Released: 22 May 1985 Director: George P. Cosmatos Distributor: TriStar Pictures Budget: $25.5 million Stars: Sylvester Stallone, Charles Napier, Julia Nickson, Steven Berkoff, and Richard Crenna
The Plot: Three years after the events of the first film, in Hope, Washington, former United States Army Green Beret John J. Rambo (Stallone) is released from a federal prison by his old commander, Colonel Sam Trautman (Crenna). Rambo is assigned the task of confirming reports of U.S. prisoners of war (P.O.W.s) in Vietnam in exchange for a pardon but is quickly forced to once again rely on his extensive combat training after being betrayed by corrupt governmental bureaucratic Marshall Murdock (Napier).
The Background: After the spectacular box office performance of First Blood (Kotcheff, 1982), a sequel was all-but-inevitable. Initial ideas for the sequel revolved around partnering Rambo up with a sidekick, rumoured to have been played by John Travolta, and legendary movie director James Cameron even came on board to write the film’s script. However, while Cameron was able to capture the more action-orientated focus of the sequel, which plastered Rambo’s name front and centre, Stallone once again stepped in to handle to more meaningful, political subtext of the film. Similar to the first film, Rambo: First Blood Part II was met with mixed reviews; critics were unimpressed with the film’s violence and excess, its lack of poignant commentary and subtlety compared to the first film, and for being a step back for portrayals of foreign threats. And, yet, Rambo: First Blood Part II absolutely smashed it at the box office, making over $300 million (thus making it the most profitable of all the Rambo movies) and propelling the character into mainstream pop culture the very definition of a “breakout sequel”.
The Review: When we re-join Rambo in Rambo: First Blood Part II, he’s toiling away breaking rocks in a prison labour camp; having accepted his lot, and his punishment, he feels safe and secure inside of the prison. However, when Trautman offers him a highly dangerous reconnaissance mission with the potential promise of a Presidential pardon, he accepts the proposal in the hopes of actually being able to “win this time”. In Thailand, he meets with Murdock, who summarises Rambo’s storied and decorated career and even sympathises with him since he’s a former soldier himself; Murdock debriefs on the specifics of the mission, which is to go into Vietnam, completely alone, to find evidence of P.O.W.s.
Murdock turns out to be a corrupt bureaucrat who cares nothing for those stuck in ‘Nam.
Rambo is ordered not to engage the enemy as a follow-up strike team will handle the extraction and is afforded a great deal of equipment and technological backup…all of which is rendered completely mute when he’s forced to separate himself from all of his equipment to avoid being torn apart during his drop into the jungle. Although Murdock comments on Rambo’s stoic demeanour, Trautman continues to have the utmost faith in Rambo even though Rambo remains unconvinced that Vietnam has changed since he was last there and spots a flaw in Murdock’s backstory. Ultimately, Rambo’s suspicions about Murdock are quickly shown to be true as he’s incredulous to the ill-advised Vietnam war, is determined to pull out after the thirty-six-hour mission time is up, and sabotages Trautman’s attempt to rescue Rambo. A corrupt bureaucrat, Murdock merely wished to sweep all the rumours of P.O.W.s under the rug with a convenient patsy and is perhaps the most significant threat due to his betrayal that leaves Rambo at the mercy of the film’s more sadistic villains.
Rambo is betrayed and left captive at the combined forces of the Soviets and the Vietnamese.
It turns out that the Vietnamese forces, led by Captain Vinh (William Ghent) and Lieutenant Tay (George Kee Cheung), are in league with the Soviets, led by Lieutenant Colonel Sergei T. Podovsky (Berkoff) and his right-hand man, the stoic and barbaric Sergeant Yushin (Voyo Goric). When Rambo is captured during his botched extraction, he finds himself at Podovsky’s mercy and once again enduring unspeakable trauma. However, fuelled by his anger at Murdock’s betrayal, Rambo is able to not only endure this torture but also escape from his captors in dramatic fashion before waging a veritable one-man war against the combined forces of the Vietnamese and the Soviets.
Through Co, Rambo’s humanity is explored in greater depth…but it’s not to last.
Since he had to ditch his equipment during the drop, Rambo is immediately left with little more than hits wits and his trademark hunting knife to see him through. This time around, however, he’s joined on the ground by Co Bao (Nickson), a Vietnamese freedom fighter who arranges safe passage for him up the river. While Trautman continues to talk up Rambo’s unparalleled skills and fortitude, interactions between Rambo and Co explore his humanity and mentality; weary of conflict and the world, the world nevertheless only makes sense to Rambo out in the field and he begrudgingly prefers to be back in the fray if only to be able to recognise his enemy. Although Co fights for similar reasons as Rambo (out of duty and loyalty), she is far more idealistic and naïve than he but still a very capable warrior in her own right and even saves Rambo after he is captured by Podovsky.
Rambo’s skills are made all the more impressive through his adaptability and deadliness.
In First Blood, we saw how adaptable and capable Rambo was and his ability to survive in the wild and subdue his opponents through non-lethal methods; this time around, these aspects are downplayed greatly but are still evident in decidedly different ways. Rambo favours a bow and arrow, for example, in order to make less noise and adopts a sneaky, stealthy approach to his rescue effort and fighting skills to pick off the Vietnamese and Podovsky’s men. However, given that he’s now in the midst of a war zone, all pretence is dropped and we get to see just how skilled of a soldier he is; Rambo shoots arrows through guys’ heads, blasts them to bloody chunks with a shotgun, and brutally stabs them to death with his big ol’ knife, proving to be every bit the remorseless and fierce killer Trautman sold him as in the first movie.
The Nitty-Gritty: Right from the start, Rambo: First Blood Part II is a very different film to First Blood; there’s very little time wasted in the early going and Rambo is dropped into Vietnam within the first fifteen minutes. However, despite being a much more action-orientated film, Rambo: First Blood Part II’s pace is largely similar to that of the first film and, while the body count is much higher, the action escalates over time and continues to primarily focus on Rambo’s guerrilla tactics rather than just being a nonstop, action-packed extravaganza.
The first chance he gets, Rambo disregards his mission tosave the P.O.W.s.
This isn’t entirely surprising and is telegraphed during Rambo’s meeting with Murdock; Rambo is appalled at his orders not to attempt a rescue and, whether due to his own previous experiences as a P.O.W. or because of his suspicions about Murdock, he immediately disregards the reconnaissance mission to rescue one of the P.O.W.s, Banks (Andy Wood), and it’s pretty obvious the Rambo always planned on rescuing the P.O.W.s just as much as he relished the idea of getting a measure of revenge against the Vietnamese forces.
Rambo unleashes all of his pent-up aggression to wage a one-man war against his enemies.
Rambo’s mission is much more personal this time around thanks, firstly to him being betrayed by his own government and, secondly to Tay’s killing of Co right as the two began to explore their mutual attraction. Already fuelled by his traumatic experiences in the Vietnam War, these betrayals and losses and being surrounded by enemies on all sides only drive Rambo to fight harder and more aggressively. He cakes himself in mud, fires explosive arrows at enemy encampments from afar (and makes Tay pay for his actions with a similar arrow), and eventually commandeers a Soviet attack helicopter (after a particularly brutal fight with the indomitable Yushin) to rain unrelenting fire down upon his enemies.
Rambo makes an emphatic statement for all soldiers and P.O.W.s by threatening Murdock.
In the end, Rambo: First Blood Part II delivers an exciting and explosive finale as Podovsky and Rambo engage in a helicopter chase and firefight; Rambo, again displaying how smart and cagey he is, feigns defeat and death to fool Podovsky into hovering in range of a fatal rocket strike and he’s able to carry all the remaining P.O.W.s to safety, leaving Vietnam little more than a smouldering mess. Returning to the base, Rambo then confronts Murdock, destroying his office in an iconic hail of gunfire and demanding that he find and rescue the remaining P.O.W.s held in Vietnam before delivering a sobering monologue and walking off the an uncertain future.
The Summary: At its heart, Rambo: First Blood Part II is the ultimate redemption story, especially for Rambo; in the first film, he was haunted by his memories and experiences in Vietnam and was on the razor’s edge of sanity and humanity. Now, far more jaded and disillusioned, he’s given the chance at serving once again and helping to rescue fellow soldiers from the same situation and, in the process, dropped right back into the meatgrinder. However, as dangerous and cunning as Rambo was on home soil, he’s (as Trautman says) right at home in the thick of it all and, thanks to his incredible skills and volatile nature, is able to extract a measure of revenge for all the atrocities he suffered in Vietnam. While the body count is higher and the action is bigger, the film retains the same visceral, bleak undertones as the first and delves a little deeper into Rambo’s psyche to explore his vulnerability a little bit more. A patriot at heart, he’s perfectly willing to put his life on the line for his country and his fellow man but all he wants in return is a little respect and gratitude. It’s not a massive part of the film’s plot but this is clearly a story about a man confronting his demons and, while Rambo might lament conflict and be tired of all the killing and chaos, he’s still a savage and wily soldier when pushed into action and this is emphasised even more here since he’s actually in a war zone so he doesn’t have to worry about pulling his punches. In the end, it’s maybe lacking a little of the nuance of the first film but I’d say it’s just as good, if not better in some ways because of the brutality and more explosive nature of the action.
My Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Great Stuff
What did you think to Rambo:First Blood Part II? How do you feel it holds up today, especially compared to the first film and the sequels? Were you disappointed that some of the nuance of the first film was lost in favour of a far higher body count or do you think the sequel compliments the first in providing Rambo the chance at confronting his demons? What did you think to the brief romantic sub-plot and to seeing Rambo’s skills in the field? Which Rambo film is your favourite? Whatever your thoughts, leave a comment below and be sure to check out my review of the third film.
Released: 30 September 2021 Director: Cary Joji Fukunaga Distributor: United Artists Releasing / Universal Pictures Budget: $250 to 301 million Stars: Daniel Craig, Rami Malek, Léa Seydoux, Lashana Lynch, Ben Whishaw, Ralph Fiennes, Jeffrey Wright, and Christoph Waltz
The Plot: Five years after the capture of Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Waltz), super spy James Bond/007 (Craig) has retired from active service to be with his love, Doctor Madeleine Swan (Seydoux). However, when he his old friend Felix Leiter (Wright) asks him to investigate a missing scientist, Bond is brought violently back into the world of betrayal and terrorism when he is pitted against terrorist Lyutsifer Safin (Malek).
The Review: No Time to Die kicks off with one of the most longest, if not the longest, pre-title sequences in any James Bond film that basically serves a number of purposes; first, we get to see a flashback to Madeline’s childhood where, as a young girl (Coline Defaud), witnessed her mother being brutally gunned down by Safin, a psychotic killer with a bit of a limb and sporting an unsettling Noh mask. Safin’s motivation here is actually somewhat relatable as Madeline’s father, Mister White (Jesper Christensen), killed Safin’s entire family as part of a Spectre assassination. Although Madeline and Bond have retired to Italy to be together, leaving behind Bond’s tumultuous life, but are still haunted by the ghosts of their respective pasts; Madeline promises to reveal this part of her past to Bond after he makes peace with his former love, Vesper Lynd (Eva Green), and in process unwittingly sets Bond’s paranoid into overdrive as he is summarily attacked by Spectre agents, led by Primo/Cyclops (Dali Benssalah), and he separates himself from Madeline to both keep her safe and because he feels he can’t trust her. The film then jumps to five years later, Bond has set himself up in Jamaica and is so far off the grid that MI6 has assumed that he has died. However, when Spectre agents kidnap scientist Valdo Obruchev (David Dencik) to weaponise the devastating “Heracles” virus that MI6 chief, Gareth Mallory/M (Fiennes) developed off the books to specifically target and eliminate individuals while negating collateral damage, both MI6 and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) are understandably perturbed at the implications of this virus being in the wrong hands. When M discovers that his darkest secret has been dug up for the world to see, he becomes very cagey and snippy with his employees Eve Moneypenny (Naomie Harris), Q (Wishaw), and Bill Tanner (Rory Kinnear) and demands that Obruchev and his research be retrieved as quickly and surreptitiously as possible. Bond is begrudgingly brought into the investigation by CIA operative Felix Leiter, whom he embraces as an old friend; having been absent from the last two Bond movies, it’s great to see Felix make a comeback, if only briefly, and it’s just one of many heartwarming moments in the film that help humanise Bond, with Bond even referring to Felix as his brother at one point.
Bond is drawn back into espionage after appearing to be betrayed, only to find he’s been replaced.
Bond doesn’t truly return to his former, violent life until he crosses paths with Nomi (Lynch), a no-nonsense, militaristic agent who, in case you couldn’t guess, has replaced Bond as the new 007. The two initially have a frosty relationship, with Nomi brushing off Bond’s advice and experience and basically continuing on her mission with little regard for Bond’s presence. While Bond played it fast and loose with the rules and regulations, Nomi is all business and follows her orders without questions, making for a less glamorous but strikingly efficient spy, but her heckles are raised when M ends up reinstating Bond as an active 00 agent following a tense and heated confrontation between the two. The more they work together, however, a mutual respect develops between the two, to the point where Nomi requests that Bond regain his 007 number (his actual new 00 number is never revealed), and any concerns that Nomi is being setup to replace James Bond in future films are largely dashed as she never takes the spotlight away from Bond and she largely exists as a competent support character for Bond. Bond has a number of other allies helping him both officially and unofficially; when Bond agrees to help Felix, he is partnered with the lovely and excitable Paloma (Ana de Armas), a CIA agent on her first assignment who’s more than capable of kicking ass even while in a very revealing silk dress. Paloma helps Bond infiltrate a mass gathering of Spectre agents, which is revealed to be a trap setup by Blofeld to kill bond using Heracles, however all of Spectre end up being killed instead when Obruchev reprograms the nanobots to target the Spectre agents, which was a bit of an anti-climatic end to one of Bond’s most notorious and iconic evil organisations. After arguing with M over Heracles, Bond works independently to find out more information about the virus and concludes that he needs to gain access to Blofeld; to do this, he asks Moneypenny and Q for help, and they’re able to help him hack into a bionic eye used my Primo to reveal crucial information that gets Bond reinstated at MI6. Q actually plays a surprisingly big role in the film as he’s out in the field on more than one occasion and even communicates with Bond and Nomi through their earpieces in the finale, which is something I’ve never seen in a Bond film before. It does lead to an amusing moment where Q prepares to walk Bond through a complex procedure to open up the blast doors and allow Safin’s base to be bombarded with a missile assault and Bond simply frantically presses every button and pulls every lever.
Safin makes an immediate impression before becoming a bit of a cliché, fanatical villain.
The main villain of the film, Safin, is largely absent for much of the film and left as this mysterious, unknown third party. Instead, most of the film’s early going is focused on the remnants of Spectre, which Blofeld is secretly controlling while being locked up and isolated in prison. He’s been able to do this because he’s been diagnosed as clinically insane and spends his days muttering and mumbling in his cell and refuses to talk to anyone except his psychiatrist, Madeline. This leads to an awkward reunion between Bond and Madeline, and a tense reunion between Bond and his adopted brother; Blofeld delights in taunting Bond and having outwitted him, and the irony that the two now have a common enemy as Safin is specifically targeting Spectre agents and Blofeld himself to get his revenge. Unfortunately, we don’t really get to see too much of Blofeld here, and I continue to be unimpressed with Waltz’s performance as the character, which just a little too quirky and unhinged for my tastes considering how refined the character usually is. Safin picks up some of the slack in this regard, appearing to echo classic bond villains such as Doctor Julius No (Joseph Wiseman), Karl Stromberg (Curt Jürgens), and Hugo Drax (Michael Lonsdale) in his soft-spoken, unsettling menace and sporting a disturbing skin condition. Safin is motivated to kill all of Spectre after they caused the death of his family, but his plot shifts to worldwide mass murderer after he acquires Heracles, which escalates his favoured method of using plants for a variety of nefarious purposes into reshaping the world into his own image. When he’s first introduced, Safin is clad in a white snowsuit and wearing an expressionless mask, resulting in a twisted visage as he hunts down the young Madeline, and the entire sequence is framed like a slasher horror film; however, when Safin finally returns later in the film, he’s set aside his mask and is just another disquieting, unhinged Bond villain in a suit with delusions of grandeur.
The Nitty-Gritty: One of the most highly anticipated traditions of any James Bond film is the title sequence, in which the chosen song for the film plays over images of scantily-clad women, guns, and other obscure imagery tangentially related to the film. No Time to Die not only brings back the iconic gun barrel sequence (which also gets a call-back later in the film when Bond shoots an assailant down a curved tunnel) but the title sequence even recalls the very first title sequence of the series by bringing back the multiple circular dots that blared at the screen in the opening of Dr. No (Young, 1962), before descending into the usual iconography of guns firing and images of the main actors looking morose. It’s a pretty decent title sequence but for one crucial element; the title song itself, “No Time to Die”, by Billie Eilish. Now, admittedly, I am not a fan of Eilish; I find her music grating, depressing, and uninspiring, but I went into this willing to set aside these prejudices (after all, I’m not fan of Adele or Sam Smith and their Bond themes were pretty good) and remained unimpressed. I just don’t think the song really works; it never properly kicks into a higher gear and just sets a bleak, miserable tone for that the film doesn’t really reflect. The song really should have been a celebration of Bond’s life and emphasised this being the end of an era, and instead just conveys the same dullness of your average gloomy Billie Eilish song. Thankfully, some of these themes of it being a celebration of all things Bond and the end of Craig’s time as the character are revisited throughout the film; Louis Armstrong’s “We Have all the Time in the World” plays in the beginning and ending of the film, which is a nice (if unexpected) call-back to On her Majesty’s Secret Service (Hunt, 1969), and even had me half-expecting to see Madeline gunned down by one of Blofeld’s agents as she and Bond are racing through Italy.
