adaptation

Back Issues [Sonic 2sday]: StC in Sonic 2

Dr. K3 Comments

After the release of Sonic the Hedgehog (Sonic Team, 1991), Sonic firmly established himself as the hot new gaming icon and catapulted SEGA to the forefront of the “Console Wars”. Anticipation was high for a sequel and, in keeping with their aggressive marketing strategies, SEGA dubbed November 24, 1992 as “Sonic 2sday”, a marketing stunt that not only heralded the worldwide release of the bigger, better sequel but changed the way the videogame industry went about releasing games for years to come.

Story Title: “Attack on the Death Egg”
Published: 7 August 1993
Writer: Nigel Kitching
Artist: Ferran Rodriguez

Story Title: “Super Sonic”
Published: 21 August 1993
Writer: Nigel Kitching
Artist: Richard Elson

Story Title: “Megatox”
Published: 2 October 1993
Writer: Nigel Kitching
Artist: Richard Elson

Story Title: “Casino Night: Part 1/2”
Published: 22 January 1994/5 February 1994
Writer: Nigel Kitching
Artist: Richard Elson

Story Title: “Hill Top Terror”
Published: 19 February 1994
Writer: Nigel Kitching
Artist: Ferran Rodriguez

Story Title: “Pirates of the Mystic Cave”
Published: 2 April 1994
Writer: Nigel Kitching
Artist: Richard Elson

The Background:
Sonic the Hedgehog was a massive success for SEGA; thanks to an aggressive marketing campaign and including it with their 16-bit Mega Drive, SEGA saw sales of over 15 million copies upon its release. However, all was not right at SEGA as Sonic mastermind Yuji Naka quit for the California-based SEGA Technical Institute. After bringing in many of his own Japanese staff, Naka spearheaded the creation of a sequel while an entirely separate, Japan-based team worked on Sonic the Hedgehog CD (SEGA, 1993). Though mired by an influx of ideas, another internal contest decided Sonic’s new sidekick, Miles “Tails” Prower, and improved graphics and gameplay saw Sonic 2 become incredibly successful; 400,000 copies were sold in its first week alone, with over 6 million units during the Mega Drive’s lifespan. SEGA’s control of the home console market shot up by 40% as a result of Sonic 2; the game was widely praised upon its release and is still held in high regard, with many claiming that it is the best in the series. This, more than anything, helped catapult Sonic to mainstream success and saw SEGA briefly usurp Nintendo’s position at the top of the videogame industry and SEGA were quick to capitalise with a slew of merchandise, including cartoons and comic books. About six months after Archie Comics began publishing a weird amalgamation of the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog (1993 to 1996) and Sonic the Hedgehog/SatAM (1993 to 1994) cartoons, United Kingdom publisher Fleetway Editions Limited brought us “Britain’s Official SEGA Comic”, Sonic the Comic (StC), a fortnightly publication that I collected diligently until its unfortunate end. Though pulling much of its lore from the now-defunct Mobius and Doctor Ovi Kintobor storyline that was prevalent outside of Japan, StC quickly veered away from the source material to recast Sonic the a mean-spirited leader of a gang of Freedom Fighters made up of both videogame characters and anthropomorphic characters adapted from the videogames. Like the Archie comics, StC often included a few very loose adaptations of the videogames, though these were often heavily truncated and adapted to fit with its noticeably different lore. Sonic 2 was no different, with many elements of its plot and gameplay being loosely peppered throughout the comic’s early issues.

The Review:
So, as I mentioned, StC often included truncated videogame adaptations. Sometimes these stretched over a few parts, or a handful of separate parts; sometimes they carried on through spin-off strips. But, quite often, StC simply adapted the general sense of the source material over various issues and stories, and that’s very much the case with their adaptation of Sonic 2. From issue one, StC quite clearly takes place after the first videogame, with Sonic generally sticking to the Green Hill Zone and other locations from the first game but also visiting or at least referencing events from the second game, if only because Tails was regularly included as Sonic’s sidekick. I suppose you could argue that Sonic 2 takes place between issues, but I always assumed that the first two games happened, and the comic went from there. All this is to say that, initially, I was simply going to review “Attack on the Death Egg” but I decided to make things more difficult for myself and review a bunch of StC stories that are clearly pulling from the second game, while also inserting their own lore. One of the most prominent bits of original lore in StC was their version of the Kintobor origin; in StC, the kindly Doctor Ovi Kintobor was transformed into the evil Doctor Ivo Robotnik after an accident involving a rotten egg and a massive dose of chaos energy from the six unstable Chaos Emeralds. Somehow, Dr. Kintobor’s consciousness was imprinted onto a Golden Ring and then transferred to the computer and acted as a guide, warning system, and information network for Sonic and his gaggle of Freedom Fighters, and an occasional emphasis was placed on Sonic carrying or hiding his guilt for his role in the creation of Mobius’s power-hungry dictator.

