and it’s proof that he is much more suited to family films than R rated comedies and he really should be making his way out of that field. But to get back to the point in hand, while the character may not be beyond recognition, and given a more sympathetic edge, I feel his character is much more improved. He has gone from being the henchman stereotype to the jealous gay boyfriend stereotype, but I honestly think this version of the character is a lot more memorable than the original. Let’s face it, what do you remember about LeFou from the original, he follows around Gaston, he is basically a punch bag and forced comic relief and he starts the Gaston song, that’s all there is. Trust me, this is one of the changes to this version that I think is an improvement. The character can get quite annoying every so often and Josh Gad really plays it up a bit too much at times.

Let’s move on to the real meat on the bone. The romance. I don’t think the chemistry is that good this time round. It’s not that it’s not there, there’s actually some decent writing in that department and like the first film there is time devoted to show them bonding, getting to know each other and having time to fall in love. This is all stuff I like. Where does it fail? There are a few areas. Emma Watson and Dan Stevens might be decent choices to play these parts, but for some reason I didn’t feel their chemistry in this film as much as the animated version and I think it also suffers from the fact that the animated version didn’t specify how long it was between Belle’s imprisonment and the time she spends in the Castle with the Beast and used the changing seasons to the ‘Something There’ song demonstrated. This 2017 version doesn’t have that because the castle is in perpetual Winter and you get a sense that this version is taking place over a few days, maybe even weeks at most, not a sense of months like the animated film did, which is a shame. Granted the animated film didn’t state it was over months, but this romance feels a lot more rushed than the original animated film. The romance is not totally devoid, in fact Emma Watson and Dan Stevens are really trying to make this work, they really are. It just feels slightly off, it’s not bad, but just not as amazing as the first film.

My major problem of the film is the same thing, I can sum it up in two words “inferior re-make”. In fact, this film feels like an exact clone of the original, especially in the first 20-30 minutes. You could probably play the two films side by side, there would be very little difference between them. In fact, the only major one I can think of is that a few scenes are swapped around, shifted around from place to place and a couple of extra scenes added in, that’s about it. It almost feels at times like they are going for a shot for shot re-make, that’s kind of where the film feels at its worst because it feels unnecessary, since all these moments are done weaker than the original. Take the ‘Something There’ song as an example. In the original film, the song is done through their internal monologue. In this new version, we actively see them singing it, which doesn’t sound like much, but it kind of doesn’t help with the breaking of disbelief. Again, the musical numbers as a whole, feel way too over the top. You can get away with that in a cartoon because that allows for much more broader expressions and movement, when you try and do this in real life, it looks ridiculous! If it comes across that I am bashing this film, I am. But I don’t think this is a bad film at all, in fact I actually did say it’s an ok film and it’s simply because it’s still an almost shot for shot re-make of one of my favourite Disney films and if anything, it made me appreciate the animated film more, because every moment I was thinking ‘that moment was done better in the animated film’. However, that doesn’t make it a failure, if anything, I do like the film, it’s still those good moments done in live action. It’s just not what I was hoping for, I thought it was going to give a new edge to Beauty and the Beast, for it to give me something new, and it doesn’t really do that.

The actors are all fairly decent in this film. Everyone seems well cast and the one thing I will say about all the performances, even though a couple of them feel slightly miscast, they all seem like they are having fun. Emma Watson for example looks like she is having an absolute ball in this performance. This is clearly one of her childhood favourites that she now has the chance to be in and she is enjoying every single minute though her singing voice clearly needed a lot of auto tuning. Dan Stevens is an interesting choice to play the Beast and since he is having to do most of performance in motion capture, it makes for some rather interesting expression. He is obviously having his voice altered for the performances, but I was amazed how much he sounded like the original film and got down the mannerisms of the character. In fact, out of all the characters, he is probably the one who is closes to his animated counterpart, some later scenes notwithstanding. Now, anyone who read my reviews of Dracula Untold and The Girl on the Train knows that I am not a huge fan of Luke Evans, but when I heard he was playing Gaston, I was like “oh yes, that’s perfect casting” and I was completely right. He is really great for the role. I’ve already spoken about Josh Gad as LeFou, so I won’t dwell on that any further. Kevin Kline gives a decent performance, which is pretty good considering that the characters role has been expanded from between each version of the film. Ewan McGregor is a good choice for Lumiere, Emma Thompson is good a choice for Mrs Potts and Ian McKellen does a brilliant job as Cogsworth. The cast is also made up of other recognisable performances in the various household appliances such as Audrey McDonald, Stanley Tucci and many others. While this cast is really good, they are rather underdone by their writing, but the fact that they all seem to be having fun doing this film really rubs off and allows you to overlook a lot of the issues of the film and I thought their enthusiasm was infectious. I also would like to point out that I think Emma Watson has gotten way too much flack on Twitter in the build-up to the film’s release. Just throwing that one out there!!

As for the technical side of the film, that’s one other area where this film shines. This film’s production design is fantastic. The sets are brilliantly made, the CG computer effects are really good and the motion capture is also excellent. This is one good motion capture film and the CG characters blend into the environment relatively well. Maurice’s designs are pretty good. I’m not too big a fan of Lumiere’s re-design although I do admit it allows the character to be much more expressive, than he otherwise would have been. If there is one area where I think the film is not quite succeeding its really kind of weird with the Beast’s re-design. Don’t get me wrong, I think Dan Stevens does a pretty good job and the Beast’s design is rather decent, but dam, compared to the original, it doesn’t really hold a candle. No pun intended!! The Beast in the original looks like a Beast, this is how I envision the character looking. I know this was probably done so that they could capture Dan Stevens expressions for the motion capture but the Beast looks a bit too gentrified in this film and I get a sense that it might have been done more for fan service than anything else. As a result, it does make Emma Watson seem a little young to be playing the part, not that she doesn’t play Belle pretty well.