Armed with his most iconic gadgets and teamed with beautiful allies, Bond is as effective as ever.
Additionally, Bond drives his iconic Aston Martin DB5, which is outfitted with all of the classic gadgets of old, and there’s even a touching tribute to Judi Dench and Bernard Lee as portraits of them adorn the walls of MI6. I actually really love the call-backs to classic Bond aesthetics that finally got reintroduced to the series in Skyfall, such as the door to M’s office (and the office itself) while still keeping things grounded in the current times with modern technology. We even get a spin on Bond’s classic watch gadget as Q furnishes him with a watch capable of emitting a short-range, high-frequency electromagnetic pulse that pays off beautifully in offing Primo (but is apparently unable to affect the nanobots coursing through Bond’s bloodstream, which is where I expected the gadget to really come into play). As mentioned, the film’s opening is starkly different to those of other Bond films not just for its length but also for the way its short, which mirrors a slasher horror film, with Safin even appearing and being portrayed as an unsettling masked home invader. Safin’s casual brutality is mirrored in Bond’s ruthlessness; both characters are completely at ease with killing (even executing) others in the line of duty, and Safin even proposes that the two are more alike that they may seem at first glance. Interestingly, the idea that Bond has “lost a step” due to his advancing age, injuries, and being out of action for so long is largely cast aside here; it could have been revisited once he meets and works alongside Nomi but, instead Bond is running, fighting, and chasing down bad guys with very few signs of having slowed down. If anything, Bond’s more effective and brutal than ever; he’s easily able to evade Primo and his mercenaries by leaping from a bridge with only a precarious wire for support, races across Italy on a motorcycle, has a series of brutal fistfights that continue to highlight Craig’s Bond’s adaptability when brawling, and the film is punctuated by a number of car chases against both jeeps and a helicopter to help keep things exhilarating. Yes, it’s a long film, even for a Bond movie, but all Bond movies are quite long and it never really felt like it was dragging all that much; I could see a few scenes and even characters being trimmed and maybe cutting back on some of the sweeping establishing shots, but overall I was quite satisfied with the length of the film and the amount of action packed in between its slower, more poignant moments.
Blofeld manipulates events from his prison cell before being unceremoniously offed by Safin.
Many Bond films become so iconic because of their villains, and as ever there’s a number of bad guys bumping around in No Time to Die; Primo stands out for his bulging bionic eye, but is mainly just Spectre’s main henchman and gets very little to do beyond cropping up to cause Bond headaches throughout the film. Bond’s focus shifts towards tracking down CIA operative Logan Ash (Billy Magnussen) after he proves to be a double-agent working for Spectre; Nash, a nervous and overly enthusiastic agent, plays a pivotal role in the film’s early going when his betrayal leads to the tragic death of Felix and it’s incredibly cathartic seeing Bond brutally brush the slimy little weasel under a jeep. Obruchev is the living McGuffin of the film, being a slightly neurotic Russian scientist who at first seems to be reluctantly assisting Spectre and Safin and soon turns out to enjoy his work on the nanobots a little too much, meaning he more than deserves his gruesome dip into an acid bath at Nomi’s hands. And then there’s Blofeld, the ultimate puppet master of the film who continues to torment his stepbrother even while locked up; their interaction is a bevy of emotions, with Bond flipping between eccentricity and seething rage, leading to him choking Blofeld while spitting “Die, Blofeld!” Although Bond pulls back at the last minute, and gets berated by Tanner for losing control of his emotions, Blofeld is revealed to have died thanks to Bond unknowingly being exposed to nanobots specifically programmed to kill the Spectre head honcho, which was a death as anticlimactic as it was predictable (we see Madeline spraying herself with Safin’s nanobots, and Bond grab her wrist, prior to Bond choking Blofeld). Safin’s plot involves the use of Heracles, a vast array of nanobots that can be set to kill specific targets by programming them with DNA; once they’re inside your body, they’re there for ever and will pass from host to host until they reach their intended target, and Safin even has Obruchev modify them to kill the bloodline of the target as well. M’s direct involvement in this project casts an ugly shade of grey on the character, leading him into conflict with Bond and driving him to use every resource available, even at the expense of keeping the Prime Minister out of the loop and the world on the brink of war, just to eradicate Heracles once and for all. Safin’s jump from wanting revenge against Spectre to destroying most of the world’s population is quite the leap, but he is fully prepared to do this and has more than enough resources to pull it off; how he has these resources isn’t really explained (I guess he appropriated them from Spectre?) but he does sport a suitably ominous repurposes World War Two base as his headquarters and apparently has a background in using poisonous and otherwise toxic plants in his research. This only bolsters his nanobot technology and, while he is far from a physical threat to Bond, actually ends up making him Bond’s most formidable adversary ever as he’s able to infect Bond with nanobots that make his touch lethal to Madeline, effectively destroying any hope he could have of a normal life with her in the process.
To ensure the safety of his love, his child, and the world, Bond makes the ultimate sacrifice.
The movie may not have time to die, but the characters certainly do! As mentioned, Felix is the first to go in an emotionally charged scene that sees Bond desperately trying to haul his friend’s injured body to safety and then being forced to watch him die right in front of his eyes after he succumbs to Nash’s gunshot. Much of his immediate motivation revolves around wanting to avenge and honour Felix’s death, though I do think it might have had even more impact if Felix had joined Bond and Paloma on their mission (or even, dare I say it, replaced Paloma entirely) just so we could have seen the two interacting a little bit more and working together in the field. Blofeld also lives to die another day as, despite Bond’s best efforts to ensure that he has a long and unhappy existence rotting away in prison, Safin succeeds in offing the Spectre head through his proxies. I wasn’t exactly blown away by Waltz’s performance in the role, but I do have a fondness for the character’s iconography and impact on the franchise, so it was a bit disappointing to see him brought in as a Doctor Hannibal Lecter-type (Anthony Hopkins) character only to be killed off in anticlimactic fashion. Finally, believe it or not, No Time to Die actually has the balls to kill off the iconic superspy! All throughout the movie, Bond experiences and cheats death at every turn (he survives at least two explosions at close range with minimal damage beyond impaired hearing) and has been assumed dead for at least five years, but No Time to Die finds the character in a position where he’s finally achieved a sense of happiness that he had been searching for since the days of Casino Royale. However, his past haunts him so much that he immediately believes that Madeline has betrayed him, which costs him valuable time with her, and the two quickly rekindle their romance once they reunite, but, more crucially, means he misses out on experiencing fatherhood as he finds Madeline has sired his child, Mathilde (Lisa-Dorah Sonnet). While she’s initially stated to not be his, it’s pretty obvious that she is, even to Bond, and he makes it a priority to rescue her, and Madeline, from Safin after he and Nomi infiltrate his base to shut down his operation. While successful, Bond is injured by multiple gunshots and drawn into a physical altercation with Safin, which sees him brutally snap the terrorist’s arm but being infected with nanobots that will kill Madeline and Mathilde if he touches them. After executing Safin, Bond is forced to stay behind on the island and open the blast doors so that the military’s missile strike will destroy the facility, bidding a heartfelt farewell to Madeline before being killed in the bombardment. In the aftermath, his life and sacrifice are toasted by M, Nomi, Q, and Moneypenny while Madeline prepares to regale her daughter with stories of her father. I kind of suspected that this might happen given the trailers and Craig’s desire to step away from the role, but also thought that the character would simply fake his death to finally retire from his violent life and be succeeded by Nomi, but the film actually went all-in with finishing off the character in perhaps the most dramatic way possible that hit with an impact I honestly wasn’t expecting.
The Summary: No Time to Die is another strong effort in the Daniel Craig-era of James Bond movies; since his Bond films have all largely been sequential, it’s definitely advisable to be somewhat familiar with his previous outings as the character since the entire film is framed as a celebration of Bond’s life and career and a swansong not just to Craig but the character itself. Never before has a James Bond film positioned the renowned superspy in such an uncharacteristic position where he is largely retired from active service and focused entirely on living a normal life as the world passes him by, and his return to action seems to reinvigorate not just the character but those around him as well, with many of his allies excited to be working alongside him once again. Safin starts off as a strong and visually intriguing character, before descending into cliché Bond villainy and plotting to destroy the world for tenuous reasons, and Blofeld’s big return may be largely squandered but these issues are largely secondary compared to the continued character study into Bond’s emotional journey. Craig’s Bond is probably to most developed and complex of all the Bonds since we’ve witnessed his tumultuous and tragic evolution into an impassive spy and his struggle to reconcile his duty with his desire to lay down his guns, and all of this culminates in his stunned discovery that he has a child out their in a world and something more tangible worth fighting, and dying, for. The execution of Bond’s ultimate end may not land well for some; yes, it’s overly dramatic and reminded me of the overblown farewells modern-day Doctor Who actors give when they leave the role, and leaves a lot of questions regarding the series going forward. Will they recast and reboot again, or will they try and continue the story in this world with Nomi as the new 007? It’s hard to tell, and the film may end up being overshadowed by being “the one where Bond dies”, but I felt that it was an emotional and poignant journey and end for the character, and that the film was a strong and enjoyable outing throughout, and I’m excited to see where the series goes next if they do recast.
My Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Great Stuff
Have you seen No Time to Die? If so, what did you think to it and where would you rank it against other James Bond films, especially Daniel Craig’s earlier efforts? What did you think to Safin, his characterisation and his plot, and Blofeld’s brief return? Were you impressed by Nomi and would you like to see her get her own solo film as 007 going forward? Which of the character’s deaths was the most surprising and memorable for you and what did you think to the decision to kill Bond off? Are you pissed off that I spoiled the entire film rather than dancing around the plot? What is your favourite James Bond film and who would you like to see cast in the role someday? Whatever you thought about No Time to Die, sign up to leave a comment below or leave a response on my social media.
Issue One Story Title: “One if by Land, Two if by Space…” Published: May 2009 Writer: Ricardo Sanchez Artists: Kevin Sharpe, Jim Clark, et al
Issue Two Story Title: “Dirty Jobs” Published: June 2009 Writer: Ricardo Sanchez Artists: Kevin Sharpe, Gabe Eltaed, and Randy Mayor
Issue Three Story Titles: “If You Meet the Zombie on the Road…” and “Holiday Sugarman: Special Operations Agent” Published: January 2010 Writer: Ricardo Sanchez Artist: Jheremy Rapaak
Issue Four Story Titles: “Ich Bin Ein Schlechtes Genie…” and “Mina Gere: Special Operations Agent” Published: May 2010 Writer: Ricardo Sanchez Artist: Jheremy Rapaak; Al Barrionuevo
Issue Five Story Title: “The Bio-Weapons of Urador” Published: July 2010 Writer: Ricardo Sanchez Artist: Jheremy Rapaak
Issue Six Story Title: “Schafft Chaos Und Lasst Die Kriegshunde Los” Published: February 2011 Writer: Ricardo Sanchez Artist: Jheremy Rapaak
The Background: As I’ve detailed previously, WildStorm comics first published a five issue anthology series based on the first two Resident Evil videogames (Capcom, 1996; 1998). Resident Evil: The Official Comic Magazine featured stories and characters, both primary and secondary, from the videogames and fleshed out the lore surrounding the Raccoon City outbreak and the malevolent Umbrella Corporation’s experiments with the Tyrant Virus (T-Virus) and the Golgotha Virus (G-Virus). While many of these events have since been rendered non-canon, WildStorm also went to the trouble of creating a number of original characters, who were revived for a subsequent four-issue series, Resident Evil: Fire and Ice, published between 2000 and 2001. This series focused on thehitherto-unknown Special Tactics and Rescue Service (S.T.A.R.S.) Charlie team and was, honestly, pretty terrible compared to WildStorm’s previous efforts. With Resident Evil 5(ibid, 2009) having been released earlier in the year, WildStorm returned to the franchise with another six-issue series, simply titled Resident Evil, that featured an entirely new creative team and was marketed as a prequel to Resident Evil 5 despite its events also being rendered non-canon almost immediately.
The Review: Our story begins exactly where you would expect a Resident Evil story to start…in space. Thanks to some expository text boxes, we discover that the President of the United States has been made aware of some illegal bio-organic weapons (B.O.W.) research being conducted onboard the Joint Nations space station, so he authorises a shuttle to be sent up to investigate. The investigation is assisted by rookie agent Mina Gere of the Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance (B.S.A.A.) who, after arriving on the space station, discovers no response from the crew and that the station has suffered a non-lethal hydrogen leak. Much of Mina’s backstory is later revealed through a two-page backup story that details that she was arrested for hacking into the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (F.B.I.) most wanted and added her school principal’s name to the last as an April Fool’s joke. After choosing to enlist rather than go to prison, she excelled during her training with the Marines and as part of an experimental space combat unit, all of which made her an ideal candidate to join the B.S.A.A.
Of course the story begins in space, just like every classic Resident Evil story.
Her deployment to the space station is her first official B.S.A.A. assignment and she immediately lives up to her reputation by dispatching a Licker with her “shotgun pistol” that fires special “flechette loads” to keep her from accidentally depressurising the space station with an errant shot. Investigating the space station further, Mina confirms that the space station has suffered an outbreak of the T-Virus after they conducted experiments by exposing “Cnidaria” samples to the virus and that they launched satellites containing a G-Virus sample down to Earth before the station went offline. The danger to her is still very present, however, as not only do zombies roam the station but a monstrous, tentacled creature is also looming within, absorbing everything it touches, being completely immune to her gunfire, and Mina postulates that the creatures (and the virus) will evolve and mutate further thanks to the lack of gravity. This, apparently, rules out sucking the creatures into space so Mina fights her way past the zombies and escapes into space (and the safety of the space shuttle) after setting the space station to explode.
Maybe if Holiday spent less time quoting philosophy he wouldn’t have lost his team…
The story also follows the B.S.A.A. Alpha Team, lead by Holiday Sugarman (a Barry Burton lookalike of sorts with an annoying penchant for quoting the literary greats and historical figures) who are dispatched to the hostile territory of Grezbekistan to contain a B.O.W. outbreak caused by one of these satellites. When the team are suddenly over-run with what appear to be Las Plagas, Holiday has no choice but to kill his own team after they are eviscerated by the creatures. This leaves him alone against the rampant creatures and hunted by a larger alpha who more closely resembles Doctor William Birkin’s “G” form. Holiday conveniently stumbles upon a weapon cache when trying to outrun the creatures which, even more conveniently, also includes a rocket launcher that allows him to hurt the “G” creature. Figuring out that all of the lesser B.O.W.s feel the pain of the Alpha, Holiday leaps in and stabs it repeatedly in its exposed brain with his trusty knife and causes all of his pursuers to die as a result. As his evacuation team flies in to retrieve him, he ensures that the mission wasn’t in vain by busting out a flamethrower and destroying all traces of the infected in the area.
While neither are happy about their partnership, it’s clear that they both need each other’s expertise.
Holiday doesn’t get much time to rest on his laurels, though, as he’s told that Giesel Industries made the satellite and is ordered to head to Übelandia, partner with Mina, and investigate further. Holiday is unimpressed with the assignment, believing it’s a waste of his time and is even more perturbed at the nothing of partnering with a “little [girl] who [has] no business in the field”. In Übelandia, Mina and her partner, Cruz, find a lone survivor, a terrified young girl, in a village on the way to Fritz Giesel’s estate and are summarily attacked by a hoard of zombies. Luckily, though, the three manage to fight their way to a jeep and escape without injury rather than trying to fight them all off but Mina’s insult at being assigned a partner after how capably she performed without one on the space station quickly takes a back seat in terms of priorities when the little girl suddenly attacks Cruz, biting him on the arm before she’s executed by Mina. This incident is used by her commanding officer, Espinoza, to emphasise how Mina is inexperienced and that partnering with Holiday, despite his rough and pig-headed demeanour, will help her to gain valuable experience. On his way to rendezvous with Mina, Holiday’s internal monologue reveals that much of his demeanour comes from the death of his daughter, Summer, who has many similarities to Mina. The exact specifics of his backstory are further elaborated on in a short, two-page backup story, which reveals that he gave up his former life as a teacher to become something of a mercenary before settling down with his wife and daughter in Raccoon City. The zombie outbreak took their lives and saw him return to action as a member of the B.S.A.A.; angered that men like Giesel caused the death of his daughter, Holiday made a vow to bring all of those responsible to justice.
Despite some obstacles and disagreements, the two reach Giesel’s estate and meet his supposed nephew.
