[FILM REVIEW] Puss in Boots 2 : Last Wish

I was unreasonably excited to see this film. Luckily, I have kids and nephews and nieces, so I had ample excuses to see this movie "because the kids may like it". I think a lot of the reason I was so keen to see this film is that I am a cat owner and have been for my entire life. As in my first cat died at 22 when I was 14, so literally the entire time I have been alive I've lived with and loved cats.

It has always bugged me that, Hollywood especially, always casts cats in films as bad guys or mean and snobbish. It is a strange cliché in most American films as cats are a hugely popular and beloved pet. The perception of them as evil, snarky beasts is really not how most people see them, particularly cat owners. It seems so strange to me that Hollywood does not embrace the cat more as a heroic protagonist for that would appeal to literally millions and millions of people all across the globe. Also, if the internet has taught us anything, cats are really photogenic and expressive to look at. 

Anyway, this movie is a real step in the right direction for children's movies, reminding me of the glory days of Pixar. Back when Pixar films could make you cry and laugh in the same movie. Dreamworks has outdone themselves here in producing a kids film that is funny, exciting, scary and relatively deep in its themes and messages. 

The core of this film is about life. What makes life worth living? How does one live a full life? What makes someone truly happy? What is important? These type of questions are framed through the fear of death. Now these are heavy ideas, but kids are smarter and more interested in the world around them than many adults give them credit for. IMO, kids shouldn't be hidden from things. It does not protect them, it cripples them for life.

So while the ideas in this film are heavy in relation to the kind of light smultch coming from Disney recently, and it does have a genuinely terrifying villain. It is still an excellent kids' story. 

I do think this film is a little unsure of who it is made for. There is some bad language in this movie. All of it is beeped out in some way, and in literally you hear beep sounds over swearing and others instances are stopped midword.. like "Bullshit" is just "Bull..<interrupted>", stuff like that. Still, this seems like a symptom of the same thing Toy Story had "issues" with. Shrek is 21 years ago. The kids that saw that are now parents or grandparents. It is not a bad idea to cater to children, but also make sure that the Parents have fun and cater to their sensibilities as well. While I like the deeper meanings in this film and I also think it is about time kids got an actual scary villain for a change, I think the swearing was kinda out of place and makes the film unsuitable for many parents and puts the move into the range of teenagers more than kids. To be clear, this is a non-issue for me, but I can see why some parents may have an issue with the language.

Still, despite a few rocks this is a fantastic film from start to finish.  The animation is detailed and gorgeous. I'm not a huge fan of the jerky animation. I used to do 3D Animation for a living and do not be fooled. That animation style is simply done to reduce the cost of rendering as you render less frames. Which is why it is only used in the combat sequences. Even so, despite this artistic / economic choice, the film is really just fantastic looking. The expressions and details in the sets are amazing. Also, as an x-animator the power of modern lighting in these renderers is just astounding.

My only other gripe is that I would have liked Kitty Softpaws to be a more rounded character. Kitty is better at everything than anyone else in the movie, more fearless and smarter. Never makes mistakes and is basically perfect. While Puss spends most of his time doing slapstick comedy. I mean the film still works and there is a plot through line about Puss loosing confidence through fear, but even so, Kitty has no arc of any kind. Making her feel flat and uninteresting. Every other character besides Jack Horner has an arc. Jack btw, doesn't have an arc by design. This is part of the thematics of the over arch plot and metaphoric meanings of the movie. His lack of an arc is used as a counterpoint to the main villain, Wolf. So it is actually a plot point. I just think they missed a real opportunity for Kitty to experience an arc like all the other characters.

: Verdict : 

Easily one of if not the best animated film of 2022 and one of if not the best family movie of 2022. I might have changed a few things.

[TV Review] - Koala Man [Season 1] - (Hulu)

Koala Man

Adult Swim recently took a chance by give some very popular uTube cartoonists a shot to make a one off special for the network. It was so popular they made an entire series that has received nearly universal praise for being so fresh, interesting and funny. Somehow Smiling Friends retained the feeling of that random uTube kind of content you see online, appealing to the literal millions of people that consume content on social media platforms. 

So it is no surprise that Michael Cusack one of the creators of Smiling Friends and who supplies the voice of Pim, is getting offers from all over the shop. So here we have a new "adult" cartoon from someone that many feel is a fresh voice in animation right now. 

The problem is that Koala Man despite having some charm lacks all the daring innovation that made Smiling Friends stand out so. This show is just another in a long list of wacky cartoons full of jokes, violence and swearing. I am not sure what I was expecting from this show but I was not expecting it to be a by the numbers show that could have been done by anyone or been any of the many released in recent years. It really is "more of the same".

That is not to say the show does not have its upside. As an Australian myself, there is a defiant appeal in the show due to it being the kind of understated "chill" but sarcastic and, well... kinda mean, "taking the piss" humour that is so common over here. As someone that consumes so much media having Australian sensibilities in a show does feel great. So despite this show's issues, it does have a unique voice in that regard.

The problem is that this show just feels like more of the same. Wacky stories with painfully obvious "lessons" like "don't just chase popularity" or w/e that we have seen a bazillion times. It lacks the subversive edge of Smiling Friends and I couldn't help but feel that Michael Cusack is being held back by following the "Simpsons" format so closely. Basically, I thought this show would be a lot more insane.

Is this show terrible? No. It has a real charm to it and I did enjoy it, some. The issue is that I doubt this show will get a lot of traction beyond the initial curiosity from the early days of release. What I liked the most about this is that as a Australian I could relate to it. For an international show that being the only real draw is a problem.

It should be noted that Koala Man is not a new project. Michael Cusack did a really fantastic Rick and Morty parody called, Rick & Morty Down Under which got him a lot of attention. he then started work on Koala Man shortly after for his uTube chan around 2018. The splash image above is in fact taken from the old ABC pilot for the show that never eventuated. (Australian Broadcasting Corporation).

: Verdict :

This show is alright. Nothing special, nothing terrible. Maybe it would grow on me as I got more comfortable with the characters, but I would have to remember it exists first.

[TTRPG] - Dragonbane (Drakar och Demoner) by Free League

Dragonbane [Free League]

(Drakar och Demoner) 

Dragonbane (Drakar och Demoner) is by  Free League a Kicker that has run its course, but is still open to late pledges!!