Now, I touched on the songs and that is where one of my biggest complaints really lies. All the songs from the original film are intact, not one of them has been cut. The problem is, that there has been a load added in as well and it feels like they have been made just to take up time. Now, I suspect many of these songs have been taken from the stage show or deleted songs that were intended for the original movie, in a similar way that Aladdin had a lot of songs that were cut from the final product. Now I’m not calling betrayal on this one since Alan Menken has returned to be the composer once again, however, the new songs are just not that great. They feel unnecessary and completely over the top, in fact the Beast gets a song later in the film which ruins the weight of the moment that it was meant to convey. The one thing I will say, however, is that the song ‘Human Again’ which was cut from the original film and placed back in on the special edition Blu Ray, is entirely absent from the film and replaced by a much better song and believe me, that was literally the worst part of the special edition!

So, where do I stand with Beauty and the Beast, because this is one of the more complicated films of the year for me. Well, on the one hand I like the fact that it’s a nice re-creation of the original film, which I enjoyed. The downside is that that is also its biggest weakness. It doesn’t really feel like a new film, it just feels like a repeat, which would be fine for a stage show, but not an entire movie. Especially considering that Jungle Book and Cinderella did a much better job updating their stories. I get a sense that Beauty and the Beast has not been around long enough to really warrant an update since the original one still holds up, there are not that many issues with it and it narratively is still as relevant now as it was upon its release in the 1990’s and it’s so evident here, every moment you are seeing something that is in the original film, you are getting a sense that it was done much better there and it really makes you feel that the minor changes and additions feel like they detract from the film more than they add. Again, it’s not to say it’s bad. The actors do a decent job, the effects are pretty good and the set design is fantastic, I expect to be seeing this film nominated in several of the technical categories at next year’s Oscars. However, to me, it just feels rather ‘been there, done that, and it was much better the first time’. I don’t hate this movie, in fact, I kind of like it on a few levels and I wouldn’t object to seeing it again as I suspect this is probably going to become a mainstay of British TV at Christmas. However, I can’t fully recommend Beauty and the Best, especially if you enjoyed the first film. It’s worth it for curiosity and you will get a good film for the price value, but you are not getting a great film. There’s no two cents on the subject.

So that’s my reviews for the week. If you have any thoughts on any of the films I have reviewed, leave something in the comments section, we are very interested to hear your thoughts.

Now time for one of my most anticipated films of the year, or I am clutching at straws that at the time this movie has been published and you are reading it, I am sat in a cinema enjoying it. Time for me to go back to one of my childhood classics which I have kept to this day and review the latest incarnation of Power Rangers. Join me next week for that one.

Thanks a lot for reading my review, I hope you have enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it, and get ready, IT’S MORPHIN TIME.

Calvin – Nerd Consultant

“KONG: SKULL ISLAND”

Most of the summer blockbusters traces back to Jaws. I think Jaws probably was the film that started the idea of the Summer blockbuster, because it proved you could make a movie on that scale and sell it in the Summer holidays. But I don’t think it’s the original blockbuster. For my money, the film that created the blockbuster as we know it and really, I think, in general, suggested the idea that movies were for everyone and not for the so called enlightened was King Kong. All the way back in 1933 King Kong was a big deal in its day and while it’s not aged brilliantly including some rather offensive racial stereotypes it still has some good qualities to it. It definitely should be in the pantheon of film histories like it has become and should be taught in film school especially how to get the best use out of practical effects, but while the effects may be primitive you have to acknowledge that they were cutting edge at the time and took a lot of time, care and effort to make. Many people think there aren’t any other King Kong films because the various sequels and re-boots have been rather sparse, but you might be surprised by how many there are, including Son of Kong and even a Japanese film where he fought Godzilla. While Warner Bros, who produced the Godzilla film back in 2014 have noticed that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been successful and said let’s give King Kong another re-boot because we want to try and outdo Peter Jackson, so let’s make this film. The plan being that eventually there will be a whole list of monster films that will share a similar Universe.

The film’s trailers didn’t look amazing, in fact the effects don’t look like they have been upped all that much since Peter Jackson’s film back in 2005. Looking back, though I think Peter Jackson did a pretty good job with his version of King Kong, though it did stumble at points and was a little too long. The latest film not only boasted a huge stellar all-star cast, but it also tried to make it look like it would be an epic, though, that being said, I didn’t really get the entire epic feel of it from that trailer, but I was pleasantly surprised that the trailers did not show too much of King Kong. Though, I did get a decent look of Kong from some of the promotional material, which was inescapable, so yes, screw that surprise!

The film is directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts a director who has only directed on feature film prior to this one, being Kings of Summer and has spent most of his career directing television and short films, though the only notable one I could find was a film called Successful Alcoholics, which makes him an interesting choice to direct a film of this scale. The writing team also look rather interesting, we have Dan Gilroy whose credits include Bourne Legacy and the fantastic political thriller Night Crawler, Max Borenstein who was one of the writers on the Godzilla film and apparently contributing to the sequel and Derek Connolly, an award winning writer, who has worked on the previously reviewed Jurassic World and will also be writing the credits for the upcoming Jurassic World sequel and Star Wars Episode 9, With that combination of credits, it gives you the idea that these writers have mixed success at best. Then again, writers can be rather limited by their directors so I am not going to judge them entirely on it. But with all that being said, does Kong live up to the expectations of its previous incarnations. Let’s see if Skull Island is worth the trip!

Taking place in 1973, following the conclusion of the Vietnam War, Bill Randa and Houston Brooks (played by John Goodman and Corey Hawkins) present satellite photos of an undiscovered island with a potential eco system unlike any other. They lead a team to find it, which includes an army escort led by Preston Packard (played by Samuel L Jackson), and under the guidance of them and former SAS man James Conrad (played by Tom Hiddleston) and photographer Mason Weaver (played by Brie Larson). After they reach the island, however, it is evident that they have got more than they expected. The island is guarded by an ape the size of a building named Kong (played in motion capture by Toby Kebbell) and he will do anything to defend his territory. I’m not going to go too far into plot details with this one because believe it or not, they actually left quite a lot out of the trailer! This one does set itself apart from other Kong films. I think it’s best to go into this film having not seen much, even if you have seen the trailers you are still going to get a few surprises. For one thing, there is plenty of variety of big creatures on the island and as a result there are a lot of really interesting set pieces.