Upon the two meeting, they immediately air their grievances at being partnered with a “greenie” and a “babysitter”, respectively, but the two are able to fill in the gaps in each other’s knowledge (Mina has intel on the local area, the unrest between Übelandia and Urador, and the use of viral agents in the region and Holiday has more combat and field experience, not to mention being more seasoned overall). When their jeep is suddenly ambushed by zombies, Holiday thins out much of the infected heard by blowing up the vehicle with a grenade launcher (or, more specifically, a “tank buster” that fires a “depleted uranium armor piercing casing with a high-energy explosive core on a short delay”). Impressed by the weapon, Holiday quickly switches to plan B when Mina’s request for an air evacuation is denied and the group salvage what they can and prepare to make their way on foot instead. Upon reaching Giesel’s estate, Holiday and Mina disagree on how to get past Giesel’s massive armoured doors; Holiday wants to blow them with C4 but Mina manages to talk their way in more peacefully by stating their intentions to Giesel’s nephew, Neurmann (or “Neu” for short). Neu takes the team on a tour throughout his uncle’s elaborate estate, which more than resembles the Spencer Mansion from the first game and the various estates from Resident Evil 4(Capcom Production Studio 4, 2005). Impressing with his eccentric demeanour, Neu leads the team into Giesel’s greenhouse where they are attacked by mutated plants, zombies, and infected apes, much to Neu’s giddy pleasure.
Although suffering heavy losses from B.O.W.s, Mina takes out the Tyrant using a knife and a grenade.
While a number of their team are skewered and dismembered by the plant or ripped to shreds by the apes, Holiday and Mina manage to lead themselves and the few survivors to safety and, under Holiday’s supervision, immediately set about setting up a narrow kill zone to fight their way out using the remainder of their resources in clever combination with the supplies in the surrounding environment. This plan works but, again, Neu is more excited by their victory than troubled since he also has a Tyrant (the Ubersoldat prototype) at his command! Holiday’s improvised “fertiliser bomb” only causes the Tyrant to mutate into a more monstrous form but Mina proves her worth and her ingenuity by having the team distract the creature with gunfire so she can slice it open and blow it apart with a grenade. Still undeterred by these events, Neu watches the team through a series of monitors and prepares to send more B.O.W.s their way. Still, despite being beset by more infected apes and even Hunters, the team are able to shoot their way to Neu’s control room…only to helplessly watch he fly away to safety on a biplane. Thanks to Mina’s hacking skills, though, the team are able to locate a B.O.W. manufacturing depot that is, of course, hidden beneath a Ziggurat pyramid in Urador and that the local villages were attacked by B.O.W.s as a demonstration for the local fascist dictator, Del Valle. As the entire area has been overrun with zombies and B.O.W.s, Espinoza is unable to spare a helicopter or any backup for Holiday and his team but authorises them to pursue Neu by any means necessary.
While Holiday struggles against Giesel, Mina and the others place explosives while fending off B.O.W.s.
While searching for more intel, Mina discovers that Neu has used T-Virus-based gene therapy to enhance his “metabolic function [and increase his] regenerative capabilities” and that Neu is Fritz Giesel but enhanced and restored to the prime of his life. The team take what they can salvage and head out on an armour-plated truck to rendezvous with a supply drop; along the way, Mina explains that the B.O.W.s have been fitted with an explosive charge to execute them if they ever become a threat to their masters. Loading up with heavy ordinance, the team begin a co-ordinate attack strategy on the pyramid (which is guarded by Hunters and Cerberuses) and manage to sneak in using a combination of sniper rifles and stealth. Inside, the team splits up; Holiday follows Del Valle in a bid to get to Giesel and Mina leads the rest of the team in planting explosive charges throughout the facility, which greatly resembles the hi-tech laboratories and facilitates from Resident Evil 5. Holiday is surprised by Giesel, who sets his Überhund B.O.W.s (basically albino Cerberuses that don’t appear to be much of a threat compared to the Hunters or Tyrants) against his team while he personally deals with Holiday. Absorbing bullets like they were nothing and exhibiting superhuman strength, Giesel easily overwhelms Holiday and has him at his mercy while Mina and the others place the remainder of their charges (ensuring that the finale as the trademark final countdown that accompanies basically all Resident Evil videogames) and fend off the Überhund.
Thanks to his enhancements and mutations, Giesel keeps coming but is finally defeated by Holiday.
Although Holiday is able to incapacitate and then execute Giesel using an “infrasonic weapon” that causes his organs to explode from the inside out, Mina discovers that Giesel planted B.O.W.s all across Übelandia and rigged them to remotely activate if the facility were destroyed. While Holiday guards the door, Mina works to disable the “No Go” signal before the explosives detonate; while the two are injured in the explosion, she is successfully able to cause the implants to detonate rather than activate, stopping the B.O.W.s from being unleashed across the country. However, Giesel suddenly returns, now mutated into a “G”-like Tyrant and attacks Holiday; although he shrugs off their bullets and instantly regenerates from even a shotgun blast to the head, he is finally put down for good when Holiday uses his trusty knife to slice his head off. In the aftermath, while Mina recovers from her concussion, Holiday reveals that the documents they recovered from the facility show that Neu was a clone of Giesel and that the real Giesel is not only alive and well but publically absolved of any involvement in the events of the story. However, it’s not a total loss; Del Valle was summarily executed by the Uradorian military and the entire experience sees Holiday and Mina forge a strong bond, partnership, and friendship.
The Summary: If there’s one area where Resident Evil excels, especially compared to Fire and Ice, it’s in the artwork; the art is much more in line with WildStorm’s first Resident Evil comic book series, with Holiday featuring a bulky build similar to Chris Redfield’s from Resident Evil 5 and Mina (and the other females) being very curvy and sexy but still bad-ass in their demeanour and ability, like Claire Redfield and Jill Valentine. Sadly, zombies and other B.O.W.s don’t benefit from the comic’s otherwise impressive art style as they take a backseat in the narrative. When zombies, Las Plagas, and other B.O.W.s do show up in a mindless hoard to be gunned and knifed down while ripping chunks of flesh from their prey, which is where the art fails to properly do them justice. When the more monstrous B.O.W.s like the Lickers, Hunters, and Tyrants appear, however, they are used sparingly and with dramatic effect but are still reduced to slightly tougher cannon fodder like in WildStorm’s other efforts. I’ve never really understood this; you’d think in a comic released to coincide with the more action-orientated Resident Evil 5 that the B.O.W.s would make more of an impact or be a bit more formidable but it really doesn’t take much for Holiday or Mina to survive a Tyrant’s attack and put them down using heavy weapons or even just their knives and grenades.
Holiday and Mina might be one-note characters but at least they have names and some personality.
The story is also a little weak; it’s great that it focuses on Mina and Holiday but, even with their little backup stories, they’re largely one-note characters given a bit more personality through their frosty relationship but even this is largely put to one side as the two work together to reach the same goal. They are surrounded by numerous other characters, very few of which are named; even those that avoid being eaten or killed and actually play a more pivotal role in the story largely go unnamed and are just there to provide backup or be killed. Again, I find it very odd that these comics always leans towards a squad as the games generally only focus on two or maybe four characters in a survival situation and I think this story might have benefitted more from Mina and Holiday being the lone survivors after their team is wiped out at Giesel’s hands in, say, issue two. Speaking of Giesel, he’s this really elaborate, over the top German, a mad scientist type whose motivations are geared more towards his own self-interests (and amusement) and lust for power and superiority rather than anything else. He’s kind of an amalgamation of Birkin and Albert Wesker but, for all his eccentricities, is a shadow of those more iconic villains; for one thing, he’s dispatched stupidly easily, even in his Tyrant form, and he wastes time gloating and toying wit his prey rather than actually being a significant threat. One thing that is really underdeveloped is that he seems to have a vendetta against Holiday, specifically, but it’s not really shown why; sure, Holiday is actively hunting him and opposing him but so is Mina and the rest of their team but Giesel remains fixated on Holiday alone.
It’s bloody and action-packed but still doesn’t do much with the license and misses the mark at times.
In the end, it was a pretty good story; way better than Fire and Ice and more coherent than the anthology format seen in Resident Evil: The Official Comic Magazine but let down byfocusing a little bit too much on trying to inject some life and personality into these characters rather than some good, old-fashioned gory zombie action. A resident Evil comic seems like it’d be really easy to do; you tell stories of ordinary people trying (and, possibly, failing) to survive against zombies and B.O.W.s or follow iconic characters as they clear out a facility and battle one or two super tough B.O.W.s that require a bit more than a few bullets or one shot to put down, or maybe even follow ordinary Umbrella scientists as they experiment on animals and humans. And, yet, WildStorm’s efforts always seem to miss the mark just a little bit; it’s not quite horror, it’s not quite action, it’s not quite a mystery, it’s not quite a battle for survival, and it does very little to really add to the lore of the Resident Evil mythos. This particular comic actually doesn’t do that bad a job of expanding upon the world seen in Resident Evil 5, which is dramatically different to that seen in the first game, but I think maybe tying into that game with a story involving Chris, Jill, and Wesker and the development of the viral outbreak seen in that game might have been better and more enjoyable.
My Rating:
⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3 out of 5.
Pretty Good
Did you ever read Resident Evil? If so, what did you think to it and how do you feel it holds up compared to WildStorm’s other Resident Evil comics? What did you think to the new characters and villains introduced in this story? Did you like the art work and the use of B.O.W.s or do you think the comic could have emphasised these elements, and others from the videogames, a bit better? What is your favourite piece of Resident Evil media apart from the videogames and do you think a Resident Evil comic book could work in a different format? Whatever you think, feel free to leave a comment below.
To celebrate the release of Dr. No (Young, 1962), the first film in the long-running series of James Bond movies (Various, 1962 to present), October 5th is officially recognised as “Global James Bond Day”. Today, this franchise stands as the longest-running franchise ever and the character is one of the most recognised and popular movie icons of all time.
Released: 17 November 1995 Director: Martin Campbell Distributor: MGM/UA Distribution Co. and United International Pictures Budget: $60 million Stars: Pierce Brosnan, Sean Bean, Izabella Scorupco, Famke Janssen, Alan Cumming, and Judi Dench
The Plot: In the midst of an administrative shake-up at MI6, renowned super spy James Bond/007 (Brosnan) in drawn into a confrontation with a rogue 00 agent who plans to use a satellite weapon known as “GoldenEye” to cause a global financial meltdown.
The Background: James Bond, Agent 007 of MI6, was created by writer Ian Fleming in 1953 and was heavily based upon his time and experiences as a navy intelligence officer. Following a very strange, comedic adaptation of his works, James Bond was popularised by Sean Connery’s immortal and iconic portrayal of the character, which kick-started an unparalleled cinematic franchise. However, in the late-eighties/early-nineties, the franchise had stalled somewhat. Plans for a third picture for then-current Bond Timothy Dalton fell through thanks to legal issues and, by the time production of the seventeenth Bond film was ready to begin, Dalton had resigned from the role since he couldn’t commit to multiple films. Of course, every generation has their James Bond and, as a result, Pierce Brosnan was finally cast in the role and became the Bond for my generation. The character, and the film’s story (the first not adapted or inspired by from an existing Fleming text), was also updated to then-modern times and largely disregarded the previous films long before franchise reboots were really a well-known trope of cinema. With a worldwide gross of over $350 million, GoldenEye was a phenomenal box office success and effectively revitalised what had been a dormant franchise. GoldenEye was also a a critical hit and impressed with its contemporary sensibilities. Of course, while the film is still fondly remembered, it had a lasting impact thanks to the Nintendo 64 videogame adaptation, GoldenEye 007 (Rare, 1997), which is largely regarded as one of the best videogame adaptations, if not one of the greatest videogames, of all time.
The Review: Unlike a lot of Bond movies, GoldenEye’s cold open actually plays into the films larger plot. The movie begins nine years ago with Bond and his partner and friend, Alec Trevelyan/006 (Bean), infiltrating a facility in Russia. This establishes, first and foremost, their unique relationship, which is base don a lot of witty banter and sayings, and Bond’s hatred of Colonel Arkady Grigorovich Ourumov (Gottfried John) after Ourumov executes 006 in cold blood. It’s a thrilling opening sequence, shot in such a way as to slowly acclimatise us to this new Bond (we only see Brosnan’s face after he has infiltrated the facility, building up tension to the reveal of the new actor) and to show that he’s just as bold, witty, and adaptable as ever as he’s able to commandeer a motorcycle and a plane and even pull himself out of what is obviously a deadly free fall.
Bond’s methods and attitude may be seen as antiquated but they’re no less effective.
When we pick up with Bond nine years later, MI6 is in the midst of an administrative shake-up. The new M (Dench) is a woman and is generally perceived by Bond and some of his co-workers (specifically Bill Tanner (Michael Kitchen), M’s chief of staff) to be unfit for the job due to her predication for statistical analysis rather than Bond’s more traditional, proactive methods of action. Their relationship is frosty, at best, and openly explored in a candid discussion between the two in which M confronts Bond over his judgements and isn’t afraid to tell him exactly what she thinks of him. To M, Bond is a “relic of the Cold War” whose methods are out-dated and borderline dangerous in the modern age of espionage. However, by airing their grievances to each other, they develop a mutual respect and admiration in which Bond appreciates M’s candour and M puts her trust in Bond to do what he does best and investigate the GoldenEye satellite. Indeed, Bond’s methods are a significant plot point in the film. H seduces the girl sent to psychologically evaluate him due to his lack of interest in MI6 protocol and his tendency to shoot first, ask questions later, and bulldoze into any situation, wrecking vehicles in the process, is frequently chastised by Natalya Simonova (Scorupco). Indeed, even for KPG figureheads like Valentin Zukovsky (Robbie Coltrane) criticise Bond for continuing to live in the past and work for MI6. Yet, as you might expect, Bond’s unique approach to his work, despite him continually being a “sexist, misogynist dinosaur” gets results and, despite his critics, he is capable of subterfuge and investigatory techniques as well, as seen in his investigation into the Tiger Helicopter and Xenia Onatopp’s (Janssen) links to the Janus Syndicate, all of which are based on his instincts but turn out to be valid lines of enquiry.
While not a typical Bond Girl, Natalya shines through her intelligence and headstrong nature.
During Bond’s investigation of the devastation at Severnaya, he inevitably crosses path with Natalya, a programmer from the Severnaya facility who witnessed Ourumov and Xenia killing all of her co-workers, firing the weapon, and stealing the GoldenEye firing key for the remaining satellite. Unlike a lot of Bond Girls, Natalya is just a regular and, comparatively, unremarkable young woman. She’s basically a civilian, one who is scared out of her wits during the attack and continuously disgusted with the killing. She also questions Bond’s motives and his cold, clinical approach to his work and, as a result, provides a brief glimpse into his more vulnerable, human side. However, while she is somewhat lacking in fortitude and is held hostage a bit too often for my liking, Natalya is an extremely capable and intelligent Bond Girl: she is headstrong, ordering Bond about at various points and forcing him to take her along on his mission. Her technical ability is directly responsible for tracking the location of Janus; and, thanks to her experience with the satellite, she’s able to reprogram and reposition it even despite the snide remarks regarding her ability by her former colleague, the lewd and reprehensible Grishenko (Cumming).
Xenia and Ourumov represent the Janus Syndicate and are sadistic killers.
Of course, Natalya isn’t the only Bond Girl in the film. Xenia is quite a unique femme fatal for Bond; shrewd, alluring, and intelligent, she’s no mere henchwoman and is, instead, a highly sexually charged and dangerous adversary capable of seducing men into bed and crushing their ribs with her powerful thighs. She’s also a sadist who revels in the thrill of killing, literally getting off on it at various points throughout the film, and is more than a match for Bond as an intellectual and physical opponent. The Janus Syndicate is rounded out by Ourumov himself; a traitor to his own country, Ourumov aspires of being the next “iron man of Russia” and is an abrasive, egotistical man. However, while he seems slightly unhinged at the best of times and is a pivotal antagonist in many ways, Ourumov is reduced to little more than a henchman for Janus who uses his military rank and position to acquire the GoldenEye access codes.
Bond’s former friend and partner turns out to be a traitor looking for vengeance for his people.
As for the headman of the Janus Syndicate, the film goes out of its way to paint the arms dealer and terrorist as a mysterious and enigmatic figure who hasn’t been seen and about whom very little is known except for the fact that he’s a “Lienz Cossack”. Of course, it turns out to be Alec Trevelyan, who faked his death but has been left horribly scarred on one side of his face after being caught in the explosion at the facility. After witnessing the cruel treatment of his people and the deaths of his family after the British betrayed them following the Second World War, Alec has been scheming for years to take revenge for this betrayal, beginning with infiltrating MI6 and culminating in a plan to destroy the British economy. Of course, Bond isn’t exactly without a degree of support during his mission. As always, Q (Desmond Llewelyn) is on hand to talk Bond through his new gadgets (nothing massively fancy; a belt that fires a high tension wire and an exploding pen, though Q Branch is full of fun little gags and mishaps in the background) and share some banter with him. Rather than being supported out in the field by long-standing Bond ally Felix Leiter (Various), Brosnan’s Bond is aided by Jack Wade (Joe Don Baker), who is a far more jaded and pragmatic CIA operative, and is able to convince Valentin to lead him to Janus by “[appealing to] his wallet”.
The Nitty-Gritty: If there’s a downside to GoldenEye, especially for long-time James Bond fans, it’s probably the lack of any real car-based shenanigans. Bond never gets to use any of the gadgets and gizmos Q briefs him on in his fancy new BMW and, aside from the opening car chase against Xenia, there’s no real traditional car chases or car-based action. I don’t really mind this, though, to be honest as I’m not really a car guy and my enjoyment of a film isn’t predicate don the presence of a car chase.