Free League is, imo, one of the best RPG publishers in the world right now. I am currently playing some games they make. Forbidden Lands, which is a OSR game, and Alien, which is a RPG set in the universe of the Alien Franchise. The thing is they also do the absurdly popular Twilight 2000, Mutant: Year Zero, which is the system they use in a lot of their games, Coriolis, the award winning Symbaroum and a bunch of others. Recently they released Bladerunner which I hear is also very good.

My point is these guys are basically batting 1000.

Dragonbane is a "new" RPG system from Free League. They normally use the Mutant : Year Zero system in their games, which revolve around pushing your luck via d6 drops. The interesting thing is that this is based on Drakar och Demoner, a old game from the 80s. You see back in the ancient times before the internet things didn't travel like they did now. During the late 70s when the RPG scene took off, DnD didn't really make it to Northern Europe. So, instead of DnD they had DoD (Drakar och Demoner) which I believe is Sweedish for Dragons and Demons. Basically, if you played RPGs in and around Scandinavia during the 80s and 90s. It was DoD, and not DnD that you played.

This is the classic Free League mo. Mutant : Year Zero was also a regionally known RPG that most of the world had not heard of when they repackaged it for the world market. They have a history of taking these lesser known, or unknown games (unknown to some, particularly the west) and re-releasing them as a "new" game with modern tweaks, that then blows people socks off. The thing is that DoD is kinda like Pepsi. It is an alternative "root brand" to DnD for many in Europe. It is a hugely influential RPG that has moulded many European designers, who now make more mainstream RPGs. So DoD has secretly been behind the scenes this whole time influencing many of the TTRPGs you probably play. 

So what exactly is DB? Well it is a high Fantasy RPG sandbox. While it does have an actual world and obviously that means it has its own major god and demons and stuff, the game itself is really more open than some others. In that regard it reminds me a little of Lamentations of the Flame Princess. Not.. I stress.... not in content, LoTFP is notoriously dark, but in that this version of DoD is game you can run pretty much any high fantasy setting. 

As it is a game from the 80s it lacks some of the "free form" ideas popular in some modern RPGs. I mean it is a modern rebuild of the game, but it is still like DnD itself. As this game has a lot of combat stuff in it. Make a party and go hunt some monsters! The combat rules are typically streamlined and simple in comparison to DnD, which is a total mess imo. The core mechanic is rolling a d20 and trying to get equal to or under your skill. So it's like Pendragon in that way. So attacks do damage, you track health, etc etc. Utility spells and all that stuff. The original DoD was based on Basic Roleplaying by Chaosium. One of the big updates here is changing it from a D100 test to D20 tests (dropping granularity from %1 to %5 increments).  

You can download the Quick Start PDF from the Kickstater Site.

(These rules are Beta so are subject to tweaks and stuff.)

: NOTE :

For those of you that have been paying attention to the OGL (Open Gaming Licence) and current implosion happening over at Wizards over it, might want to consider Draganbane as a OpenDnD solution to using DnD itself. #OpenDND #DNDbeGone #OpenDND 

[FILM REVIEW] - MCU 31 : Black Panther 2 : Wakanda Forever

MCU 30 : Black Panther 2 : Wakanda Forever

To my great shock, this film is actually one of the better Disney-Marvel movies to come out in years.

I hate using terms like "Woke" or "M-she-U", but it is hard to ignore, that besides the bad guy, there are only 3 males in this movie. Apart from extras or minor parts that are not much more than extras. We have a faceless "top henchmen". An Odd-Job style dude. Arthur Dent who is in the film for not much more than 2 minutes and there is the big King guy that bashes his chest a lot, who is also in the movie for almost no time at all. The movie does revolves around old female characters, or new female ones. There are jokes about white cops, jokes about "colonials in chains", an entire subplot about the Spanish invasion of South America. Black Panther is of course a gender swap and it also, bafflingly, they chose to feature Iron Heart for some reason. Iron Heart was a Iron Man race / genre swap from the comics. Her comic series btw turned out to be the worst selling Marvel Comic in history of Marvel Comics at the time of release. So why did they bring over a failed hero into the MCU? Makes no sense to me. So the thing is, if that kind of stuff really annoys you, then there is plenty of fodder in this film to fuel a rant about it all. 

The thing is, while all that can be intrusive at times, surprisingly, most of this movie is actually solid. It is much darker than the average Disney movie. Darker in tone, and even in the pallet. This is so refreshing and much more aligned to what I want to see in a soup-movie. The story feels more sophisticated as well. I mean, sure, it's a comic film, do not expect too much. Still, this is not the typical Disney film with random out of place jokes all the time and people acting like sexless, dogooder Star Trek type people. Namor has been completely reimagined in the MCU and this version is actually excellent. I dig the new history and the look of the Atlanteans. All his scenes rock, the actor nails this role, and I think the entire way his plot was handled, just worked. The subplot of new Black Panther reconnecting to her spiritual roots, which she feels are at odds with her scientific mind, is done well and interesting.  And just when they could pull out the stinky Pont l’Eveque cheese, they switch it up with a boss camo scene that steels the entire movie. Her arc was just cool.

Still, this is an MCU film and it suffers from all the normal stuff that I despise about these movies. I know I gate watch them MCU a little, but as a life time comic book reader who has never not once bought comis every week since I was a little boy... I just can't not see a comic book movie. Though I do so at home now, I have not been to the cinema for a MCU movie since Infinity Wars.

The disappearing helmets are back and it is still the most fucking stupid shit ever, and it is beyond ridiculous in this particular film. Even worse than normal. In the final fight scene the characters fighting and chatting away mid fight, already dumb, but they have their helmets appearing and disappearing every camera change and practically every sentence. Zip away. Say line. Zip on. Punch. Zip away. Say another line. Zip, punch, etc. It really is the gold standard for this disappearing helmet, magic communication bullshit that has become a staple of this series. It felt like a visual strobe. This fucking hat turning off and on again. The strobing effects being exacerbated by this all these helmet vanishes happening in near full screen close up and in tandem with full screen close ups to inside Iron Hearts helmet. It was so ridiculous. 

Also the film tries to do to much. Nothing gets the time it needs. There is just to many things pulling focus. Also, the entire Iron Heart thing was a colossal fuck up. Every scene she was in sucked and she is completely unnecessary to this film. If I was less bored, or more busy, I might have bailed on this movie in the early Iron Heart scenes. They are that bad. The character sucked, not the actress herself I think, but her lines gave her nothing to work with. They should have done some minimal tweaking to remove Iron Heart and that entire fucking buckets of cunts could have been avoided and the film would have been better off. 

