This review has been supported by Chiara Cooper. If you’d like to support the site, you can do so at my Ko-Fi page.
Released: February 1992 Developer: Tiertex Design Studios Also Available For: Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, C64, DOS, Game Boy, Game Gear, MSX, Mega Drive, Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), ZX Spectrum
A Brief Background: 1981 saw legendary director Steven Spielberg join forces with George Lucas and Harrison Ford to bring the first Indiana Jones film to cinema screens; inspired by the serial films of yesteryear and theJames Bond franchise, the three crafted an action/adventure film that was so critically and commercially lauded that it marked the beginning of one of cinema’s most beloved franchises, propelled Harrison Ford to superstardom, and fundamentally changed the cinema rating system. Since the franchise was so successful, Indiana Jones has been adapted into books, comics, and videogames, with the first being an 8-bit adventure for the Atari. It was the third film, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade(Spielberg, 1989), that received the most love back in the day, however, as three titles were released across numerous platforms between 1989 and 1991. This particular game was the technically inferior version of its 16-bt counterpart that scored rather well at the time thanks to its colourful graphics and gameplay, but was also criticised for its difficulty and collision detection.
First Impressions: Indy – Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Action Game (yep, somehow the developers found a way to make the title even longer!) is a 2D, sidescrolling action/adventure game that puts you in control of the famous archaeologist and adventurer. Since the Master System only uses two buttons, you wouldn’t believe how simple the controls are in this version: Button 1 allows you to punch, crack your whip, and swing while Button 2 allows you to jump. These buttons can’t be switched around, but Indy can duck down to avoid incoming bullets and punches and attacks from below, and climb up and down ropes simply by jumping to them. It doesn’t appear that Indy can use a gun of his own this time around, and his whip is limited significantly here; you need to pick up a whip icon to even use it, and you only get a few swings before you lose it until you get the next power-up. As in the bigger 16-bit title, Indy must journey through six levels (referred to as “Scenes”) that recreate environments and situations from the movie, but there are no difficulty settings here; instead, you start with six lives and three credits and face a super tight time limit to clear each Scene, gaining additional time by picking up hourglasses and aiming to accrue a high score and some precious extra lives. As in the Mega Drive game, Indy has a daunting uphill battle ahead of him as he’s practically made of glass; not only does he take fall damage, but hitting the ceiling will drain his health, and he’ll crumble to his knees in seconds from dodgy hit detection and instant death hazards such as water.
Don’t let the impressive visuals fool you, this game is tough as balls!
While the game recreates the train scene from the film and eventually sees you scaling a castle and airship as in the film, you’re unlikely to see this as it’s more than a chore to progress any further the first few screens of the first Scene. While the game delivers a fair attempt at recreating the iconic Indiana Jones theme for the title screen, levels are completely silent save for the sounds of attacks and your continuous death, though the graphics are surprisingly impressive. Sprites aren’t exactly the most expressive but they’re colourful and quite detailed; Indy grabs his hat when he jumps, wooden platforms crumble beneath his feet, and the environments contain a decent amount of detail for a Master System title. The first Scene is primarily based around traversing the caves using ropes; you’ll need to hop to them (avoiding hitting your head, of course) and shimmy down, avoiding gun fire, and then precariously jump across lethal water to progress. As in the Mega Drive version, there are a number of hidden checkpoints in the Scenes, and you’ll even restart from these after continuing after losing all of your lives, but the constant injury you’ll take form everything around you and the ludicrously tight timer make just playing the game one of the most difficult experiences I’ve ever had the misfortune of suffering through.
My Progression: While I couldn’t get past the first Scene in the Mega Drive game, I was at least able to give it a decent shot; here, though, there was absolutely no hope. Indy’s six lives will disappear in a blink of an eye and, before you know it, you’ll be staring at the game over screen again and again having made little progression. There aren’t even any cheat codes to help you jump ahead to other Scenes, either, so I have absolutely no idea how anyone is ever supposed to see anything other than the first Scene as the game absolutely bricks you right out the gate. Looking ahead at the game (which can apparently be beaten in about ten minutes…), it seems like you’ll face a lot of the same challenges as in the 16-bit title, including avoiding Native Americans on a circus train, fireballs and skeleton pits, even trickier jumping and swinging up the caste’s stone walls, and be faced with avoiding buzz saws and bottomless pits in a pseudo-isometric rendition of the Temple of the Sun. Although you’ll collect artefacts from the movie, there are absolutely no bosses to contend with this time around, making for an extremely frustrating and lacklustre experience, I would imagine.
After the struggle I went through with the Mega Drive version of this game, I didn’t exactly expect much from Indy – Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Action Game; I guess part of me was hoping that it would be easier, since it would obviously be a scaled down version of its 16-bit counterpart, and it certainly offers a lot less than that version of the game but ramps up the difficulty to a ridiculous degree. The longplay I watched to get a sense of the rest of the game made it look so easy but this really was a kick in the balls to play, and I imagine would have really disappointed kids who rented (or, heaven forbid, bought) it back in the day. Indy is so fragile that the game may as well have one-hit kills, the sound is basically non-existent, and all the impressive visuals in the world can’t make up for the fact that this game is basically unplayable and not enjoyable in the slightest. I’m curious, though: what did you think to this version of the game? Did you prefer it to the Mega Drive version? What’s your favourite Indiana Jones videogame? Whatever your thoughts or experiences on these games, share them below or leave a comment on my social media.
In 2013, DC Comics declared the 12th of June as “Superman Day”, a day for fans of the Man of Steel the world over to celebrate Clark Kent/Kal-El/Superman, the superpowered virtue of “Truth, Justice, and the American Way” who is widely regarded as the first ever costumed superhero. This year, I’m spending every Monday of June celebrating the Man of Steel as I expand Superman Day to “Superman Month“.
This review has been supported by Chiara Cooper. If you’d like to support the site, you can do so at my Ko-Fi page.
Released: 22 November 2006 Developer: EA Tiburon Also Available For: Nintendo DS, PlayStation 2, Xbox
The Background: As I mentioned in my review of the film, Superman Returns(Singer, 2006) was supposed to be a pretty big deal for DC Comics, Warner Bros. and Superman in general. Absent from cinema screens since 1987, Superman had seen a fair amount of representation in videogames in the intervening years and ever since 1979, but the Man of Steel has had a difficult history with pixels and polygons and it’s not as if videogame tie-in to movies have an esteemed reputation. Add to that the fact that Superman Returns didn’t exactly impress critically and the videogame tie-in was off to a troublesome start before it even released. Developed by a subsidiary of Electronic Arts, EA Tiburon (who had developed a handful of sports-based games for the publisher) and incorporating a large open world version of Metropolis that required players to minimise collateral damage, Superman Returns received mostly negative reviews and Superman has continued to struggle with transitioning into a successful videogame adaptation.
The Plot: Acting as part-prequel- part-midquel, and part-retelling of the events of the film, Superman leaves Earth to investigate the remains of his home planet, Krypton. There, he incurs the wrath of the tyrant Mongul and, upon returning to Earth after five years, finds his arch enemy, Lex Luthor, enacting a diabolical plot for revenge involving Kryptonian technology while also battling some of his most notorious villains.
Gameplay: Superman Returns is an open-world action game that places players in the cape and tights of the Man of Steel, as portrayed by Brandon Routh in the movie of the same name. The main objective of the game is to defend the impressively-realised and expansive city of Metropolis from a variety of threats using Superman’s awesome powers, all of which are available to the player from the moment the game begins. By pressing Y, players can take to the skies and can even rocket away by holding the button down. While it is a bit disorientating once you’re in the air, it doesn’t take long to adjust to it and it can be quite a thrill to blast through the air and between skyscrapers at Superman’s full speed. By holding down the Left Bumper, you can speed through the sky, going faster and faster until everything around you becomes a blur and Superman breaks the sound barrier, however it can be very difficult to make tight turns and avoid flying head-first into buildings when going at full speed. You can land with Y and, when on the ground, sprint at superspeed by holding LB, which is equally unwieldy at times.
Rocket through the sky at breakneck speeds or blast enemies with Superman’s array of powers.
You can target enemies with the Left Trigger and attack enemies with, primarily, X; repeatedly pressing X and adding in presses of Y and A will see Superman pull off more elaborate combos to deal more damage, although there is a significant input delay when trying to perform combos (in a change from most games, it seems that you have to press each button deliberately rather than as quickly as possible). Superman also has the full scope of his superpowers available to use as well; these are assigned to the directional pad and activated with the Right Trigger and allow you to blast at enemies with heat vision, freeze them with Superman’s freeze breath, or put out fires with his superbreath. All of these can also be augmented by double-tapping the direction and can even be worked into your combos but be sure to keep an eye on the power meter, which will deplete as you use your superpowers and take some time to refill (though you can speed this up by flying up into the sky to bathe in the sun’s rays). One of the constant problems with Superman videogames is that, thanks to the prerequisite for character’s to have a health bar, the Man of Steel is often neutered or susceptible to damage and death rather than being the powerful, superhuman hero he is known to be. Superman Returns comes up with a truly inspired solution to this problem; not only are Superman’s powers restricted by a power meter, not only does he come up against powerful alien foes and robots that are able to bash him about like a ragdoll, but he must also ensure that Metropolis doesn’t suffer too much damage from the constant barrage of attacks that befall it.
In an ingenious twist, Metropolis takes damage in Superman’s place.
Enemies will attack civilians, set fire to buildings, and the environment is highly destructible, meaning that cars, trees, walls, and other objects and parts of the environment can be used as weapons or destroyed and, if the city is damaged too much, Superman will fail his mission and you’ll have to either restart the chapter or reload your last save. Replenishing Metropolis’ “health” can be quite a chore; you can pick up injured civilians (one at a time) and carry them to a specific ambulance to restore a bit of the city’s health but the best way to bump its health back up is to get rid of all the enemies or the threat in play or reload your last save. Unlike the vast majority of videogames, Superman Returns doesn’t appear to autosave after you complete objectives and missions; instead, you can/must manually save from the pause menu, which also lets you view Superman’s combos, statistics, and the experience points (XP) you’ve accumulated. XP is earned by defending Metropolis from incoming comets, burning buildings, and attacks from aliens, robots, and Cadmus’ monstrous creations; when you gain enough XP, Superman will level-up and his superpowers will automatically become more powerful as a result. Superman Returns features a nice little mini map on the bottom left of the screen that shows you where enemies and ambulances are located and Superman will pick up cries of distress and be able to see objective markers thanks to his super-senses. You can also view the entire city map by pressing the ‘Back’ button but this really isn’t all that helpful as no areas, secrets, or places of interest are highlighted and the only place you can fast travel to and from is the Fortress of Solitude.
Gameplay gets extremely tedious and frustrating very quickly.
Gameplay gets extremely repetitive very quickly and the game’s pace is all over the place; you cannot progress the story until you’ve defended Metropolis from a certain number of random attacks, which occur either so sporadically that you’re flying around aimlessly like an idiot or happen so often and have so many enemies that it becomes annoying. You cannot just fly away from these incidents and ignore them, either, as that’ll cause a game over but, even though you’re playing as frickin’ Superman, you often end up getting bashed all over the place by a barrage of attacks and are forced to mash buttons to get Superman’s useless ass back into the fight. A certain amount of strategy is required to take on enemies, who can race away across the city or are vulnerable to certain superpowers, but it all gets very frustrating and mind-numbing very quickly. Incidents where you have to blast meteors from the sky, put out fires, save citizens, or tackle incoming tornados help to break the monotony up a bit but they’re few and far between.
Graphics and Sound: Similar to the movie it’s based on, Superman Returns makes extremely poor use of John Williams’ iconic Superman theme; in fact, the rousing “DUN-dun-dun-DUN-DUN” doesn’t appear at all in the game and is replaced by a very generic soundalike that really undermines the entire experience. Stars Brandon Routh, Kate Bosworth, and Kevin Spacey all return to lend their likenesses and voices but, sadly, like many videogame adaptations of movies, the game’s interpretation of the film’s events leaves out many of the characters and sub-plots from the source material and provides only a very basic recap of the film as story-based missions.
While the cutscenes look terrible, Superman’s character model is okay, especially when he’s flying.
Plus, while these actors do lend their likenesses, only Superman appears as an in-game character model. The game’s cutscenes are quite low-quality, very blurry, and extremely limited in their detail and length but, thankfully, Superman himself looks mostly okay. When you leave him standing around, he’ll strike a heroic pose (the camera even automatically changes position for the best possible shot) and NPCs will continuous be in awe of his presence, feats, or begging for his help. Superman looks best, however, when flying at high speeds; his head and neck seem a little disproportionate to his body and, like many Xbox 360 character models, he looks a bit more like a malformed action figure than an actual person with a logical skeletal structure. Superman ragdolls around when attacked and seems quite unwieldy at times as he’s both superfast but also clunky and his attacks are slow and have a limited range; additionally, there are some wonky instances of cape physics as well but, still, it’s probably the best rendition of the character in a solo videogame I’ve seen yet.
Metropolis may be big and impressive but it’s incredibly lifeless and empty.
Superman’s enemies aren’t exactly much to shout about either; indeed, it seems like the developers put all of their time and effort into creating a vast city for you to fly around in. However, considering how good a job Superman Returns does of recreating Metropolis, it’s quite a dull and uninspiring experience; although cars drive through the streets and non-playable characters (NPCs) wander around the place, the city feels extremely empty and lifeless and there really isn’t that much to do or see beyond iconic buildings like the Daily Planet and areas such as Suicide Slum. Metropolis may be very grey and barren at the best of times but you can damage and interact with a fair amount of it (which is actually to your detriment as it’ll cost the city health) and the environment does change at the start of the game, where you fight Mongul and his warriors on Warworld, and in the final chapters when the city is bathed in an ominous darkness and a tumultuous thunderstorm but you never get to go inside any buildings or freely visit other environments so it all becomes very underwhelming and boring very quickly.
Enemies and Bosses: There are three types of enemies Superman will have to defend Metropolis against: the alien forces of Mongul, killer robots created and controlled by John Corben/Metallo, and the various monstrous clones created by Cadmus. As you play though the game’s story, you’ll encounter each of these, and their many variants, in successive fashion and, by the end of the game, entire groups of different enemies will attack the city and its inhabitants. For the most part, enemies fall into some recognisable tropes no matter their appearance, being susceptible to heat vision or freeze breath or more vulnerable against objects (such as cars and debris) being thrown at them. Some are smaller and faster, zipping around on the ground or flying through the air and firing Kryptonite lasers, energy blasts, or elemental plumes at you; others are larger, requiring more combos to damage or blocking your attacks; and others will directly attack the environment to distract you with fires and such.
Bosses like Overcast and Metallo eventually grow to gigantic proportions.
You’ll learn the basics of combat at the start of the game, where Mongul forces you to fight his minions, Phalanx and Overcast, before taking you on himself. This teaches you how to engage with multiple enemies, use the environment to deal damage to gigantic enemies, and the importance of holding B to block or pressing B to quickly dodge behind opponents. Each group of enemies you face from that point on is directly related to the main villain who serves as the recurring and final boss of that particular chapter; thus, when trying to put a stop to Metallo, you’ll first have to stop his robot minions from attacking the city. Complete enough of these missions, and Metallo will spawn into the map and you can fight him; similar to the enemies you battle on Warworld, Metallo attacks by pummelling you, blasting you with a massive Kryptonite laser, shielding himself like a bitch, and spawning in minions to distract you. Like Overcast, Metallo eventually grows to enormous proportions and begins trashing the city, forcing you to hurl cars at him. Once you deal enough damage, he’ll try to destroy the city with a missile, necessitating that you chase after it and complete a quick-time event (QTE) to stop it and bring him down once and for all.
Unless you use your powers in the right way, Bizarro and Riot can be a right pain in the ass.
Next, a breakout at Cadmus Labs sees a whole slew of vicious, demonic monsters roam rampant around the city, attacking blimps and causing massive damage with their big explosive attacks. As if that wasn’t bad enough, Superman’s flawed doppelgänger, Bizarro, is also running rampant; compared to Brainiac, Bizarro is a much easier fight as it’s much simpler to avoid his lumbering attacks and land some combos on him. To put him down for good, however, you’ll need to chase after him and ram into him to stop him destroying the city with his heat vision and complete another QTE in a test of heat vision, all while desperately trying to fend off swarms of flying monsters who pummel you relentlessly. That’s nothing, however, compared to fighting Frederick von Frankenstein/Riot, who duplicates himself every time you land a melee attack and can only be defeated by blasting him and his doubles with your freeze breath and then your heat vision, which can get very tedious.