Bond’s mission is a lot more grounded than usual but no less global in its scope.
Plus, GoldenEye more than makes up for it was Bond’s exhilarating and highly amusing jaunt through St. Petersburg in a tank! Following a thrilling escape from the archives, Bond is forced to commandeer a Russian T-54/T-55 tank to pursue Ourumov (who has taken Natalya hostage) through the streets of St. Petersberg. It’s very much a “Bond Moment” but, like much of the film, isn’t quite as over the top as some of Roger Moore’s antics (though I’m fairly certain one man can’t drive a tank in the way that Bond does) and culminates in Bond successfully bringing Janus’ armoured train base to a halt with a single shell. In true Bond tradition, GoldenEye’s plot takes Bond all over the world; Bond’s mission takes him to Monte Carlo, Russia, and Cuba, with all three destinations being starkly contrasted to each other (he spends the majority of his time in Monte Carlo in a casino, St. Petersberg is portrayed as a cold (if architecturally beautiful) country still recovering from the Cold War, and Cuba is a lush, luminous jungle). Similarly, GoldenEye is full of practical stunts and effects, from model shots used during the destruction of the Severnaya base and the raising of Janus’s antenna cradle to actual tanks, trains, and other vehicles all being involved in explosive sequences that lend a real credibility and gravitas to Bond’s otherwise extravagant actions. In fact, the only effects scenes that are a bit questionable are Bond’s dive into the plane at the start of the film and the shot of Boris’s flash-frozen form when he meets his fitting end.
Xenia’s aggression, physicality, and thighs of steel make her a formidable opponent for Bond.
Action is paced out wonderfully, though, with plenty of shoot-outs and a fights taking place to spice things up and Bond even escaping from an impossible death trap within a helicopter. While I still don’t get why that random deckhand attacked Bond on the frigate, the towel gag afterwards always makes me laugh, and the many confrontations between Bond and Xenia are a particular highlight. Thanks to his misogynistic nature, Bond has no compunction about fighting a woman, though Xenia’s physicality and aggression is enough to put him on the back foot; in the end, he’s able to bring her to a fitting end by causing her to be crushed to death against a tree.
Janus was probably Bond’s most personal villain yet due to his close relationship with 007.
Though Bond drops a characteristically witty quip regarding this, and many of the other events in the film, GoldenEye is one of the more personal missions for Bond. Taking his name from the two-faced Roman God, and having worked alongside 007 for years, Janus is a cold, calculating, and deeply personal villain for Bond. Thanks to his background as a Lienz Cossack, Janus has a propensity for deception, betrayal, and lies and it’s clear that Bond is deeply affected by Alec’s treachery even as he tries to compartmentalise his feelings on the matter. Alec is, effectively, Bond’s dark reflection and he knows exactly how to hurt him, which buttons to press, and how to counteract his methods, immediately taking his watch, defusing his mines, and fully aware that Bond’s Achilles’ Heel is his affection for women. All of this culminates in a fittingly brutal and visceral final fight between the two as they match each other blow for blow and shot to shot (Alec even taunts Bond with the claim that he (as in Alec) was “always better”) during their climatic chase/fight across the antenna cradle. Ever since he revealed his identity to Bond, Janus continually questions Bond’s unwavering loyalty to the mission and his country rather than his friend and, in the end, Bond emphatically drops his old comrade-in-arms to his death not for England but out of personal vindication for himself.
The Summary: GoldenEye was the first Bond film I ever watched all the way through and that is solely because of my enjoyment of the videogame adaptation. I had been aware of Bond before GoldenEye but never been that interested in the franchise but GoldenEye changed all that with its slick, stylish, and entertaining presentation and story. Brosnan was the Bond of my generation and, even now, I consider him to be one of the best; charming, sophisticated, and extremely witty, his Bond was like an amalgamation of all of his predecessors as he had the same charisma and wit as Moore but could also be gritty and rugged like Connery and Dalton (…he was also a man, like George Lazenby). The subtext of Bond being an antiquated resource whose time has long since passed is interesting and is used to juxtapose Bond’s unique, somewhat blunt approach to his work against more modern, technologically orientated times. Sadly, this plot point didn’t really appear in Brosnan’s subsequent Bond films but it did crop up again in later Daniel Craig movies and is an intriguing inclusion since it shows that, while all the technology and resources of the modern age are useful, nothing beats the good, old-fashioned, hands-on approach. GoldenEye excels through its polished presentation, memorable theme song and score, and some tremendous performances all around; Sean bean makes for an equally charismatic and vicious antagonist, one far more personal than the majority of Bond’s previous villains, who serves as a dark reflection of Bond since he was his friend, partner, and is fully aware of all of MI6’s training and protocols to make him more than a match for 007. Action and stunts are far more subdued this time around, which helps to ground the film and reintroduce Bond as a more serious and realistic character and franchise while still being over-the-top and fun throughout. Endlessly quotable and entertaining from start to finish, GoldenEye remains one of my favourite Bond films (possibly my absolutely favourite) and was a fantastic return to prominence for the character and the franchise.
My Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 5 out of 5.
Fantastic
Are you a fan of GoldenEye? Where does it rank against the other James Bond films for you? What did you think to Pierce Brosnan’s debut and portrayal of the character? Did you like the casting of Judi Dench as M and the subtext regarding Bond’s outdated ways and attitudes? What did you think to Sean Bean’s inclusion as the villain and his inevitable death? Did you ever play the videogame and, if so, how do you think it works as an adaptation of the film? Which Bond actor, film, story, villain, or moment is your favourite? How are you celebrating Global James Bond Day today? Whatever you think about GoldenEye, or James Bond in general, feel free to leave a comment down below.
The Date: 29 March 1998 The Venue: FleetCenter; Boston, Massachusetts The Commentary: Jim “J.R.” Ross and Jerry “The King” Lawler The Referee: Jack Doan The Stakes: Semi-main event, personal rivalry between siblings
The Build-Up: In the entire history of the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), and perhaps all of wrestling, there is, arguably, no greater and more tumultuous story than the history between Kane and the Undertaker. The Deadman had embarked on a reign of terror ever since his debut at the 1990 Survivor Series event, seemingly under the control or influence of a mysterious urn wielded by his revolting manager, Paul Bearer. However, the Undertaker’s relationship with Bearer soured after Bearer turned his back on the Deadman in favour of Mankind. In retribution, the Undertaker used his supernatural powers to blast Bearer in the face with a fireball at In Your House 14: Revenge of the ‘Taker but was tormented by Bearer’s subsequent claims that the Undertaker’s younger brother, Kane, had actually survived the fire that claimed the lives of their parents and was looking for revenge. These claims turned out to be all-too-true when, right as the Undertaker was about to defeat his long-time rival in the first-ever Hell in a Cell match on October 5th, 1997 (the day after my twelfth birthday, which sadly clashes with Global James Bond Day) at Badd Blood: In Your House, the lights went out, ominous organ music played, and a gigantic man garbed in red and black stormed the ring, literally tearing the cell’s door off, ignited the ring posts, and planted the stunned Undertaker with his own finishing manoeuvre, the Tombstone Piledriver as Kane made his shocking debut. Mute, superhumanly strong, and seemingly impervious to pain, Kane immediately embarked on a path of destruction in a bid to goad his brother into a match; the Undertaker, however, constantly refused to fight his brother but was finally pushed too far after Kane and Bearer attacked him at the 1998 Royal Rumble event. The two placed him inside a casket and setting it ablaze, seemingly killing the Undertaker, but the Deadman made another of his trademark dramatic returns and, now, was begrudgingly ready to face his brother, one-on-one, at WrestleMania XIV.
The Match: As you might expect, given the dramatic and destructive conflict between the Undertaker and Kane and the convoluted backstory between the two, the match is preceded by another of the WWF’s fantastic video packages highlighting Bearer’s claims that “Kane is alive!” and Kane’s breath-taking debut at Badd Blood .The emphasis of the hype package is primarily on Bearer’s obsession with using Kane to extract revenge against the Undertaker and the Deadman’s refusal to fight his own flesh and blood; one thing that’s actually very interesting about this feud, even here in its early days, is that both men are kind of portrayed as tweeners. Neither man is really a face or a heel as ‘Taker is clearly being targeted, so the fans are reluctant to boo him even though he inadvertently killed his parents, and Kane was just too bad-ass, too alluring, and too impressive for people to truly boo him. Instead, it seems tensions were palpable for their inevitable conflict and everyone totally bought into the ridiculous story, suspending disbelief to simply enjoy the supernatural elements of their story and watch two massive guys go at each other after weeks and weeks of build-up. Nowhere is this unusual face/dichotomy more evident than during Kane’s entrance, where he famously stalked to the ring surrounded by flames and red lighting and delivered a Tombstone to Pete Rose, who had spent a couple of minutes insulting the crowd, their city, state, and baseball team. This, seemingly, signalled that Kane was actually a babyface despite everything that he had done leading up to this match, but then he switches right back into being more of a heel in his assault of the Undertaker. Like I say, Kane and the Undertaker was basically beyond the usual clichés of “good” and “evil”; they simply were and did whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted to, to whomever they felt like and people cheered regardless because it was always entertaining to see what these two big, beefy, semi-supernatural men would get up to next.
Kane’s power and strength impressed, especially in the early going.
Of course, the Undertaker made a suitable dramatic and ominous entrance; flanked by several torch-carrying druids, the Deadman slowly stalked to the ring following a bolt of lightning and garbed in a gothic, almost vampire-like caped outfit and sporting a temporary black teardrop tattoo on his face. Kane, however, showed no signs of intimidation (or any emotion at all, considering his face was entirely obscured by his iconic mask, but you can feel his boiling, brewing anger thanks to Jacobs’ fantastic body language and subtle gestures) leading to an iconic face-to-face stare down between the two before the Undertaker broke the tension with a big right hand and a furious assault in the ring corner. However, a common theme throughout the match, especially in the early going, is Kane’s indomitable power and ability to answer, and counter, the Undertaker’s offense at every turn; he manhandles the Undertaker on numerous occasions, overpowering him, reversing his attempts to whip Kane into the ropes and the corners, and quickly takes control of the early stages of the match by brutalising the Undertaker with his superior physical power. Kane even showed off his impressive agility by springboarding off the ring ropes to knock the Undertaker to the outside at one point, though the Undertaker was no slouch in this department either as he uncharacteristically hopped up onto Kane’s shoulders form an awkward-looking Facebuster-type move and, later, dove right over the top rope and crashing through the Spanish announce table in what looked like one hell of a crash landing!
After a nasty dive through the announce table, the Undertaker and Kane traded Tombstones!
All throughout the match, Paul Bearer is a constant presence; standing at ringside, he continuously shouts encouragement and directions to Kane and taunts to the Undertaker. As the fight inevitably tumbled to the ringside area, Bearer distracted the referee so that Kane could bring the steel steps crashing down across the Undertaker’s spine. This, and similar assaults, allowed the Undertaker to truly take control of the match as he slowly, methodically, beat the Undertaker into submission, with Bearer getting a few shots in on the Deadman at every opportunity. Kane, however, allowed hubris and his emotion and obsession with hurting the Undertaker potentially keep him from winning the match as he pulled the Undertaker up from a potential three count following a Chokeslam. Kane, however, presses his advantage after ‘Taker crashes through the announce table and was prepared to finish his brother off with his patented Diving Clothesline but was enraged when the Deadman kicked out of the pin and the two ended up trading punches before Kane overpowered the Undertaker and reversed his Tombstone attempt into a Tombstone of his own! ‘Taker, however, kicked out to a surprisingly mild reaction from the crowd (the silence that followed suggests a degree of shock at this event since Tombstone kickouts weren’t as overplayed and highly anticipated as they would become in later years). Undertaker got his second wind following this and, with Kane finally showing signs of fatigue, was able to plant his brother with a Chokeslam and then returned the favour with a Tombstone…only for Kane to kick out!
It took three Tombstones to put Kane away and ‘Taker didn’t look like a winner after the match!
Despite being on the defensive for the majority of the match, J.R. constantly points out that the Deadman is making every effort to cover up from Kane’s punches and suggests that he may be playing a long game and banking on Kane tiring himself out with his furious and relentless assault. While this means that he has to endure what J.R. claims is the most brutal and physically dominating attack than he has ever experienced, this turns out to be the case and the result is a fantastic showcase for Glenn Jacobs’ popular masked character as Kane looks like an instant superstar thanks to all of the offense he gets in and the dominating position he is in throughout the entirety of the match. Nowhere is Kane’s tenacity emphasised more than in the closing minutes of the match; having kicked out of the first Tombstone, Kane continued to sit up, to get to his feet, and to stalk his brother and, despite eating another Tombstone, simply would not stay down until ‘Taker hit a third and final Tombstone to finally put his brother away. However, Kane and Paul Bearer ended up standing tall as Bearer put the boots to ‘Taker after the bell rang and Kane delivered a massive Tombstone Piledriver to his brother onto a steel chair to emphatically send the message that the Undertaker may have won the battle…but the war was far from over!
The Aftermath: The feud between the Undertaker and Kane was far from over following this match; the two would clash again the very next month at Unforgiven: In Your House in the first-ever Inferno Match, which Kane, again, would lose. The two would eventually go their separate ways and even formed a tentative alliance that saw the Undertaker help Kane to defeat Stone Cold Steve Austin for the WWF Championship at the 1998 King of the Ring event and become embroiled in Vince McMahon’s ongoing feud with Austin over the championship throughout the summer. The two continually crossed paths as both reluctant allies and bitter rivals throughout 1998, with Kane slowly turning babyface and Undertaker turning heel in the process thanks to numerous twists and turns in their storied relationship. Such drama would follow both men throughout their subsequent careers as they continually switched allegiances and alternated between being one of the most dominant duos in the entire industry and being two of the bitterest rivals but, no matter what form their appearance or relationship took, you could always be assured of an absolute spectacle whenever Kane and the Undertaker share the ring together.
My Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Great Stuff
What did you think to the contest between Kane and the Undertaker at WrestleMania XIV? How would you rate it compared to their other bouts and which of their feuds, matches, and moments is your favourite? Were you a fan of Kane’s when he debuted and were you hyped for his first match against his brother? Which of the two were you rooting for, given the tumultuous nature of the storyline? How are you celebrating Kane’s debut this year, what are some of your favourite matches and moments from Kane’s long and complex career, and what dream match would you have liked to see him involved in? Whatever your thoughts, drop a comment below and let me know what you think about Kane.
Released: 7 September 2019 Director: Richard Stanley Distributor: RLJE Films Budget: $6 to 12 million Stars: Nicolas Cage, Joely Richardson, Madeleine Arthur, Brendan Meyer, Julian Hilliard, and Elliot Knight
The Plot: Nathan Gardner (Cage) and his family have moved out to his late father’s farm following his wife Theresa’s (Richardson) mastectomy. Their simple life of raising alpacas is interrupted when a strange alien meteorite lands in their garden and a strange, unquantifiable and seemingly intelligent and malevolent living colour begins to infect and infest the local wildlife, the animals, and the Gardner family in increasingly strange and horrific ways.
The Background: Being a big fan of horror, fantasy, and Stephen King’s, it’s perhaps almost inevitable that, at some point in my admittedly-limited scope of reading, I would have heard of the works of H. P. Lovecraft. Born in 1890, Howard Phillips Lovecraft is perhaps one of horror/fantasy fiction’s most surreal and complex writers; known for conjuring nightmarish imagery and madness-inducing concepts and creatures, Lovecraft created an interconnected set of works that delved into the deepest, darkest fears of the human psyche and posited the idea that humanity is a mere speak in the grand scheme of the cosmos. In 1927, Lovecraft penned “The Colour Out of Space”, a story which he hoped would buck the trend for traditional, humanoid depictions of alien life forms. Interestingly, despite the immense mainstream success of his more notable stories, like “The Call of Cthulhu” (Lovecraft, 1926), Lovecraft considered “The Colour Out of Space” to be his favourite work and the story saw a number of adaptations over the years before director Richard Stanley began putting together this modern-day adaptation. Though planned as the first in a trilogy of films based on Lovecraft’s works, the film’s limited release and near-minuscule box office may scarper those plans despite it receiving generally positive reviews.
The Review: If there’s one thing that might put the general audience off of viewing Color Out of Space (beyond the Americanised title), it’s the inclusion of Nicolas Cage in the lead role. Far from the blockbuster action hero he was in the nineties, Cage has somewhat reinvented himself in recent years, taking on more experimental and outlandish roles in productions with a fraction of the budget and release he is known for. Indeed, his reputation in Hollywood has become almost farcical as he brings a manic, unpredictable energy to each role he plays so you’re never really quite sure of what to expect when he shows up in a film.
Cage makes for a surprisingly relatable, ordinary man affected by an extraordinary event.
It’s fitting, then, that Cage is cast in a film based on a Lovecraftian tale; Lovecraft was notorious for conjuring up unspeakable entities that would turn the minds of us insignificant humans to a fine paste so it’s actually surprisingly remarkable foresight on the filmmakers’ part to cast the infamously kooky Cage in the lead role of Nathan Gardener. At the beginning of the film, Gardener is your typical everyman; a doting and devoted husband and father, he’s just trying to eek out a living on his father’s old farm and to return his family to some sort of normalcy after his wife’s battle with cancer. Cage brings a quiet, subdued energy to this portion of the role; you can tell he still deeply loves and cares for his wife and kids and is struggling to keep things together after all they’ve been through but he is. Nevertheless, a relatable and vulnerable character whom you buy as just a regular Dad trying to do what’s best.