As expected nothing in the film really stands up to any application of logic. I mean the events in the film do not really make sense. World Nations do not interact like that, and wars are not fought by 10 dudes on a highway. I am not some tactical genius but if I was a fish man and someone attacked me in a massive boat, I would swim down under the waves and then away. 

Also with bringing in big guns like Namor the MCU is running into the Superman problem that DC has. When a guy can take a punch from Sentry, there always needs to be some kind of "kryptonite depower" scene. These scenes are as old and cliché as Batman's Origin Story. I am just sick of seeing it, and if you spent 5 mins reading comic you can see how you can have these superpowered people battle without powering them down. It is a soup-story. Them being ubr-powerful is the point. I do not want to see them depowered, I was to see other people powered up.

Still this film really surprised me. The trailers looked beyond terrible and if I started vomiting blood during this film, it would not have been totally unexpected. The big difference for me is that I didn't have that bone chilling boredom I had with the original Black Panther and much of this phase's films and tv shows. The fights while typically ridiculous, lacked that completely boring "time-wasting" feeling that so much of the MCU has.

So what we have here, despite my initial conceptions, is a cool action film. Mostly cool characters I enjoyed watching. A awesome set of baddies. A main character with a cool and interesting arc that actually showed change and dilemmas she had to over come, both physical and spiritual. Also, it is a Disney film, and these guys know how to make a great looking blockbuster. It is a slick film in many ways.

Verdict : The darker tone, the film having actual emotional motivations and stuff that I enjoyed and a surprising lack of cheese (there is still plenty of cheese, I guess it is all relative)... This film is easily the best of the recent movies and TV Shows. It is a good MCU film, up there in the upper-middle of the stack.

[TTRPG] - Obsolete Shitty Rules (The TRUE OSR) - Kickstarter is LIVE

 

The TRUE OSR - Obsolete Shitty Rules @Kickstarter
(Beta Quickstart Rules @GoogleDocs)

Interesting looking "OSR" parody game, designed for one shots run. In an age of rpgs coming out what seems like daily, it is refreshing to see one that is trying something different vibe wise. Everything takes itself so serious nowadsy that seeing something that is just unapologetically silly just stands out.

The art is exceptional, Roberto Toderico reminds me of old 80s 2000AD stuff. I also love the heavy metal vibe it the art has as well. That mix of Horror, Scifi and Fantasy. I think it really fits the project ideals with it being so crazy.

The game has some strange ideas in it.. like you can "win". Players and the Dm both gain XP via the tables and generated content and this XP is used in the final showdown were the players and the DM go head to head vs each other. (?!) In addition to this sort of players vs DM thing going on and the book, from my understanding, is mainly a massive list of tables and other generators. The idea is that there is no prep-time. You just rock on and start playing in a very free form way creating content on the fly. Every player question (I assume within reason) forces a die roll that pushes the game into new directions. So the DM has to adjust to these new plot direction which are out of his control.

I have no idea if this is going to be good or not. All I do know is that to me, it feels different, that that ain't a bad thing.

I do think that the "one-shot" nature... claiming to be little to no prep-time and also being a "new" experience independent of the GM, so even the GM dose not know what is happening.. means this could be a great RPG for boardgame groups.

#DNDbeGone

[Comic Review] - Scooby Apocalypse

 

 

Official Blurb:

 

The Hanna-Barbera cartoon classic is re-imagined for a new generation in SCOOBY APOCALYPSE VOL. 1!

Fred. Daphne. Velma. Shaggy. Scooby-Doo. Roaming the globe in their lime-green Mystery Machine, they've solved countless crimes and debunked dozens of sketchy supernatural shenanigans.

But what if the horror was real?

Something terrible has transformed our world, turning millions of people into mindless zombie hordes. And only five people-well, four people and one mangy mutt-have the smarts, the skills and the sheer crazy courage to stare down doomsday.

Can these pesky kids and their canine companion-using every incredible contraption in their arsenal-defeat the evil that has overwhelmed planet Earth? We've got only one thing to say about that- ZOINKS!

From comics mastermind Jim Lee and the superstar creative team of Keith Giffen (JUSTICE LEAGUE 3001), J.M. DeMatteis (Justice League Dark) and Howard Porter (JLA) comes Scooby Apocalypse, a whole new spin on the most beloved paranormal investigators in history 

 

: My Take : 

So comics can be weird things, and I do not mean weird in content, but weird in the fact that like most things they are a business of complex interconnected copywrite ownership, partnerships and flagship IPs. This leads to some really great things like Aliens vs Predator (forget the films, the comics were actually awesome) and Xena Warrior Princess vs. Army of Darkness.  It is also responsible for a period in DC comics that many have forgotten and most people wrote off without reading a single book as a corporate board meeting idea dreamed up by some exec that has never read a comic in his life. Hanna Barbara Beyond.

The "brilliant" idea here was to reimaging the Hanna Barbara cartoon characters, whom DC had the rights for and were no using... aka monetizing, into modernized comic books aimed at teens and the terminally childish, like myself. The goal was to produce a DC Muntiverse Shard of Hanna IP Characters and run it almost like a imprint, though it was published under the DC brand and so technically was part of the larger DC Muntiverse.

Wow.. what a bonkers idea.

As you would expect the series didn't do so well. While my generation might love Space Ghost, The Herculoids, Top Cat and the like. Young people didn't care. They do not even know who they are, and while they might know of The Flintstones, no kid who grew up with Invader Zim or Spongebob really gives a toss about them. On the other side, the people that DID know and watch these cartoons as kids, saw the entire thing as kinda bizarre and cheesy. I mean it was cool, but in a "pick it up and have a chuckle at the cover, flick through it and put it back on the shelf" kind of way. The truth is that the entire thing was doomed to fail from inception. Despite that, and in retrospect. It actually wasn't half bad, with some decent comics getting produced among the rot.

I mean, check out Exit Stage Left, that tells the surprising sophisticated tale of a prejudiced and relationships. One that follows a brilliant but deeply flawed main character who is playwright living in New York during a time that is a thinly veiled retelling of the McCarthy Era. All that anti-gay, anti-jew and anti-commie black list type stuff. Snagglepuss, here, is basically Truman Capote or a Tennessee Williams type guy trying to work, live and love during a time of repression. It is actually really good.

Or how about, Wackey Raceland a mad max style Cannonball Run across the desert. With all the favs. From Darstadly and Mutley, to Penelope Pitstop and the Anthill Gang. A non-stop action packed, and kinetic comic. All style no substance. Yes, everyone on that cover is from the classic Wacky Races cartoon. Can you spot them all?