After taking out Mongul, you’ll battle Superman’s ultimate nemesis: a giant tornado!
In the game’s final chapters, Mongul arrives on Earth looking for revenge, bringing with him an army of Phalanx warriors and Overcast, with all three spawning into the map at inopportune times to cause massive amounts of damage. Battling Overcast’s gigantic form while also juggling an endless swarm of Phalanx warriors and contending with Mongul is a hell of a tall order but, thankfully, you can (and totally should) focus on Mongul alone in order to compete this story mission and can worry about the rest later. The opening of the game teaches you that Mongul is a cheap bastard who likes to constantly block your attacks and that’s true in the endgame as well but he’ll also attack citizens and cars and spawns in more and more minions the more damage you do. Personally, I found it easier to just keep throwing cars at him until he goes down. Ultimately, the game concludes with a series of deadly tornados threatening the city; you must blow and freeze them away, put out the fires they cause, and rescue citizens from their path before contending with Superman’s most deadly and iconic foe…a giant tornado! To dispel this swirling mass of destruction, you must blast its core with either your heat vision or freeze breath all while cars and debris relentlessly slam into you but, with enough patience, it’s pretty simple to bring this chore of a game to a close.
Power-Ups and Bonuses: There’s nothing. Seriously, you fly all over the city fighting bad guys and righting wrongs and there’s literally nothing. The only way you can replenish health is to rescue citizens, stop whatever the current threat is, or reload your save and the only tangible power-up you get is from levelling-up. Unlike most videogames, you can’t freely spend your XP upgrading Superman’s skills individually, though; instead, his powers increase automatically, taking all agency and effort out of your hands entirely.
Additional Features: Superman Returns has a whopping eighteen Achievements for you to earn; six of these are directly tied to defeating the game’s villains and finishing the story, while there are others for fully powering Superman up, defeating enemies with cars, lifting a certain amount of weight, or playing the game for twelve hours total (as if you’re ever going to bother doing that…). Sadly, despite the size of the city, there aren’t any fun Achievements tied to, say, knocking the globe off the Daily Planet or finding all the Planet Krypton restaurants or even finding much of anything for that matter.
Rescue kittens, race against Mr. Mxyzptlk, or cause destruction as Bizarro!
That’s not to say that there isn’t nothing else to do in the game; there are a hundred kittens hidden throughout the city that you can find for an Achievement and, at various points around the map, you’ll encounter Mister Mxyzptlk who’ll challenge you to completing increasingly-challenging races against him. These are quite fun but by far the most entertaining side mission are the instances where you get to play as Bizarro and cause as much damage as possible in a time limit. You can input some cheat codes to make the game easier but you won’t earn any Achievements (except for a 0G one) if you do this. As you play and level-up and explore, you’ll also acquire trophies to view in the Fortress of Solitude and unlock a couple of additional suits for Superman, which is nice, but there’s really not much to entice you back to this game once you’re done trudging through this God-awful borefest.
The Summary: Superman Returns may very well be the most accurate and impressive Superman game I’ve ever played; being able to fly through and across an impressively-rendered recreation of Metropolis is a real blast and giving the city a life bar instead of Superman was an ingenious solution to the problem of having Superman take damage or be killed when he really shouldn’t be. Sadly, though, these aspects are the only real saving graces of this game, which is clearly a rushed cash-in produced solely to tie-into the movie. The story is basically nonexistent, the combat and gameplay extremely repetitive and boring, and the presentation is wildly inconsistent as, while the city and Superman look pretty good, the cutscenes and music and dreadful. In the end, only die-hard Superman fans will really be able to enjoy this one and, for the rest of us, it’s just a quick game to plough through to increase your Gamer Score that is more monotonous and frustrating than fun and entertaining so I’d say that it’s best avoided.
My Rating:
⭐
Rating: 1 out of 5.
Terrible
Have you ever played the videogame adaptation of Superman Returns? If so, what did you think to it? Did you enjoy the wide, open world of Metropolis and the feeling of having Superman’s full abilities at your fingertips? Were you also disappointed by how empty the world is and how tedious the gameplay was? Which of the game’s villains was your favourite and why and what did you think to how the game expanded upon the plot of the film? What is your favourite Superman videogame and would you like to see something like this tried again but with a bit more time, effort, and money put into it? How did you celebrate Superman Day this year and what are some of your favourite Superman stories?
This review has been supported by Chiara Cooper. If you’d like to support the site, you can do so at my Ko-Fi page.
Released: 24 May 1989 Director: Steven Spielberg Distributor: Paramount Pictures Budget: $48 million Stars: Harrison Ford, Sean Connery, Alison Doody, Julian Glover, John Rhys-Davies and Denholm Elliott
The Plot: Famed archeologist and adventure-seeker Doctor Henry Jones Jr. (Ford), better known as “Indiana Jones” (or simply “Indy”), begrudgingly teams up with his eccentric father, Professor Henry Jones, Sr. (Connery) to search for the mythical Holy Grail before it falls into the hands of Nazi forces.
The Background: The brainchild of George Lucas, Indiana Jones was a concept first thought up after filming wrapped on American Graffiti (Lucas, 1973). Inspired by pulp serials, Lucas was initially forced to shelve the project in favour of Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope(ibid, 1977) but eventually teamed with Steven Spielberg, Lawrence Kasdan, and Harrison Ford to brave the sweltering temperatures of Tunisia for Raiders of the Lost Ark(Spielberg, 1981), a critical and commercial hit that kick-started one of cinema’s most influential franchises. Its success took Lucas on step closer to his goal of a trilogy of films; however, the sequel (which was actually a prequel) attracted mixed reviews and controversy for its darker aspects, which contributed to a re-evaluation of film ratings. Yet, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom(ibid, 1984) was still one of the year’s highest-grossing movies and is often regarded as a cult classic, and the three joined forces for a third entry in 1989; originally conceived of with a haunted house premise, the plot shifted focus towards the legendary Holy Grail. Spielberg, however, was unconvinced, leading to a Chris Columbus-penned script focusing on pygmies and the Monkey King that also dissatisfied the director, who then suggested introducing Indy’s father and using their strained relationship as a thematic parallel to the search for the Holy Grail. Though initially turning down the role as he was only twelve years older than Ford, the late Sean Connery relented and significantly contributed to the characterisation of the elder Jones so he could be a match for his adventuring son. The most significant of Connery’s suggestions was a prologue that established many of Indy’s character traits, a complex and action-heavy scene involving a specially rigged train and a pit partially filled with live snakes. Equally complex was the temple set used in the finale, which was built on hydraulics and gimbals and took twenty minutes to reset for each take; Industrial Light & Magic returned to work on the film’s special effect, utilising clever camera techniques to compensate for the limitations of a tank, the Grail trials, and a combination of make-up and animatronics for the villain’s iconic death scene. With a box office of nearly $475 million, The Last Crusade was the most successful of the original trilogy; critics were largely unanimous in praising the film for returning to the light-hearted roots of Raiders and the humorous and heart-felt relationship between Indy and his dad. The film is generally regarded as the best of the series and it directly inspired a spin-off television series depicting Indy’s youth, but wouldn’t be the last time we’d see Indy on the big screen as, inexplicably, the franchise was revived for a disastrousfourth entry nearly twenty years later.
The Review: As exciting and captivating as two previous Indiana Jones movies were, we really didn’t learn all that much about the title character; we know he’s a learned professor of archaeology, extremely capable in a pinch, has a shady past when it comes to his reputation and romances, and that he’s made both allies and enemies over the years but there was no sense of his specific background. This mystery was, honestly, a big part of Indy’s allure; there was a roguish quality to him, a subtle complexity that drives his search for lost artefacts n the name of both “fortune and glory” and preserving them for the benefit of others…and the growth of his wallet. Each movie touched upon different aspects of this and his past, with him having left Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) broken hearted, him having a cheeky kid sidekick, and seeing him walk a fine line between mercenary and patriot through dialogue, allusions to his past, and just the way he carried himself with both confidence and experience, and yet still being able to adapt on the fly when thrown off by the presence of real magic.
The opening delves into Indy’s childhood and establishes many of his character traits.
The Last Crusade immediately seeks to delve further into Indy’s character than ever before, however, by opening in 1912, where we find young Indiana Jones (River Phoenix) as a budding thirteen-year-old Boy Scout. While exploring the caves at Arches National Park in Utah, Indy and his nervous friend, Herman Mueller (J.J. Hardy), stumble upon a group of grave robbers just as they unearth the fabled golden crucifix of Francisco Vázquez de Coronado. Even at a young age, Indy was outraged at the thought of such an important artefact being sold for profit; so much so that he charges Herman with going back to raise the alarm and takes it upon himself to swipe the cross when the robbers aren’t looking. The grave robbers are led by an unnamed individual in a fedora hat (Richard Young) whose entire look Indy would come to adopt as an adult; he’s got the chinos, the jacket, the rugged good looks, and is so impressed by Indy’s gusto that he gifts him his trademark hat after retrieving the cross through more manipulative means. If you ever wondered why Indy is afraid of snakes, this sequence also has you covered; despite initially tossing one away without a second thought, Indy was traumatised when he came face to face with a hissing serpent on a circus train and then took a dive into a literal pit of the slithering reptiles during his dramatic escape. Crucially, this opening shows Indy’s adaptability, moral integrity, and touches upon his tumultuous relationship with his father that is such a focal point of the movie. In the space of about twelve minutes, this opening sequence examples how trouble just seems to find Indy, and that he’s not some invulnerable action hero; he takes a pratfall while escaping on his horse, accidentally slices open his chin with a bullwhip, and crucially is outsmarted by a combination of his youthful exuberance being a constant headache for his father and the authority wielded by adults.
When his father goes missing, Indy uses his lifelong obsession to find the location of the Holy Grail.
When we jump ahead to 1938, we find the now-the adult Indy finally achieving his lifelong dream of recovering the Cross of Coronado from the robber’s Panama-wearing client (Paul Maxwell), which brings him not only the gratitude of his university colleague, Marcus Brody (Elliott), but also a great deal of closure. Indy is then approached by wealthy businessman Walter Donovan (Glover), a man with a “passion for antiquities” who has contributed generously to Indy’s university over the years. Donovan possesses a stone slab inscribed with Latin text that acts as a map and a guide to the legendary Holy Grail. It’s here where we get a glimpse of why Indy is always so quick to scoff at legends and superstition; not only have countless men died in the pursuit of such stories, but Indy’s father also dedicated his entire life to the pursuit of the Holy Grail at the expense of showing his son any affection, and Indy there for views the Arthurian myth and the search for eternal youth as an “old man’s dream”. Indy is stunned to learn that his father, a “bookworm” with no interest or experience in field work, was not only actively working with Donovan but has also vanished in the process; finding his father’s house ransacked, Indy recovers Henry’s Grail diary and sets out to pick up where his father left out in a bid to rescue him and discover whether the Holy Grail truly exists. Marcus, revealed to have been a close friend to Henry, accompanies Indy on his globe-trotting adventure. Although the bombastic Sallah (Rhys-Davies) tries to help Marcus, the blundering academic is quickly taken hostage; however, Sallah is able to lead the Jonses to him and even accompanies them to the Grail’s location. Indy also runs afoul of the Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword; led by Kazim (Kevork Malikyan), this secret society is so dedicated to protecting the Holy Grail that they’re willing to die, which they ultimately do when they’re utterly decimated by the Nazi’s superior firepower.
Indy’s strained relationship with Henry is very entertaining.
As mentioned, Indy has a strained relationship with his father stemming back to his youth; as a child, Indy always resented that his father was constantly buried in his research into the Holy Grail, to the point where he barely seemed to acknowledge his son. This bitterness was only exacerbated when Henry could offer no comfort for their shared grief over his mother’s untimely passing and runs so deep that Indy preferred to take the name of the beloved family dog rather than be associated with his famous and inattentive father, and consequently Indy is confused when Henry sends him his life’s work and goes missing while working in the field. Henry’s diary contains all of his knowledge and findings about the Holy Grail, including maps, pictures, rumours, writings, and vague musings. Indy is quickly able to decipher it to follow in his fathers footsteps and pick up where he left off, completely unaware that Henry sent the diary to him to keep it safe and in the hopes that he would do the exact opposite. Thus, when Indy is betrayed by Henry’s beautiful colleague, Elsa Schneider (Doody) and left to die, Henry is disappointed and outraged to learn that Indy brought the diary with him and unwittingly helped the Nazis discover the Grail’s resting place. Indy and Henry’s relationship throughout the film is framed by awkwardness and comedy; the aloof professor smashes a vase over his son’s head after mistaking him for a Nazi, constantly carries his briefcase and umbrella, and seems continuously nonplussed, if not aggravated, by Indy’s more adventurous and violent lifestyle. Indy’s usual bravado falters around his father; he regresses somewhat to a childish state, referring to henry as “Sir”, being irritated by Henry’s insistence on calling him “Junior”, and constantly aggravated by his father’s obsession with the Holy Grail and refusal to acknowledge that he wasn’t the most loving father. In contrast, Henry believes that he taught Indy self-reliance and respected his privacy, the very tools which have made him the man he is today, and is quick to brush aside Indy’s plea for a more traditional father/son relationship to focus on the more pressing task of reaching the Holy Grail before the Nazis. Like Henry, Marcus isn’t accustomed to field work and quickly becomes the bumbling comic relief of the movie; far from being a detrimental aspect of the film, though, this results in one of my favourite sequences where Indy resolutely hypes up Marcus as being a capable and formidable adversary, only for us to see that he’s hopeless in over his head amidst the crowded streets of İskenderun and to learn that he once got lost in his own museum!
Both Elsa and Donovan betray Indy and utilise the Nazis to find the coveted Holy Grail.
Indy and Marcus are met in Venice by Elsa, an Austrian art professor who immediately catches Indy’s eye. Having worked closely with Henry throughout his investigation, she appears devastated at his disappearance especially as he had recently become uncharacteristically excited by his findings and continuously notes the similarities between the two Jonses, much to Indy’s dismay. Though angered to find that he didn’t trust her with Henry’s diary, Elsa eagerly (and practically literally) jumps at the chance to get intimate with Indy after their rooms are ransacked and dutifully plays the part of Indy’s assistant when he adopts the questionable guise of a Scottish lord to infiltrate Castle Brunwald, a Nazi-controlled castle in Austria. Indy quickly becomes besotted by her and this, as much as his animosity towards his father, leads to him being easily betrayed by Elsa, who claims the diary for her Nazi superiors, represented by brutal Schutzstaffel colonel Ernst Vogel (Michael Byrne). However, when Indy confronts her in Berlin, we see that Elsa is distraught by their xenophobic and violent ways and simply covets the Holy Grail for her own selfish ends. Thus, like in Raiders of the Lost Ark, the Nazis are used as a means to an end and essentially portrayed as bumbling, glorified henchmen for Indy to shoot, beat up, and embarrass at every turn. Initially introduced as an affluent businessman who desires to locate the Holy Grail and realise every man’s dream of eternal youth, Donovan is well versed in Grail lore, such as its discovery by three Knights of the First Crusade. While Indy scoffs at these bed time stories, he is intrigued and impressed to find that Donovan not only possesses the incomplete Grail slab but also an elaborate manuscript that proves the stories are true. Having worked with Henry in a bid to uncover the Grail’s location, Donovan desperately turns to Indy to complete the quest for the benefit of all mankind but, in actuality, uses both the Jonses, and the Nazis, and even bribes the sultan of Hatay (Alexei Sayle) to realise his dreams of immortality and everlasting youth.