Cage can always be relied upon to bring the crazy to any film he is cast in.
Things immediately take a turn into the bizarre and the surreal when the mysterious meteorite crashes into their garden; though Nathan isn’t the first to truly feel the effects of the alien Colour, he is the first to react to it, smelling a pungent stench that no others can before slowly being transformed and twisted by the influence of the titular Colour. Before long, he’s spouting all kinds of weird nonsense, exploding into unpredictable and even violent outbursts, and clearly becoming possessed by this unquantifiable alien influence to the point where he almost becomes a kind of avatar for the Colour and the closest thing the film has to a tangible antagonist.
Theresa is horrifically influenced by the presence of the Colour.
Of course, it’s not just the Nic Cage show; Joely Richardson plays his wife, Theresa, a relatively normal, everyday woman who is just trying to get back on track with her work, family, and sense of self confidence after her battle with cancer. She is, unfortunately, the first of the family to really feel the influence of the Colour, slipping into a zombie-like stupor and accidentally slicing off two of her fingers. As the Colour’s influence grows, her conversations and interactions with Nathan and the kids become increasingly disjointed and erratic but, through it all, her primary concern is for the welfare of her children (which, as I’ll discuss in a bit, turns out to be her downfall).
I really enjoyed, and believed, the chemistry between Benny and Lavinia.
As for the Gardener’s kids, Color Out of Space features some pretty decent casting; Lavinia (Arthur) is the couple’s only daughter, a Wiccan who is just on the cusp of growing old and rebellious enough to resent her family but is still devoted enough to truly care for her younger brother, Jack (Hilliard) and have a pretty believable friendly rivalry with her older brother, Benny (Meyer). Benny is depicted as a bit of an absent-minded stoner and the young muscle of the family as he’s constantly being roped into helping his father with the farm’s course and his outrageous alpacas but, despite annoyance and apathy being etched onto his face, he never once complains or throws a tantrum over this; as with all of the Gardener’s, family unity remains at the heart of these characters, however rocky that ground might have become before the film begins. And then there’s Jack, a cute and naïve sort of kid who has a natural curiosity and a fitting child-like whimsy about him. While his older siblings comment on the Colour’s influence but don’t truly succumb to it (with the eventual exception of Lavinia), Jack is the first one to really acknowledge the Colour’s alien presence, seemingly hearing and seeing it and attempting to communicate with it. Sadly, his affection for the Colour (which he views as a kind of imaginary friend) leads him to nothing but a heartbreakingly gruesome fate thanks the Colour’s apparent malevolence (or, perhaps, naivety).
The Nitty-Gritty: One of the things that often proves so difficult for filmmakers when it comes to adapting the works of Lovecraft is just how obscure and indescribable his many horrific creations are; perhaps, of all of Lovecraft’s monsters, the Colour is the most “unfilmable” since the written word is far better at positing a living, alien Colour that is beyond human comprehension. Film is, obviously, an inherently visual medium so a colour must be shown onscreen and I feel that the filmmaker’s realised the Colour in perhaps the best way they possibly could. Rather than a traditional alien beast, the Colour is just that; a twisted, distorted sentient spectrum of light that is at once beautiful and horrific, blinding and awe-inspiring, resembling a flash of pure light one moment and then a vortex of extraterrestrial intent the next. For the most part, the Colour is realised in an unsettling hue of purple, magenta, and pink surrounded by a clear distortion of physical reality; when it emerges from the Gardener’s well, it almost resembles a tentacled monstrosity but it is wisely never really given a true, quantifiable physical form.
Theresa and Jack suffer a horrific fate due to the Colour’s touch…
Instead, the Colour acts through the things it influences, whether that is water, plants, or animals. It affects and distorts time and space, making moments drag out or flash past in an instant, causing characters to experience aggressive mood swings and events to seemingly happen at random and with no explanation. At first, the Colour’s influence is subtle, induced trance-like states, sending the Gardener’s animals into a frenzy, and making Lavinia sick when she drinks the tainted water but, all too soon, its influence begins to take on a more malicious note. When the Colour directly interacts with other creatures, it distorts and mutates them in gruesome ways; the Gardener’s alpacas end up fused together into a squealing, nightmarish beast like something from the imagination of David Cronenberg or John Carpenter. Described as “just a colour…but it burns”, it’s as tough the Colour were attempting to figure out the life forms it has found itself living with and, since it is unable to recognise them, transforms them and the surrounding area into forms it is more accustomed to. This is directly speculated upon by another of the Colour’s victims, Ezra (Tommy Chong), who is left a hollowed out dusk that decays into fragments of sizzling colour when he is discovered.
Lavinia offers a glimpse of the nightmare hellscape the Colour calls home…
Yet it is Theresa and Jack who arguably suffer the most due to the Colour’s influence; in trying to shield Jack from the Colour, Theresa and her young son become enveloped by its light and the result is a mutilated, agonisingly disgusting amalgamation of the two that, thankfully, is masterfully never lingered on for more than a few seconds at a time. While Nathan affords his beloved alpacas a mercifully swift death, the Colour’s influence drives him mad with distraction, allowing the Jack/Theresa creature to mutate into a ghastly spider-like….thing that attacks Lavinia in a monstrous fury before finally being put out of its misery. In the end, after the Colour has claimed her entire family, Lavinia falls back on her Wiccan ways, drawing solace from her copy of the Necronomicon and attempting to cast a series of spells and prayers to shield herself and her family, this leads to her self-mutilating herself in a vain attempt to ward off the Colour but she too becomes possessed by its influence, affording us a glimpse of the nightmarishly indescribable world that the Colour originated from before it blasts its way back to the space between waking worlds, taking the Gardener’s, their farm, and most of the surrounding area with it and leaving behind a sole survivor, Ward Phillips (Knight), a visiting Hydrologist who tries to help the family and ends up traumatised by the horrific events he bares witness to.
The Summary: I’ve read my way through my fair share of Lovecraft’s tales and, of them, “The Colour Out of Space” was indeed one of the stronger stories. Though Lovecraft’s writing can be, at times, impenetrable and obtuse, “The Colour Out of Space” told a relatively simple tale of a normal, everyday family coming onto contact with a force of nature far beyond that of human comprehension and I have to say that Color Out of Space does a commendable job of not only bringing Lovecraft’s story to life but also expanding upon it with influence form his other works. With stellar, believable performances from top to bottom and some truly incredible special effects work (both on the Colour itself and the monstrosities it creates), Color Out of Space is quite the psychological thrill-ride with plenty of gory and gruesome moments to satiate more impatient audience members. It’s one of those films that truly leaves you questioning what is beyond our world, offering little in the way of explanations for the events that unfold, and dropping normal, everyday, relatable characters into an extraordinary and terrifying situation that has a suitably bleak and thought-provoking conclusion.
My Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Great Stuff
What did you think to Color Out of Space? Did you appreciate the film’s subtle, nuance, mounting dread and atmosphere or was it, perhaps, too surreal and slow for you? Have you read the original short story, or any Lovecraft for that matter? What did you think to how the film realised the Colour and do you think it could have been done better or differently? Which Lovecraft story is your favourite and why? What other Lovecraft works would you like to see get a big-screen adaptation? Whatever your thoughts, feel free to leave a comment below.
Released: 22 October 1982 Director: Ted Kotcheff Distributor: Orion Pictures Budget: $15 million Stars: Sylvester Stallone, Brian Dennehy, Jack Starrett, Bill McKinney, and Richard Crenna
The Plot: After returning to the United States from the Vietnam War, former United States Army Special Forces soldier John J. Rambo (Stallone) faces not adulation, admiration, or a hero’s welcome but, rather, persecution and abuse at the hands of small-town sheriff William Teasle (Dennehy). Driven into the woods and suffering from post-traumatic stress and nightmarish memories of his time as a prisoner of war, Rambo wages a one-man war against his tormentors using only his unparalleled survival skills and finely-tune guerrilla tactics.
The Background: First Blood is an adaptation of a novel by the same name, which was written by David Morrell and published in 1972. Influenced by Rogue Male(Household, 1939) and horrific stories of the Vietnam War told by his students, Morrell’s book was well-received upon release but the subsequent movie adaptation languished in development hell for ten years. Production began in earnest when Sylvester Stallone signed on to the project; Stallone, who was a proven box office commodity after the success of the first three Rocky films (Various, 1976 to 1982) also wrote around seven different versions of the film’s script but, while an ending was filmed that reflected the bleak conclusion of the novel and Rambo’s death, it was ultimately cut at the agreement of Stallone and Kotcheff. Interestingly, upon release, First Blood was met with mixed reviews, although the actors’ performances were highly praised (with Stallone’s being notably well-received). Regardless, First Blood more than made up for this with its frankly staggering $125.2 million box office and contemporary reviews not only regard the film much more favourably but First Blood is widely regarded as one of the best films of 1982 and one of the most enduring and influential movies of its genre.
The Review: When we’re first introduced to Rambo, he’s little more than a vagrant wandering across the country in a bid to reunite with an old war buddy. Literally carrying his entire life over his shoulder, he’s a simple man just trying to reconnect with a world that has largely passed him by. Sadly, however, his attempts are largely in vain; his friend, Delmar Barry, has died after exposure to Agent Orange and it’s clear that Rambo is basically a stranger in his own country.
Teasle immediately takes a dislike to Rambo based on his rugged appearance alone.
However, this is made undeniably explicit when Rambo crosses paths with Sheriff Teasle, who immediately pegs him as a troublemaking drifter on sight alone. Teasle’s judgement of Rambo boils down to little more than his own personal bias and animosity, no matter how hard he tries to justify himself. I’m sure the ironically-named town of Hope is a nice, quiet little town and that Teasle is proud of the tight ship he runs but his persecution of Rambo is completely unfounded and unnecessarily aggressive. Of course, things only escalate after Rambo is arrested on paper thin charges of vagrancy and carrying a concealed weapon; while being processed, Rambo runs afoul of Teasle’s equally-despicable Deputy Sergeant Arthur Galt (Starrett) and suffers nightmarish flashbacks to his time as a prisoner of war. And, honestly, who can blame him after the disgraceful treatment he receives at Galt’s hands; Galt wallops Rambo with his nightstick, orders him to be hosed down and holds him in an unorthodox choke with that same nightstick but he goes too far when he attempts to have Rambo shaved with a straight razor.
Rambo carries both the physical and mental scars of his time as a P.O.W.
Triggered into a maniacal rage, Rambo easily takes out Teasle’s men with his bare hands and flees into the nearby woods. Earlier, Galt had described Rambo as a wild animal and his initial outburst and escape through town certainly support that; Rambo is an animalistic force of brute strength and unbridled rage, all brought on by flashbacks to his torture. Covered in scars and clearly still haunted by his experiences in Vietnam, Rambo is a force to be reckoned with and the police department vastly underestimate his capabilities. This comes to a head in their ensuing attempts to hunt him down; Teasle spares no expense in tracking Rambo down, pursuing him deep into the woods (and destroying his patrol car in the process), bringing in the dogs, calling in the helicopter for air support, and even drafting in the National Guard for support (who come packing a rocket launcher, no less!) It’s a monumental effort just to capture one man who, so far, is guilty of very little other than walking into town and being forced to relive the worst experiences of his life. Teasle’s obsession completely blinds him to Rambo’s obvious threat even after he is told of Rambo’s unmatched capabilities by Colonel Sam Trautman (Crenna) and directly leads to the accidental death of Galt after he takes this obsession to another level and ends up falling to his death as a result.
Rambo incapacitates his oppressors and pursuers through strictly non-lethal means.
This is, of course, a significant element of First Blood that separates it from the subsequent sequels. Rambo isn’t some ruthless killing machine here; instead, he’s a tortured, desperate man pushed to the edge by ignorant and abusive bigots but, despite his unbridled rage and brute savagery, Rambo doesn’t directly kill anyone in his debut film. Indeed, Rambo goes to great lengths to ensure that his pursuers are incapacitated non-lethally, setting elaborate traps and falling back on his extensive and peerless survival training. The result is actually far more impressive as it emphasises Rambo’s skill, ability, and restraint and he’s clearly deeply affected by Galt’s death. He just wanted to be left alone and would have harmlessly passed through town without incident but, when backed against the wall, easily disables Teasle’s men, and gives him every opportunity to “let it go” but is just pushed further and further until he has no other option than to wage a one-man war against the entire town…all with non-lethal force.
The Nitty-Gritty: First Blood is a deeply moving and bleak representation of the animosity and persecution many Vietnam veterans, and other war heroes, faced back then (and, I’m sure, even now); Rambo did absolutely nothing wrong but was set off by Teasle’s victimisation and Galt’s antagonism. Indeed, the only one of Teasle’s men to actually speak out against their treatment and vendetta against Rambo is the young deputy Mitch Rogers (David Caruso), the one voice of reason in Teasle’s department who begrudgingly follows his orders despite realising the very real threat Rambo poses.
Teasle is unimpressed with Trautman’s warnings of Rambo’s incredible skills.
Of course, Rambo’s history and true danger are related to an unimpressed Teasle by Trautman; Trautman, who takes full responsibility for Rambo’s training, regards Rambo as the literal best of the best, a man trained to survive in the wild with very little resources and who actually thrives under such circumstances. He urges, practically pleads with, Teasle to simply let Rambo slip away, fully confidant that he’ll surrender willingly if allowed to pass on (which is seen to be true when Rambo tries, and fails, to surrender following Galt’s death) but Teasle adamantly refuses to believe that one man can outwit his entire show of force even after everything he’s already seen. Sadly, Trautman’s attempts to quell Rambo’s anger also fall on deaf ears as, by the time he is able to contact him, Rambo has fully committed himself to the fight against Teasle and is basically reliving the war out in the woods.
Rambo’s unique survival skills make him a formidable warrior out in the wilds.
Teasle’s obsessive vendetta against Rambo is only fuelled after Gart’s death and he absolutely refuses to be dissuaded from his crusade no matter how many horror stories Trautman tells him. While Teasle’s humanity is practically non-existent, he does exhibit a bit more than just bigotry and hatred after it appears that Rambo has died; feeling cheated out of his victory, he nonetheless attempts to apologise for his abrasive actions to Trautman. However, it turns out that Trautman’s warnings were all based on irrefutable fact and we clearly see how adaptable and skilled Rambo is; he quickly retrieves his knife, acquires a police radio and other weapons from Teasle’s men, and is able to fashion all kinds of traps using just the woods alone never mind when he commandeers and army supply truck and rolls into town for the explosive finale.
In the end, Rambo breaks down in tears at the torture and abuse he has suffered and surrenders.
In the end, Rambo’s downfall comes not from Teasle or the hundreds of guns pointing his way but from his own traumatic experiences; while his time in Vietnam affords him unprecedented survival skills and allows him to live off the land and overcome superior forces with little more than his wits, it also scarred him both literally and figuratively. Everything he experiences in Hope is a reminder of his time in the war: the straight razor reminds him of his torture, he’s basically reliving his time in the jungles of Vietnam out in the woods, and he is basically attacking an enemy encampment when he storms the town in the end. With Teasle at his mercy, Rambo finally breaks down in despair at the loss of his entire team and the horrors he witnessed in Vietnam; the only one who understands him is Trautman, who validates Rambo’s heart-breaking monologue about the trauma and disrespect he has experienced both in and outside of the Untied States and the film concludes with Teasle injured, but alive, and Rambo surrendering himself to his old mentor and overwhelmed by the atrocities he has had to commit and suffer through.
The Summary: First Blood is an intense and moving experience; essentially a glorified manhunt for the majority of its runtime, it tells the story of a highly trained and skilled soldier pushed to the edge by abusive and cruel cops and forced to both relive, and live with, the horrors and atrocities he faced in combat. Hounded at every turn and judged for his appearance as much as his status as a former soldier, Rambo receives only persecution and abuse rather than admiration or respect and, in the end, his tormentors pay for their mistreatment not with their lives but with their pride. Despite the insurmountable odds against him, Rambo succeeds through sheer grit and determination and is the original one-man army and yet, despite all of this, all he wanted was a little respect and to be left alone. Indeed, so tormented by his experiences is Rambo, and so tired of conflict and killing, that he refuses to kill any of his tormentors even when he has every chance (and right) to do so, making First Blood a haunting action/thriller. A thinking man’s action film, First Blood is a stark reminder of the horrors of war and the foul treatment they received back in the day, as though it was their fault that they were forced to fight and kill for their country; it’s very different to the bombastic and over the top, action-packed sequels that followed it and so might not be for everyone but it remains a sobering and impact film in its own right.
My Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Great Stuff
Are you a fan of First Blood? Did you watch it back when it was first released and, if so, how did you find it in the context of the time? How do you feel it holds up today, especially compared to the sequels, and were you disappointed that the sequels veered more towards action and death than introspective commentary on the horrors of war? What did you think to Rambo’s survival skills and Teasle’s baseless persecution and obsession with him? Do you think the film should have ended in the same way as the book and with the cut scene of Rambo dying? Which of the Rambo films is your favourite? Whatever you think, comment below and let me know and check out my review of the sequel.