Ok, lets actually talk about Scooby Apocalypse.

 So in this comic the basic premise of the "team" is the same.. but that is about it. Scoob is a rescued military science experiment, alla the excellent we3 comic by Grant Morrison. This is why he can "talk". Shaggy is a hipster doofus animal trainer at the science lab. Velma is a head scientist, genius who runs the lab and Daf is a reporter with her camera man, Fred.

They meet up as Shag is breaking out Scoob and Velma is trying to whistle blow on the nefarious global plot that is using her research. One thing leads to another and the entire earth is chronenberged. It is now the apocalypse where people have been transformed into monsters form their subconscious. Vampires, Swamp Things, Werewolves.. are all in the mix. Classic Horror Icons come to life.

The thing that sets this apart from the other Hanna Barbara Beyond Comics is that while it starts silly and pretty much what you expect, over the years it insidiously turned into one of the better no-soup comics form DC had at the time. Amassing a decent following and gaining a kind of cult status among comic book readers. The only other book from this period that is as loved is Future Quest. The Jonny Quest series. It collects all the sici elements from Hanna Barbara, but even that is not as popular.

I recently read this, as in last month. I skipped it and most of the Hanna Barbara Beyond stuff when they were new. I like many thought it was just to strange and unappealing. During my read I found it more of a curiosity than something that is inherently good. Though it dose pick up. I think this book suffers from the "Look Shinny Thing" syndrome. This is a term I invented to describe corporate designed media, that kinda suck.. but after a while the corpo looks at something new and the artists are left alone to basically do what ever the hell they want, regardless of the original detectives where. They basically operate with no oversight.

One of the big things to look for is the change in the character of Daphne

So the "Look Shinny Thing" effect is clear in this series. Once the conceit of the story was done and the entire HBB idea was proving a failure, the Scoob book really kicks into another gear and becomes something unique. Something special. dare I say. Something good.

 It seemed like a good idea at the time - Shaggy

 

[Comic Review] DCeased Event (2019-20??)

 

DCeased

DCeased

1. DCeased
2. Un-Kill-Ables
3. Hope at World's End
4. Dead Planet

Official Blurb

What happens to the World’s Greatest Heroes if the world ends? Six hundred million people. That's how many fall victim when a mysterious techno-organic virus is unleashed on Earth. Six hundred million infected. Six hundred million turned into mindless, rampaging killers bent on death and destruction. And that's just the beginning. Cities. Nations. Undersea Kingdoms and Paradise Islands. One by one, they fall to the monstrous hordes. Now only Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and the rest of the Justice League stand between Earth and utter annihilation. But for how long? Nothing they've ever faced has prepared them for an onslaught of this magnitude. Nothing they've ever seen can match the scale of the tragedy and terror that have been unleashed. As heroes and villains, gods and monsters are wiped out, only one question remains: What happens to the World's Greatest Heroes if the world ends?

New York Times bestselling writer Tom Taylor (Injustice) joins artists Trevor Hairsine (Red Hood and the Outlaws) and Stefano Guadiano (The Walking Dead) to unleash an all-new vision of the DC Universe's darkest hour in DCeased. But be warned: the horror is contagious...

: My Take :

Once upon a time there was a fad that permeated all media, and comics were no more immune than the characters in those stories. Zombies were everywhere. Films, TV, Comics, Video Games, Tabletop Games... just everywhere. At the height of this fad there was a comic called Marvel Zombies that tracked an outbreak of a zombie virus in the Marvel Universe. It was insanely popular, like everything zombie was at the time, and it was not long until DC did their own take on the idea, Blackest Night.

Blackest Night was a mega cross over event that was a more DC themed take than just "zombie plague but with infected super powered people". It revolved around the a Black Lantern Core and it was really good. Not original like Marvel Zombies, I mean everyone knew it was a "lets do one of those zombie stories as well" type thing, but that didn't stop Blackest Night being extremely good.

So it was a huge surprise to many DC readers to learn that there was a brand new take on a super powered Zombie War coming from DC. I mean the Fad was over and zombies were back to their normal background level of immense popularity, and it wasn't like Blackest Night was some kind of failure. It was hugely successful. Still here we are. Sorta the same thing. Again.

The basic idea of the Zombie event has not changed much from Marvel Zombies. This is a book to see the heroes you are so used to being in control, cracking jokes and winning, instead get totally annihilated and gruesomely put down. Villains become heroes and Heroes find their morals can't hold and act like villains. Like Blackest Night though this story is deeply infused with DC Lore. Marvel Zombies was just a zombie plague (kinda), while this story is linked to one of DCs longest running villain through lines. The Anti-Life Equation.

Like the film 28 Days Later this story is not actually zombies, but something more interesting for DC fans. This gives the writers freedom to do things that would be impossible in a typical zombie story. Also, while Marvels Zombies and Blackest Night were pitch black and repressively dark, alla The Walking Dead, for this was the style at the time, this story dose not fail to forget that at the heart of every great DC Soup Tale... is Hope. Though like all good stories of hope, that hope needs to be crushed until it's just a flickering ember.

Anyone who reads big cross over events know what to expect. So many characters are in this and many have really great roles. Others die super fast for shock or story reasons and others are delegated to background drawings, that become a kind of Where's Wally? type thing which plays out on double page spreads. I am not sure these kind of events, though big and epic, are really the best place for new soup readers to jump in. The power of these cross overs is the reader knowing about all these characters, knowing them intimately, and then seeing them in alternative situations they are not normally in. Obviously these characters are very well known and this comic is not so detailed a character study as something like Kingdom Come that someone with a passing familiarity will not have footing. Still, like all cross overs, this is a story for fans.

There are some really awesome moments in this story. Some of the very coolest characters once again show you why they are the coolest and it is awesome. The entire event took 4 years and like all universe altering events that become super popular it is now a numbered Earth in the DC Multiverse were more stories are being told in that same setting. So while the entire story wraps up, aside from a few massive loose ends, you can expect a new story soon called DCeased: War of the Undead Gods an 8 part series that will end sometime in the 1st 3-5 months of '23. What I am getting at here, is that I would not post this event, if it did not have an ending. In fact I do not even read mass events like this until they are complete, as they literally take 4-6 years to come out.

I loved this event and it is probably my favourite DC event in a long time.

He spoke of improbabilities with certainty, and we just.... *believed* what he said. His true power flows from within us all. Rising us higher than what seems possible.