The Nitty-Gritty: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is a u-turn back to the free-spirited adventure and quirky action/comedy of Raider of the Lost Ark; perhaps, in some ways, too much of a u-turn. Not only is the title font now the same as in Raiders, robbing us of the more stylistic Indy logo, but Indy is seen back in the classroom teaching a bunch of lovestruck teenagers before he’s joined by Marcus, who asks all about his latest escapade, and his conscripted into going off on another adventure, just like in Raiders. Interestingly, Indy’s lesson paints archaeology as a decidedly dull profession, where he downplays clichés and excitement of the profession and urges his students to do their research rather than gallivanting across the world despite the fact that this is exactly what he does; the movie even makes this a bit of a joke as, despite Indy’s assurances, X very much does “mark the spot” later in the narrative. As someone who actually enjoyed the darker aspects of Temple of Doom, and how it offered something a little different to the franchise, it is a little disappointing to see The Last Crusade go back to the Nazis and hit many of the same beats as Raiders of the Lost Ark but, thankfully, there’s enough here to make it stand out on its own, not least in the extended opening that shows us Indy’s childhood and the most elaborate action sequences of the franchise so far, but crucially in demonstrating the relationship between Indy and his father.
Indy and Henry are more alike than they would care to admit and bond over their adventure.
This relationship is what really sets The Last Crusade from its predecessors and, in my opinion and the opinions of many, makes the film the most enjoyable of the franchise. Who out there can’t relate to trying to earn the respect and attention of their parents, after all? Indy has been striving for this his entire life; even s an adult, he just wants his father to show him some warmth and love but he’s constantly playing second fiddle to his obsession with the Holy Grail or his admiration for antiquities. Even when tied to a chair, the Jonses cannot help but bicker with each other as Henry chastises his son’s foolishness and Indy desperately tries to escape their bonds, only for his father’s clumsiness to cause the room to catch fire! Still, it’s fun seeing Indy put together the vague clues in Henry’s diary, which lead him to desecrate a church (that’s been revamped into a library) to uncover the tomb of a Grail Knight beneath the beautiful water-logged streets of Venice and complete the Grail slab. While Henry’s diary makes it clear just how close he was to uncovering the Grail’s location, he’s still thrilled and even gives Indy praise for finding the tomb and the starting point for the trail to the Grail, the ancient city of Alexandretta. Henry may be aghast at Indy’s penchant for violence and lacks his son’s more physical attributes, often taking the role of an inept hostage or accidentally trigging hidden doors or damaging their plane with erratic gunfire, he’s never short of a biting remark or a disapproving scowl at Indy’s “intolerable” actions. However, he shows a spark of capability when he sends a flock of birds flying into a Nazi plane using his umbrella and gets his hands dirty to rescue Marcus from Donovan’s tank, and is also revealed to be just as much of a ladies’ man as his son since he also shared a bed with Elsa.
The film is bolstered by exhilarating action sequences, with Indy’s battle against a tank being a highlight.
In addition to detailing how every recognisable element of Indy came to be, the opening doubles as an exciting action set piece as young Indy is chased by grave robbers to a circus train, resulting in a thrilling chase across the rooftops and through the carriages of a circus train and some close encounters with giant reptiles, an enraged rhino, and a voracious lion amidst the threat of being shot and stabbed. Even as a youth, Indy showcased an admirable fighting spirit; though outnumbered and outclassed by the grave robbers, he was still able to steal the Cross of Coronado from them, got in a few good shots, and temporarily outwit them. While retrieving it as an adult, he’s become adept at using his surroundings to his advantage in a fight, even when fighting in the midst of a raging storm at sea, and at swinging about with his whip. The Last Crusade takes Indy into the heart of Nazi Germany, where he comes face-to-face with Adolf Hitler himself (Michael Sheard), and sees him hilariously masquerading as a ticket attendant aboard the Nazi’s impressive blimp (after). This also results in a riveting chase sequence that sees Henry bungle their escape via biplane and Indy outracing the German fighters in a car. Perhaps the film’s most thrilling action sequence involves Indy chasing after a massive tank on horseback. Despite the insurmountable odds, Indy is able to jam the tank’s cannon, guns down three soldiers with a single shot, and goes toe-to-toe with Vogel atop the tank as his men are crushed underfoot. This sequence again reinforces Indy’s vulnerability as he’s constantly swarmed by armed soldiers, almost crushed against a canyon wall, and appears to go tumbling over a cliff edge along with Vogel and the tank in an amusing fake out that doubles as a poignant moment where Henry finally (if briefly) shows some love and affection for his son.
After besting the trials and choosing wisely, Indy saves his father and the two finally reconcile.
Thankfully, not all of the darker elements of the franchise have been excised; the walls of the Grail Knight’s tomb are filled with skeletal remains and the sewer-like catacomb is populated by mewling rats, recalling the bug-infested tunnel of Temple of Doom but the most disturbing effect is saved for the finale. Thanks to Henry’s diary, Donovan and Elsa are able to reach to the Canyon of the Crescent Moon, where temple where the Holy Grail is guarded behind three trials. Lacking the preparation and knowledge to best these tasks, Donovan’s soldiers are unable to keep from being beheaded by the temple’s boobytraps, so Donovan mortally wounds Henry with a gunshot to force Indy to venture inside and lead them to the Holy Grail. Once again forced to acknowledge that mysticism is all-too-real, Indy desperately relies on his father’s research to guide him through: realising that a penitent man kneels before God, Indy is able to narrowly avoid being diced by a series of buzzsaws; Indy then steps on the correct floor tiles to spell out God’s true name, though he almost falls to his death when he forgets his Latin alphabet. Finally, Indy faces a literal leap of faith when confronted with a large chasm; though he willingly takes the plunge, he’s stunned to find the path is an optical illusion that leads right to a chamber filled with dozens of different chalices and guarded by an aging Grail Knight (Robert Eddison). Donovan and Elsa follow and are captivated by the treasures; out of spite, Elsa picks an ornate golden chalice that more than meets Donovan’s expectations, but his elation turns to horror when drinking from it causes him to rapidly and agonisingly age into a howling skeleton. Indy chooses far more wisely by selecting a modest cup, which he successfully tests on himself before using to heal his father; a passing line by the Knight reveals that the Grail cannot pass beyond the temple, potentially explaining Henry’s later death and Indy’s lack of everlasting youth in future films. However, Elsa cannot give up her obsession, causing the temple to crumble apart around her; in her desperate desire to claim it for herself, she falls to her death and Indy briefly comes close to suffering the same fate when he’s left dangling precariously with the fabled chalice within reach. He’s talked away from the brink by this father, who touchingly refers to him as “Indiana” for the first time, saving his life, realising Henry’s lifelong dream, and repairing the rift between the Jonses through their shared experience.
The Summary: I may have some issues with how Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade regresses the narrative and direction of the franchise in some ways; it takes maybe a few too many cues from Raiders of the Lost Ark at times, which is a little disappointing, but I think it benefits from being the third entry. If it had been the second, these elements might have stuck out as being more derivative but, luckily, The Last Crusade takes everything that worked in the last two films and expands upon them in exciting and unique ways. It might be a little unbelievable that all of Indy’s most important experiences occurred on one Boy Scout expedition but this glimpse into his adventurous youth, but it really helped to show how his attitude and personality was shaped by his childhood. Of course, the heart of the film is the adorable and intricate relationship between Indy and his father. An aggravating authority figure who grates on Indy’s last nerve, the chemistry these two serves is the selling point of this movie and it’s fantastic to see new nuances added to Indy’s character through his interactions with Henry. They’re bumbling adventures with the Nazis are so much fun that I could honestly watch these two get into all kinds of scrapes and go on further adventures, which sadly wasn’t to be but really elevates The Last Crusade above its predecessors while staying true to their pulp origins. Although not as dark as the second entry, The Last Crusade more than makes up for it with some fun action sequences, elaborate boobytraps, and a truly horrific final fate for Donovan. Ultimately, while the three classic Indiana Jones films all have appealing factors and each one is great in its own way, for me The Last Crusade edges out the other two thanks to the efforts of Harrison Ford and Sean Connery and remains the standard barer for the franchise even now.
My Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 5 out of 5.
Fantastic
Is Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade your favourite of the series? What did you think to the chemistry between Harrison Ford and Sean Connery and the relationship between Indy and his father? Did you see Elsa and Donovan’s turn coming and what did you think to the Nazis returning as antagonists? Which of the film’s action set pieces was your favourite? Did you enjoy the opening sequence and the look into Indy’s childhood or was it a little unbelievable for you? Do you think you would’ve been able to best the trails and select the correct Holy Grail? Would you have liked to see more from Henry in a fourth movie and did you think he and Indy had been gifted with eternal youth? Whatever you think about Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, feel free to share your memories of Indiana Jones in the comments or on my social media.
Sonic the Hedgehog was first introduced to gamers worldwide on 23 June 1991 and, since then, has become not only SEGA’s most enduring and popular character but also a beloved videogame icon and what better way to honour SEGA’s supersonic mascot than by celebrating his birthday all throughout June.
This review has been supported by Chiara Cooper. If you’d like to support the site, you can do so at my Ko-Fi page.
Released: 28 November 2012 Originally Released: June 1996 Developer: SEGA Original Developer: SEGA AM2 Also Available For: Arcade, GameCube, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
The Background: As you’re probably aware, Sonic the Hedgehog (Sonic Team, 1991) was a massive success for SEGA; it catapulted them ahead of their rivals, Nintendo, and changed the face of the “Console Wars” forever. Sonic the Hedgehog 2(SEGA Technical Institute, 1992) not only continued that success but also catapulted Sonic into mainstream popularity. SEGA were quick to capitalise on Sonic’s popularity, licensing the character out for comic books, cartoons, and all kinds of merchandise and producing a number of spin-off titles for all kinds of consoles and placing Sonic into many different genres, from racing games to puzzle games and, of course, a fighting game. Sonic the Fighters (also known as Sonic Championship) was developed by SEGA AM2 after the team were spotted dabbling with Sonic character models during the development of Fighting Vipers (SEGA AM2, 1995), whose game engine formed the basis of Sonic the Fighters. I was lucky enough to play Sonic the Fighters at SEGAWorld back in the day but, for many, their first experience with the game was when it was released as part of Sonic Gems Collection (Sonic Team, 2005). Although the game has been criticised for being nothing more than a basic fighting title, Sonic the Fighters was eventually brought to PlayStation 3 and Xbox Live as a digital title that not only gave the game a new coat of paint but also added additional characters and gameplay modes.
The Plot: Doctor Eggman and his new version of Metal Sonic, Mecha Sonic Model. 29 (or “Rocket Metal”), have constructed a spherical battle station, the Death Egg II in orbit. Sonic, his allies and some disreputable types, are each in possession of one of the eight Chaos Emeralds but Miles “Tails” Prower’s Lunar Fox rocket ship can only seat one so they decide to hold a one-on-one tournament to determine who will fly up to stop Dr. Eggman.
Gameplay: Sonic the Fighters is a 3D polygonal fighter in which you pick from one of eight playable characters and battle the other remaining fighters on a series of garish 3D planes, including a mirror match against a monochrome double of your character, before blasting up to the Death Egg II and battling Metal Sonic and Dr. Eggman. You can select from series staples Sonic, Tails, Amy Rose, Knuckles the Echidna, and Espio the Chameleon and some of the franchise’s more obscure characters Fang the Sniper (also known as Nack the Weasel), Bark the Polar Bear, and Bean the Dynamite. Whichever character you pick, you’ll be tasked with pulling off a variety of rapid-fire punches, kicks, and special attacks using the Y, B, and A buttons in co-ordination with other buttons and directional inputs. You can throw your opponent, duck and sidestep attacks, and raise a barrier by pressing X to block incoming attacks. If your opponent shatters this barrier, though, and you run out of barrier energy, you’ll be left stunned and vulnerable so it’s best to time the use of your barrier to when it’ll be at its most useful. You can also press back, Y, and B to expend some of your barrier’s energy and enter “Hyper Mode”, which will bestow you with some sparkles and increase your speed and attack stats.
Each character has a variety of special moves tailoured to their unique physical attributes.
As a 3D polygonal fighter, Sonic the Fighters allows for a series of basic combos and character-specific special attacks that are awkwardly pulled off using directional inputs and button presses or combinations and change depending on where you’re standing and the position of your opponent, meaning that it’s easy to enter a button combination and simply spam the same moves over and over again. Each character controls a little differently and focus on a slightly different method of attack: Sonic is all about his trademark Spin Dash, Tails can charge at opponents head-on using his twin tails like helicopter blades, Knuckles can glide across the screen, Amy wallops her foes with her Piko-Piko Hammer, Bomb tosses a variety of bombs, Fang uses his rapid-fire popgun, Espio tosses opponents around with his tongue, and Bark is all about the grapples and high-impact punches. Each is just different enough to add a bit of variety to the fast-paced and simplistic gameplay, with Amy favouring barriers, Bark being slower but hitting harder, and Espio being notably aggressive in his attack but you can easily just mash at the buttons and come out on top more often than not.
Sonic the Fighters is all about fast-paced, frantic, cartoony combat and very little else.
Perhaps fittingly, fights in Sonic the Fighters are extremely quick and frantic; health bars seem to drain extremely quickly, especially when you’re hit with a few frenzied punches or a throw or two, and it won’t take you longer than ten minutes or so to blast through the arcade ladder on the easiest setting. You can customise the difficulty of the single-player arcade mode, the length and number of rounds, and set the strength of attacks and number of barriers characters have from the main options menu, which can make the game easier and harder depending on your setup, but it’s a rapid fighting game that bombards you with colours, cartoony slapstick, and a quick burst of adrenaline rather than being a deep or complex fighter. Unlike a lot of fighters, there’s very little to break up the action in Sonic the Fighters; there’s no bonus stages or mini games to worry about and variety only comes into play in the garish and colourful stages and the brief little cutscenes that play in the game’s final stages. Every time you play the game, you’ll battle the same opponents in the same order in the same stages, which only adds to the game’s repetitive and predictable nature, and the only option you’re really given to try and spice up your fights is that you can press the Start button to switch the perspective to slightly behind your character (though I found this a bit disorienting for a one-on-one fighting game).
Graphics and Sound: Characters are brought to life in the finest polygonal graphics the arcades had to offer; fighters are large, colourful, and extremely expressive, spewing Golden Rings every time they’re hit, squashing when hit with big moves, and reacting with an over-the-top, cartoonish slapstick that really adds to the game’s charm. And, honestly, it’s a good job that these aspects are present in Sonic the Fighters as these kind of graphics (while impressive and trend-setting at the time when the industry was swamped with traditional 2D fighters) really haven’t aged well at all. Seriously, games like Virtual Fighter (SEGA AM2, 1993), Soul Edge (Project Soul, 1995), and Tekken (Namco, 1995) might have shown what the next generation of home consoles and 3D polygonal graphics were capable of but they look pretty ass these days and Sonic the Fighters is no exception with its harsh edges and blocky textures. Still, the game is very bright and colourful and really pops out at you…well, I say “pops” but really it screams in your face with how vibrant and garish it can be. Every character stands out from even the most colourful backgrounds thanks to their large, blocky size, cartoonish expressions, and vivid, recognisable colour schemes (Sonic is a stunning blue, Fang is a unique purple, and Bark is a big cream-coloured polar bear, for example). The character designs really are spot on, with each character having their own unique little quirks and animations to help them stand out; Fang bounces on his tail like a pogo stick, Tails flails his arms around in a little flurry, and Bean haphazardly tosses his bombs with reckless abandon.
Stages are vividand mostly based on the franchise but very restrictive and a bit bland at times.
The game’s final bosses only continue this, with Metal Sonic rendered beautifully in 3D (he is probably the most smooth and impressive of all the game’s characters) and even Dr. Eggman’s little mech looking both cute and perfectly in character (if a bit small). Each of the game’s eight characters has their own stage and the majority of these stages are based on recognisable Zones from across the Sonic franchise but, ironically, the four core characters (Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Amy) seem to have been slightly misplaced in these stages. You’d think that you’d face Sonic in the Green Hill-inspired South Island and Knuckles in Mushroom Hill but, actually, you face Knuckles in South Island and Espio in Mushroom Hill, which is a bit odd. Fang, Bean, and Bark and all perfectly placed in Casino Night, Dynamite Plant (which seems like an amalgamation of Chemical Plant, Oil Ocean, and Metropolis Zone), and Aurora Icefield, however. Stages are limited to a very small, restrictive 3D plane that, yes, you can freely navigate around using movements and sidesteps but they’re not very big. You won’t have to worry about ring outs, however, which is good, and you can smack your opponent into, and bounce them off of, the walls of each stage, which can produce comical sounds from the Sonic sound effects library. One area where the game really excels in its music; jaunty, upbeat, energetic tunes accompany the start, end, and duration of each round and it (like the game’s general aesthetic) reminds me of the look and sound of Sonic 3D: Flickies’ Island/Sonic 3D Blast (Traveller’s Tales/Sonic Team, 1996) and even the Sonic the Hedgehogoriginal video animation (Ikegami, 1999). When you win a round, you’ll also view an instant replay of the last few moments of the fight, much like in Tekken, and a handful of quick, simple cutscenes (which utilise the in-game graphics) show Dr. Eggman copying your fighter for the mirror match and relay the general plot of the game as well as the dramatic ending that sees you battling against a strict time limit.