Ok you know that most of the characters introduced are just being introduced to get killed off, but a couple I was expecting to die did live until the end! Even a couple of characters that I expected to live, died! So don’t go in thinking everyone is safe in this film. It does, however, give a sense that when this film does what you expect it to do, it’s rather mediocre. When it doesn’t do what you expect it to do, it’s a genuinely good film. The biggest issue, though, is that there are too many characters, they are all fighting for screen time. You take a look at some of the characters like Jake Chapman, who is being played by Toby Kebbell, who is having a dual role having also done the motion capture for Kong, he is playing a Vietnam soldier who wants to get back to his son. Then you also have the introduction of John C Reilly’s Hank Marlow, a world war 2 soldier who has been stranded on the island after his plane was shot down. You have got Samuel L Jackson’s character’s sub plot of having a vendetta against King Kong, because all films these days seem to have a Moby Dick reference. There is quite a lot going on and while you won’t lose track of all the characters and their sub plots, a lot of them pale into significance, as a result, when characters die. It’s not that upsetting because we weren’t given time to know all that much, in fact a couple of them are that obvious I’m surprised they didn’t go sooner than they did.

The film can also feel arbitrary, it has a video game feel to it, there is very little reason for characters to be in certain environments at certain times, they have to do quite a lot of plot gymnastics to get the characters to various places. Some of the transitions do not flow as naturally as I would have liked. There are some good ones and some decent twists in the story as a whole but as I stated, it doesn’t quite flow together completely. In fact, the narrative can be so over the place that you will pick one you like and will be annoyed when it cuts away from that one. Don’t go in expecting too much of the actual Kong. Yes, rather like the 2014 Godzilla, he is not really in the movie as much as the advertising campaign suggests. Once again, he is kind of B player to some of the other monsters on the island, again, I won’t dare spoil. There are some excellent fight scenes which I liked and there is some decent character Kong, it’s just for a film with Kong in the title, I was amazed how little of him there is. When he is on screen, it’s really good and Toby Kebbel does a good motion capture performance with this one.

I have a couple of minor issues with Kong though. The first one being that there really is no build up to Kong. Now in most of these films, you knew he was coming and you had a decent build up to it, this film literally throws him in right off the bat and I would have liked some build up to the character. Right from the start we know exactly what Kong looks like. Also, Kebbell is not like Serkis in this performance. We know Tony Kebbell can give a decent motion capture performance, I described how good a performance he gave in a similar role in Warcraft, which I reviewed last year, however, Kebbell plays Kong more like a monster than an animal. For example, Andy Circus also did a motion capture performance in the 2005 Peter Jackson King Kong and that one he attempted to be more ape like. Kong is not exactly Ape like, he walks on 2 legs upright as opposed to the stance of the normal walk of apes. It’s a minor thing but it takes out the idea that Kong is an animal acting out of instinct. Mind you, considering the back story they go into in this film, that’s not surprising, it does have an interesting angle to it. The other factor is that Kong is significantly bigger in this film that in any other incarnation. This is again, so he matches up in size with Godzilla for the proposed Kong vs Godzilla film which will be out in the next decade. That being said though, I do like Kong in this film, when he is on screen he is quite good and it’s some of the best moments of the film, but I think people will be surprised with how little he is in the film.

The rest of the characters are kind of stock. We have seen these characters a lot, there’s not much new to them, in fact a few of them almost just exist to die. I kind of liked where they were going with Samuel L Jackson’s character, a man who feels defeated by the Vietnam War and doesn’t want to lose any more men and develops a Captain Ahab complex towards Kong after he kills almost everyone who first comes to the island. That was really good for the first portion of the film. But then they turn him into the usual dumb military shoot first ask questions later stereotype that we have seen hundreds of times. what happened here, if they had written him slightly better, he would have been one of the best characters in the film. Tom Hiddleston’s character gets some bad ass moments, but they are few and far between. Brie Larson’s character feels like she has very little personality. John Goodman’s character has a good personality, but he is not on screen enough to sell it. In fact, once they reach the island he is rather insignificant since he doesn’t provide much more information of exposition because John C Reilly’s character takes over in that role. This is again my point, there are far too many characters and not all of them serve enough of a purpose to justify their place in the film. I do find the film entertaining though. Yes, no joke, I actually, did find this entertaining. It’s a kind of dumb action film, but I like a dumb action film every so often and at least this one is entertaining and never insults your intelligence. I just don’t think this film is 83% on rotten tomatoes good!!!

Where the plot does succeed is that it gives us exactly what we want and it does that well. It has most of the things we come to expect from King Kong films, the natives, Kong’s affection towards a beautiful woman who visits the island and so on and so forth. Everything with the exception of, Kong being bough to New York. The difference is, this has been merged with the Godzilla film and I like the Godzilla films. They are really campy stupid fun. This one is no different. As I said, Kong is not in it as much as you would expect, which is a trait that it shares with the 2014 Godzilla film, in fact this film is very similar to that one, so if you enjoyed Godzilla, you will know exactly what to expect. It’s very similar.

All the performances were pretty good. John C Reilly is on top form in this role. Tom Hiddleston once again delivers a decent performance and Brie Larson is really dam good as well. I have already mentioned about Toby Kebbell’s motion capture dual performances, but here to say, he does both of them good and I am glad that has actually caught a break by finally being in a film that I liked because I have been rooting for the actor and he really needed some help after Fantastic 4. John Goodman is great when he is on screen, but then again, he is John Goodman, he is entertaining, even in bad film, and of course, who could forget Samuel L Jackson. This guy loves these sort of movies and he is eating up every moment he is on screen. As for the rest of the performances, they are all pretty much so, so, I think the majority of the cast are good, it’s just their parts were either not written well enough or they weren’t in the movie enough to really leave much of an impact. That’s pretty much my two cents on the cast.