Sonic and Tails return to the Death Egg to stop it from destroying the Emerald Hill Zone.

I offer this context because “Attack on the Death Egg” opens with Sonic operating the Kintobor Computer and Tails expressing childish curiosity about the kindly doctor’s holographic face, which acts as an interface to make the machine easier for Sonic to use. The computer reveals that Dr. Robotnik’s all-powerful Death Egg space satellite is not only still in one piece after Sonic 2 but is currently on a collision course with the Emerald Hill Zone, so Sonic has Tails fly them to Dr. Robotnik’s “flying fortress” (obviously the Wing Fortress Zone), though Tails is clueless as to why they’re heading there and not to the Death Egg. While the fortress is largely abandoned, it’s not without some recognisable defences; Sonic dodges a Cluck’s cannonball and ends up battling the laser cannon boss from the videogame (though Sonic’s dialogue and inner monologue implies he’s never encountered this before). Similarly, Tails is completely clueless about the Wing Fortress; he doesn’t even realise it has a spaceship there, which is a bit odd as the Sonic 2 cutscene clearly showed him helping boost Sonic onto the same craft. One quick stomach-churning trip to space later and the two are back onboard the heavily damaged, egg-shaped space station; there, Sonic is…not surprised, more excited and insulted…to see Mecha Sonic is still operational, albeit badly damaged. Sonic makes short work of his chunky robotic doppelgänger, ramming it with a Super Sonic Spin Attack and then kicking its head off, before ordering Tails to take the one and only escape pod while he (as in Sonic) manually redirects the Death Egg to plunge into the ocean rather than destroying the Emerald Hill Zone (which I believe causes a continuity issue for later in StC when Knuckles the Echidna makes his debut). Although Tails weeps for his friend and vows to tell tales of Sonic’s heroics, Sonic obviously escapes certain death and appears to bask in the glory of his bravery.

A near-death experience in the Oil Ocean Zone sees Sonic briefly become the enraged Super Sonic!

StC returned to Sonic 2 in the very next issue, which saw Sonic and Tails help with a raging inferno at the Oil Ocean Zone; while original character Red and the other firefighters have battled the blaze for three days with little success, Sonic easily disperses the burst of flaming oil by creating a “Sonic-Cyclone” with his super speed. However, the dangers of the gigantic oil refinery remain and Red implores Sonic to help them clean the place up with his unprecedented knowledge of the many traps placed around the Zone. Naturally, Sonic agrees without hesitation, but is surprisingly caught off-guard by a lone Aquis; this robotic seahorse singes him with its flame shot and forces him into one of those slippery oil slides, apparently incinerating him alive in a pool of oil! Thankfully, Sonic survives but the stress of the anticlimactic near-death experience transforms him into Super Sonic! Now, this is something else StC took major liberties with; in StC, Super Sonic is a mindless, enraged, demonic entity hell-bent on destruction and chaos and much more akin to Doctor Bruce Banner’s green-skinned alter ego than a conscious, Super Saiyan-like power-up. Sonic first transformed into this being after absorbing a massive dose of chaos energy from the volatile Chaos Emeralds, and then again after collecting too many “Mobius Rings”, and he would undergo the transformation whenever pushed too far, such as here. Now faster than light and able to fly, Super Sonic ploughs through the Aquis in a fit of rage but is so consumed by hatred and evil that he then tries to murder the little woodland critter than pops out of the Badnik! Thankfully, Tails talks some sense into the rampaging, invincible hedgehog, calming him down before his temper got the best of him, returning him to normal and allowing him to make good on his promise to clean up the Oil Ocean Zone.

A daring rescue mission to the Chemical Plant Zone sees Sonic battling the vile Megatox.