Enemies and Bosses: As a one-on-one fighting game, you’ll be tasked with battling every character in the game in your quest to secure the eight Chaos Emeralds and take on Metal Sonic and Dr. Eggman. No matter who you pick, though, two things are guaranteed: one is that you’ll battle a monochrome double of yourself and the other is that you’ll face the same fighters in the same order every time, meaning you can prepare accordingly for the unique traits of each fighter without being taken by surprise, though it does make the single-player arcade ladder very predictable and repetitive. I played the game on the easiest difficulty and found that the first few fights were pretty much a walk in the park: Knuckles is extremely unaggressive and rarely even tries to launch an attack against you, Amy likes to hide behind her barriers to drag out the battle, and Bark, for all his size and power, is pretty easy to dominate with the faster characters. Things always seem to take a turn for me when I go up against Espio, who appears to be much more aggressive in his approach, and Fang, who is extremely cheap to both play as or fight against since his popgun just blasts projectiles with relentless abandon.
Once you get past the tough Metal Sonic, you’re given just fifteen seconds to take out Dr. Eggman.
Once you conquer all of the fighters and secure the eight Chaos Emeralds, you’ll rocket up to the Death Egg II and do battle with the game’s toughest opponent yet: Metal Sonic. Metal Sonic is a fast, aggressive move thief, busting out a version of Tails’ helicopter drop and Knuckles’ glide by rocketing across the screen like a torpedo. He can also blast out a large laser from his chest and drain your health bar with just a few combos and is easily the most frustrating opponent in the game made all the more annoying because of the game’s dodgy controls and requirements to properly pull off special moves. Once you finally take out Metal Sonic, though, the Death Egg II’s self-destruction sequence begins and Dr. Eggman comes stomping out in his little pincer mech and tries to keep you from escaping before the space station explodes. For this battle, you’ll automatically be placed into a permanent Hyper Mode but, on the flip side, you’ll also be given fifteen seconds to defeat Dr. Eggman in a single round fight and, if you fail, it’s game over. Thankfully, Dr. Eggman is no real threat (at least on the easiest setting) and you can simply trounce him in no time at all by spamming whatever attacks and combos you know before he even has a chance to unload his best attacks against you.
Power-Ups and Bonuses: There’s no extraneous power-ups or onscreen collectibles to worry about in Sonic the Fighters; it’s about as bare bones as you can get for a fighting title and the only power-up you have at your disposal is the Hyper Mode, which can be activated for a few seconds at the cost of some barrier energy and can help turn the tide if you’re struggling. If you manage to reach Metal Sonic without losing a single round, and score the win in the first round against him, you can activate your Hyper Mode to transform into Super Sonic for the remainder of the game. Obviously, this only applies when you’re playing as Sonic and no other character gets this buff and, unfortunately, there’s no way to play as Super Sonic outside of this requirement but it’s pretty cool to wreck Metal Sonic and Dr. Eggman as a fully powered up Super Sonic if you’ve got the skills and luck to activate this form.
Additional Features: There are twelve Achievements for you to earn in Sonic the Fighters and you should probably be able to get them all in one quick playthrough without any real difficulty. Seven of the Achievements are earned simply by completing the arcade mode on any difficulty; you’ll also nab another from playing arcade mode and battling your monochrome doppelgänger and, as long as you press the attack against a defending opponent, you’ll most likely grab another at the same time, too. The only ones that you might have to think a little harder about are ‘A Small Transformation’ (which requires you to get squashed by Amy’s hammer attack), ‘Perfect’ (which requires you to complete one round without being hit), and ‘Honey the Cat’ (which requires you to press Start when selecting Amy).
This version of the game adds three extra fighters to play as, which is a nice touch.
Speaking of Honey, this character was officially added to the game’s playable roster of fighters in this console port, which is very much appreciated. You can also play as Metal Sonic and Dr. Eggman by pressing Start when selecting Sonic or Bean, respectively, but you can only play as these two outside of the arcade mode, which is a bit of a shame. Equally disappointing is that other cut variants of the bosses were still inaccessible even in this game and that there’s no way to play a one-on-one fight against a computer-controlled opponent outside of the arcade mode. You can, however, fight against a friend in both couch co-op and online and compare your scores and winning streaks with others with the online leaderboards but, sadly, that’s it; there’s no gallery or character models or anything, which is a bit of a shame.
The Summary: Sonic the Fighters is a fairly decent little blast of fun that should keep you satisfied for about, maybe, half an hour at the most. The arcade mode is a breeze to blast through in about ten minutes, depending on your skill level and the difficulty settings you set up, and there’s some fun to be had playing as each character and basking in their vibrant, animated 3D models. As an obscure entry in the Sonic franchise, you could do a lot worse and it’s great seeing Fang, Bean, and Bark brought to life in 3D and given a chance to shine. I’ll never understand why it took SEGA so long to bring these fantastically-designed characters back into the franchise and that, and my brief experience with the game at SEGAWorld, means I have a bit of a soft spot for this mostly forgotten entry in the franchise. However, it can’t be denied that Sonic the Fighters isn’t really that good of a gaming experience or a fighting game; it’s bright and vibrant and full of quirky, cartoonish charm but there are definitely better 3D fighters out there from the same time and the game is just too fast and too frantic for its own good, meaning it’s a disappointingly short and underwhelming experience that is only worth your time because it’s kinda cheap, the Achievements are dead easy to get, and you can breeze through it easily enough even when facing the game’s cheaper, more frustrating opponents.
My Rating:
⭐⭐
Rating: 2 out of 5.
Could Be Better
Are you a fan of Sonic the Fighters? Which of the game’s roster was your favourite and why? What did you think to the game’s aesthetic and gameplay? Did you struggle with the controls and button inputs or did you discover a depth to the gameplay that I missed while madly mashing buttons? Did you ever play Sonic the Fighters out in the wild or did you first experience it when it was ported to home consoles? Would you like to see SEGA attempt a Sonic fighting game again sometime, maybe in the mould of the Super Smash Bros. series (HAL Laboratory/Various, 1999 to present)? Whatever your thoughts on Sonic the Fighters, leave a comment down below.
As amusing detail in the Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987 to 1994) episode “The Pegasus” (Burton, 1994) is that the crew and children of the U.S.S. Enterprise-D celebrate “Captain Picard Day”on Stardate 47457.1, which roughly translates to this day, the 16th of June. They do this by producing drawings, models, and paintings that the bewildered Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) must then judge. I, however, am using this as another good excuse to delve into some more Picard and Next Generation content.
This review has been supported by Chiara Cooper. If you’d like to support the site, you can do so at my Ko-Fi page.
Released: 18 November 1994 Director: David Carson Distributor: Paramount Pictures Budget: $60 million Stars: Patrick Stewart, Malcolm McDowell, Brent Spiner, Jonathan Frakes, Levar Burton, and William Shatner
The Plot: When Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Stewart) and his crew investigate a Romulan attack and rescue Doctor Tolian Soran (McDowell). Soran forces the Enterprise-D into a conflict with the Klingons so that he can return to an extra-dimensional realm known as the “Nexus”, a plot that threatens to destroy entire worlds and sees Picard entering the Nexus to recruit the help of the legendary Captain James T. Kirk (Shatner).
The Background: Once the popular Star Trek: The Next Generation wrapped up, the crew, like their predecessors, featured in a series of feature-length films. Writers Ronald D. Moore and Brannon Braga were recruited mid-way through The Next Generation’s sixth season to pen the script for the crew’s first big-screen outing, which was always framed around the idea of the Original Series (1966 to 1969) crew passing the torch, or outright doing battle with, their Next Generation successors, though the writers struggled to find a way to have the multi-generational crews meet face-to-face. Determined to aim high, the writers and producer Rick Berman hit upon the idea of killing the iconic Captain Kirk, a decision which both the studio and Shatner had some concerns about. For the transition to the silver screen, production designer Herman Zimmerman improved many of the Next Generation sets, giving them a new coat of polish and designing an elaborate new area, stellar cartography, for a key scene in the narrative, while Bill George gave the Enterprise-D a touch up for cinema screens. Star Trek Generations also marked the first use of extensive CGI for many of the model, space, and battle scenes, which very quickly became the norm for future Star Trek projects. Star Trek Generations grossed $118 million at the box office, making it a financial success, but was met with mixed reviews; critics complained that it felt more like a longer episode of the TV series and relied too much on audience familiarity, and many criticised the film for killing Kirk in such an underwhelming fashion. What should have been an iconic meeting of two prominent Star Trek characters was seen as a disappointing waste of potential, with Patrick Stewart generally regarded as the superior actor of the two, and many of the film’s other plot points were seen as equally disappointing. These days, Star Trek Generationsremains divisive, but it did result in a series of bonkers novels written by Shatner that returned his famous character to life for further adventures.
The Review: I’ve talked a bit about this before, but I was firmly a Next Generation fan as a kid; my only real experience to the Original Series came from the films, as the show just wasn’t on terrestrial television when I was growing up, so it was Next Generation and onwards for me. Still, I was fascinated by the concept of the Original Series and had been won over by the cast and characters from the majority of their feature-film adventures, so the idea of seeing interactions between them both was very exciting for me as a Star Trek fan. I believe I’d seen the two-part Next Generation episode “Unification” (Landau; Bole, 1991) prior to this, or not long after, which offered a rare cross-generational moment when Picard encountered Ambassador Spock (Leonard Nimoy), but it seemed like it would be all-but-impossible to get the Enterprise-A and Enterprise-D in the same place at the same time due to the massive time gap between the generations, so Star Trek Generations had a hell of a lot of potential and promise in its premise alone.
Picard is distraught when his family is killed but is the only one strong enough to reject the idyllic Nexus.
Following a dramatic opening sequence in which he learn that Kirk was presumably lost when the ridiculously unprepared Enterprise-B was damaged by a destructive energy ribbon later identified as the “Nexus”, Star Trek Generations jumps ahead to the then-present day some eighty years later to find the crew of the Enterprise-D celebrating the promotion of Lieutenant Worf (Michael Dorn) to Lieutenant-Commander on a holodeck simulator. Unfortunately, Picard’s jovial mood soon takes an unexpected and crushing blow when he receives word that his brother and nephew, Robert (Jeremy Kemp/Ian Abercrombie) and René (David Tristan Birkin/Christopher James Miller), have perished in a fire at Château Picard. This leaves Picard in an extremely vulnerable place for the majority of the film; struggling to process his grief, he becomes irritable and snaps at his crew, most notably Commander William Riker (Frakes) and Lieutenant-Commander Data (Spiner). Sympathy from Counsellor Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis) allows him to open up (in actual fact, he breaks down in an uncomfortably awkward sequence) about the fire, but he remains somewhat shell-shocked by the realisation that his family line has effectively ended with the death of his young nephew. Consequently, he has a contentious relationship, to say the least, with the concept of time; feeling his age and the weight of what could have been baring down on top of him, he’s fascinated by the allure of the Nexus, which promises its occupants their ideal life at the cost of denying the reality of the outside world. Despite his pain and doubts, Picard remains a stern, but fair, commanding officer and throws himself whole-heartedly into trying to predict and ultimately stop the ribbon’s destructive path. He’s also the only one of the three Nexus occupants to actively reject the paradise dimension through the sheer force of his conviction to making a difference in the galaxy and living a life worth remembering while he has the time, regardless of what he does or doesn’t leave behind.
After a social faux pas, Data installs an Emotion Chip but struggles with the new sensations it brings.
As is generally the case with the Next Generation feature-films, it’s Data who receives the biggest sub-plot out of the rest of the Enterprise-D crew; just as Picard struggles with his emotions, Data finds himself perplexed at his continued inability to grasp basic human concepts such as “humour” and is so disturbed at having misunderstood the concept and upsetting Doctor Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden) that he resolves to install the “Emotion Chip” (retrieved from his twin “brother”, Lore (also Spiner), in the episode “Descent, Part II” (Singer, 1993)). Data’s struggles to process and adapt to the sudden influx of emotions is a recurring element of the film, and a significant character arc for him; at first, he’s excited at exploring positive emotions and his increased range of comprehension and emotion, and this gives Spiner a chance to be much more whimsical with the normally logical android and leads to some of the film’s more amusing moments as Data is hit with a case of the giggles and does a little sing-song when asked to scan for lifeforms. However, he soon becomes overwhelmed by them, and the accompanying negative emotions, when the chip overloads his positronic relay. After being crippled by fear, Data is left guilt-ridden when his friend, Commander Geordi LaForge (Burton), is captured by the Klingons and begs to be deactivated until the chip can be removed so he can be spared his pain. This, however, acts as a thematic parallel to Picard’s own pain and the Captain encourages Data to work through his emotions since learning to process the good and the bad is all part of being human, which includes making mistakes and learning how to overcome fear and doubt. Ultimately, Data resolves to continue on and make amends for his mistake, though Geordi shows no ill-will towards his friend, which results in him ending the film as a far more emotionally expressive character than the one we followed in The Next Generation, which would continue to be seen in subsequent Next Generation movies.
Having had a taste of the Nexus. Dr. Soren is obsessed with returning to the virtual paradise it offers.
The film’s primary, tangible antagonist is Dr. Soren, played with scenery chewing (if sadly underutilised) malice by the fantastic Malcolm McDowell. McDowell certainly has the menace and acting chops to match wits with Stewart/Picard, but Dr. Soren doesn’t really make for an especially intimidating villain, despite the fact that his obsession with the Nexus has led to the destruction of numerous starships and even entire planets. Like Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg), Dr. Soren is a long-lived El-Aurian whose race were decimated by the Borg and scattered throughout the galaxy; prior to this, he was a gentle and kind-hearted man, but the Borg attack and the loss of his beloved wife and children changed him, scarred him, for life. Dr. Soren came to regard death as in inevitability and time as a predatory animal hunting every lifeform in existence, and actively sought to defy both by losing himself to the Nexus. Having experienced a taste of paradise about eighty years previously before being torn away by the Enterprise-B, Dr. Soren has explored every possibility to re-enter the Nexus and concluded that the only way to guarantee that he survives the cross-dimensional trip is to forcibly direct the energy ribbon towards Veridian III, an action that will cause (and has caused) the cataclysmic destruction of entire worlds. Dr. Soren, however, cares little about this; he even allies with the Klingon sisters Lursa (Barbara March) and B’Etor Duras (Gwynyth Walsh) to stave off the Enterprise-D (using Geordi as an unwilling spy) long enough for him to destroy the Veridan star and enact his plan and refuses to listen to Picard’s pleas for sanity. Dr. Soren is a driven, single-minded villain who is absolutely fixated on returning to the Nexus whatever the cost; he cares nothing for the death and destruction his actions will cause, or how reprehensible his wife would find his actions, and is simply consumed by not only his selfish and maniacal desires but also his fear regarding the inevitability of death.
Kirk is convinced to leave the Nexus on the promise of making a difference to the galaxy once more.