To celebrate the simultaneous worldwide release of Mortal Kombat (Midway, 1992) on home consoles, 13 September 1993 was dubbed “Mortal Monday”. Mortal Kombat’s move to home consoles impacted not only the ongoing “Console War” between SEGA and Nintendo but also videogames forever thanks to its controversial violence. Fittingly, to commemorate this game-changing event, I’ve been dedicating every Monday of September to celebrating the Mortal Kombat franchise.
Released: 17 November 2020 Originally Released: 23 April 2019 Developer: NetherRealm Studios Also Available For: Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Stadia, Xbox Series X
The Background: Mortal Kombat was a phenomenal success for Midway; thanks to its controversial violence and unique digitised graphics, the game stood out from the likes of Street Fighter II: The World Warrior(Capcom, 1991). While the franchise went from strength to strength during the 2D era of gaming, Mortal Kombat struggled to really stand out amidst a slew of revolutionary 3D fighters and, following the lacklustre release of Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe(Midway Games, 2008), the series looked to be in serious trouble after Midway went bankrupt in 2010. Thankfully, Warner Bros. Interactive stepped in and the Mortal Kombat team was rebranded as NetherRealm Studios. Their first order of business was to get their violent franchise back on track, which they did with Mortal Kombat (NetherRealm Studios, 2009), a particularly well-received reboot of the surprisingly convoluted lore. This gritty, violent reboot again stirred controversy but sales of the game alone were enough to cover the costs of Midway’s acquisition and work on a follow-up soon began.
After the disappointing Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, Mortal Kombat made an impressive comeback.
Mortal Kombat X (ibid, 2015) instantly impressed and out-did its predecessor in every way, being both the most violent entry and having the biggest launch in the franchise’s long history at the time. Mortal Kombat X also scored very well and the success of the game earned it not just a host of additional downloadable content (DLC) but also an expanded version, Mortal Kombat XL, in 2016. Keen to capitalise on the good will they had earned back with these releases, NetherRealm announced the development of Mortal Kombat 11 at the Games Awards 2018, a game that saw the triumphant return of actor Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa to the role of Shang Tsung and sold over eight million copies by October 2020. Like its predecessors, Mortal Kombat 11 received an expanded addition that included all of its DLC fighters and even additional story mode content and was met with favourable reviews, though some criticised the randomisation of the game’s unlockables and the overreliance on grinding, mechanics that, for me, affected the appeal of Injustice 2 (ibid, 2017).
The Plot: After the defeat of Shinnok at the conclusion of Mortal Kombat X, Raiden has become corrupted by the Elder God’s amulet and, angered at the Thunder God’s repeatedly meddling in the fabric of space and time, the keeper of time (and Shinnok’s mother), Kronika, plots to rewrite history to erase Raiden from existence. With past versions of classic Mortal Kombat characters showing up all over the place, and Earthrealm’s most dangerous and long-dead enemies forging an alliance to usher in Kronika’s “New Era”, Earthrealm’s Special Forces and allies face a battle against time itself to keep the realms from being torn asunder.
Gameplay: As you might expect by now, Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate is a 2.5D fighting game in which players can pick from one of thirty-seven characters and battle through the game’s single-player story mode, fight one-on-one against another player or computer-controlled opponent, battle their way though a variety of arcade-style towers, or challenge other players to a variety on online battles. Battles take place in a best-of-three format and against a time limit, though you can alter these settings (and many others, including the difficulty of computer-controlled opponents) from the game’s comprehensive menu to speed up gameplay or make it more accessible.
One of the things I love about Mortal Kombat is that gameplay and combos are generally easy to pick up.
As in the other 3D Mortal Kombat fighters, fights in Mortal Kombat 11 are extremely accessible and easy to master. You can attack your opponent with punches with either X or Y, kicks with A or B, block with RT, throw (again, this is more like a grapple) with LB or X and Y and a directional input, and interact with the game’s environments when indicated with RB. You can also dash towards and away from your opponent, jump in or crouch down to attack or avoid projectiles, and string together combos by pressing the attack buttons and using directional inputs quickly. The game features a comprehensive tutorial mode that teaches you all of the basics and intricacies of the game’s combat, which gets deeper and more complex depending on your skill level and who you play as but is still extremely easy for even novice players to pick up and pull off a few simple combos.
In addition to trademark special moves, characters can also pull off gruesome Fatal Blows.
Each character also boasts a number of special moves, also pulled off by a few simple button and directional inputs (back, forward, X, for example, or forward, down, B); these can be stringed together with combos and augmented with a well-timed press of RB (this will, however, drain a meter at the bottom of the screen but this will quickly refill in time). Unlike in the last two games, though, you can no longer build your meter towards a gruesome X-Ray move; instead, when your health is sufficiently depleted, you’ll have the option of pulling off a “Fatal Blow” once per fight (not per round) to mash your opponent into mush. While these are suitably impressive, violent, and gory, I have to say that I miss being able to build up to and pull off a momentum-changing special move whenever I want rather than when I’m near death. While special moves are pretty easy to perform, you can review them at any time from the pause menu and even “tag” team so they appear onscreen for easy reference, but I would have liked the option to pick and choose which ones are displayed for quick reference.
Fatalities are more visceral and gory than ever and see you dismembering and eviscerating your opponent.
As horrific as the Fatal Blows can be, though, the real star of the show is, once again, the game’s Fatalities, the trademark of the franchise. At the end of the deciding round (usually round two), you’ll be told to “Finish Him!!” (or her…) and given a short period of time to stand in a specific spot and enter another button combination to tear your opponent to pieces, usually resulting in their guts, brains, and eyes bursting from their body or them being shredded and blown apart. Every character has three Fatalities available to them: one that is readily available, one that is locked and must be unlocked in the Krypt (or looked up online…), and one that is assigned to pulling off special Fatalities in certain stages (“Stage Fatalities”, like the classic uppercut into an acid pit) and you can also find (or purchase) “Easy Fatality Tokens” to pull them off more easily and practice them in the Fatality Tutorial.
There’s more than one way to finish your opponent, including a couple of non-lethal options.
Fatalities aren’t the only way to finish your opponent, though; by following a specific set of instructions during a fight (such as not blocking or hitting a certain number of moves and ending the decisive round with a specific attack), you can once again end your foe with a “Brutality” (although, as Factions are no longer included, Faction Kills are also not present this time). You can also pull off a non-lethal “Friendship” if you don’t wish to eviscerate your opponent and even replenish a small portion of their health by showing “Mercy” to allow the fight to continue a little longer. There are benefits to finishing off your opponent, though, as this will award you Hearts, one of four different forms of in-game currency, additional Koins (the primary form on in-game currency), and contribute to your player level and allow you to unlock additional bonuses.
Once again, it’s going to take a lot of grinding to earn enough to unlock everything in the game.
One of the biggest complaints I had about Injustice 2 was the sheer abundance of different in-game currencies and the unfortunate emphasis on grinding for levels and unlockables and the randomness of the game’s loot crates. Sadly, Mortal Kombat 11 carries a lot of this forward; there are numerous customisation options available to you, from backgrounds and icons for your gamer card to individual gear and skins for each character but pretty much all of them are locked behind the game’s time-consuming grinding system. You earn Koins, Soul Fragments, Hearts, and Time Crystals by playing every single one of the game’s modes; while each of these can be spent in the Krypt to unlock chests and release souls (which will net you additional currency, skins, gear, augments, and Konsumables), Time Crystals can be spent in the in-game shop but, as items in the shop at so expensive, you’re encouraged to spend real world money to unlock additional stuff.
Battle through Klassic and online towers to earn rewards, see character endings, and unlock gear.
Unfortunately, while each character has a whole load of gear and skins and customisation options available to them, these are locked behind grinding; you can find many of these in the Krypt but others are unlocked by playing story mode, completing the character tutorials, or besting the game’s many towers. As in the classic 2D games, you can once again pick between three different towers (Novice, Warrior, and Champion); which tower you pick determines the amount of fighters you’ll face and the degree of the rewards you’ll earn from completion. You can also take on the Endless tower to face and endless number of opponents until you quit or are defeated and the Survival tower in which the damage you receive from each fight carries over to the next. Similar to Mortal Kombat X and Injustice 2, you can also challenge a number of different online towers, the “Towers of Time”; these provide you with a variety of challenges but are only available for a set amount of time before they’re replaced with a fresh challenge. However, you even access this mode you first need to clear a number of tutorials first, which seemed a bit redundant, and you will need to pay and also perform certain tasks (such as a certain amount of attacks or specials) to complete each character’s specific tower and unlock more gear and skins for them.
Timelines collide in the story mode, which occassionally asks you to pick between two fighters.
A big part of the game is its story mode; once again, the story is broken down into twelve chapters, with each chapter assigned to at least one character but, every now and then, you’ll be given the option of picking between two characters. It doesn’t really matter which character you pick, though, as you don’t even need to tick off all of these options to 100% the story mode and it hardly affects the narrative at all. Despite the fact that you can’t finish off and kill your opponents, the story mode is a great way to earn Koins and gear and get to grips with each character; the story sees characters from the past return to life as Kronika attempts to rewrite history, which effectively undoes a lot of the development done to the series in Mortal Kombat X but it’s a good excuse to have classic characters return to the series. You can set the difficulty setting for the story mode whenever you like but there are no Achievements tied to beating it or any of the other mode son higher difficulties but you do generally earn better rewards for taking on more difficult challenges.
Graphics and Sound: Mortal Kombat 11 looks fantastic; character faces still look a bit shiny and odd at times (particularly the females) but there’s even less distinction between the in-game graphics and the many cutscenes you’ll see as you play through the story. Every character is full of life and little quirks, such as Liu Kang constantly hopping from foot to foot in true Bruce Lee style, Kano nonchalantly spitting on the floor, and Skarlet cutting herself open. If the winning fighter is too close to their fallen foe when a round ends, they’ll back away with their own unique animation and voice clips and taunts can be heard throughout each fight as you pull of special moves, combos, and gain victories. Unfortunately, as always, the developers continue to render the character’s different endings using a motion comic aesthetic and voice over rather than utilise the full motion CGI cutscenes used to great effect in the game’s story, which continues to be a disappoint for me and I’ve never really understood this choice.
While environmental interactions seem limited, they’re still a great way to deal some damage.
Where Mortal Kombat 11 fails a little bit is in the stages; stages are a big part of any fighting game but especially Mortal Kombat and NetherRealm Studios’ recent efforts since they introduced the concept of interacting with various parts of the environment. This returns again, allowing you to skewer opponents with spears, throw bodies at them, wall run out of harms way, or toss or wield a variety of weapons (such as a chainsaw and a sledgehammer) to deal additional damage. These will often finally utilise the gruesome x-ray feature that was a big part of the last two games (which can also be triggered with certain special moves and augmented specials) but it feels as though there are a lot less opportunities to interact with the background and pull off Stage Fatalities than normal, making environments look and feel very alive but being disappointingly light on interactive elements despite all of the cameos and interesting elements at work in the background.
The game goes to great lengths to recreate iconic environments and locations from the first two games.
One thing I did like, though, was the return of some classic stages from past Mortal Kombat games, such as the courtyard and the dead pool; the best stage for this is, easily, the Retrocade stage, which randomly generates pixel-perfect recreations of classic Mortal Kombat stages complete with music. The game also goes above and beyond to recreate Shang Tsung’s island in immaculate detail in the Krypt; not only does it feature every stage from the first Mortal Kombat but it also recreates scenes and locations from the brilliant Mortal Kombat (Anderson, 1995) and cameos and references to numerous Mortal Kombat characters, which makes it a fantastic area to explore that is sadly let down by how confusing the Krypt’s map system is. Not only that but Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa lends his voice and likeness to Tsung once again, adding his unmatched gravitas to the character, and you can even buy a skin pack that adds skins for Sonya Blade, Johnny Blaze, and Raiden that adds three more likenesses and voices from the film.
As gruesome and visceral as the Fatalities are, the Fatal Blows are gloriously rendered in macabre detail.
While the game does excel in its many cutscenes and does a great job of telling its story with just the right level of cheese and seriousness, the main draw of the game is in its violence and gore and Mortal Kombat 11 certainly delivers in that respect. Skin is literally peeled from the bones, eyeballs fly in geysers of blood, bodies are dismembered, split into pieces, dissolved, and shredded, and limbs are torn apart in a variety of ghastly ways and it’s always a joy to see the horrifying ways characters are going to mutilate their opponents. The Fatal Blows are sometimes just as good, if not better, as any of the game’s Fatalities, with characters being stabbed, shot, and blasted in ways that would surely kill them only for the characters to hop right back up afterwards. While character’s clothes and accessories don’t rip or tear during the fights, they do seem to get stained by blood at times and skin can be seen baring wounds and scars from battle.
Enemies and Bosses: As a fighting game, every single character in Mortal Kombat 11 is your enemy and you’ll be forced to do battle with all of them at least once, at some point, as you play through the story mode and arcade towers. Because every character controls and fights a little differently, with some focusing on ranged attacks or brawling while others emphasis slow but hard-hitting attacks, it’s best to sample each for yourself and to get an idea of your favourite character’s different abilities and variations in order to achieve success. Also crucial is mastering a handful of the game’s combos; many are as simple as X, X, Y or X, Y, X but others require directional inputs, longer button presses, and the co-ordinated stringing together of frame-perfect attacks and special moves. Luckily, though, every character usually has one or two simple combos for you to master so it’s simple enough for players of any skill level to pick up and play.
Your attack strategy may have to change depending on who you are fighting or playing as.
Some characters, though, play a little differently to others and this affects not only how you play but also how you fight them. Shang Tsung, for example, can not only steal the soul of his opponent, which not only drains their health but also has him assume their form and moveset for a short period, but can also morph into various masked ninjas from the franchise; Shao Kahn primarily attacks with his massive hammer, which can make his attacks slower; Jax Briggs can charge up his metal arms with punches and other attacks, which allows him to pull off his projectile attacks; and Erron Black can whip out a shotgun, which allows him to fire at and melee attack his opponent but also needs reloading and to be manually put away. Other opponents can be a lot cheaper than others; Noob Saibot, for example, is always a bit of a pain because of his vast array of teleporting attacks and the same applies to Mileena, who’s capable of quickly teleporting about the place and launching sais at you. There are also some returning favourites you’ll have to watch out for, such as Sub-Zero’s ice ball, Scorpion’s kunai spear, and Liu Kang’s lightning quick kicks and fireballs but the new characters have their own tricks to watch out for, too. Geras, for example, loves to spam his little sand pit trap and Certrion will spawn elemental hazards out of thin air to trap and hurt you.
Cyrax and Sektor can only be fought in the story and you’ll face tough boss battles in the Towers.
When playing through the game’s story mode, you’ll also have to fight a couple of familiar faces in the form of Cyrax and Sektor. These cybernetic ninjas sadly don’t make the cut this time around so they essentially fill the role of mini bosses, in a way, despite appearing quite early on in the story mode. In addition, there will also be time sin the story (and in certain towers) where you have to face two opponents in a handicap match very similar to the “Endurance” matches from the first game, which see your opponents automatically tag into battle once their comrade has fallen while you’re forced to continue with whatever health you have left. When taking on the Towers of Time, you’ll get to battle against a character that has been augmented to “boss” status; this means that you can’t use Konsumables and that your opponent will be super tough, requiring multiple players to take on the challenge while its active to help bring them down and earn rewards.
After Kronika is defeated you must choose between facing Fire God Liu Kang or Shang Tsung.
When you play the story mode or battle through one of the other towers, your final opponent will be Kronika, an unplayable boss character who presents a unique challenge compared to the likes of Shinnok and Shao Kahn. The battle against Kronika takes place in one round but is split between three fights against her and three different locations and time periods, with each phase seeing you having to battle a randomly generated opponent. Unlike other characters, Kronika cannot be thrown, staggered, or hit with a Fatal Blow; when you try any of these attacks and certain combos, she’ll take damage but you won’t see the usual animations play out, which can leave you open to one of her devastating attacks. Kronika likes to teleport around the arena and summon energy balls and projectiles but her most lethal attack is a time warp that renders you helpless and drains a massive chunk of your health bar, which basically means that it’s best to reach her final phase with as much health as possible or else you have to replay the entire fight from the beginning. At the conclusion of the Aftermath story mode, you have the choice of facing either Shang Tsung (who has usurped Kronika’s powers) or “Fire God” Liu Kang (a merged form of Liu Kang and Raiden) as your final opponent. Unlike Kronika, though, these are standard battles and subject to all the normal gameplay mechanics, meaning you’re free to hit your Fatal Blows and augmented special moves and combos without fear of being left vulnerable. Indeed, as long as you’re proficient enough with a few combos and special moves, these fights should be noticeably easier than the one against Kronika though be wary as Shang Tsung and Liu Kang are also much more versatile in their attacks than Kronika, who favours bursts of temporal energy over combo strings.
Power-Ups and Bonuses: Like in Injustice 2, each character has a number of gear that can be equipped but, thankfully, unlike in that game, these do not affect the character’s stats or abilities and are merely cosmetic. As you battle with your character, their gear will level up and unlock up to three augment slots and you can then equip augments to their gear to increase their special attacks, defence, and other attributes to make them more efficient. Similar to Mortal Kombat X, each character has a number of variations available to them but, this time, it’s up to you to equip and assign these variations to each character; these are limited to three slots, which allow you to assign different special moves and abilities to each character to differentiate them (you can have Scorpion, for example, focus on flame or kunai attacks, or mix and match them). You can also assign different intros and outros for each variation (once you unlock these) and tweak their artificial intelligence (A.I.) stats to make them more focused on reversals or brawling, for example, or a more balanced fighter when taking part in A.I. Battles.