[Film Reviews] - Krampus, Violent Night and Christmas, Bloody Christmas

 # T'is the Season

I have been watching "Xmas" films last few days. Not sure if I will review them all but I will be posting thoughts on some....

(The next few posts on this blog are being moved from another one I started but decided I did not like)

Krampus (2015)

A lot of people told me this was a really great movie, but I just don't see it.

I know that the kind of films I've been watching this Christmas require a certain level of "going with it" and there are some cool things in this movie that I felt did work. Still, overall this is a Creep Show story that takes 1/2 and episode... not a feature length film. As a film, it just runs out of stuff to do. Way way before the end. Resulting in some bafflingly long sequences. I mean we are not talking the fight scene in **They Live** but we are talking that kind of thing.

Like I said though the film has some good stuff in it. The cast is surprisingly awesome in this one, and surprising because of the type of movie it is. Usually these sort of films are pretty low bar, but there are some actors with serious comedy chops in this and they are funny much of the time. I think it is the considerable charm of these actors that is inflating this films rep. Also this film has some really neat practical effects. I particularly liked the spooky teddy bear which reminds me, in a good way, of **Critters** (a film I deeply love), and the entire "lost in the blizzard" bit near the start is a great example of doing so much with so little.

The problem with this movie is the film maker didn't follow the "Jaws" principle. Krampus looks awesome, but not after he is in full shot for 15 mins. Some sneaker camera angles to hide him, bit of smoke or something, would have really elevated the ending of this movie. I know it is low budget, but check out **Errementari : The Devils Blacksmith** for how creative thinking can make an outstanding over the top ending without needing Disney to fund you. This film wanted an out there ending but imo failed, as we basically have a shot of a bunch of muppets standing around a pot.

The real issue I had with this film is that I wanted to like it. My viewing experience suffered from expectations. It didn't help that people have been trying to get me to watch it every Xmas for years now and kept telling me how great it was.

This is another one of those movies that I feel is just missing the mark. These films can be bad, these films can take themselves seriously, but a comedy horror christmas film, imo, needs to be fun. That is the key element missing here. I was just bored by the end.

I'm back... again!

 Recently I started using Mastodon. Mastodon is a twitter alternative that some people are giving a go. I wanted to try it out and thought I would post some of the media commentary I do on various forums I hang out on. 

Mastodon is part of the "fediverse" which is a type of internet application that allows you to follow other types of applications directly without the need for more accounts. Imagine you could follow a youtube account directly on tiwtter without the need for a YouTube account.. stuff like that. Anyway I have been playing with a thing called "Personal Journal" which is a fediverse blogging platform. 

Anyway, some people have commented to me that the service kinda sucks as there is no form of indexing. So the blog appears as a long single page.

You can see my new blog here if you like : https://personaljournal.ca/jyujinkai/

So I am considering moving back to this blog. I have not decided yet... but I may do so, and if I do I'll move the new posts from the journal to here.

You can follow me on Mastodon here : https://mastodon.au/@jyujinkai

(FILM REVIEW) - The Irishman (Martian Scorsese)

The Irishman (Martian Scorsese)

The Irishman (Martian Scorsese)

This is a polarizing film for me. I want to really like this film, but I just didn't, for the most part. This movie is what I would call the very definition of a vanity project. A bunch of creators that are not so much "past their prime" but defiantly past the use by date for this kind of film. These are people who are making a film together. To make a film together. Not because they are the best choices for actors to make the film. 

No amount of "digital makeup" can get around the fact that they move and have the vocal inflection of old, old men. In the same way that the newish Star Wars film with Vader in it sounded "wrong" as Jones's voice was so weak, this film just lacks all the energy needed to portray these villains. The old men sequences work, and work very well. Joe Pesci particularly comes off the best, as unlike Dinero he isn't kicking people in the head when he can hardly lift his foot and balance on one leg. This really brought me out of the film and the film makers knew this. That is why the "young" Dinero still looks like he is in his late forties, to try and minimise this problem. I even read that they had a "posture coach" on this movie. They just can not fake their way around how frail Dinero and Al Pacino are and despite their vast acting talent they fail to complete the illusion the movie requires for the majority of "youth" timeline. This does mean the latter parts of the film are, imo, vastly superior as their age is not something that they are fighting, and the performances feel more natural and convincing.

In the old days, there was a covenant between audience member and film maker. The film maker only had to set up the premise of someone being old or young. The visual illusion was easily seen through but the viewer understood what was meant. In Little Big Man we are not fooled by the "Old Man Makeup" of Dustin Hoffman, but we accept it. In Batman (1998) we are not fooled by the "young Jack Nicholson" but we accept it. Films nowadays are obsessed with visual illusion over the metaphoric, and I think this is a huge loss to film making. A great example is Anthony Hopkins in Nixon and Frank Langella in Frost/Nixon. Having Hopkins in all that makeup actually puts barriers between the audience and the actor and while Langella looks nothing like Nixon the illusion is actually better as those barriers are absent and the actor's art is raw on the screen. What I am trying to say here is that this film would have been immeasurably better if they fucked off all that digital makeup and just hired some young actors to play them as kids, even if they didn't look exactly the same. For no matter how good the "visual" illusion was, the performances were just not able to be convincingly put onto the screen and in a film such as this which is so low key and so much about characters and in a film which has the acting right at the forefront, well, it just really hurt this movie.

Also this film is LONG. Like many vanity projects the editing is all over the shop. I read a metric that said only 17% of the viewers on Netflix finished the film in one session and most people took over a week to watch the film across 3 sessions. I myself watched it in two sessions over 4 days. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. I actually think the long format film could be the future for streaming services. In the same way I think the short TV Episode could be the future of streaming TV, one we are glimpsing on Disney+ with The Mandelorian. What dose it matter how long a film is if you can pause it and come back the next day, or how short a tv show is if you can press "next" and watch another episode strait away? Even so, this film is undeniably self-indulgent. With film, I still think that single sessions are the way to consume them, to get lost in a story by surrounding yourself in it. Long form film work great on a second or more viewings, as you are watching to relive things, kinda like having a memory of a experience rather than actually experiencing it. I could hardly sit though the Lord of the Rings films at the cinema, but have no issues with watching the trilogy's extended editions during subsequent viewings over a few weeks at home. To that end I think that this film will gain ground on second or more viewing, as the viewer is not being asked to "live" the film, so to speak, and that means that length and more importantly the pacing is no longer as important.