As is only fitting, Kirk – and his Original Series cohorts Commander Montgomery “Scotty” Scott (James Doohan) and Commander Pavel Chekov (Walter Koenig) – is treated with reverence and respect by John Harriman (Alan Ruck), Captain of the Enterprise-B, and are mobbed by adoring reporters, all of whom regard the trio as “living legends”. In keeping with much of his characterisation throughout the Original Series movies, Kirk is a man at a crossroads; very much retired, he is literally itching to get back into action and only stops himself from interfering in Harriman’s actions out of a begrudging respect for the fact that he (as in Kirk) is no longer in command. While his experience and knowledge clearly outweigh those of Harriman, Kirk only gets involved when all other options are exhausted; once he does, he immediately comes up with a variety of possible solutions using the Enterprise-B’s limited capabilities to try and rescue the ships threatened by the Nexus, and even appears to die when successfully helping the ship escape the ribbon’s destructive path. However, it’s revealed that Kirk’s actually been transported to the Nexus; although Kirk’s been presumed dead for almost eighty years, from his perspective he only just arrived in the paradise dimension and, once there, his priorities immediately shift. Kirk sees the otherworldly nirvana as a second chance to make good on all the things he ignored in favour of galivanting across the galaxy and vehemently resents Picard’s suggestion that he’s turning his back on his duties as a Starfleet officer. Kirk feels he has more than paid his dues and that “the galaxy owes [him] one” but sees a lot of himself in Picard; straight-laced and obsessed with “duty and obligation” at the expense of his personal life and wants, but the pull of adventure ultimately lures Kirk into one last hurrah. The interactions between Kirk and Picard are easily the best part of the film, and the verbal jousting and banter they share for the entirety of the final act is incredibly surreal and enjoyable; Kirk represents what Picard could become if he doesn’t realise that he needs to appreciate life outside of Starfleet, and Picard offers Kirk one last chance to “make a difference” like he used to on a near-daily basis and to experience the excitement and danger he felt as Captain of the Enterprise rather than languish in a dream-like dimension.
The Nitty-Gritty: It’s hard to argue with those who were disappointed that Star Trek Generations just feels like a longer, mediocre episode of The Next Generation; the film drags unnecessarily with many of its plot points and, especially, in its pacing. Not only are the film’s uniforms wildly inconsistent, constantly shifting between the Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993 to 1999) outfits, but it doesn’t even feature the iconic Star Trek theme until the closing credits and begins with a long, drawn out, sombre title sequence in which nothing of any great interest happens and we’re not even treated to a rousing score to get us excited. Obviously, it would be a bit misleading to act as though the film was going to be this action-packed spectacle, but the point is that Star Trek Generations could’ve, and should’ve, been so much more and it fumbles the ball right off the bat. The clue’s in the title: “Generations”, and yet we barely get much interaction between Kirk and Picard and they’re pushed together in one of the most contrived ways imaginable. Maybe it’s just me, but I would have much preferred seeing all of the Original Series crew back in action, in the Enterprise-A, and going head-to-head and battling alongside their Next Generation counterparts.
Sadly, there’s not much for the others or Klingons to do, and Riker even destroys the ship!
Unfortunately, many of the Original Series cast declined to join the production, primarily because they were reduced to glorified cameos in the opening. Consequently, while it’s fun seeing Scotty and Chekov again, it’s nothing compared to what could have been had the entire crew been a part of the film. Sadly, as is often the case, many of the supporting characters are pushed aside so the film can focus on Picard, Data, and the main antagonist. I’m no fan of Riker but Picard’s enigmatic First Officer really doesn’t get all that much to do here; he’s concerned for Picard’s welfare after the Captain is uncharacteristically snappy with him and leads the away teams that investigate the Amargosa observatory, but Generations isn’t a great character moment for Riker as the Enterprise-D is crippled, and ultimately unsalvageably downed, by a twenty-year-old Bird of Prey when he’s left in command! Still, at least he’s at the forefront of that; Deanna tries to console Picard after learning of his loss but has little else to do, Dr. Crusher is primarily there to facilitate Data’s decision to install the Emotion Chip, and Worf may as well not even be in the film since he’s mainly there for a bit of comic relief at the start and offering a tiny piece of advice regarding the aforementioned Bird of Prey (this does result in the Enterprise-D destroying their foe, but I imagine the crew would have figured out how to do that without Worf). Geordi gets a minor sub-plot after he’s captured by the Klingons and Dr. Soren installs a hidden monitoring device in his visor so the Klingons can penetrate the Enterprise-D’s shields (something I really don’t think their obsolete ship should’ve been able to do), and a surprising amount of screen time is given to Guinan, who proves to be much more than a simple bartender when she’s able to give Picard information about the Nexus since she also experienced a taste of it during the opening scene. Finally, there’s the Duras sisters, two Klingon villainesses previously encountered by Picard in the two-part episode “Redemption” (Bole; Carson, 1991) and seemingly included in a desperate attempt to inject some much-needed action and suspense into the otherwise dull main plot and because it’s tradition to have antagonistic Klingons in Star Trek.
Although Dr. Soren’s mad obsessions are ended, the Enterprise-D is destroyed and Kirk dies in the process.
Star Trek Generations is rife with many themes that fans of the Original Series will be more than familiar with; Kirk, more than anyone, embodies a sense of regret over putting his space adventures ahead of more grounded needs, such as having a family and a life of his own. He’s astounded to find that his former helmsman, Captain Hikaru Sulu (George Takei), found the time to start a family and raise a child, Ensign Demora Sulu (Jacqueline Kim), and continues to be torn between wishing he’d done things differently and the allure of being in a position of command on a starship. Family is another important theme in Generations; Dr. Soren’s entire mission and descent into villainy was precipitated by the loss of his family and Picard’s sullen demeanour is brought about by the realisation that his family line will end with him. When he’s in the Nexus, Picard is literally bombarded by the idyllic family life he has long been denied and is momentarily overwhelmed by the illusion, but ultimately rallies against it because not only is it not “real” but there are countless lives at stake should he choose to remain there. This, more than anything, is what convinces Kirk to also leave the Nexus and help Picard oppose Dr. Soren in the finale; originally, Picard was unable to deactivate Dr. Soren’s solar missile and subdue the El-Aurian since he was but one man, but Kirk’s presence is enough to change events in their favour and allow Picard the chance to rig the missile to explode on its launching pad, taking Dr. Soren with it and allowing the Nexus ribbon to harmlessly pass by. Unfortunately, not only is the Enterprise-D left irreparably damaged but Kirk is killed during the fracas when he’s literally crushed under a bridge. While it’s an admittedly anti-climatic death for Star Trek’s most iconic character, it’s still a poignant scene when Kirk dies knowing that he made a difference one last time and it’s pretty heart-breaking to see him realise that death has finally caught up with him. Oddly, Picard chooses to honour Kirk by burying him on Veridian III, but he returns to the Enterprise-D wreckage with a newfound respect for life and determined to make his mark while he still has the time rather than being consumed by his regrets and losses.
The Summary: I’m a little torn when it comes to Star Trek Generations; it was the first Next Generation movie I saw and, having grown up watching that series more than any other Star Trek show, it was exciting to see a feature-length adventure for “my crew”, especially one that promised to include a meeting between them and their Original Series predecessors. I don’t think the plot should’ve been like “Trials and Tribble-ations” (West, 1996) but I think more effort could’ve gone into making equal roles for each generation of crewmen and bringing them together. Like, maybe the Nexus caused havoc in the past and present, and both crews were encountering and investigating it simultaneously, causing a rift in space/time that allows a brief battle and some fun interactions to take place before both ships join forces against Dr. Soren. This also would have potentially allowed the producers to avoid killing off Kirk and served as an actual passing of the torch between the two generations rather than the more private and subdued team-up between the two Captains, which arguably comes at the cost of interesting sub-plots and actions for most of the Enterprise-D crew. Instead of this, or something actually exciting and engaging, we get a largely mediocre and forgettable Star Trek film that completely fumbles the potential of its premise and doesn’t really give us any interesting space action to compensate. While its ruminations of family, loss, and obsession are interesting, and it offers significant character development for Picard and Data, there’s ultimately very little here to really make much of an impact. Thankfully, the follow-up would make up for this with some intense action sequences and equally poignant moments, but this only serves to highlight how disappointing the Next Generation’s debut feature was not just for those characters but also as a swansong for Captain Kirk.
My Rating:
⭐⭐
Rating: 2 out of 5.
Could Be Better
What did you think to Star Trek Generations? Where do you rank it against the other Next Generation and Star Trek films? Were you also disappointed by Kirk’s anti-climatic death and the mediocre meeting of him and Picard? What did you think to Dr. Soren and his obsessive mania? Were you a fan of Data’s struggle with his newofund emotions, and what did you think to the destruction of the Enterprise-D? Would you like to see another go-around for the Next Generation crew or do you prefer to see new, unique takes on the franchise? How are you celebrating Captain Picard Day today? Whatever your thoughts on Star Trek Generations, or Star Trek in general, share them below or drop a comment on my social media.
StitchfaceBy Dr. Stuart Knott.First published in March 2023 by Amazon. Cover art created on Canva with input from Nadine Stewart. Stitchface, Stitchface, comin’ to get’cha!Stitchface, Stitchface, comin’ t’kill yah!Mind your manners,Mind your elders,Say your prayers and leave on a light‘Lest Mr. Stitchface come-a-callin’ on Halloween night! For thirty years, Jenny Carpenter has lived in fear […]
This review has been supported by Chiara Cooper. If you’d like to support the site, you can do so at my Ko-Fi page.
Story Title: “Mystery of the Human Thunderbolt!” Published: October 1956 Writer: Robert Kanigher Artist: Carmine Infantino
The Background: In 1940, writer Gardner Fox and artist Harry Lampert introduced readers to Jay Garrick, a college student granted superhuman speed after inhaling “hard water vapours”, and thus the very first superhero to use the name “The Flash” was born. The Flash not only became a charter member of the Justice Society of America but also graduated to his own solo book a year after his debut; however, All-Flash was cancelled after thirty-two issues when the onset of the Second World War saw superheroes decline in popularity. In the seven years that passed after Jay’s last publication hit comic book stands, a lot had changed; the rights to the Flash were now held by DC Comics, who set about reinventing “Golden Age” superheroes like the Flash and Alan Scott/Green Lantern. Thus, in 1956, readers of Showcase #4 were introduced to an all-new version of the Scarlet Speedster; created by writer Robert Kanigher and artist Carmine Infantino, forensic chemist Barry Allen heralded not only the “Silver Age” of comics but also the concept of the multiverse as it was later revealed that Jay existed on a parallel version of Earth. Barry quickly became one of the most popular and iconic incarnations of the Flash mantle, being a founding member of the Justice League of America and cementing his legacy after sacrificing his life in the Crisis on Infinite Earths epic (Wolfman, et al, 1985 to 1986). Although Barry’s demise lasted longer than most superhero deaths, he was eventually brought back in the ridiculously confusing Final Crisis event (Morrison, et al, 2008 to 2009) and his popularity and influence has seen him in a starring role in two live-action television shows, feature prominently in DC cartoons and videogames, and also seen him brought to life on the big screen as part of the largely disastrous DC Extended Universe.
The Review: Our story begins with a crisis at a radar station on the East Coast; two military personnel are startled after picking up a strange object travelling faster than anything ever recorded before it sends their equipment haywire. To explain this phenomenon, the story flashes back a short time to Central City on a night when the city was ravaged by a tumultuous lightning storm. Here, in the police laboratory, we meet scientist Barry Allen, who marvels over stories of the Jay Garrick version of the Flash, who at this point exists only in comic books in a slice of metatext. As he returns to his mysterious experiment (which, apparently, requires the use of “every chemical known to science”), a bolt of lightning causes him to be doused in chemicals, leaving him wet and dazed but otherwise unharmed. Shaken, Barry leaves but is too late to hail a cab so tries to chase one down, only to find himself flying along at super speed! Believing his near-death experience has caused him to imagine things, Barry stops at a diner to catch his breath and is startled to find that he can now perceive time in slow motion, moving so fast that a clumsy waitress cannot comprehend what happened, but he still believes he’s suffering from shock so he goes home to rest. By the morning, he’s used some wonky logic to explain everything away but, when he meets Iris West for a date (receiving a talking down for his poor timekeeping), his super speed kicks in again just as a stray bullet threatens her life! Acting quickly, he tackles Iris out of harm’s way, earning him her gratitude, and finally realises that his molecular structure has been altered by the accident to turn him into the fastest man on Earth. Inspired by the adventures of Jay Garrick, Barry…somehow…crafts himself a sleek, form-fitting costume that can condense into a ring on his finger and makes his debut as the Flash to answer a burglar alarm at the city’s central bank.
After gaining superhuman speed, Barry Allen tracks down the sloth-like villain the Turtle Man.
Thanks to his superhuman speed, the Flash can effortlessly race down the sides of buildings and across town so fast that he breaks the sound barrier, thus explaining the disruption monitored at the start of the story. At the bank, The Flash finds nothing has been stolen; questioning the holdup victims, he learns that the perpetrator was “The Turtle Man”, a villain known as the slowest man on Earth, and somehow intuits that the thief left the job half finished to complete it later on. This odd logic is compounded when the Flash is easily fooled by a silhouette painted on a brick wall, like he’s Wile E. Coyote, and goes crashing through a wall while trying to apprehend the Turtle Man. Somehow, despite the fact that the Flash just appeared and no one even knows about him, Barry believes the villain is “using [his] speed […] as a weapon […] against [him]” and stays on his guard as he follows the Turtle Man’s trail through a sewer and to the river. The Turtle Man certainly lives up to his name; not only does he talk in laborious sentences, but he also chooses a rowboat for his getaway, yet he is also smart enough to boobytrap a speedboat to keep the Flash from pursing him. Thankfully, the laws of physics mean nothing to the Scarlet Speedster and he races across he water’s surface, but he’s unable to apprehend the villain because his movements only push the rowboat further away. Instead, the Flash circles the rowboat at superspeed, trapping it in a vortex and easily capturing the sloth-like crook. The cops and press are awestruck by the feat and the Flash becomes the talk of the town; even Iris swoons over the super-speedy hero completely unaware that she’s already dating the Scarlet Speedster.
The Summary: Well, I’m not gonna lie…this was a bit of a disappointment. These older comic book tales always tend to be very brief and simplistic but I found Barry’s debut story to be particularly bland considering how colourful and versatile the Flash and his powers can be. I liked that Barry didn’t immediately realise what’d happened after the lightning strike but it takes him so long to figure out what happened that he comes across as a bit of a dunce. His misadventures do give a taste of what he’s now capable of, showing that he can accelerate to inhuman speeds, defy gravity and physics, and even perceive time differently, but it’s handled very clunkily and not in an especially engaging or entertaining way. Barry’s clothes don’t catch fire from the friction, which would’ve been a fun visual, and he’s far too quick to explain away what’s happening with weak logic. Once he does figure things out, he’s somehow able to create this amazing suit that shrinks down into a ring, something I always thought came along later in his career but isn’t even explained with a wishy-washy trope like “unstable molecules”.
An unfortunately dull story with a foolish hero and a ridiculous villain that fails to impress.
The Turtle Man isn’t exactly a visually interesting or threatening first villain, either. I get the idea of pitting the world’s slowest man against the world’s fastest man as a kind of thematic parallel but it doesn’t really work because…why the hell would the world’s slowest man pose a threat to the Flash, of all people?! And…he doesn’t. He briefly bamboozles the Flash by fleeing the crime scene, causes him to run into a wall and sink, both of which are minor inconveniences at best, and is easily apprehended without really taxing the Flash’s powers or intelligence anywhere near their limit. It feels as though this story needed a few more pages; there are other standalone Flash stories in this issue but I would’ve used the extra pages to establish the Flash in the city before he encounters the Turtle Man as the villain is…somehow…aware of the Scarlet Speedster and relishing in their conflict despite him just making his debut! In the end, it’s a kind of fun, wacky tale but a bit of an inauspicious debut for one of DC Comics’ most popular heroes; a lot of the groundwork is here and there’s some fun art showcasing the Flash’s super speed and such but it’s ultimately a bit lacklustre and too simplistic for me to be the definitive origin story for the character.
My Rating:
⭐⭐
Rating: 2 out of 5.
Could Be Better
What did you think about Barry Allen’s debut as the Flash? Were you impressed by it at the time or were you left a little fulfilled, like me? What did you think to the new Flash and how do you think he compared to Jay Garrick? Did you also find it odd that Barry took so long to figure out what was going on? What did you think to the Turtle Man and his threat to the Flash? Which Flash or speedster is your favourite and what are some of your favourite Barry Allen moments? Feel free to share your thoughts on the Flash below and be sure to check out my other Flash-related content!
This review has been supported by Chiara Cooper. If you’d like to support the site, you can do so at my Ko-Fi page.