As for the presentation, that’s where I think this film kind of shined. I loved the 1970’s aesthetic, we are trying give this film a feel of Apocalypse Now, this comes from certain types of camera lenses used and the soundtrack, which is brilliantly 70’s. How can you not like a film which has the cast arriving on an unchartered island by blasting Black Sabbath out of a mega speaker! The fight scenes are decently choreographed and the cinematography suits it well, the camera does some very good panning shots, including one excellent scene involving Tom Hiddleston in the middle of the film. That being said though, the effects are not amazing. For most of the film they are on a par with the 2014 Godzilla, but I think a couple of the effects don’t do as well. There are some interesting practical effects in there as well, which I have to commend them for and the set designs are fantastic, plus the amazing on location shoots in Vietnam, including some excellent shots in Ha Long Bay, which helps give the island a complete other wordly feel. Actually after having been to this location when I was travelling, I can say it gives that effect off and I think people going to see the film unaware of the location will get the exact feel the film makers were going for.

I saw the film in 2D, so I can’t comment of the 3D although a couple of the scenes are shot with the 3D in mind. I think this might be worth checking out the 3D, but you won’t be disappointed with the 2D.

Kong Skull Island is a dumb film, but it’s the sort of dumb film I like. It never tries to over stretch it boundaries and gives you exactly what you expect but it is entertaining in that sense, so my predictions of it being a mediocre film feel unjustified. I think this is a good film. It could have used a bit more Kong and the plot doesn’t flow quite as well as it could have, but what it does well it does well. The dialogue is pretty good some of the characters are relatively entertaining, though some of them are not as well written. The acting is fairly decent and the effects hold up alright. Anyone who saw 2014’s Godzilla should check this one out. It’s a very similar film and it almost follows the plot beat for beat. This unfortunately means that you probably won’t enjoy it as much if your problem with the Godzilla film was that they focused too much on the humans at the expense of the monsters. You can probably tell from my brief descriptions whether you are going to like this film or not. I would recommend seeing it at the cinema as I think you won’t get the same effect on the TV screen and it comes with my recommendation. This is a pretty good film. If you are going to see the film, stay until the end of the credits, there’s a post credit scene which sets up future movies and it’s really awesome.

No mini review this week as I have been away at a Professionals Conference. I am intending to improve on this and I will have some mini reviews next week, so you will get a feel what is coming out over the weekend.

So now to move from one beast to another beast. Join me next Friday where I will be giving my thoughts on the upcoming Disney’s latest live action, Beauty and the Beast.

Thanks a lot for reading my review. I hope you have enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it and the moral of the story is children, if John Goodman invites you to an island for the weekend, just say no!!!

Calvin – Nerd Consultant

“LOGAN”

It’s really hard to believe, but as Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart pointed out on their appearance on the Graham Norton show, it’s been 17 years since the first X Men movie, 17 years!!! People talk about franchises that they grew up with, but I really have been growing up with the X Men films, they have been the films of my adolescence into the time where I am approaching my third decade, and yes, they have been pretty good films for the most part. Granted the X Men franchise has had its ups and downs and I probably talked about that when I reviewed the somewhat disappointing X Men The Apocalypse last year, which probably was the most disappointing film I saw in 2016. It was just not as good as I wanted it to be and I was disappointed, it felt like it strayed too far away from what had been really good in X Men First Class and especially Days of Future Past, it didn’t have much overall charm and fun. The X Men films have always been rather more serious comic films. But the thing is, I didn’t really talk that much about the Wolverine films. The Wolverine films came about because, of course, the more Hugh Jackman played the character, the more popular they got, so as a result, they wanted to capitalise on it. This started with Gavin Hood directing the abysmal X Men Origins Wolverine, a film so awful, it nearly sank the X Men franchise and forced 20th Century Fox, who produces all these films, to hiring Matthew Vaughan to re-boot the franchise in X Men First Class. We then got the Wolverine, while a decent film and a decent adaptation of the Japan saga, it really wasn’t a film that did much to wow its fan base, especially for the awful CGI for the Silver Samurai.

Now, as I mentioned in my X Men Apocalypse review, there was an entire middle portion of the film given over to promoting the next Wolverine film, having seen the Origins of Wolverine in this re-booted timeline. Which, as I mentioned before, could have easily been taken out and was only in to promote the next Wolverine film. However, when the first trailers hit, this was not exactly what I was expecting and 20th Century Fox were quick to announce that this was going to be an adaptation of the Old Man Logan storyline and before anyone asks, I may be the comic guy around Axia, but I haven’t really been reading much of Old Man Logan. I read The Tie In for Secret Wars and I read a couple of issues of the series with Marvel now 2.0, but it just didn’t really capture my attention and I found the art work was way too abstract, so I couldn’t get a grip on the book. But in all honesty though, I liked this change of pace. The one thing the Wolverine films and the X Men films in general have been afraid to do, is to give Wolverine some real grit and have his individual films be an exploration piece for him as a sort of character study.

The writing team returns from the Wolverine to make this film, along with director James Mangold, who also helped develop the story. He also directed the Johnny Cash film ‘I Walk the Line’. Now I was actually excited to see this film because of the buzz it got from the critics, that, unlike myself, managed to get in press screenings and the way the film has been talked about in interviews. It made the whole thing feel more like a passion project than just another entry in the X Men franchise and with it being announced that this will be the last outing in the franchise for Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart, I was hoping that this would be the best send-off they could have. So, how did it turn out.

Logan is the latest film in the franchise and as a result takes place at the very end of the timeline, taking place in the year 2029 which means this movie won’t be dated for at least another 12 years. The story takes place several years after the events of, I assume, X Men 2, although given how much the continuity has been screwed around with in the X Men Universe, who the hell knows!! All mutants have gone and there hasn’t been a natural mutant born for over a decade. The last 2 standing are Logan (played by Hugh Jackman) and Charles Xavier (played by Patrick Stewart). With Xavier in poor health and requiring constant medication, Logan travels from job to job in order to pay for medication and eventually wishes to get a boat to leave the mainland. However, he is contacted by Gabriela (played by Elizabeth Rodriguez) with an offer to take her daughter Laura (played by Dafne Keen) across the border to a place called Eden, which is a safe haven for the new mutants. They are being pursued by a pharmaceutical company led by Dr Rice (played by Richard E Grant) and his righthand man Pierce (played by Boyd Holbrook). Logan is essentially, what I like to refer to as, the equivalent of Metal Gear Solid 4 for the X Men films. It’s very much a ‘the last days of a broken soldier’. The big difference between the two is that Metal Gear Solid 4 was more the protagonists doing the mission because they felt it was their duty, without any sort of personal stake in it. Logan’s feel more like he has a personal stake, but his personal stake is more selfish on the surface.