The good stuff of this film is far more obvious. I mean this is a master craftsman doing his thing with some truly legendary actors behind him. Pesci stood out to me and really highlights the loss to cinema that happened when he walked away form hollywood. Even so I do not need to tell you that the main cast of Pesci, Dinero and Pacino are showcasing an actors workshop here. The cast of this movie is like a who's who. Even bit characters like Harvey Keitel shine and faces popup constantly that make you call out.. "that guy!" and no one can deny the understanding of film language which Scorsese has.

So this is a strange film for me. It is obviously something interesting and above the crowd, yet it is incredibly flawed, almost ruined in some parts and then on top of that there are these absolutely stunning actor on actor character scenes. It is such a mixed bag. One that feels undercooked somehow and it is not helped by seemingly overly lenient editing.

Verdict : Everyone should see this, but not everyone will like it, and that is ok.

(New Acquisitions) - Yokohama

Yokohama

Hisashi Hayashi made a splash a while back with Trains a kind of area control deck building game. This game is more of a classic euro style and also very well received.

At its core is a action select worker placement game. The game uses a variety of cards that contain the actions and worker slots. Unlike many worker placement games the workers actually move rather than being placed anywhere, meaning that different setups when dealing the locations can change the tactical thinking between sessions.

Like many euros it is a bit of a multiplayer solo game, there is some blocking but really it is more a kind of "race' game were you rush for points vs your opponents.

The game does look busy and kinda of crowded, particularly in at full player count. You deal less locations at lower counts so there are less slots, this is how this games gets around the worker slots issue that worker placement games have for different player counts. This allows great variance between the sessions as certain actions are missing from some games, but lacks the coherence of a properly deigned board. I am not sure anyone can seriously defend the look of it on the table, it looks a little worrying at first glace!

4 Player Game

2 Player Game

It is extremely well designed, and is not nearly as complex as it looks and is one of those games that has very interesting decisions on every turn.

The game reminds me a little of Bruxelles 1897. I know it is not actually like that game really, but even so it reminds me of it somehow. Maybe it is in how there are so many avenues to victory and you build this little player area as you go. Bruxelles 1897 btw is one of my favourite games, so reminding me of that game is a good thing.

Anyway, this is a top game. I have only bee able to play it a few times on TTS, and it has been on my wishlist for years, the subsequent pre-xmas sales and reprint seemed like a great time to pick it up.

Most photos are for the deluxe version, I just got the standard. It is basically the same but the small cardboard tokens are replaced with meeples and fancy meepels replace the cubes.

(Game Prieview) - Operencia: The Stolen Sun (Zen Studios)

 Operencia: The Stolen Sun

Zen Studios are famous for pretty much one thing... Zen Pinball... I always check up on their website when Xmas comes around to see if any cheap tables are available...and saw they have a RPG now. And not just any RPG one made is the classic dungeon crawler style of Eye of the Beholder.Might and Magic and Shadowgate... all games I loved. There was a recent series called Legend of Grimlock that I also really liked. My point is that this old school style of a grid based dungeon crawling is a style of game I really enjoy. It is also one that is criminally underdeveloped by the "retro" gaming boom that is going on at the moment. I suppose it is just the next sub-genre to get a crack after all the other retro revivals.

Anyway it is on sale at the mo on Epic so picked it up.

1st things 1st.... the game is gorgeous. The art is all awesome and colorful 3d renders, kinda like the old Myst games. The controls are classic as is the combat. This game is not doing anything new, I think they are just trying to do it well. Still the art is off the chain.

The combat is as you would expect. Some cool enemies but the imaginative stuff dose not come till you are deep in the dungeons. You fight in a 2x2 formation.. again, classic. The mechanisms of the combat is more modern though... more like a jRPG.. lots of buffs and shields and hastes and potion items and stuff. I think this is actually pretty cool and if you turn it all the way up, poses some challenge, at least in the early game. I suspect like all RPGs you end up godlike.

 True to form and a great nod to Shadowsgate and beyond, much of the game is puzzle design. Almost like Myst or a Point and Click adventure. Some of them are pretty cool, but nothing to hard. The hardest are the chest puzzles which are classic puzzle boxes and I also found one that was a legit cypher.. this puzzle woud be super hard if you did not recognise the encoding.

The voice acting is not the best, unfortunately, but all in all I am very happy with this one and enjoying it more than Legend of Grimlock 2. The start is a little wonky, but really it is just a long tutorial. So power through it, once you get past it the game begins to shine.

Verdict : Love it!

(TV Review) - The Mandalorian Season 1 : Episode 1+2 (Disney+)

The Mandalorian Season 1  : Episode 1+2

It is no secret that I am a buthurt and also a bitter old Star Wars fan. I loved Star Wars and Empires. I mean, loved. I can literally quote Empire backwards. Well. I used to be able, haven't tried for ages but I did so and won a competition at a Star Wars convention in the mid 90s once. Anyway, I liked Jedi less, but still love it for the most part. There is an age old joke about how you can tell someone's age by if they liked Jedi or not, as you were either a kid that loved talking teddy bears, or you thought it was off putting that people with sticks and stones could take out a highly advanced race of aliens. This joke is 100% true, imo, and the joke is now expanded to other generations who watched the newer films.

The prequels broke me. They were so atrociously bad that I find it almost unbelievable, and the fact they are now not the worst to be made astounds me in the most horrific way. All the kids that saw it, when they were 8 or whatever, are now in there late 20s, early 30s, the prequels came out over '99 and 2005, and they are a driving force of a revisionist movement where those films are widely thought of as unfairly judged. If you soil yourself on theForce.net, the general voice is that those films are great. It is these "new fans" that drive this change of opinion, as they are still active and engaged in the Star Wars community.

This is all about how we relate to the memories of our youth, and not about the films themselves. I think it also shows the innate childishness of the movies. It took me a long time to realise that Star Wars, all of them, are kids films, like say Goonies. The originals were just really good kids movies, so good that they appeal to all ages, but they are childish films made for children at their core. Which is why each generation hates the next set of films and the new generation loves the new ones. It is not that "kids do not know any better" it is that I am just far and away outside the target audience of the franchise, but I was the target audience when I was a kid, and of course I remember being a child and nostalgia is a thing. George Lucas understood this, and the attempting to force the newest movies into adult sensibilities is part of why they are spectacularly bad, in my eyes. He knew the key to the franchise was to make them appeal to the kids and cultivate new fans. Mark my words. The current Trilogy will be thought of as excellent by the next generation once they are old and judging the trilogy of 2038, or whenever it comes out.