Released: August 1985 Developer: Atari Games Also Available For: Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Apple II, Atari ST, Commodore 64, DOS, MSX, ZX Spectrum
The Background: In 1981, director Steven Spielberg joined forces with George Lucas and Harrison Ford to bring Indiana Jones to life in Raiders of the Lost Ark (Spielberg, 1981), a critical and financial success that launched one of cinema’s most beloved franchises and expediated Ford’s rise to superstardom. The movies soon led to a wealth of multimedia merchandise, including toys, comic, a spin-off television series, and videogames, beginning with an extremely basic 8-bit adventure for the Atari. Although Spielberg’s sequel, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom(ibid, 1984) made slightly less than its predecessor at the box office and attracted controversy for its performances, potentiallyinsensitive cultural depictions, and its darker aspects, it too was accompanied by a videogame. Thanks to a graphically superior version being released in arcades, Temple of Doom was allegedly the first Atari System 1 game to include digitised speech, voice clips, and even John Williams’ iconic music. Seen as a marked improvement over its predecessor, Temple of Doom was also reportedly the fourth-most-successful upright arcade unit of August 1985 in Japan and has been noted as being one of the best videogame adaptations of a movie at that time.
The Plot:Archaeologist and adventure-seeker Doctor Henry Jones Jr., better known as “Indiana Jones” (or simply “Indy”), infiltrates a Thuggee cult to free the children they’ve kidnapped as slaves, recover the mystical Sankara Stones, and defeat the cult’s leader, Mola Ram.
The Review: Anyone who actually makes a habit of reading my reviews will notice that this review is laid out a little differently from my usual ones and there’s a very good reason for that: there’s honestly not enough to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom to warrant a more extensive analysis. Considering the accolades it apparently received at the time, I was left very disappointed by the barebones presentation and mechanics offered by the game, which is a simple 2D adventure that takes place entirely in the lava-and-ladder-infested caves of the Thugee cult. Players, obviously, take control of Indy, in an extreme basic control scheme that allows him to whip in multiple directions, including diagonally, but unable to jump. Indy’s whip will only stun the Thugee enemies who relentlessly pursue him, however; to actually kill them, you’ll need to whip an explosive barrel or knock them to their deaths. Luckily, the snakes and weirdo, dinosaur-like bats can be killed but this is a small consolation considering how many enemies swarm you at any one time.
Whip, swing, and explore to reescue the children from their cages.
Upon starting the game, you’re presented with a pretty decent piece of sprite art depicting Indy and one of the game’s handful of voice samples from the film, which are muffled and painfully basic. From there, you select to play with either three or seven lives (which you’d ever pick less is beyond me) and pick from the Easy, Medium, and Hard difficulty setting and are tasked with rescuing several captured children from cages scattered all around the looping screens. Here, you’ll need to run up ladders, avoid slipping from platforms, swing over gaps using your whip, and try not to fall into lava as you rescue the kids and allow access to the minecart that acts as the level’s exit. Unfortunately, Indy is not only extremely limited in his abilities, being unable to jump, duck, punch, or shoot, but he’s extremely fragile, too. One touch from an enemy or spikes will do him in and, while he can drop from small heights, a high plummet will also kill him and the game’s clunky, slippery controls make it very easy to fall to your death and end up being asked to enter your initials on the high score table. Luckily, you’ll be granted an extra life after accumulating a set number of points and the only time you’ll face a time limit is when picking your difficulty setting; however, the amount of kids you need to rescue, and the hazards and enemies you’ll face, increase with each playthrough and it doesn’t matter how many credits you have, once you get a game over you’re done, so I recommend playing on an emulator to make liberal use of save states.
Even if you somehow best the minecarts and acquire the stones, you still have to face Mola Ram…
Gameplay is broken up a bit by two other sections; after reaching the minecart, you’ll race along a track just like in the film, leaning this way and that to avoid dead ends, and using your whip to dispatch enemies or set off explosives. At this, these sections are quite fun but, by the end, they feature such fast-paced, winding, and hazard-filled tracks that I have no idea how you’re supposed to legitimately get past them. After each of these, you’ll need to snag one of the three Sankara Stones from Mola Ram’s volcanic altar. You’ll need to quickly cross a wooden bridge, avoiding the trapdoor that leads to the lava, or swing across from the far ends of the room while fending off Thugee enemies. Once you have all three and conquered one final, vertically inclined cave section with ten children to rescue and more enemies than you can shake a stick at, you’ll reach the wooden bridge from the finale of the film for a final confrontation with Mola Ram. Mola Ram randomly appears during the game’s other stages, teleporting in and sending a flaming heart that is very difficult to hit and follows you around incessantly, and he represents the game’s most frustrating challenge here. Thugee will constantly spawn in from behind as you clunkily cross the bridge, forcing you to quickly whip them to the deaths and then turn the other way to smack Mola Ram’s projectiles out of the air, which requires split second timing and more luck than this game sees fit to gift you. If you somehow do get close enough, a cutscene will play showing Indy collapsing the bridge and you’ll get to play through a bonus round in the cave section where you run, climb, and slide about whipping golden statues for extra points until your lives are exhausted.
The Summary: I was excited to play Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom; I love old arcade games, and even got to play it in the wild at an arcade place a short drive from where I live. Technically, the game’s presentation is pretty good; sprites are large and colourful, if a bit crude and repetitive, and the handful of environments certainly are faithful to the movie. If you were a fan of anything other than the temple scenes, minecart chase, and the final, though, and characters other than Indy, Mola Ram, and random Thugee cultists, you’re shit out of luck as the entire game is built around these few individuals and locales. The classic Indiana Jones music is barely included, playing only as a celebratory jingle, and the voice samples, while cute, aren’t really worth praising. The main issue with the game is its crippling, unforgiving difficulty; this is another rare arcade game where credits mean nothing, a clearly conscious decision to account for the game’s limitations and short length. Indy is depressingly fragile, crumbling from the lightest touch, and the weird, quasi-isometric perspective our untimely death makes it far too easy to slip from platforms to your untimely death. It’s a shame as Indiana Jones could easily have worked as a fun, mindless run-and-gun (or run-and-whip) adventure, with thrilling minecart chases and button mashing sequences sprinkled throughout. Instead, the developers went for the cheapest, easiest route to force kids to waste their hard-earned pocket money trying to shift Indy’s useless ass around the cave and make blind, near impossible decisions in the minecart, making for a frustrating experience that looks far more appealing than it actually is.
My Rating:
⭐⭐
Rating: 2 out of 5.
Could Be Better
Have you ever played the arcade version of so Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom? If so, what did you think to it and were you also put off by its unrelenting difficulty? Were you impressed by the visuals and the voice samples? What did you think to Indy’s limitations and vulnerability? Did you enjoy the minecart and Sankara Stone sections and were you ever able to best Mola Ram? Which Indiana Jones videogame is your favourite and why? Whatever your thoughts on Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and classic arcade games, feel free to share them in the comments or on my social media.
This review has been supported by Chiara Cooper. If you’d like to support the site, you can do so at my Ko-Fi page.
Released: 9 July 2010 Director: Nimród Antal Distributor: 20th Century Fox Budget: $40 million Stars: Adrien Brody, Alice Braga, Topher Grace, Walton Goggins, Oleg Taktarov, Derek Mears, and Laurence Fishburne
The Plot: Former United States Special Operations Forces veteran Royce (Brody) is just one of a handful of soldiers, criminals, and mercenaries forced to work together when they are suddenly deposited on an alien world that acts as a game reserve for two warring tribes of extraterrestrial killers.
The Background: Predator(McTiernan, 1987) may have started life as the ridiculous concept of pitting Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) against an alien foe, but it quickly evolved from a B-movie with a budget that had Jean-Claude Van Damme running around a jungle in a big bug suit into a box office hit regarded asone of the best of its genre. After a long period of development, a sequel was finally produced, though star Arnold Schwarzenegger declined to return and Predator 2(Hopkins, 1990) failed to match its predecessor’s box office despite positivereviews. Although the Predator franchise was well represented in comic books, novels, and videogames thanks to the efforts of Dark Horse Comics, it would be twenty years before a new movie was produced. However, producer Robert Rodriguez had actually pitched an idea for a third Predator film back in 1994, only to be rejected as his idea was too costly for the studio; although Rodriguez was surprised when the studio dusted off his script and contacted him about producing it some fifteen years later, he set about getting the wheels in motion for his new film, which aimed to ignore the sequels and crossovers that had followed the original classic. Although Schwarzenegger again declined to be a part of the project, Rodriguez and director Nimród Antal put together an ensemble cast that audiences would journey alongside, and drafted KNB EFX’s Howard Berger to design the creatures’ new suits, which were purposely designed to be faithful to Stan Winston’s original creature designs. With a $127.2 million box office gross, Predators was a minor hit that received mixed to average reviews; some praised it as a solid follow-up to the original while others criticised the characters as mere cannon fodder. Disappointingly, this meant that Predators became another under-rated entry in the franchise and hopes for a direct sequel were quashed when the studio again opted for a soft re-quel to the first film in 2018.
The Review: I remember being really excited when Predators was announced. Although it took me some time to appreciate Predator 2, I was a big fan of the series and never quite understood why it hadn’t received the same amount of love as the Alien franchise (Various, 1979 to present) when it came to live-action films. Hell, I even enjoyed AVPR: Aliens vs. Predator – Requiem(The Brothers Strause, 2007) simply because it meant seeing the Predator on the big screen and in a central role, so my anticipation was quite high for this re-quel, which hits a lot of the same beats as the influential first film while taking the franchise in an interesting direction. We see these call-backs to Predator throughout the film (one of their unfortunate victims lays traps that are almost exactly the same as those set by Major Alan “Dutch” Schaefer (Schwarzenegger) in the first film, and the first film’s events are explicitly referenced at one point) but they’re actually thrust right at the viewer’s face right from the beginning when the familiar title font flies onto the screen alongside Alan Silvestri’s iconic Predator theme, which composer John Debney samples and draws heavily from for the remainder of the movie.
Royce starts off as a cold-hearted survivor willing to whatever it takes to escape the game preserve.
Also like the first film, Predators is very much an ensemble piece built around soldier-turned-mercenary Royce, a gruff and highly adaptable individual who is the first character we’re introduced to (but, because of his guarded nature, the last character whose name we learn). Rather than being a musclebound beefcake armed with a variety of one-liners or a jaded city cop, Royce is a much more realistic type of soldier; wiry and tough, he carries himself in a much more believable way and reacts to his unbelievable situation far more calmly than the other characters, who greet each other with hostility and even gunfire. Royce’s entire mindset seems to be centred around a philosophy of “simple, but effective”, which is reflected in his choice of weapon, an AA-12 automatic 12-gauge shotgun that delivers high-impact rounds to shred his targets. Although he is reserved about opening up to the others, he immediately takes charge of the group and tries to figure out where they are and what’s happened to them simply because he needs all of the knowledge and information he can gather to best figure out a game plan for survival…and to escape. His first instinct is to get to high ground, and he doesn’t really care whether the others follow him or not since he much prefers to work alone. Surly, perceptive (he immediately identifies each character’s background and speciality), and reluctant to bond with the others, Royce is nevertheless easily the most composed of the group and a bastion of common sense and adaptability. His character arc is learning to actually give a damn about others as he’s only teaming up with them for extra firepower, muscle, and to give his foes other targets to hit; secretive and deceitful, Royce has no qualms about using the others as bait to either draw out or better understand their enemy, readily leaves the doomed behind, and even makes a deal with the “Classic Predator” (Mears) to ensure his escape from the planet in exchange for freeing the creature.
Isabelle plays peacemaker and believes their greatest strength is their compassion and humanity.
In comparison, Isabelle (Braga) is much more compassionate; although she has her suspicions about the others upon first sight, she goes along with them simply because she has no other options available. A highly trained sniper from the Israel Defense Forces, Isabelle has “seen most” jungles and is the first to realise that they’ve been dumped in a place that is beyond their expertise simply based on the heat and the topography. While she’s the only female character within the group, she’s just as tough and capable of any of them and isn’t treated with kid gloves or ever presented as a damsel in need of rescue; she’s more than proficient in a firefight thanks to her sniper rifle but, more than any of the others, assumes the role of a peacemaker in order to emphasise that they need to work together to survive. Isabelle also brings a level of knowledge to the group that the others lack; since she’s aware of the events of the first film, she knows something of the Predator’s appearance and tactics, which gives Royce the additional information he requires to be able to prepare for the creatures and even battle the “Berserker Predator” (Derek Mears) in the finale. Isabelle is the most compassionate of the group; she believes that helping others is a sign of strength rather than weakness, which often causes her and the more cold-hearted Royce to butt heads as he’s perfectly happy sacrificing the others, putting them in danger, or leaving them behind when they’re injured or dying as long as it means he (and whoever’s left) survives a little while longer. This means she faces an uphill battle with Royce, who’s callous nature makes him almost as bad as their extraterrestrial foes, but her compassionate nature ends up biting her in the ass; when Edwin (Grace) is injured by a Predator trap, Isabelle insists on helping him, unaware of his true malicious nature, and is thus left relying on Royce, who ends up being more loyal and dependable than is first evident.
Nikolai protects Edwin out of gratitude, allowing him to deceive the others of his true, sadistic nature.
Edwin and Nikolai (Taktarov) form a friendship after the self-proclaimed doctor keeps him from being poisoned. Though a large, intimidating man who cuts a formidable figure with his high-powered M134 Minigun, Nikolai is softened by his family and his gratitude towards Edwin, who he protects as thanks for saving his life and since he (as in Edwin) seems so defenceless and out of place there. At first, Edwin seems to have been placed amongst the group as a kind of field medic to give them a fighting chance against the Predators on the alien world; his medical and botanical knowledge come in handy, but he’s crippled by fear and is largely a burden to the group since he has no combat experience. Although he seems to be just a normal man surrounded by trained (or compulsive) killers, with little in common with them (which is fantastically evident in his amusing “bitch raping” talk with Stans (Goggins)), he eventually proves to be a wily and sadistic character in disguise. The first cracks in his façade appear when he leaves Nikolai to be skewered by the “Tracker Predator” (Carey Jones) and left with no choice but to blow himself and the creature up with grenades. While you could argue that Edwin stood no chance of helping his brutish Russian buddy, he later appropriates a photo of Nikolai’s family as a means of guilt-tripping Isabelle into helping him when he’s injured by a Predator trap before revealing the true extent of his twisted nature in a surprise development in the final act. It turns out that Edwin is a devious and perverse serial killer who has been manipulating and using the others as protection and has no desire to leave since he feels at home amongst the monsters. While this serves him well, since he manages to survive for most of the film, his attempts to find a kinship with the Predators naturally fall on deaf ears and he pays for his betrayal by being left as an explosive boobytrap for the Berserker Predator.
The others are colourful cannon fodder, with Stans and Hanzo being standouts for their eventual ends.
The others are largely cannon fodder but have enough personality to stand out, even if they have smaller roles in the grand scheme of things. Unlike the soldiers from the first film, this is a rag-tag group of volatile egos and machismo; many of these guys have committed unspeakable acts, either in service of their country, a revolution, or for their own gratification, which leads to a lot of conflict within the group. While Mombasa (Mahershala Ali) and Cuchillo (Danny Trejo) don’t get too much to do beyond looking tough and being slaughtered, Mombasa provides some insight into the Predators’ ritual taking of trophies and the use of Cuchillo as bait to lure in the others is a harrowing scene that tells us a lot about the enemy’s tactics and the different morals of the other characters (Royce Mombasa, and Stans recognises it’s a trap and opt to leave him; though Isabelle disagrees, she can’t fight the facts and opts to at least deliver a mercy kill). Perhaps the most mysterious of the bunch is the soft-spoken Hanzo (Louis Ozawa Changchien), a Yakuza Inagawa-kai enforcer who keeps his distance and masks his footsteps by removing his shoes. He stands out from the others thanks to being a largely silent character who exudes a quiet, confident danger through his piercing eyes and severed fingers; similar to Billy Sole (Sonny Landham), Hanzo embodies the honour code of the Predators and even battles one sword to sword to buy the others time, claiming a life at the cost of his own. Stans is also a standout character; when he’s first introduced, he’s in a scuffle with Mombasa, immediately emphasising that he’s a highly aggressive character. Essentially the slimy, loudmouthed shithead of the group, Stans is an unpredictable death row inmate who is confrontational, highly sceptical, and constantly criticising every decision, which only aggravates the group and causes tensions to be strained to breaking point. While the others are hesitant to trust each other, nobody trusts him, though he actually ends up showing a surprising amount of humanity (he is disgusted that Royce set them up as bait and thus caused Mombasa’s death, showing that his priorities have quickly changed since he was ready to kill the man not long before) and backbone as he takes on the Berserker Predator despite being hopelessly outmatched.