Equip Konsumables and augments to give you buffs and power-ups and make Towers a little easier.
To help you clear these modes, you can choose to have the computer battle through each tower on your behalf and also use up to four Konsumables to tip the odds in your favour. These allow you to flick the right analogue stick and call upon assistance from other characters or effects (such as a brief acid rain, missiles, or similar projectiles) and/or earn additional rewards from battle or performing finishers. Other times, especially in the Towers of Time, your opponents will have access to similar Konsumables and augments, which essentially recreates the Test Your Luck feature from Mortal Kombat (2009), and you’ll again have the option of teaming up with others to take on super tough boss battles.Each time you take on a tower, you’ll be asked to take on a number of “Dragon Challenges”; these appear at the bottom of the screen and ask you to do such tasks as switching stance, ducking, jumping, or performing (or not performing) a certain number of actions throughout the fight and the more you complete, the more additional Koins you can earn so I recommend drawing the fight out so that you can pull off as many as possible.
Additional Features: There are fifty-eight Achievements on offer in Mortal Kombat 11 and, unlike most games, most of these are tied to repetitive actions rather than playing though the story mode. You’ll earn an Achievement for pulling off a certain number of Fatalities and Brutalities, one for performing two Fatalities with every character who isn’t a DLC fighter (which is a good way to test out each fighter), using a certain number of Konsumables, and opening a certain number of chests in the Krypt, for example. You’ll also earn Achievements for clearing the Klassic Tower with first one and then ten characters (why not all of them is beyond me), running five miles in the Krypt, and for taking part in A.I. and online battles and clearing half of (and all) of the main story mode.
All of the DLC is included as standard but, sadly, there are no additional Achievements tied to these.
Sadly, however, the Achievements do not extend to any of the DLC fighters or story content; there are no Achievements to be earned from clearing Aftermath or specifically tied to any of the DLC fighters, which is a real shame when you’ve got RoboCop and the Terminator in your game and when you consider that Mortal Kombat XL had sixty Achievements to earn, with an extra thirteen added with its DLC fighters. On the one hand, this does mean that it’s a lot easier to get Achievements in Mortal Kombat 11 since there are far less devoted to online play but, on the other, I was disappointed that the Achievements didn’t encourage more replayability and variety; instead, it’s all repetitive actions and nonstop grinding and I’d be pretty pissed off to have paid £40-odd for the Aftermath DLC and all those fighter packs only to find that they don’t come with any extra Achievements.
Some familiar faces and movie icons feature as guest fighters…and also the Joker, who I could live without.
Speaking of which, Aftermath and all of the DLC fighter packs and skins are included in Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate (…except for those released after the game) but you should be aware that your previous save data from the base Mortal Kombat 11 is not compatible with Ultimate. This means that you can play Aftermath right away, if you want, and thus complete the actual story since the main story just kind of ends unresolved. The additional fighters include the likes of Spawn, RoboCop, the Terminator, and even John Rambo (with Keith David, Peter Weller, and Sylvester Stallone all lending their voice talents (and likeness, in Rambo’s case) to the game. You can also play as returning characters such as Sindel, Fujin, and one of my favourites, Rain though I question the inclusion of the Joker as I really think Pennywise the Dancing Clown would have fit a lot better. There are also a number of cheeky DC Comics skins and gear to equip that turn Cassie Cage into Harley Quinn, Geras into Darkseid, Kitana into Catwoman, and Baraka into Killer Croc and you can even dress Jacqui Briggs up in Spawn’s costume.
The Krypt is full of Easter Eggs and references to both the 1995 movie and the franchise’s long histor.y
Aside from fighting, much your time is also spent exploring the Krypt and spending all of your hard-earned currency on skins, gear, augments, and the like. The Krypt is the biggest it has ever been, encompassing the entirety of Shang Tsung’s island and is full of treasure chests, death traps, and references to the videogames and movies. Unfortunately, though, as great as the Krypt is for Easter Eggs and such, it’s a bitch to navigate; you can create shortcuts by smashing through walls and pulling levers and such but the map is dreadful and it can be extremely difficult to get to where you need to be as it relies on an awkward coordinate system. It’s also ridiculously expensive to open the chests, which can lead to you spending over 10,000 Koins just for some useless icons and concept art and it’ll cost you 100 Soul Fragments and 250 Hearts every time you want to open one of those chests. There’s a lot to see and do, though, with new areas to stumble across and fun little Easter Eggs to find but, again, no Achievements really tied to this; when I find the statue of Reptile’s reptilian form from the movie or examine Drahmin’s mask or find Goro’s corpse, I’d expect at least a fun little 5G Achievement but…nope.
The Summary: I knew that we would eventually be getting Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate and specifically held off from purchasing the base game or Aftermath while waiting for this release, which bundles 99% of the game’s content all onto one disc (well…technically it’s two…) for you to play at your leisure (after the lengthy download and installation process, of course). In many ways, I wasn’t disappointed; Mortal Kombat has never looked better, with blood and guts and gore being rendered in exquisitely visceral detail and the recreation of Shang Tsung’s island for the Krypt is stunning, full of little details and references that really reward my many years of fandom. Equally, the story mode and fights are brought to life fantastically and the scaled back approach to gear and customisation is appreciated since it means I don’t have to worry about my character being underpowered if they look how I want.
Mortal Kombat has arguably never looked better but the emphasis on grinding lets the game down.
Unfortunately, though, there are a few things that let it down. The Fatal Blow system is great but seems catered more to new players and a defensive playstyle; tying so much of the game to online servers results in a lot of dodgy slowdown and loading on the menus at times; locking everything behind the towers and such is fine but forcing players to grind for in-game currency to spend on even challenging those towers is not; the handful of Achievements might be pretty simple to get but there’s not a lot of variety or fun to them; and I question some of the choices made for the roster. First of all…why thirty-seven fighters? Why not go all-in and bring it up to a nice, even forty? Where are Takeda Takahasi and Kung Jin, the actual descendant of the Great Kung Lao? They weren’t exactly my favourite characters from Mortal Kombat X but they were just as important to the “new generation” of fighters as Cassie and Jacqui but they’re missing yet that lumbering oaf Kotal Kahn is still there. In the end, there’s a lot of fun to be had in Mortal Kombat 11 but it’s notably more finite and time-consuming than in the last two Mortal Kombat games; it’s not as bad with the randomness and loot boxes as Injustice 2 but some of the better skins and gear and such is still annoying locked away and will take a lot of time and effort to unlock, which is especially aggravating when the game uses four different types of in-game currency and yet your options for actually purchasing new stuff in-game are severely limited.
My Rating:
⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3 out of 5.
Pretty Good
What are your thoughts on Mortal Kombat 11: Ultimate? Did you wait for this version to come out or did you buy the base game and DLC separate? Either way, do you think there was enough value for your money or, like me, were you disappointed to find the DLC didn’t have any new Achievements to earn? Which fighter in the game (or the franchise) is your favourite and why? What did you think to the story mode and the use of competing timelines to bring back classic characters? Were there any characters or features missing from the game for you? What did you think to the online options and the different towers the game had to offer? Which Mortal Kombat game, movie, comic, or other piece of media is your favourite? Whatever your thoughts on Mortal Kombat 11, or Mortal Kombat in general, leave a comment down below.
In September 1961, DC Comics published “Flash of Two Worlds” (Fox, et al), a landmark story that brought together the Golden Age Jay Garrick and the Silver Age Barry Allen. In the process, DC Comics created the multiverse, an infinite number of parallel universes that allowed all stories and characters to exist and I’ve been celebrating this ground-breaking concept every Sunday of this month!
Released: 23 February 2010 Director: Sam Liu and Lauren Montgomery Distributor: Warner Home Video Budget: Unknown Stars: William Baldwin, Mark Harmon, Gina Torres, James Woods, Brian Bloom, and Chris Noth
The Plot: In an alternate version of Earth, the Crime Syndicate (evil doppelgängers to the Justice League) rule with an iron fist. When the Lex Luthor (Noth) of this parallel world travels across the dimensions, the Justice League find themselves battling against their dark mirrors to decide the fate of all worlds.
The Background: Following the much-laudedBatman: The Animated Series (1992 to 1999) and the conclusion of Batman Beyond (1999 to 2001), co-creator Bruce Timm spearheaded easily the biggest and most ambitious DC animated show of that era, Justice League (2001 to 2004), and then out did himself with the exhaustive roster of Justice League Unlimited (2004 to 2006). Both cartoons were incredibly well-received and helped contribute to the continued success and popularity of the DC Animated Universe. Originally, Timm intended to produce an animated feature named Justice League: Worlds Collideto bridge the gap between Justice League and Justice League Unlimited that would draw inspiration from the seminal story “Crisis on Earth-Three!” (Fox, et al, 1964). However, these plans were scrapped by Warner Brothers, who were in the middle of producing a series of direct-to-video animated films with no ties to any existing continuity, and the script was consequently rewritten to avoid directly referencing either show. Despite this, Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths shared a very similar style to Timm’s earlier works and, considering the first issue of the ground-breaking Crisis on Infinite Earths(Wolfman, et al, 1986) was first publish in this month back in 1986 I figured this would be as good a time as any to look back at this often overlooked animated feature.
The Review: The multiverse is quite a daunting and confusing concept, to be honest; even I, a self-confessed comic book enthusiast, struggle with the notion at times and I feel it only really works in comics, where readers are used to the idea after a few decades of dimensional-hopping antics, and television (especially cartoons), since long-running series’ just have more time to introduce and explore the concept. In that regard, Crisis of Two Earths eases viewers into the idea of parallel worlds by primarily focusing on the idea of two alternative worlds and also its opening sequence, in which we see our beloved heroes radically changed, monstrous even, and killing a heroic version of the Joker, the Jester (James Patrick Stuart), and being opposed by a far more virtuous incarnation of Lex Luthor. We then switch over to our Earth, where a more recognisable version of the Justice League are finishing up the construction of their Watchtower space station and their teleportation device; right away, we’re introduced to two concepts that form the basis of the film: the Flash (Josh Keaton) is the comic relief and Batman (Baldwin) is a bit of a grouch. Flash is full of the quips and amusing pop culture references but Batman is a stubborn pragmatist; even when clearly outmatched by Superwoman’s (Torres) power, he preserves through a broken rib and is able to subdue her with anaesthetic gas, proving his capability despite his lack of super powers.
An alternative Lex Luthor recruits the Justice League to help liberate his world.
When the alternative Luthor arrives, he is immediately apprehended and brought to the attention of the League; Superman (Harmon) confirms that the duplicate isn’t their Lex and the Luthor brings the League up to speed with the issue of the Crime Syndicate of his Earth. On this alternate world, Luthor was the leader of the Justice League but the Syndicate has rendered their world a virtual dictatorship thanks to their power and maliciousness, held in check only by the threat of a nuclear retaliation. Superman, naturally, doesn’t trust Luthor but J’onn (Jonathan Adams) confirms that the alternative refuge is telling the truth. The League debate the merits, logistics, and morals of assisting Luthor’s world and, though Green Lantern (Nolan North) is opposed to it, it is Batman who is most against the mission since they struggle to maintain order on their world. Regardless, the majority agree to assist.
Owlman and Superwoman exercise the Syndicate’s diabolical will with relish.
The Crime Syndicate, specifically Owlman (Woods), are interrupted in their search for the “Quantum Trigger” by the arrival of the Justice League and a fight breaks out. This gives the film a chance to showcase a variety of evil versions of classic heroes, “Made Men”, such as Black Lightning, Vixen, and Elongated Man. Though the League are able to get the upper hand, Luthor forces them to retreat to avoid facing even more of the Syndicate’s Made Men and, in the process, they end up in a battle with the Captain Super family (evil versions of the Shazam/Captain Marvel family). This takes the battle from inside to the cloudy skies of this parallel world as Wonder Woman (Vanessa Marshall) is able to commandeer Owlman’s ship and use its cloaking device to escape the fray. The Crime Syndicate are revealed to run their organisation like a super-powered crime family, with Ultraman (Bloom, using a bit of a stereotypical Italian mobster accent) acting as the head of the “family”, who have thousands of lieutenants working beneath them (the aforementioned Made Men) and dividing their territories between them. Thanks to their power, they are able to bribe and forcible coerce the world’s government and other officials into bowing to their every whim but Owlman takes this to the next level by constructing the Quantum Eigenstate Device (Q.E.D.), a bomb that will give them the ability to hold the entire world hostage. While the public largely wishes to simply acquiesce to the Syndicate’s demands to maintain some kind of peace, their dictatorship is openly challenged by Rose Wilson (Freddi Rogers), daughter of Slade Wilson (Brice Davison), who is the President of the United States in this world.
Owlman has plans of his own to destroy all life on every Earth.
Unlike the League, which is a largely unified team ruled by democracy, the Syndicate is a fragile alliance of egos and greed; Ultraman rules through sheer power and intimidation but Owlman and Superwoman conspire behind his back. Owlman plans to use the Q.E.D. to destroy all life without mercy or conscious since the discovery of an infinite number of parallel worlds has shattered his grasp on reality. Believing that no decision he, or anyone, makes has any meaning since whatever they accomplish means nothing elsewhere in the multiverse, he plans to find “Earth-Prime” in order to use the Q.E.D. to annihilate all life everywhere, which Superman, a self-confessed murdering psychopath, finds to be one hell of a turn on. Although Luthor recruits the League to help, he insists on taking on and defeating Ultraman himself since “if it’s going to mean anything after [the League] is gone, it has to be [Luthor]”. Luthor is able to match blows with Ultraman thanks to his armoured suit and having acquired a piece of Blue Kryptonite, the only substance that can hurt and weaken Ultraman. Because of this, Luthor is able to defeat and humiliate Ultraman in public and have him arrested for his crimes; however, as gallant as his actions are, he is chewed out by the President for risking further retaliations from the remaining members of the Syndicate and Ultraman is allowed to go free in a desperate attempt to keep a shaky truce with the Syndicate.
The Nitty-Gritty: Many of the film’s action sequences, though exciting, are, understandably, all too lacking in context; thanks to the wildly different designs of the parallel worlds Made Men, it’s not always easy to tell who is cameoing when and most of them don’t have any speaking lines, making them little more than disposable grunts who exist simply to showcase the stranglehold the Syndicate have on their world and give the League someone to beat up without fighting the same handful of Syndicate members all the time. Because of the large roster and many different characters running around the film, there’s obviously not enough time for everyone to really get much to do; Green Lantern, for example, is a bit of a non-factor and, while J’onn does get an interesting side plot revolving a romantic attraction to Rose, the majority of the League exist simply to battle with the evil doppelgängers. This is exacerbated when Batman calls in heroes from his world to help fend off Superwoman and the Super family, resulting in yet more cameos and characters taking up the film’s run time; don’t get me wrong, it’s great to see so many heroes onscreen at once and all these villainous versions of normally heroic characters but I also feel like the focus should have been more on the League/Syndicate members since those are the only fights that really mean anything.
As you might expect, the film (eventually) degenerates into an all-out brawl.
Thankfully, the film does eventually focus up once Rose provides the League with the location of the Syndicate’s headquarters (spoilers: it’s on the Moon) and the two teams engage in an all-out brawl with their doppelgängers. Green Lantern’s evil counterpart, Power Ring (North), is about as useless as heroic double; Superman, for all her strength and aggression, lacks the finesse and combat acumen of Wonder Woman; and Ultraman’s sadistic focus on destruction means he not only destroys much of the environment but is easily outwitted by Superman. Of course, the battle between the Flash and Johnny Quick (Stuart) comes down to a test of their super speed but, amidst all the mindless brawling, Owlman is able to escape with the Q.E.D. to enact his insane plan to destroy all realities. Faced with the threat of mutually assured destruction, the League and the Syndicate form a shaky truce simply to save their own hides.
Batman ultimately sacrifices Johnny Quick and kills his counterpart to save the multiverse.
A side plot throughout the film is that the Flash believes Batman doesn’t like or respect him and the idea that Batman is this irritable, obstinate loner. However, when they need someone to power the Quantum Trigger, Batman has Johnny Quick take the Flash’s place as the conduit to spare his teammate’s life since he knows that the effort will kill the speedster. While this is a great way to show that Batman does truly care for the Flash and his teammates, it’s a little out of character since he knew that the effort would kill Johnny so he willingly sacrificed a life to confront Owlman and then, rather hypocritically, lectured his counterpart about his willingness to kill untold numbers of people with the Q.E.D. Somewhat unsurprisingly, given that Batman is generally the focus of all of DC’s animated endeavours, the film culminates in a battle of ideologies and skill between him and Owlman, with the depths of his doppelgänger’s psychosis revealed so completely that Batman has no choice but to doom Owlman to destruction on a desolate, barren alternate world, saving the multiverse in the process but at the cost of Johnny’s life.