The thing is I am burnt out on Star Wars. When the prequels were out I was a vocal poster about how shit they were, watched tear down vids and all that, but somewhere along the line between "Revenge of the endless lava fight of boredom" and "who gives a shit what it is called 2nd film that came out recently", that I am just spent. I care so little about it that I do not even get annoyed by it any more. All the fuel has been burnt. I do not like it, or hate it, I just don't give a shit about it. Star Wars is like Fast and the Furious to me, or maybe more like a long running soap opera like Neighbours. It is so under my radar and of such little interest to me that it barley enters my field of vision at all.

What I am trying to say here, besides trying desperately to not fall into a ten page rant about how terrible Star Wars is, I like to think I have no stake in the franchise any more, but deep down I do. The Star Wars I loved for so long is gone, erased by decades of "cannon" stories that removed all the magic and mystery of my imaginings and compressed what I thought to be a saga spanning centuries to 19 years. I can not help see Star Wars as a inferior shadow of what it was, and what it meant to my generation who spent decades without new content. Where we built our own fandom from what the shows inspired in us, not what they showed us. I am still bitter and this produces bias. I have tried three times to talk about this show but end up writing pages about my relationship to the material instead of the show itself... lol.. fuck it I'm not deleting it this time.

Anyway... lets get to it...

So, considering my relationship to most Disney properties, the mass of Disney+ TV shows that have been announced were as exciting to me as hearing that a new CIS show was coming out. Still, Disney+ is a film quality tv platform. Beyond its library of junk, it is pumping billions into original content. The Mandalorian looks fantastic, it looks better than some high budget science fiction films. They have hired top level actors, directors, writers and more, and it shows. The show from a production standpoint is just about as good as TV can get. So that is a big plus. There are few shows that have ever looked so much like a big budget film. The super rich source of design they have inherited, means even with only a few original additions, the show just looks amazing, as it is reproducing design elements that have been honed over decades. The outfits, the armour, the set aesthetics, the sheer amount of cash saved that other fantasy productions would need to spend, is then diverted into other areas and it really shows. Anyone that says this show is not one of, if not the, best production quality we have seen on TV is kidding themselves.

Beyond the production the real star of this show is David Filoni. He has a long history of making fan pleasing content and has shown he understands legacy as well as having the ability to add new content. It is well known now the terms of the Lucas deal means George retained royalty rights for merchandise for the prequels and the original series. "Let the past die" and all that shit coming down from high to wipe the old films away started to make so much sense when you consider this. Yet Filoni has somehow always managed to walk a line that brings new fans into the modern works, rather than alienate them. Do not be fooled by Jon Favreau's name. David Filoni is the guy behind this, and if they had any sense it would be him in Kennedy's chair, someone btw who is famously not involved in this show in anyway.

There is a lot of talk about how this show is like a western, but it isn't even remotely like one. It really shows how devoid of imagination much of the critical audience is. My guess is the "western" line came from Disney itself and then one critic said it and this just went on and on and on, each taking the lead from another. The show lacks all the cinematic fingerprints of the western, calling this show a western is like calling the 1st Conan film a western. Sure it is a lone man in a desert, doing fetch quests but that is about it. It will be hilarious once the latter episodes are on different planets and more characters have been introduced and stuff and this link to the "western" will be more and more absurd.

The episodes are short, and it is a mercy. It would have been so easy for them to fall into the netlfix trap of making a 20 hours film and 1/2 the audience loosing its cool mid way. The episodes are short and sweet, never staying to long and this makes you want more. I actually think the episode length is probably the smartest part of this production.

In addition there are a lot of touches that seem tailor made for old school fans to address issues that have come up over the last two decades of media. The "hero", for example, is fallible. Spending some time falling on his arse and getting nearly killed. The way the Jedi have evolved in cartoons, comics, games and films have made jedi characters into caricatures, and the simple act of the main dude not being perfect at everything instantly gives the show some credibility in my eyes. Also the "Judge Dredd" not taking his helmet off thing is really cool, and something I was sure would not happen.

I also really liked the main hook, that of the young Yoda. For those that do not know, Yoda's race and back story has never been named in any cannon media. Seeing a baby "yoda" tells fans that this show is going to seriously add to the lore of Star Wars in a major way. This is intriguing, on paper at least. All the "worshipping metal" and tribal stuff from the comics can go fuck a fruit bat, though.

I want to hate this show, but in truth there is little to fault it on. I mean I can talk about the bloodless violence or the shameless easter eggs to make fanatics wet themselves but the reality of this show is that it is well made, seems to take itself seriously, seems to have real direction and is for all appearances may be the best Star Wars live action offering since Rouge One, and that film wasn't exactly devoid of problems.

Yet, I still do not give a shit. I'm just not interested at all. Watching this show was like watching Downtown Abby with my wife. The show is good, well made even, but I just do not give a flying fuck about those stuck up English toffs or their hokey gutter snip domestics. Downtown Abby is just not for me. Magicians is just not for me. House MD is just not for me. Sopranos is just not for me. Breaking Bad is just not for me.

Star Wars is just not for me.

It was burnt out of me, all the things it was to me in my youth are gone and now it is just another random scifi, like say Killjoys and I doubt I will be bothered to summon the effort to watch the 3rd episode and beyond. It just doesn't hold my interest.

Verdict : George Lucus visited the set of Mandelorian and was latter quoted saying Dave Filoni "is like a son to me".

(Film Review) - Godzilla 35: Monarch 03 - King of the Monsters (2019)

*** SPOILERS ***

Godzilla is a strange beast in that the character is beloved, for it is a classic pop culture icon known throughout the world, as in Superman levels of penetration into the culture and yet only a tiny fraction of the people that instantly recognise the character have ever seen his films. You could ask an 80 year old granny, you could ask a 6 year old child, and you could ask them on nearly any continent on earth and they would know who Godzilla is, but have they ever seen a single film? Those that have seen the films generally considered them to be B-Movies. Even diehard fans accept the fact that the movies have always kinda sucked. That does not mean they're not films people like, even love, but I do not think that any serious filmgoers can sit there and tell me that the Godzilla films are amazing stories or incredibly well made films, beyond the original.

I have always been a huge Godzilla fan and have watched the movies a ton of times when I was small and again as an adult. It was that exposure, particularly as a child that I think is the key to my experience with this new film.