The real joy of this film, however, is the fact that it is R rated. The R rating is very much to the films benefit because it means, for once, the film makers can go all out. This is a very, very brutal film, even by the standards of the X Men films to date and what’s more, it’s really damn gritty. There’s tons of very brutal deaths and these range from claws to the eyes to beheadings, to even having your arm frozen and then punched to smithereens. Yes, if your kids are in to the X Men films, you might want to wait a few years before you take them to this one. It’s got a 15 rating for a reason!! That being said, however, it fits the Wolverine character perfectly. This really feels like a Wolverine comic and a Wolverine storyline. The other Wolverine films felt more he was being more forced into an X-men scenario, this one very much centres around him. Now obviously there have been a few changes from the comics. The major one being that Laura Linney aka X23 who is the current Wolverine in the Marvel comics at this point in time because Wolverine is dead in the comics (don’t worry, it’s not going to stick. I guarantee in about a year and a half he is going to be alive again and no, Old Man Logan being in the main Marvel Universe doesn’t count). The main change with her is that when the character was first introduced she was a teenager, I think she is now in her mid 20’s at this point in the comics, for the film she has actually had her age reduced to 11. This is rather weird considering that Hollywood usually ups the age of their protagonists so they don’t have to hire child actors to play the parts, for example, the Percy Jackson films (remember those disasters, of course you don’t) upped the age of their characters from 12 to 16, so to see a film where they reduce the age and get a child actor in, really works. The age reduction works really well in a narrative sense and Dafne Keen does a really good job playing this part, she can act very brutally and performs the stunts very well. She makes an excellent Laura.

The downside, if there is any, is the fact that it is technically a change and I think some fans might be disappointed that it’s not a teenager in this part and there is also a partial change to her origin. Without giving too much away in spoilers, the comic went for a more literal sense of Wolverine being a father figure to her compared to the comics. Other than that they keep her relatively the same, whereas Wolverine has 3 claws in his hand, she has 2 claws and an extra claw in both of her feet, which I was rather disappointed they only took advantage of once in the entire film to my knowledge. There are also references to the X Men comics considering that Laura actually reads X Men comics in one of the most meta references in a Marvel film. Even Deadpool would be saying there’s way too much breaking of the fourth wall. I’m not sure if some of these comics are real comics as one of them becomes a plot point later on down the line and I’m expecting it to turn up in my Loot Crate next month as a result. I will keep you informed if it does turn up!!

The thing that makes the whole thing is the supporting cast works out really well. You have got Charles Xavier who is probably the most heart breaking part of the film, to see his vision for mutant kind go down the drain and a man slowly losing his mental faculties, is really heart breaking if you have been following the franchise for as long as I have, and his story arc is also brilliant. We also get Caliban joining the fray this time as a nurse for Charles Xavier, he is a man with albinism that cannot go into the light, otherwise he burns, and also has the powers to track other mutants and he is played brilliantly by Stephen Merchant and you might have to do a double take before you recognise him, considering he has shaved his head for the role. There is a problem though, and that is the villains. The villains suffer from being rather bland and they feel like the fit into the whole class of ‘people trying to control mutant kind villains’. We have seen these villains in the X Men films and done better before! Also, of course, they have created Laura to be a replacement for Wolverine that they can control and they have all these child mutants. These are the exact same villains as in X Men 2 except instead of trying to kill mutants they are trying to control them. In fact, Richard E Grant’s Dr Rice feels very much like Brian Cox’s Striker in X Men 2 and the fact that it’s both British actors in the roles, is not helping my Déjà vu. Plus Piers, despite the fact that he was hyped up as being a big villain in this, barely does anything throughout the entire film. He doesn’t take part in many fight scenes, in fact, him and Wolverine never fight each other once, in fact Wolverine spends most of the film fighting nameless goons. I always knew we were going to get these sort of villains, in the film, the trailers did their thing, but I was expecting a little bit more especially considering that as a character drama, Logan is fantastic, it’s a brilliant character piece for its main character.

It really feels like we have come full circle with Wolverine at this point. We are seeing a man with virtually nothing left to live for simply trying to keep going to either find a purpose or die trying and he would much prefer the latter option. In fact, he even carries around an admantium (fiction super strong metal in the marvel universe that wolverine’s skeleton is made from) bullet in case he wants to end it all, which I am fairly certain doesn’t actually work, even by the weird science that the Marvel Universe is based on. Then again, the Marvel Universe changes how it works every year, I’d hardly be surprised if they changed it to this now. That being said though, it doesn’t really break much continuity, the story is basically a road trip movie as well as running from the law film, but it does both of these pretty dam well. Honestly I thought that it did a really good job. It’s a dark film at times and it’s not too much light relief, though the light relief is pretty good. I also liked how they portrayed Laura trying to discover the outside world for herself. You can feel the interaction going on. There is some excellent chemistry between her, Charles and Logan. I really like this plot, I think it fits in with the X Men films pretty well and I think it offers something to the X Men fans that they haven’t seen yet.