Ronald is the film’s breakout characterthanks to his fractured mind and appropriated Predator tech.
Then there’s the film’s breakout character, Ronald Noland (Fishburne), a former United States Army Air Cavalry soldier who’s been stuck on the planet for so long that he’s gone a little loopy. Having killed a couple of the Predators and appropriated their technology, Ronald observes the main characters from a distance using their cloaking ability and has holed himself up in the remains of an alien spacecraft. Talking in barely a whisper and keenly aware of the Predators’ tactics and techniques, Ronald is only too aware of the lengths one has to go to in order to survive against such a well-armed foe; indeed, a great deal of his mental instability is hinted to be because he chose to run and hide rather than fight alongside whoever he was first dropped there with. Having been stuck there for a long, long time, Ronald has developed a split personality and often talks (and argues) with himself after having been driven to madness from isolation and the constant threat of danger. At first, Ronald seems welcoming and accommodating; he admonishes the group for talking too loud and unknowingly giving their position away, but takes them in despite Stans’ bad attitude; he shares his food and water and even relates some of his knowledge to them, allowing them (and us) to learn how the Predators change and adapt with each cycle and the blood feud between the different Predator variants. All too soon, however, Ronald shows his true colours and tries to kill them, which ironically proves to be his undoing as he’s unceremoniously killed off with a single headshot. Having dug in and done whatever he can to survive, Ronald has been driven to edge from approximately ten years of isolation and conflict; believing that there’s no way off the planet since the idea of piloting an alien spacecraft is ludicrous even to him, Ronald is so far gone that he’ll lure in his own kind just to steal their resources so he can survive a little longer. It’s a shame Ronald didn’t last longer as he was an intriguing character and I think he deserved more of a payoff than he got; the Predators don’t seem to be actively hunting for him, and he doesn’t get a cathartic one-on-one showdown with any of them, meaning his end is pretty unceremonious, so I would have loved to see his character explored in some kind of prequel comic or book.
The Classic Predator is physically outmatched by the far superior Super Predators.
Predators expands on the titular alien’s lore and society in ways that have never really been seen before on film; previously the hunters came to Earth as a kind of workman’s vacation, basking in the heat and the chaos of our world to claim trophies or using us as incubators to bred the ultimate prey. Now, we learn that the aliens also regularly abduct killers and soldiers to be placed on their game world and hunted en masse in groups of three, which fundamentally alters the previously established portrayal of these creatures as solo hunters looking for a quick thrill on an alien world. Picking only the best prey for their game hunt, the Predators stalk them from afar as normal, but also unleash alien “attack dogs” to lure them out, and have clearly been bringing humans and other species there for a long, long time based on what we learn from Edwin and Ronald. Thanks to the jungle setting and the slower pace of the first half, much of the film heavily emulates Predator, retreading the same ground but in a new, fresh way while also acknowledging the events of the first film (though not the second, despite taking weapons and lore from that film). Nowhere is this more evident than in the traps laid by one of their victims, which as I mentioned are exactly like Dutch’s and kind of give the impression that Dutch’s tactics would not serve him well in this new environment. Not only that, there are now two groups of Predators and there’s a fascinating class warfare between the species; if you’ve seen the other films, you know how tough the Predator is so seeing the Classic Predator strung up and helpless is similarly a great shorthand to how formidable these new “Super Predators” are. These larger, far more fearsome Predators exhibit an even greater level of intelligence than their predecessors; utilising drones, attack dogs, and proving that their cunning and ferocity only increase with each season. While their technology remains largely the same, based around bladed weapons and plasma cannons, Ronald notes that they tweak and improve these with each batch of prey, clearly showing that they learn from their experiences, but even the Berserker Predator still craves the thrill of the old ways and engages in unarmed combat with Royce for the finale, and proves just as susceptible to mud and smoke and mirrors when left without the advantages of its technology.
The Nitty-Gritty: Another way in which Predators borrows from the first film is in its building of tension; while Dutch’s group were a tight-knit, well-oiled team, these guys are one bad argument away from turning on each other, which keeps a thick layer of tension throughout the film, but especially in the first half. This is only exacerbated when Mombasa senses a Predator watching them from the trees, and the continued use of the first-person heat vision and the voice emulation of the titular hunter once again effectively builds a sense of dread and horror as both the knowing and unknowing audience would be just waiting for the creatures to reveal themselves and strike. A central theme in the movie is that of distrust and the nature of humanity; the Predators are overtly alien and monstrous, both in appearance and their ritualistic methods, but humans are much more adept at hiding their monstrous nature behind metaphorical masks. Even Royce, who openly admits to having employed similar tactics to flush out or overcome his enemies, has a darkness within him that means he’s ready to leave the others behind if it means escaping the planet. He’s interested only in surviving by any means necessary, but is determined not to end up like Ronald, whose desperate need to survive has driven him to madness. Edwin masks his true nature behind a mask of cowardice and helplessness but is, in fact, the most monstrous of all the main characters, even someone as reprehensible as Stans, to the point where he callously admits to feeling more at home amongst a planet of monsters than amongst his fellow man.
The Predators use attack dogs and tech to stalk and draw out their prey, while also being in a blood feud.
Although they’re all heavily armed and formidable individuals in their own right (even Edwin, who survives due to conning the others into believing he’s something he’s not), the characters are hampered by limited resources and a hostile, literally alien environment. At first, they try to piece things together and are stunned to find they’re on another world, but their first instinct is to blast at the alien creatures that come their way, leading to a number of highly engaging firefights. The action ramps up in a deliberate pace, building alongside the tension as the characters scramble to escape Ronald’s hideout and find the Predators far more formidable than their attack dogs. Naturally, Predators is bolstered by some brutal kills and vicious bloodshed; the Tracker Predator not only nonchalantly blows Ronald’s head off, it also stabs Nikolai in the back and leaves him hanging on the end of its clawed gauntlets. Cuchillo’s eviscerated corpse is left as bait for the others, Stans ends up having his spinal column and skull wrenched from his still living body and, perhaps to make up for Billy’s offscreen death in the first film, Hanzo engages in a sacrificial swordfight with the “Falconer Predator” (Mears) that leaves them both dead. We even get some violent Predator-on-Predator action in the finale as the Classic Predator battles with the fearsome Berserker Predator in a knockdown brawl that sees the iconic creature overpowered and ultimately beheaded by its physically superior counterpart. While the Predators are limited to four in the film, each one has a distinct look, as is to be expected from these creatures; as you also might expect, the Classic Predator is the most recognisable, and looks almost exactly like his counterpart from the first film, but these Super Predators are even uglier motherfuckers under those masks, with the Berserker Predator appearing far more monstrous once it takes its helmet off. We also get a couple of other alien creatures here, as the Predators send out tusked attack dogs to give the main characters something to shoot at and Edwin is used as bait to draw out the “River Ghost”, a humanoid alien that has some similarities to the Predator’s original design.
After the Classic Predator is killed, Royce uses all his intel to battle the Berserker Predator to the death.
When Edwin is maimed and left as dead weight for Royce and Isabelle, Royce callously opts to leave them both behind in a desperate bid to escape the game preserve by freeing the Classic Predator and having it fly them to safety. The Classic Predator, itching to settle the score with the Berserker Predator, honours the deal by setting the ship to autopilot back to Earth and goes one-on-one with its larger rival. Unfortunately, the Classic Predator’s no match for the Super Predator and Isabelle is stunned when Edwin drugs and paralyses her with a neurotoxin from an alien plant and coldly reveals his true nature as a sadistic murderer to her. Although Royce appears to die when the Berserker Predator destroys the spaceship, it turns out he had a change of heart and came back for them, proving he has some humanity beneath all his tough-guy swagger. He also proves to be craftier, and faster, than Edwin anticipated, stabbing and leaving the would-be doctor as a prime target to lure out the Berserker Predator. Having observed his foes throughout the film, and taken onboard everything he’s learned from them (and from Isabelle and Ronald), Royce wounds the Berserker Predator, uses fire to disorientate it, and cakes himself in wet mud to help neutralise the creature’s infrared vision. Striking hard and fast with an axe, Royce seems to have the upper hand but underestimates the capabilities of the Predator’s helmet, and he’s soon left taking a beating from the creature. Luckily, Isabelle manages to wound the Berserker Predator with a sniper shot, giving Royce the chance to recover, pummel the alien with his axe, and ultimately decapitate it to prove himself the superior of the two. Wounded, tired, and haunted by their experiences, Royce and Isabelle are left facing the prospect of a new crop of prey being dropped in for the hunt but nevertheless determined to find a way off the game planet.
The Summary: Honestly, I can’t stress enough how much I enjoy Predators; as much as I like to see the Predators in new environments in each film, recreating the jungle theme of the first one by setting it on an alien world was a great way to evoke the spirit of that iconic movie while still providing something new for long term fans. There’s also enough breadcrumbs here to inspire newcomers to check out that first movie, but sadly (and honestly confusingly) no mention of the events of the second film despite the fact that the Predators use weapons introduced in that movie. Still, the focus is clearly on paying homage to and replicating what made the first film so great but with different circumstances and far more volatile characters; this can be seen all throughout, with the score, the narrative beats, and even the dialogue all being direct references to that first movie, but the presentation and conditions are just different enough that it never feels like a cheap knock-off or a simple remake. Adrian Brody is surprisingly convincing as a tough, gruff mercenary; Royce is an intelligent and versatile character who has great instincts and a strong urge to survive, but also finds his humanity again by the end of the film. The others are equally larger than life; even those with small roles shine in their own way by contributing some entertaining character moments or helping to spread the exposition across the film’s runtime. Ronald remains one of the most intriguing characters in the franchise; I’d love to see the degradation of his mind and spirit chronicled in a comic book some time, and I think the only way it could’ve been better is if he’d stuck around a little longer or even been a returning character. The Predators themselves naturally steal the show at every turn and their species is expanded upon nicely here, with some elements (like the differing Predator classes) bleeding into the next film. Indeed, one of the main reasons I was so disappointed by The Predator (Black, 2018) was that it didn’t tie up the cliff-hanger ending of this film; hell, I would’ve settled for Royce and Isabelle being the cargo the “Fugitive Predator” (Brian A. Prince/Kyle Strauts) was protecting in that film. Sadly, Predators seems to have been largely forgotten these days, and that’s a real shame as it’s a really good film that does a great job of putting a new twist on the classic formula and I’d love to see this concept and character revisited and expanded upon at some point down the road.
My Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 5 out of 5.
Fantastic
Did you enjoy Predators? How do you think it compares to both the first film and the others in the franchise? Which of the characters was your favourite, and who would you have liked to see get a bigger role? Would you have liked to see Ronald’s character explored further, and were you disappointed that Predator 2 wasn’t referenced? What did you think to the Super Predators and the way the film expanded upon the creature’s lore? Would you have liked to see a direct sequel to this film? Which of the Predator sequels and merchandise was your favourite and did you celebrate Predator Day this year? Whatever your thoughts on Predators, feel free to leave a comment below or drop your thoughts on my social media.
In 2013, DC Comics declared the 12th of June as “Superman Day”, a day for fans of the Man of Steel the world over to celebrate Clark Kent/Kal-El/Superman, the superpowered virtue of “Truth, Justice, and the American Way” who is widely regarded as the first ever costumed superhero. This year, I’m spending every Monday of June celebrating the Man of Steel as I expand Superman Day to “Superman Month“.
This review has been supported by Chiara Cooper. If you’d like to support the site, you can do so at my Ko-Fi page.
Released: 28 June 2006 Director: Bryan Singer Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures Budget: $270 million Stars: Brandon Routh, Kate Bosworth, Parker Posey, Tristan Lake Leabu, James Marsden, and Kevin Spacey
The Plot: Returning to Earth after five years in deep space investigating the remains of his home planet, Krypton, Clark Kent/Superman (Routh) returns to find former flame Lois Lane (Bosworth) married and with a young son. However, as he struggles to acclimatise to a world that may no longer need him, criminal mastermind Lex Luthor (Spacey) steals Kryptonian technology and enacts a diabolical plot avenge himself on the Man of Steel.
The Background: Those that have read my reviews will know that my opinions of the four live-action Superman feature films produced between 1978 and 1987 are somewhat dismissive. There are elements from each of them that I enjoy, and obviously I enjoy Christopher Reeve’s iconic portrayal of the title character, but overall I feel they haven’t really aged well at all and often hold back reinterpretations of the character. After Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (Furie, 1987) turned out to be a dismal financial and critical failure, Superman was persona non grata from cinema screens for nearly twenty years. Oh, sure, he had a few live-action and animated shows to tide him over and some pretty big comic book events in the intervening years but Warner Bros. struggled to get a new feature film off the ground. After attempts by the likes of writer/director Kevin Smith and Tim Burton failed to materialise and cost the studio millions in production costs, director Bryan Singer conceived of and pitched the general idea of Superman Returnsduring filming of X2: X-Men 2/X-Men United(Singer, 2003). Wishing to recapture the magic of Richard Donner’s original film, Singer cast relative unknown Brandon Routh in the title role because of his many similarities to the late Christopher Reeve, acquired permission to repurpose Marlon Brando’s footage from the first twoSuperman movies, and envisioned the film as a continuation of Donner’s films. Superman Returns was supposed to be a pretty big deal for DC Comics, Warner Bros. and Superman in general but, while the film’s $391.1 million gross meant that it was a financial success, the film was met with mixed reviews and even Bryan Singer later expressed regret with the direction and marketing of the film. Although it was followed by a videogame tie-in, this response sank plans for a sequel and Superman wouldn’t return to cinema screens for another seven years, though Routh did return to the role as an aged version of Superman in “Crisis on Infinite Earths: Part Two” (Belsey, 2019).
The Review: Superhero cinema was in an interesting place in the early 2000s; the X-Men (Singer; Ratner, 2000 to 2006) and Spider-Man (Raimi, 2002 to 2007) trilogies were proving to be big box office hits, but the Marvel Cinematic Universe was a mere pipedream at that point despite the growing influx of adaptations produced year after year. While Marvel adaptations were undoubtably popular and successful, and had proven that the genre could be critically and commercial successful, it was Batman Begins (Nolan, 2005) that arguably turned the most heads when it came to bringing prestige to the genre. Ignoring its camp, cartoony predecessor in favour of a dark, serious take on the character and bolstered by a reputable cast, Batman Begins took the source material seriously and so anticipation was quite high when Superman Returns was announced as the character had similarly stagnated since his last ridiculous onscreen appearance. In a move I found surprising considering I grew up with the Post-Crisis John Byrne version of the Man of Steel, who was (initially) quite different from his more ludicrous Golden and Silver Age counterpart, Superman Returns opted not to reboot the character like in Batman Begins, but to position itself as a continuation of Richard Donner’s films, one that ignored (or presumably ignored) all of the sequels after the first film save for some tenuous links to Superman II (Lester, 1980) and sought to bring Christopher Reeves’ iconic version of the Man of Steel into a post-9/11 world following a lengthy absence.
Superman returns from a five year absence to find the world has moved on without him.