 When you are a kid you do not see the men in suits running around a glorified train set. You see Godzilla. You see a wild monster crushing cities but you also see that particular Japanese aesthetic, in their modern storytelling where mankind is completely out of control of the events around them. I kind of fatalism of endurance where the is no response to the disaster, a disaster more often than not we have caused ourselves. We are ineffectual and unimportant, the only option is to hide, to hope and to survive from a roll of a die. We are nearly superfluous, you can imagine the stories of these films carrying on without us, despite our pathetic and wretched meddling that ultimately leads to nought. It is Godzilla that saves the day, as inevitable as the dawn. But Godzilla's is selfish in a way, like us his concern is for his planet. Our planet. A beast that fights for Earth, not humanity, not for morality, not for gain and who is unable to be controlled. Yet as we live on Earth he is kinda the good guy, one we rely on as we live on Earth too. This focus moved Godzilla slowly from a hideous bad guy to what I consider as a representation of Gia itself. A force of nature, Earth personified, and who could in their right mind not want to cheer for the Earth itself.

These are powerful ideas for a kid and this film more than any before it is showing us the monsters as we imagined them. I never saw a guy in a suit with visible strings holding up 3 sock puppet heads. I saw a golden dragon. This movie shows us the monsters as they lived in our imagination, not as they lived on celluloid. This film is about how Godzilla is perceived, more than about what it actually has been.

It is also an American production and it loses some of those deep-rooted cultural concepts about our place as a human race in relation to the planet itself. In an effort to make the story more "realistic" the Gods themselves are reduced to dumb animals, easily commanded by a magic box. A switch to make them rage, a switch to make them docile, a switch to call them, to drive them away. Having humans attempt to control Godzilla and his ilk is not a bad thing in itself, in fact, it is a common theme through the series, but ultimately I feel that it should always fail utterly and be ultimately unimportant.

Godzilla for me is at its best in the way western film audiences were introduced to him in the last 2015 film by that Monsters guy. They should basically not even notice us. This is what made that scene Godzilla vs King Ghidorah in '91 so powerful for Godzilla fans, as Godzilla stood there and looked directly at the dude, feelings of acknowledgement and understanding pass through the audience at the gravity of the idea that Godzilla was noticing us at all let alone singling him out for retribution. This scene worked so well as it was so unusual. In this film, the monsters all act more like King Kong. They are letting people touch them, bending down to snort on them Jurassic Park style and chasing little girls who can somehow outrun them. For how I personally relate to Godzilla, there seems to be what I consider a definite misunderstanding of the writers and director about some pretty basic concepts of what Godzilla is all about, concepts that the 2014 film, flawed as it was, nailed.

Even so, I immensely enjoyed this film. The film looks fantastic. Some of the shots could be screen capped from the Blu-Ray, printed out and hang on my wall. I mean it is absolutely gorgeous and if you are after giant monster battles, this film has you covered. The action is fantastic. I loved it. There was a lot of chatter from the trailers about the film looking dark, but I call bullshit on that. The film is extremely easy to read, even during the ground level, humans dodging exploding cars and toppling buildings I never felt like my eye was lost on the screen or that the action was obscured from view. The film is loud though. Do not go to this film if you have a headache. It is basically 2 hours of screaming monsters.

I also liked how they delved deep into the lore of the beasts. While I am a huge advocate of not explaining shit in films, nothing sucks more than crappy pseudoscience and technobabble, which this film has a decent share of. Still, it is things like Monster Zero causing hurricanes all around him from beating his wings and his electric charge or Rodan rising from a volcano and how ancient man translated these sights and how the monsters themselves are part of human collective consciousness, filtered into our legends. I thought a lot of that was really cool. I felt this film really pushed the lore and I loved that.

That is not to say the film is not fucking dumb.

The biggest nitpick I have is that apparently water pressure is not a thing, but I can forgive a submarine form just cruising about at the bottom of the ocean or a helicopter flying in a tornado. Having hero characters conveniently picked up by some kind of transport that comes from nowhere as they need to be at the next scenes location or even the killing off of the Japanese scientist's female assistant, just to replace her with the exact same character, this time Chinese to allow the sale of the film in the Chinese market are just things that niggle me but are not deal breakers. If you make a 200million dollar film that is trying to do so much there are concessions you have to make, to make it at all.

There are also the increasingly common pacing problems that event cinema is having. With so much going on there is no time for the story to "boil". Mothra wakes up and spends all of 10 mins in the film before it cocoons itself. Rodan is born and fighting before it even takes flight form the Volcano. Everything feels rushed, we as an audience need time to see the monsters and understand what they can do. Seeing Godzilla sucker punch Rodan isn't as cool unless we have seen Rodan be a badass himself. These monsters need actual arcs. I think they could take some lessons from martial arts cinema.

This leads me to the biggest problem I have with this film. The monsters are just that. Monsters. These films over the years have produced definite and realised characters for these creatures. When you see a King Kong film, there is no doubt about his personality. You see it in his actions and expressions. The monsters in this film, despite some legit attempts, fail to have any feeling of character. We as an audience want to love these guys, to emotionally bond to them, even the bad guys but what we get are just creatures. Look at Aliens. Just tiny moments of showing intelligence and that scene with the Queen issuing direct commands and understanding Ripley's threat gave those monsters such depth and the ability for the audience to connect to them. This film needed those kinds of moments and it just doesn't have them.

Also, this films lacks the conviction to have an actual bad guy. In an age of understanding, it is no longer acceptable to just have a crazy scientist dude nearly cause Armageddon. The audience is deprived of the classic and always satisfyingly cathartic experience of the bad guy getting her comeuppance, as it is obfuscated in touchy feely bullshit. The eco terrorist and the doctor should really have been one character, and she shouldn't have a redemptive arc of any kind, imo. Why is a film asking me to identify with a woman that has literally murdered millions? Fuck that. Have her stepped on my Monster Zero or a building fall on her or something.

All in all this film is one I really enjoyed and I have already seen it twice at the cinema. Once with friends and once alone in iMax. I may even see it again as my brother wants to go see it. Even so, I am not going to sit here and tell you it is a great film. It is great because it is a Godzilla film, it isn't a great film. Even with all the monster action, the final fight is concluded in a super fast sequence that feels a little anticlimactic after such epic and awesome fighting. In Dragonball Z they don't suddenly end it once everyone is juiced up. That is when the real battle begins. This film, for all its good work, fails to tap into that mythic feeling that I so desperately wanted it to have.

And that mugffin magic briefcase thing was fucking retarded.

Verdict : All hail the rise of the King, lets hope this is one of many.