The Summery: Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths is a pretty decent little animated film; it’s full of action and lots of big, explosive, and visually interesting fights but the main draw of the film, for me, is the philosophical and ideological differences between the Justice League and the Crime Syndicate, specifically between Batman and Owlman, this dichotomy is given the most focus throughout the film, which is probably the right choice but it does mean that we don’t really get to see just how different the Syndicate are to their heroic counterparts beyond them being super-powered mobsters and psychopaths. If you watched any of the Justice League and Justice League Unlimited episodes based around the Justice Lords, it’s arguable that you could say the film’s concept is somewhat redundant and has already been explored but I think there’s enough here to separate the film from those episodes, mostly thanks to the abundance of cameos and the iconography of the Crime Syndicate. While the film doesn’t complete align with those cartoons, I think you can easily suspend disbelief to see it as a bridge between Justice League and Justice League Unlimited since it ends with the League preparing for a massive recruitment drive but it also works pretty well as a standalone animated feature…as long as you’re already somewhat familiar with DC’s characters and some of their more complex concepts.
My Rating:
⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3 out of 5.
Pretty Good
Have you ever seen Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths; if so, what did you think to it and where would you rank it against the other DC animated movies? Which character was your favourite and what did you think to the film’s voice cast? Which evil doppelgänger would have liked to see more of and what do you think about the concept of the Crime Syndicate and the DC multiverse? Did you ever watch the Justice League cartoons and, if so, what were some of your favourite characters and moments? How are you celebrating the publication of Crisis on Infinite Earths this month? Whatever your thoughts on DC’s animated ventures, the multiverse, and the Justice League, feel free to leave a comment below.
In the decades since his first dramatic appearance in the pages of Detective Comics, Bruce Wayne/Batman has become a mainstream, worldwide, pop culture icon. The brainchild of writer Bob Kane, Batman was brought to life by artist Bill Finger and has been a popular staple of DC Comics and countless movies, videogames, and cartoons over the years. Although “Batman Day” was a few days ago, any day is a perfect excuse to celebrate comic’s grim and broody vigilante.
Released: 23 June 1989 Director: Tim Burton Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures Budget: $34 million Stars: Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Kim Basinger, Robert Wuhl, and Michael Gough
The Plot: Criminals of Gotham City are terrified by the armour-clad vigilante, the “Batman” (Keaton), secretly wealthy loner Bruce Wayne. Wayne’s vendetta against crime is confused when he falls for intrepid reporter Vicki Vale (Basinger) and mobster Jack Napier (Nicholson) transformers into the hideous Joker and begins terrorising Gotham with tainted beauty products.
The Background: By the end of the eighties, Batman had undergone a long period of reinvention to transform him from a colourful, camp, family friendly figure and into a more serious, darker character. A lot of this can, of course, be attributed to the works of Frank Miller, which fully embraced the darker aspects of the character and it was this version of the character that producers Benjamin Melniker and Michael E. Uslan wanted to bring to life after they purchased the film rights to the character from DC Comics. The script underwent numerous drafts before Sam Hamm was brought in by director Tim Burton to produce the final screenplay. Burton, despite not being much of a comic book aficionado, related to the duality of the Bruce/Batman dynamic and the dark, gothic undertones of the character and was hired off the back of the financial success of Pee-wee’s Big Adventure (Burton, 1985) andBeetlejuice(ibid, 1988). While Jack Nicholson was the top choice for the Joker, Burton ultimately cast Keaton in the title role (despite many of Hollywood’s leading men being considered) after directing him in the aforementioned Beetlejuice and considering him perfect for his (as in Burton’s) subdued, haunted, “Everyman” interpretation. The casting of “Mr. Mom” caused much controversy at the time, as did chaotic script rewrites during filming. Despite all this, Batman was a tremendous critical and commercial success; “Batmania” swept the nation, resulting in a mammoth gross of over $411 million and, despite some criticisms concerning its dark tone and Batman’s lack of screen time, Batman was met with largely favourable reviews, kick-starting a slew of sequels and forever setting the bar for live-action adaptations of the character going forward.
The Review: Batman begins by immediately establishing its tone as a far darker take on the character thanks, largely, to Danny Elfman’s fantastic and unparalleled Batman theme; bombastic, operatic, and tinged with a gothic undertone, Elfman’s Batman theme was as much a part of Batman as the suit or the cinematography. There’s no messing about with Batman having to “earn” his theme or building towards some kind of heroic crescendo; it simply blasts at you alongside the film’s title to literally scream “Batman”. Following this, we’re introduced to Gotham City, a dark, dreary, and grimy city that has a timeless quality thanks to its mixed of thirties, fifties, and eighties clothing and architecture. The city is almost a character unto itself with its gothic trappings, dingy back alleyways, and looming, ominous presence that is only made more threatening by the abundance of street crime.
Batman has a reputation as an urban myth amongst the street thugs of Gotham City.
Thankfully, we’re quickly introduced to the titular vigilante but, while Batman makes an impression by slowly dropping into frame and then dispatching two thugs with ease and efficiency, what really adds to his mystique is horror stories of his presence that literally has criminals in fear of “The Bat”. Batman then adds to his mystique by taking two shots directly to the chest and rising again and threatening one of the thugs to spread the word about his presence. It’s a powerful, incredibly effectively introduction to the character, who speaks with a low, threatening whisper and is seen to actually strike fear into the hearts of the city’s criminals rather than simply targeting organised crime. This is something I feel is key to Batman’s character; he was, after all, born out of a random act of violence so it bothers me when it gets unduly distracted by corruption or supervillains. Indeed, Gotham’s biggest crime boss, Carl Grissom (Jack Palance), and his “number one guy” Jack Napier are more concerned with district attorney Harvey Dent (Billy Dee Williams) than they are with the Batman. Having operated for six months and earned a reputation as an urban vigilante, Batman is, instead, the dread of criminals everywhere, the ire of policemen like Lieutenant Max Eckhardt (William Hootkins) and Police Commissioner Jim Gordon (Pat Hingle), and the obsession of Gotham Globe reporter Alexander Knox (Wuhl). That’s not to say that corruption isn’t rife in Gotham, however, as Eckhardt is on Grissom’s take, and the city is slowly crumbling under Grissom’s influence and the state of their economy.
Vicki becomes besotted with Bruce but ends up little more than a damsel in distress.
Batman is also a fascination of news photographer Vicki Vale, who specifically comes to Gotham after reading Knox’s stories and “likes bats” (which is a…little weird, to be honest). Intrigued by Bruce upon first meeting him, she agrees to meet with him on a date (which is amusing in its awkwardness, with Bruce’s confusion at the dining room a particular highlight) and ends up in bed with him. She is then greatly perturbed when Bruce fails to show any interest in her or return her calls, slowly becoming as interested obsessed with Bruce as Knox is with Batman; she senses that the opulence of luxury doesn’t seem to fit with Bruce’s demeanour and is shocked to discover the trauma he experienced as a child. While an emotional catalyst and an interesting enough character in her own right, Vicki very quickly becomes little more than a screaming damsel-in-distress; the Joker becomes infatuated with her, turning his rivalry with Batman into more of a love triangle than a violent battle of wills and ideals, and Batman’s final confrontation with the Joker is as much about rescuing her as it is about revenge. It’s telling that Bruce Wayne doesn’t actually appear in the film until after Batman and Napier have been introduced; Bruce, a wealthy bachelor, is not as prominent a figure as you may expect. While he hosts a fundraiser at Wayne Manor, he’s like a ghost in his own home and is known more for his affluent wealth than his physical appearance (while I can understand Vicki not knowing who he is since she’s new in town, Knox doesn’t recognise him either). An awkward, distracted individual, he seems uncomfortable in his own skin but this may be because he’s (shock-of-shocks!) secretly the Batman! With cameras secretly hidden all over his mansion, Bruce monitors his guests from the cavernous Batcave and seems far more comfortable hiding behind the grim visage of the Batman. Haunted by his parents’ deaths and driven by an obsession to use his pain for good, Bruce has crafted a ferocious persona to dispense justice but is losing his grip on his humanity in the process.
Sadistic mobster Jack Napier is a turned into a maniacal lunatic by an acid bath.
Napier, who has a reputation for being a “nutball” even before he takes an acid bath, is Grissom’s right-hand man; egotistical and self-absorbed, Napier is so arrogant that he’s even sleeping with Grissom’s moll, Alicia (Jerry Hall), on the side and considers himself untouchable. Unfortunately for him, this isn’t the case as he is set up by Grissom and supposed to be killed by the police while cleaning out Axis Chemicals; while he gets a measure of payback by shooting Eckhardt in cold blood, he ends up taking a bullet to the face thanks to his shot ricocheting off Batman’s gauntlet and then plunging into an acid pit despite Batman’s best efforts. Although he survives the dip, he is horrifically scarred and mutilated by the injury, and the acid, which breaks his already fractured psyche and gives birth to a colourful, maniacal supervillain: The Joker! Sporting a wicked permanent smile and clearly off his rocker, the Joker is a flamboyant, sadistic villain who quickly executes his former boss and assumes control of his operation. Though initially a glorified gangster with a flair for the comedic, the Joker quickly becomes a charismatic and dangerous threat to the city when he plots to taint beauty supplies with the same concoction that transformed him. Obsessed with art, he believes himself to be a living work of art and wishes to turn all of Gotham into a pale-faced, permanently-smiling pile of bodies but quickly becomes jealous of Batman for stealing all of the headlines and “[getting] all of [his] press”. As random and weird as all this seems, it’s very similar to a lot of the Joker’s madcap plots from the comics and eventually culminates in him riding an elaborate parade through the city while his “Smilex” gas covers those in attendance.
Batman and his gear all look bad-ass, if incredibly impractical.
You might have noticed that I haven’t spoken about Batman all that much and there’s a reason for that; Nicholson’s energetic charisma and scene-stealing performance dominates the majority of the film, with scenes such as when he fries a mob boss with his lethal joy buzzer and executes another with a poison pen being notable highlights. Still, when Batman does appear, he immediately takes control of the screen; dressed head to toe in black armour, Batman cuts an intimidating (if restrictive) figure. However, while it is noticeable that Keaton cannot turn his head, the film does a commendable job of hiding the limitations of the suit and it is always perfectly shot, seeped in darkness and shadow and always shown in the most dynamic way possible. While Batman’s fight scenes are a bit clunky and awkward, he has a bevvy of gadgets at his disposal, the most impressive of which is his sleek, powerful Batmobile. Rather than a sports car or a tank, this is an aerodynamic and intimidating vehicle which bursts through the city streets with a burst of flame and sports such optional extras as machine guns and an impenetrable shield. However, if the Batmobile is, somehow, too blasé for you, Batman also pilots the Batwing for the finale! This, as you might expect, results in some very impressive and detailed model shots and miniatures as Batman glides gracefully through the dark night skies…only to be promptly shot down by the Joker’s comically oversized pistol!
The Nitty-Gritty: While Batman remains a very impressive and engaging take on the character, it does over emphasise his “Everyman” qualities a little too much. There’s no suggestion that Bruce spent any time travelling the world or training to be the peak of human mental and physical perfection; instead, it seems like Bruce spent all his time, effort, and money in building his suit, cave, and many Bat-gadgets. Still, while the lack of any real physical presence on Bruce’s part is a little disappointing, he makes up for it with his intelligence; a common part of the character that is often downplayed is his status as the world’s greatest detective and, while this isn’t massively emphasised in Batman, it does get some exposure in Bruce’s ability to figure out how the Joker is poisoning the city. It’s easy to forget that Batman features some fantastic actors; Jack Palance was a big name in the eighties and, while his role is small, he’s perfectly cast as a cantankerous mob boss and it’s great to see Billy Dee Williams but he hardly factors into the film at all and it’s a real shame that he got shafted in the sequels as he’s a charismatic and magnetic presence even in his brief screen time. Similarly, Commissioner Gordon is barely in the film but Pat Hingle plays the character with a gruff weariness that helps him to stand out in his few scenes. The upside to this, though, is the exploration of Bruce’s psyche through Vicki’s investigation; while Batman doesn’t go into massive amounts of detail in exploring why Bruce does what he does, there’s enough here to give a sense of the character’s obsession and trauma and the film is more concerned with portraying Batman as an urban myth (which I absolutely love as I feel this is how the character should be portrayed most of the time) and his eventual acceptance as an ally of the city and its police department.
Batman’s suit might be restrictive but it looks absolutely amazing and cuts an imposing silhouette.
Bruce also makes up for his unimpressive physique and stature with a focused intensity; it’s all about the eyes with Keaton and he exudes a tortured demeanour, especially in private, where he lapses into a brooding countenance and pushes away all other distractions in favour of focusing purely on his investigation into the Joker. This is a version of Bruce Wayne who categorically needs the suit to become Batman; even now, the Batsuit is impressive and remains one of my favourites for the way it manages to balance being anatomically correct, somewhat impractical, and intimidating all at the same time. Yes, Keaton is a bit clumsy and awkward at times but, as I said, the film makes every effort to hide the suit’s limitations and it works fantastically; Keaton looks threatening and absolutely bad-ass in the suit and it played a large part in throwing off Batman’s reputation as a camp and colourful superhero.
Alfred’s concern for Bruce’s well-being sees him subtlety attempt to deter Bruce’s crusade.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this portrayal of Batman, though, is how unhinged the character appears to be; Vicki even tells Batman that many believe him to be as dangerous and psychotic as the Joker and Bruce definitely seems to be on the razor’s edge of sanity throughout the film. This is best seen in one of my favourite scenes in the film, which is the confrontation between Bruce and the Joker in Vicki’s apartment; here, Bruce’s façade slips noticeably, outrageously, and he flies into a maniac rage as he threatens the Joker. It’s intense and massively over the top and punctuated by the Joker’s ridiculous admonition: “Never rub another man’s rhubarb!” Bruce’s mental stability is of particular concern to his long-serving butler and father figure, Alfred Pennyworth (Gough), who dotes on Bruce like a grandfather and supports his endeavours but is continuously seen to be concerned for Bruce’s welfare and encourages him to leave his double life behind and settle down with Vicki, whom he sees as a positive influence on Bruce’s life and demeanour. This is explicitly stated at least twice in the film (once when Bruce is laboriously going over Napier’s criminal file and later when Alfred voices his wish to not have to grieve for Bruce as he does for his parents) and is precisely the reason why Alfred later allows Vicki into the Batcave. Unlike so many people, I never had a problem with this plot point as it makes perfect sense; Alfred wants Bruce to settle down, live a normal life, and to abandon his crusade and, when Bruce flounders in admitting his double life to Vicki, Alfred intercedes and forces him to reconcile his two lives.
The decision to tie the Joker to Batman’s origin has somewhat tarnished the film.
Of course, the real star of the show here is Jack Nicholson as the Joker; clearly revelling in the role, Nicholson looks to be having the time of his life and his Joker, despite being middle-aged and lacking the slim figure of his comic book counterpart. As colourful and iconic as his portrayal may be, however, it’s forever tarnished by the decision to have Napier be the man responsible for killing Bruce’s parents. As a kid, I didn’t really mind this all that much as this event hadn’t really been a major part of any of the Batman stories I’d read at the time and, even now, it doesn’t really enrage me that much and I can see why the change was made. It’s a quick and easy way to add a little more animosity to the Joker and Batman’s relationship and, without it, the love triangle aspect of the film would have been far more noticeable but I can’t say I’m a massive fan of the change, or the decision to give the Joker a name. Sadly, subsequent films learned very little from Batman’s few mistakes, with Spider-Man 3 (Raimi, 2007) making a similar bizarre retcon and Joker (Phillips, 2019) crafting an entire new alter ego for the character.
The Summary: Batman remains an iconic and enduring film, for me at least; nostalgia plays a big part in this, of course, but I still maintain that this is one of the best adaptations of the character ever made. Keaton was fantastic in the title role and I had absolutely no problem with his Batman killing; he’s hardly a serial killer and subdues criminals far more often than killing them and, considering the Joker’s role in the death of his parents, it makes sense that he’d go out of his way to kill the Joker. It’s harder to explain the death of that random Joker thug in the bell tower but, as I’ve stressed on numerous occasions, Batman’s line of work is violent and dangerous and collateral damage is to be expected. With a fantastic and memorable soundtrack and absolutely spectacular sense of visual style, Batman is definitely more style over substance but there is a lot of nuance to the film; as a deconstruction of this version of the character, it works really well and Burton definitely explores the dark, tortured, lonely aspects of Bruce’s character in his own unique way. His interpretation of the character may be a little skewed but the spirit of Batman’s character is masterfully evoked and Batman definitely set the standard not just for subsequent adaptations of the character but for all superhero films by proving that superhero movies could be dark, serious adaptations while still being over the top, comedic, and entertaining.
My Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 5 out of 5.
Fantastic
What are your thoughts on Batman? How does it hold up for you today and where would you rank it against other Batman movies? What did you think to Michael Keaton’s portrayal of the character? Do you think he managed to embody Batman’s brooding nature or were you put off by his unimpressive physique? Were you a fan of Jack Nicholson’s turn as the Joker? What did you think to the reveal that he was responsible for the Wayne’s deaths and Alfred’s decision to let Vicki into the Batcave? Were you a fan of the Batsuit, the Batmobile, and the film’s visual style or do you think Burton maybe missed the point of Batman? How did you celebrate Batman Day and what are some of your favourite stories, characters, moments, and adaptations of the character’s long history? Whatever you think, share your comments down below.
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