This, for me, meant that the film started on rocky ground right from the off; as much as I enjoyed Donner’s original version of Superman, I never understood the decision to resurrect that character rather than reboot it from scratch. After all, it’s not as if Batman Begins was a prequel to Batman (Burton, 1989) so it just seemed like a shameless cash-in on the iconography and success of Donner’s influential first film. The film’s premise is that, after becoming the world’s foremost superpowered protector and opposing the mad schemes of Lex Luthor, Superman abandoned the world to its own devices when astronomers discovered Krypton’s remains many light-years away. Even in a repurposed Kryptonian spacecraft, the trip there and back takes Superman five years and, obviously, results only in Superman finding the shattered remains of his home world. So, right away there’s a lot of questions here: why did Superman feel compelled to go and see this when he knew from the words of his long-dead father, Jor-El (Marlon Brando), that Krypton was destroyed? What was he hoping to gain from this? There’s a sense that he wanted closure but…why? He seemed perfectly happy to accept that Krypton was dead and that the Earth was his true home, so suddenly taking off like that really doesn’t make any sense at all, especially considering Superman and Superman II made such a big deal about his attachments and importance to humanity. When Superman returns, the world has largely moved on without him; not only that, Lex Luthor has spent the intervening years showing elderly Gertrude Vanderworth (Noel Neill) “pleasures that [she’s] never felt” in order to con her out of her vast wealth and return himself to a position of power and prominence. Clark’s own elderly mother, Martha Kent (Eva Marie Saint) is still alive, however, and has been covering for his lengthy absence by sending regular letters and postcards to his Daily Planet colleagues while maintaining his old childhood farm home in Smallville and stockpiling newspapers and reports so he can catch up on what he missed.
Clark is stunned to find Lois has settled down with a family and feels a resentment towards Superman.
Superman’s absence had two very important side effects for both his personal life and the entire world; first was that intrepid reporter Lois Lane won a Pulitzer Prize for her article “Why the World Doesn’t Need Superman” and has established a family of her own with fiancé Richard White (Marsden) and son Jason (Leabu) and the second is that Luthor was even able to get out of prison in the first place. Thanks to his disregard for due process and missing a vital court appearance, Superman was indirectly responsible for Luthor being remanded into Gertrude’s custody and released back into the civilised world, and his abandonment of his duties and responsibilities is only part of the reason why Lois acts so cold towards him. She learned to live without him, as did the rest of the world but, while everyone else applauds his long-awaited return, she is resentful of him because she feels he abandoned her as much as anything (or anyone) else. Richard is the pilot nephew of Daily Planet editor Perry White (the masterful, and completely wasted Frank Langella) and his characterisation seems to boil down to him being a nice guy who’s supportive of his wife, loves his child, and is jealous of Superman and Lois’s obvious fascination with him. Otherwise, he’s just kind of there and only really comes into prominence when questioning Lois’s previous relationship with Superman and in the climax, when his convenient piloting skills help rescue Superman for his big finale, and I can’t help but feel like Marsden made a mistake abandoning his role as Scott Summers/Cyclops in the X-Men films for such an inconsequential role. As for Lois, she’s noticeably different from the Margot Kidder version in many ways, but no less daring and inquisitive; she continually puts herself right at the forefront of big stories, even if it means she’s placed in mortal danger, and has her world (and her heart) turned upside down when Superman returns. As ever, she barely even registers that Clark is back and is instead constantly distracted by Superman, to the point where she confronts him directly. Thankfully, the two don’t end up going for a long, awkward flight with a cheesy song this time around, and she warms towards him after learning of his reasons for leaving.
Despite his personal drama, Clark continues his façade as a bungling reporter and saving lives as Superman.
Upon returning to Earth, Clark immediately jumps back into his old life; he returns to work at the Daily Planet and continues putting on the act of a good-natured, bungling reporter to contrast with the confidant and heroic Superman. Considering he was a relative unknown, and such a fresh-faced young actor at the time, Brandon Routh does a masterful job of not only resembling the late, great Christopher Reeves but adopting many of the same mannerisms he showcased as both Clark and Superman. He certainly looks the part, and fills out the suit well, and I buy that he’s a slight variation of this character, but there’s something a little off about him. It’s possibly because Routh was given the monumental task of being the first big-screen Superman in twenty years and also emulating Reeves’ performance; any actor has big shoes to fill when taking on Superman, but only Routh had to literally be Reeves’ version of the character. Consequently, comparisons between the two are not only inevitable but actively encouraged by the film’s presentation as a sequel to Donner’s film, which I feel unfairly reflects on Routh’s performance here. He gives it a good shot and certainly embodies many of the moral and physical ideals of the character, but he was lumbered not just was continuing Reeves’ performance but also a diabolical script that called for him to morosely stalk his former flame and cast him in an uncomfortable light as an unreliable, overly sombre, and disappointingly stoic Superman. Routh has few moments to showcase the character’s friendlier, more trusting characteristics and this is a shame as he had a wonderful smile and exudes charisma in these moments, but Superman is so weighed down with doubts and regrets and drama that it really sucks all the life and fun out of the character (and the film). Even Clark’s bungling nature can’t really salvage these moments, again mainly because his comic book counterpart had also evolved quite a great deal since the seventies. Instead, what we’re left with is a throwback to an outdated version of the character and a sullen version of the Man of Steel who’s so distracted by his personal issues that he doesn’t realise Luthor is a threat until it’s almost too late, which is odd considering that the film makes a big deal of showing that Superman is deeply affected by the planet’s cries for a saviour and yet he somehow doesn’t pick up on Luthor’s latest plot.
Luthor flips between cold, calculating menace to unhinged mania seemingly at random.
Luthor’s grand plan this time around is, essentially, similar to that of his predecessor; namely, the acquisition of profit from real estate. Quite why this continued to be a concern for the self-professed greatest criminal mind ever to walk to Earth is beyond me, but this Luthor is noticeably more bitter and twisted than Gene Hackman’s take on the character. Finally sporting his trademark bald head and wielding Gertrude’s vast wealth, Luthor sets himself up on her fancy yacht and surrounds himself with idiotic underlings simply because he was forced to make questionable allies to survive his time in prison. Thanks to the events of Superman II, Luthor directs his crew to the Fortress of Solitude and refamiliarises himself with Jor-El and Krypton’s technology; specifically, Luthor learns of the Kryptonian crystals’ ability to expand and create landmasses, which he plans to use to create a whole new continent in the Northern Atlantic Ocean that will supplant the mainland United States, killing millions of people in the process. Aided by Kitty Kowalski (Posey), who’s essentially exactly the same character as Eve Teschmacher (Valerie Perrine), Luthor is only too eager to avenge himself on the Man of Steel when he makes his dramatic return to the spotlight and has Kitty distract Superman so that he (as in Luthor) can reacquire the chunk of Kryptonite he used in the first film in order to make his new landmass fatal to his hated enemy. While Hackman gloriously ate up the scenery in the previous films, Spacey absolutely devours it here with a wild and manic performance that shifts from cold, calculating menace to unhinged hysteria at the flip of a coin. It’s uncomfortable to praise any Kevin Spacey performance these days but he really was a pretty fantastic Lex Luthor; while I would much rather see either the mad scientist or corrupt businessman version of the character, Luthor is an enigmatic and cold-hearted villain who relishes the opportunity to bring Superman to his knees and bring about the deaths of countless innocents simply to fuel his ego and lust for power.
The Nitty-Gritty: Perhaps the most prominent thematic inclusion here is the question of whether or not the world even needs a Superman; the world has continued on without him, and even gotten used to his absence, and both Clark and even Lois question whether he even has a place there anymore. Although Lois’s career was boosted by her anti-Superman article, Superman returns to action, saving people and solving problems the world over, because all he can hear is a world crying out for a saviour. I’m really not sure why this is such a recurring theme in Superman movies; Zack Snyder wasted a huge chunk of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice(ibid, 2016) asking similar questions and it really bothers me for some reason. I haven’t read every single Superman comic book or story ever made but I’ve rarely ever come across this plot point in the source material and, while it raises interesting questions regarding the need for a God-like superhero, I can’t help but feel like it drags the already dull plot down quite a bit. Furthermore, it personally doesn’t sit well with me that the film is so closely tied to Donner’s original film; Superman’s supposed to have been gone for five years, from approximately 1980, but everyone seems younger than they were before, and the only character who even remotely seems to evoke their counterpart is Superman. As much as I enjoy Donner’s iconography, tying them together was a big mistake in my book; Superman had changed so much in the comics by this point that this felt like a massive step back and seemed way too “safe” of an option. The film wisely reuses John Williams’ iconic score, but not often enough; it’s most prominently heard in the opening credits (which are a direct homage to the original film) and Superman’s handful of action scenes. Even dusting off unused footage of Marlon Brando doesn’t help matters as the film’s weirdly stuck in the past and yet also supposed to be set in the then-modern day, which results in a confused presentation as it’s unclear which version of Superman II Superman Returns is set after, and it even confusingly seems to suggest that it’s a only direct sequel to the first film!
Superman Returns is full of heavy themes but paints Superman in an uncomfortable light.
Of course, the film is also rife with themes of responsibility and parenthood. Superman is, sadly, framed very poorly here; not only did he abandon his adopted home world on a whim, he never considered the legal fallout of Luthor’s arrest and thus was absent for a critical moment in his adjudication. Even worse is the fact that Superman is characterised almost like an obsessed stalker; he uses his super hearing to eavesdrop on Lois’s conversations both at work and in the office, his super vision to watch her at home as she makes a poor effort of hiding her emotions at Superman’s return, and he generally comes across as being unable to let go of the past. Lois hides her desire for Superman behind a mask of contempt and self-reliance; she defies Perry’s order to cover Superman in favour of the blackout caused by Luthor’s experiments but continually circles back to her feelings of abandonment by her long-time crush. Even distracting herself with her sickly child doesn’t help as she’s clearly as besotted with the Man of Steel as ever, just weighed down with her responsibilities as a mother and her career. Clark is stunned to find that Lois has settled down and had a child, and unethically uses his powers to gain insight into her emotional state, which is as uncomfortable as it sounds. Still burdened by Jor-El’s decree that he be a beacon of hope for all of humanity rather than devote himself to any one person, Superman is nonetheless overjoyed to find that Jason is his son. Unfortunately, this revelation is painfully telegraphed despite the boy’s asthma and fragility, and just serves to make Superman look even worse since the implication is that he had a one night stand with Lois and then took off and left her to raise his illegitimate child alone, forcing her to turn to another man in the process. I’m not massively against the idea of Superman being a father; it’s now been the status quo in DC Comics for some time and the film takes the time to have Superman recontextualise Jor-El’s words about the son becoming the father in a heartfelt moment but, sadly, there really isn’t all that much time spent exploring what being a father means to Superman, which could have been much more interesting than watching him spy on his ex from afar.
The suit is as divisive as the lack of action as Superman is left struggling to find his way in the world.
One area where the film excels, and surprisingly still holds up, are the special effects; the Fortress of Solitude is particularly striking here and scenes of Superman flying and showcasing his physical strength are slick and presented as a visual spectacle, which is only fitting. I’m a little torn on the suit, though; overall, it looks good, appearing to be a modern take on the classic outfit, but the colour palette is very subdued and dark. The symbol is way too small; the cape fits weird and is too thick and leathery and lacks the symbol on the back (a common occurrence in modern Superman films), and it somehow looks plainer than Reeves’. And yet, Routh fills it out wonderfully with his toned physique and the film definitely aims to make every shot of him a piece of art, even including a marvellous homage to the iconic cover of Action Comics #1. As awesome as Superman’s calm confrontation with a maniacal gunman is, the plane rescue is the film’s big, memorable action piece; as others have said, it’s great how Superman has to deal with the physics of the crisis, slowing and guiding the plane to a safe landing, but sadly the film doesn’t ever even try to top this. Superman barely uses any of his additional powers; he only uses his heat vision and super breath once, and he doesn’t even throw a punch! I get that Donner’s Superman wasn’t exactly an action-packed spectacle, but times have changed since then; Superman Returns came out after The Matrix Revolutions (Wachowski Brothers, 2003), which gave a tantalising glimpse into what a new Superman might be like with its epic final fight scene that pitted two superpowered characters against each other in the skies. Sadly, Superman Returns opts not to include a superpowered foe for Superman or any kind of physical danger; instead, it’s firmly focused on exploring the drama of his return, the interpersonal conflict of his character, and his struggles to find his place in a world that has moved on from him, none of which is particularly interesting or even fitting for the character.
Superman musters the strength to stop Luthor’s plot, recovers from death, and returns to duty.
All of this distracts Superman’s focus for the majority of the film, as does solving problems both big and small all over the world. Despite being knocked sideways by Superman’s return, Lois continues to follow her hunch on the blackout, which leads her directly to Lex Luthor and at ground zero for his latest maniacal scheme. Reunited, and with a showdown with his old foe impending, Luthor descends into complete lunacy because of his unwavering arrogance at being able to outthink the Man of Steel. Not only has Luthor kept a shard of Kryptonite for himself, he’s infused his alien landmass with the substance, thus rendering Superman weakened for this inevitable confrontation. In a surprisingly harrowing scene, Luthor’s henchman brutalise Superman and Luthor vindictively stabs him, critically injuring the Man of Steel and requiring Lois and Richard’s aid to pull him from danger. However, despite his injuries, Superman bathes in the healing energies of the sun to muster the strength to lift the entire Kryptonian landmass from the ocean and fling it into space. Quite how he was able to do this is also beyond me; even after being boosted by the yellow sunlight, he’s still handling what amounts to pure Kryptonite, the very substance which just moments earlier had left him helpless to fend off Luthor’s attack. To be fair, the effort is draining for Superman; here, Singer abandons all subtlety and absolutely wallops audiences over the head with the Christ allegory as Superman not only literally falls to Earth in a crucifix pose but also dies to save us and rises some time later. I get that the “Death of Superman” (Jurgens, et al, 1992 to 1993) was a monumental story for the character but, again, I really don’t get this obsession with “killing” off the character, which was a recurring suggestion in the many unproduced drafts before this film and, again, resurfaced in Batman v Superman, where it was equally rushed and unwarranted. Here, Superman just gets better after a few days in hospital, finally takes the moral high ground and leaves Lois and her family the hell alone while promising that Jason will continue his legacy and the legacy of Krypton, and does his trademark lap of the planet before vanishing from cinema screens for another seven years.
The Summary: Even now, with the benefit of hindsight, it’s hard to regard Superman Returns as anything other than a massive disappointment and missed opportunity. Warner Bros. had the perfect opportunity to reboot the character, or otherwise reintroduce him, to a fresh new audience eager to jump on the next big-budget superhero film but instead pandered to an aged and dated version of the character simply to cash-in on nostalgia for Christopher Reeves’ influential portrayal and to piggyback off the success of Richard Donner’s original film. Admittedly, a lot of my dislike for this film comes from my desire to move away from such outdated representations of the Man of Steel and to do something new and more akin to his Post-Crisis characterisation, and my general dislike for much of the themes and presentation of those original films. Batman got a clean slate a few years prior so it’s astounding to me that Superman didn’t get the same treatment; even more mind-boggling is the suggestion that Brandon Routh and Christian Bale would’ve crossed paths in a potential crossover movie, which would’ve just been insane to imagine as you’d be effectively pitting the same Superman who reversed time against the most grounded and realistic Batman we’d seen at that point in time. Ultimately, it’s a real shame as there’s a lot to like in Superman Returns; the film is shot beautifully, challenges Superman in interesting ways, and features some great performances. Routh was placed in an unenviable position and delivered a pretty decent performance as the Man of Steel, but I think maybe it was a little too much too soon for him; he definitely commanded the role much better when he returned to it years later, though, so I like to think he might’ve been even more impressive if Superman Returns had gotten a sequel. Sadly, though, there’s just not enough here to really sustain things; Superman’s characterisation is uncomfortably off and the film just drags all the way through. Lex Luthor showcases some maniacal cruelty when he finally gets to put a beating on Superman, but this disturbing scene really belongs in a better film and Superman Returns ends up being a big missed opportunity to have the world’s greatest superhero return to the big screen in a meaningful way in favour of simply cashing in on the nostalgia for a film that was incredibly influential, yes, but an outdated representation of the character by this point.
My Rating:
⭐⭐
Rating: 2 out of 5.
Could Be Better
Are you a fan of SupermanReturns? What did you think to Brandon Routh’s portrayal of the character and his efforts to evoke Christopher Reeve? Were you also disappointed that the film was a continuation of Donner’s effort or did you enjoy the links to the classic Superman films? What did you think to Lex Luthor’s plot and the focus on interpersonal drama rather than action? What is your favourite Superman story, character, or piece of media? How are you celebrating Superman Day today? Whatever your thoughts on Superman Returns, feel free to share them below and be sure to check out my other Superman content.
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