As for the performances, they are all pretty dam good. Hugh Jackman gives one of the best performances of his career in this film and that is saying a lot as he has now been playing the character for the last 17 years, kind of weird to believe that this all started from a role that his wife said would probably end his career. That is saying a lot considering half of what he has to do in this film. Patrick Stewart does an excellent job playing Charles Xavier once again and shows a side to Charles that I don’t think we have seen. We are all used to the calm stoic father figure, so to see that slowly deteriorating, feels rather heart breaking. Dafne Keen does an excellent job as a child actor especially given the fact that she has not got that many lines till really late into the film and has to do all of her acting through her expressions. Stephen Merchant is on top form in this film and really throws himself into the part, which means he can now finally say to Ricky Gervais that at least between them, he has been in a good movie. No, Night at the Museum does not count, that’s not a good movie!! Elizabeth Rodriguez does a good job even though she is not in it that much. Richard E Grant is alright, but as I said, he is basically playing Brian Cox’s part in X Men 2 and he is not really adding much to it. He is doing his job and is doing it well, but I think a lot of people will go away not thinking much of it, especially considering he will probably be outshone by Boyd Holbrook who is doing a pretty decent job of playing the other main villain. Other than that the other parts are alright. The only one to really mention is Eriq La Salle who does a pretty good job playing a minor supporting role later on down the line. Honestly, I thought the cast as a whole, was a really damn good cast. Though don’t expect that many X Men cameos, in fact there is not even a Stan Lee cameo in this film, though, considering the dark tone of the film I’m not sure a Stan Lee cameo would have been appropriate.

Now as for the action, well, ok I will say one thing, it’s not as good as John Wick Chapter 2 if I am going by recent action films as a standard, but that doesn’t change the fact it’s good. The action scenes are shot well, the cinematography suits it well, we can tell what is going on and they are all well choreographed. They are not all perfect, in fact a couple of them kind of fall flat at times but as a whole they are pretty dam good and they are certainly some of the best the X Men films have had, because with the limited amount of mutants in this film it means that the powers are rather restricted rather than common place and as a result there is less computer effects in the film. That’s not to say there are no computer effects in the film, in fact they are good when they are being used. The great thing is they never feel that fake, in fact the practical effects are also pretty good. The make-up department really deserves an Oscar nomination for the work they have done on this one. They have done one hell of a good job. Without giving too much away, there are also some effects used for particular fight scenes that are very good and allow for some excellent fight scenes as a result. The major thing about the make-up and the costume designs is the fact that it means none of the actors look glamorous in any way, shape of form and that’s the tone of the film. It doesn’t have the slick and futuristic look that most of the X Men films have, this is dark and down to earth. In fact it suits the whole film style and as a result the whole film feels and looks like a Johnny Cash song. Not surprising considering that Johnny Cash contributed two songs to the soundtrack, ‘When a Man Comes Around’ and ‘Hurt’. Again, rather unsurprising considering that the director also directed ‘I Walk the Line’.

Is there an issue with Logan?

Mini review time. Despite the fact that I had quite a bit of time to do this, I still didn’t get to the cinema much so I only have 2. The Space Between Us and The Great Wall.

The Space Between Us: Well, this is probably the film that I have the least amount of opinion on. This was such a passive viewing experience. It’s basically a love story between a kid born on Mars and a girl back on Earth and he goes back to Earth to meet her and then he is chased by the government because he needs a new heart in order to survive on earth since he has never actually been on the planet. Yes, that plot line doesn’t sound very original or creative at all and that’s basically how the film turned out. You have got Gary Oldman doing his usual shtick, which is getting a bit tired at this point, but I hate saying that because I do like Gary Oldman as an actor. When he is good, he is really good. But this film is very much the same, bland, young adult novels that I have seen time and time again. I may not be the target demographic, but I would have thought by now, at least one of them would have got my attention. At this point in time Hunger Games is the only one I have even remotely gotten in to and even then I just thought they were ok films, I didn’t think they were great. The Space Between Us is really bland. Acer Butterfield is playing the exact same character and is giving the same performance that he did in Miss Peregrines Home for Peculiar Children. The difference is, in that film he had a good script so it made up for the bland performance. This film doesn’t have a good script, so as a result, you really feel the bland nature of his performance. It’s not one I would recommend, I would say skip this one.

So, that’s all my thoughts. If you have any thoughts on any of these films, please leave a comment in the comments section.

“JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK”

Well, it’s another year, so another trilogy of straight to home release DC animated films. Now last year wasn’t an incredibly good year for DC, they didn’t really manage to get anything right. The live action films didn’t live up to the standard, but the animated films, DC would normally get at least one really great film, but reflected in the fact that the DC animated films, for the first time ever, did not play a part in my best of the year list in 2016. Out of all the three DC animated films last year, and I reviewed all of them, my favourite was Justice League versus Teen Titans, though it certainly was not for the Justice League being in it, in fact, that was probably the film’s biggest weakness. I mentioned that I was hoping that DC for their next set of films would actually try to use more variety of characters. Well, I kind of got my wish, since the next film would be based on the Justice League Dark comic. Now Justice League Dark is definitely a name that won’t be familiar to a large proportion of people, even within the comic world, considering it was moderately successful book during the new 52. I read the entirety of the series and enjoyed it for the most part. The series kind of had its ups and downs but it had some of the better tie ins to the new 52 event Forever Evil. The event itself being just ok! However, despite my praise for the comic I wasn’t entirely sold on the film especially since Jay Oliva is returning to direct it, but then I saw the cast was pretty dam good, including Matt Ryan returning from his brief stint as the character Constantine in the failed CW series to reprise the role and the fact that the story itself had been developed by J M DeMatteis and Ernie Altbacker, so I had something to go on. Though the cynical side of me said that this is just now a prelude to Justice League America and eventually a Trinity War and Forever Evil movie since DC still seems to be trying to pretend that the New 52 wasn’t a disastrous failure to re-boot the DC Universe. With all that being said, which one is accurate, and is the first DC animated film of 2017 an improvement over 2016’s lacklustre outing?

Justice League Dark does not follow an exact plot from any of the Justice League Dark comic storylines, though does feature some characters that regularly appeared in the comic series, so for that purpose I will still give a brief plot synopsis, though I won’t go into too much detail since this film only last 1hr 15mins and to go into any major detail would basically mean I would have to spoil the entire film.

A string of murders are taking place across America that the Justice League investigates. All the people that are committing the murders claim to see their victims as terrifying demons that they must slaughter at all costs. The League suspects that there is a connection to the magical world. Because this version of Batman (played by Jason O’Mara) is an idiot, he doesn’t believe in it until Boston Brand aka Deadman (played by Nicholas Turturro) sends him a message to seek out Constantine. Joined by Zatanna (played by Camilla Luddington) they track down John Constantine (played by Matt Ryan) to investigate the murders and what could possibly be causing them. They are working together as a team and are also joined by Jason Blood aka Etrigan The Demon (played by Ray Chase) and Alec Holland aka Swamp Thing (played by Roger Cross).

There’s really not much more to the Justice League Dark film. It starts out feeling like a murder mystery, but then turns into basically an action horror film. Anyone familiar with the Justice League Dark comics and even Constantine’s failed CW series, will fit quite comfortably into it. It’s not really what I would call an amazing movie, but considering I just wanted to skip this one and go straight to the next couple of films, since the next lot seemed to be more up my street, I was surprised that this was somewhat an engaging film. Yes, no joke. Justice League Dark is actually dam good. Mainly because we dropped this bland and lifeless version of the Justice League that the DC animated films seemed to want to push constantly. The only one of the League that actually has any life is Batman, and wisely he is the only one character that sticks around to be a part of this film for any long period of time and not at all to do with the fact that this film was released digitally just before the Lego Batman film! No, no way, DC is not that desperate for advertising!

The League is briefly visible towards the beginning and the end of the film, but you might be surprised to find, if you have been keeping up with these films, the league looks very different. Several members are rather absent or have changed completely. Hawkman is now apparently a member of the League despite the fact that he hasn’t been introduced in any of the previous films and Hal Jordan has been swapped out for John Stewart in terms of the Green Lantern’s, and again not been established in this continuity. It’s implied that some stuff has happened with the League off screen, however, that is not a good excuse. I wouldn’t have minded this much if this had been like the previous films where they all existed within their own continuity with some exceptions to the rule, however, these films clearly establish that they are all connected.

That’s a minor nit pick, as I say, the League really doesn’t play a part. We swap for this new team and John Constantine is firmly established as the main character, despite the fact that Batman has the most prominent space on the box art. Constantine is probably the character that these films have got right in recent memory. He is written well and the writing shows clear understanding of what made the character good and enjoyable and it’s rather surprising because I am fairly certain that none of the writers who developed the story have actually written for any of Constantine’s books, the character being an Allan Moore creation so you can imagine the sort of thing that we are dealing with here if you are aware of his work. If John Constantine is written right, it’s a prime example of how you make an unlikeable character fun to be around. Because anything good with him in it knows not to make out that he is a good guy, but he is trying to do the right thing. Sort of a ‘the bad will fight the good’ type angle, though not in the whole suicide squad way. In all honesty though, the rest of the Justice League Dark are pretty good as well. I really like Zatanna in this film who is given time to shine, which is great, because she hasn’t had a chance to be in any of these films yet. They made very good use of EtriganThe Demon as well, who I was worried was going to be just a cameo considering that he disappears for a small portion of the first half of the film but then does eventually reappear and stays with the team for the rest of the film, which is great considering that he is basically being used in virtually all the best action scenes in the film. Deadman is in this film, but he is probably the one who is the most out of character, though it’s not to an absurd degree like, say Wonder Woman has been in these films. Why can none of these DC films seem to get Wonder Woman right? It’s a simple formula, truth, honour, compassion, there, done !!! Get that down, I will probably talk more about that when I eventually review Wonder Woman in the Summer. The other character I feel was slightly out of character, however, was also Swamp Thing. Now, granted, I haven’t read much of the character series appart from a few issues of the Allan Moore run of the book and some of Scott Sneider’s work as well as his crossover with Animal Man, side note, Rott World is probably one the best New 52 crossovers, and it’s well worth your time. Just make sure if you are going to read it, pick up Animal Man Volume 1 and 2 prior to it because both are a set up for it. So, granted, my knowledge of the character is not at its best, but I feel like the film took a lot of his humanity out of it. They get it right at he is an Avatar for The Green, something that was added into the DC Universe in New 52, though I am not sure if they are going to go into the whole trinity of Avatar thing anytime soon, so what’s the point, and they get his respect for plant life down. However, I don’t think Alec Holland was this opposed to humanity. Yes, he didn’t exactly like humans but he wasn’t this whole idea of ‘humanity screwed up the planet so I don’t care about them whatsoever’. I could be wrong on that one, and feel free to correct me, I especially didn’t read too much of his New 52 series, so please do correct me if you don’t agree in the comments section.

If there is one thing that this film really had, it was a pretty good villain, a pretty good back story and a pretty good flowing plot. There is an issue, however, the plot is not all that great when you get down to it. It’s basically the characters reacting to something happening, going from one place to another and fighting a monster. Simple plot, but it doesn’t feel like it gets down to anything meaningful until towards the end of the film. Plus, for a film that’s meant to introduce us to the magical side of the DC Universe, for new people that are just following these films, it rather throws us in to the deep end. It’s not unlike say, the Dr Strange film which I reviewed, which had to introduce the magical side to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Again, these are only minor nit picks. The one thing I was very pleased about, was the film feels no need to really crowbar in the Justice League and realises these characters are fine enough on their own and can support a film. There’s enough of a fan base here to make it work, and as a result it creates a much better film because it allows us to tell the story of these characters. It’s not especially a great story and it’s fairly basic, but if you enjoyed the comic series, like I did, there is definitely something here for you. The downside is, Batman is in the film!! But don’t get me wrong, I love Batman, when he is written right, this character is one of the greatest ever written, however, he doesn’t really belong in this film and has only been put in as a recognisable character. Granted, he does have some good action scenes, but he doesn’t get that many of them. He feels like more of an observer to the situation and after Constantine is put in the picture, he doesn’t really do anything. He just sort of stands in the background and occasionally helps out. This was not a crossover, so I don’t see why he is here. You could easily have taken Batman out and just had this plot, and while we are at it, also take out the rest of the Justice League because I am sick to death of them. These characters are so screwed now that nothing you do can save them. Especially Wonder Woman. I feel very sorry because I think Rosario Dawson is putting a real effort into playing the character. Well that’s two reviews in two weeks where I have been able to talk about Rosario Dawson, she ought to be in every single comic film.

The only thing to talk about is the villain. Now I’m not too aware of the villain this time but I think he is what we would normally call is Dr Destiny, although he is just called Destiny in this film. I could be wrong on that one, but I am fairly certain they are the same character considering they seem to have the same sort of Jewel that gives them power. It especially looks like the character’s Jewel in the first few issues of Neil Gamon’s The Sandman. However, I’m not certain it’s the same character because that character was all about dreams, this one just goes out and messes with people’s minds. As I say, I could be reading a bit more into this, so taking that out, he is a pretty decent villain. He has an alright plan, there is an interesting twist and he is played really well by Alfred Molina and he is a convincing threat and fortunately he doesn’t feel crowbarred in. If there is an issue with him at all, it’s probably than he’s an ‘evil for the sake of evil’ villain and we don’t really find out much about him until the second half of the film and even then he’s not the greatest villain in the world. He’s a perfectly valid threat for the Justice League Dark and fits in that environment, just not the greatest.

Overall I am surprised that Justice League Dark has a plot that was as entertaining as it was. It’s not perfect and I would hardly call it great, many of the other DC animated films have done much better, but you know what, considering how low my standards have been with the recent films, I’ll take it.

This film stands out for its actors. I still say Jason O’Mara is a pretty good Batman, but in this film he is not given too much time to shine. Matt Ryan on the other hand, reprised his role of Constantine brilliantly. If you are not incredibly aware of him, he played the same character in the CW series Constantine and he also was the voice of Edward Kenway in Assassin’s Creed 4. However, I think he was basically chosen because he is a man who sounds constantly like he is an American putting on a British accent, but that being said, he really makes this character and I can’t see anyone else playing the role, and once again, he is absolutely fantastic. He clearly has a passion for the character because he wouldn’t come back so many times to play him. Camilla Luddington is also excellent as Zatanna and really gets the character down brilliantly. Ray Chase does such an excellent job, I wasn’t aware that he was voicing both Jason Blood and Etrigan, I’m certain they are doing something to his voice, but to be fair, on his part, it’s still really not recognisable. Enrico Colantoni does a good job playing Felix Faust, who is another villain that I forgot to mention, because he is really rather pointless by the end of the film. Roger Cross does an excellent job doing double duty as both Swamp Thing and Green Lantern John Stewart, however, you would really not be aware of that. Jeremy Davies does a good job as Constantine’s friend Ritchie and Nicholas Turturro does a good job as Deadman, even if he can get slightly graining at times. Jerry O’Connell and Rasario Dawson return to reprise their roles of Superman and Wonder Woman, but they are not really in the film long enough to leave much of an impression. However, one of the stand-out performances, has to be Alfred Molina, who, once again plays an excellent villain and he was so unrecognisable, I didn’t actually realise it was him until the end credits. Now granted, if we are talking about the DC animated films, I think he did a better job playing Aries in the 2009 Wonder Woman movie, again I will probably discuss that in more detail when I review Wonder Woman in the Summer, but man, does he put his all into this performance. I do think Alfred Molina is one of those under-rated actors who we really should be paying much more attention to. Once again we have an excellent voice cast for these film, which is hardly surprising considering how good the voice directors that DC hires are.

Presentation wise, I can’t really speak about the animation anymore because it’s exactly the same animation as all the other DC animated films, so if you really want my full thoughts on it you are probably going to have to go way back to my review of Justice League Throne of Atlantis, because at this point, I am just repeating myself. I think it’s good, I just don’t think it’s great and I think they have kind of shot themselves in the foot considering that all these films now have to replicate Jim Lee’s art style and it doesn’t entirely fit the DC Universe and nowhere is that more evident than Justice League Dark. That being said, the animators do use it to the best of their degree and it does come out looking pretty dam good with no real animation fluffs. Plus, the action scenes are shot brilliantly including some excellent choreography around Deadman’s set of powers. The new animation, the magical effects is pretty good and I really liked the animation on the House of Mystery. As far as films that go straight to home release are, this is pretty well animated once again.

The soundtrack, well once again, for these films there’s nothing that really stands out, but it’s one of those where some of the tracks are well put together, plus I think this film had one of the best intro sequences of any of the recent DC animated films.


Justice League Dark is not a great movie, but for what it’s worth, I actually kind of liked it. It feels like a breath of fresh air when pretty much all of the films up to this point seemed to on some levels, centred around Batman or the Justice League. This film is not entirely immune from that, but to go this far down the route shows that DC is at least listening to its audience. It doesn’t really offer up much in terms of a potential future with a Trinity War movie or a Forever Evil movie, like I predicted, especially considering how the film turns out in the end, however, it doesn’t change the fact that this one stands very well on its own. It does have the issue that some of the characters get the shaft or are not characterised very well, but overall the animation and the action are pretty good and the acting was done very well. If you liked the CW Constantine series, you will really like this film and anyone who has read the Justice League Dark comics will probably get something out of it. Newcomers might have a bit of trouble acclimatising themselves to it since it only goes into Deadman’s origin and not any of the other characters, but I still think there’s something there for them. In fact, this film’s other big weakness is probably the fact that Batman feels rather crowbarred into the plot. As I said, not a perfect film, but a fairly decent one and I would quite happily see another one with these characters, though I suspect DC is moving on to other things. If you are at all curious, it’s available on Amazon video right now and you won’t even need Amazon Prime to access it and it’s available on DVD and BluRay next week 6 March, pick it up.

The DC animated films will return later this year with Teen Titans The Judas Contract which I suspect if it takes all the positive points of Justice League versus Teen Titans will be a really good film.

No mini reviews this week as I saw this film between Lego Batman and John Wick 2, so we are just going to move straight on. As we close out a chapter in our lives in what fells like the end of an era, join me on 10 March, with one of Hugh Jackman’s final performance of Wolverine, in the movie Logan.

Thanks a lot for reading my review. I hope you have enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it, and I might actually go back to reading Constantine now.

Calvin – Nerd Consultant