After a two-issue gap, StC tapped into Sonic 2 for inspiration for one of the most memorable stories of the comic for me, “Megatox”. This one has special meaning to me as, when I was a kid, before we could afford to buy StC on the regular, I only had two issues; one was issue two, and one was issue ten, so I read “Megatox” to death back in the day. By this time, Dr. Robotnik has overtaken Mobius thanks to taking advantage of a time dilation a few issues back; his Badniks and military Troopers are everywhere and Sonic and his friends have been forced on the run in disguise as Bob Beaky’s traveling circus. This is why Sonic infiltrates the Chemical Plant Zone dressed in a massive snow suit and hat and pretending to be Bob Beaky, loyal servant of Dr. Robotnik’s; this allows him to get into the toxic facility, where Troopers are working woodland critters to exhaustion and disciplining them with energy whips. Disgusted at the Trooper’s mistreatment of innocent Mobians, Sonic quickly abandons his disguise and trashes Dr. Robotnik’s goons; since they don’t use animals as power sources, Sonic doesn’t have to worry about holding back and literally bursts through them to lead a desperate escape attempt through a tunnel full of a strange, pink, toxic gunk. Although Sonic gets the critters to safety (and even frees another from a Grabber), he’s startled when the toxic gunk (known as “Mega Mack”) suddenly comes to life and attacks him, assuming a sentient, corporeal form called Megatox. Once a scientist charged by Dr. Robotnik to create a poisonous chemical to kill Sonic, he was transformed into living Mega Mack after a freak laboratory accident and wastes no time in fulfilling his objective by choking and poisoning Sonic with its toxic body. Already feeling the effects of the poison, and unable to directly attack Megatox since it is essentially living water and incapable of being destroyed through conventional means, Sonic instead burrows through the ground and disperses Megatox all over the countryside (no doubt indirectly polluting the nearby environment in the process) using a vortex, ending the strange creature’s threat…for a time.

Sonic ends up captured during his mission to liberate the Casino Night Zone.

Eight issues later, Sonic 2 was used as the basis for a two-part story; these weren’t uncommon in StC, and a lot of Sonic’s stories were two-part tales. This one takes place in the Casino Night Zone, here realised as a gigantic fun park adorned with Dr. Robotnik’s visage. The Casino Night is also home to a number of…well, casinos. Sonic and his buddy, nervous but tech-savvy Porker Lewis, sneak into the Zone and are disgusted to find the Dr. Robotnik has not only rigged all the games to strip guests of their money and worldly possessions but is turning them into compulsive gamblers using hypnotising beams from a massive, garish statue in his image. Dr. Robotnik (here still sporting his sadly underused videogame design and spitting out egg puns aplenty) has left the Casino Night in the hands of three original characters knock-off villains, the Marxio Brothers – cigar-chomping leader Grouchio, underappreciated stooge Chicio, and the mute trumpet-honker Harpio – thinly-veiled composites of the Marx and Super Mario Brothers from the never-seen (but, assumedly, terrible) Marxio World. When Porker’s specially-created disruptor fails to work from a distance, a frustrated Sonic resolves to get closer so he can put a stop to Dr. Robotnik’s diabolical scheme and, afraid of the hedgehog’s wrath, Grouchio orders Chicio to unleash a swarm of laser-firing Troopers into the Zone. Although Sonic fights them, the sheer numbers cause him some concern and see him fall into a trap; more specifically, a giant pinball machine that batters him about and almost ends with him becoming a hedgehog kebab…until he simply gets out of it with relative ease. Unfortunately, Sonic is forced to surrender when Porker gets captured and tied up by the Marxio’s, ending the first part with him admonishing his nerve-wracked friend even as they await certain death tied to rollercoaster tracks.

After winding up Porker, Sonic humiliates his captors and ends Dr. Robotnik’s casino plot.

“Casino Night” continues in the next issue, picking up right where the first part left off and, thankfully, sparing us any flashbacks or wasted time recapping the previous events. StC was great like that; they just did the smallest text box or a bit of dialogue and that was it. Another thing it was good at was painting Sonic as an absolute prick; like, he was heroic and brave and all that, but Goddamn was he an abrasive, self-absorbed, egotistical bully sometimes. Mostly, he threw his insults at Tails, but he wasn’t above tormenting Porker either, and he does that in this issue, driving the poor pig into a panic by pretending like they’re doomed to die. After getting his kicks from Porker’s abject terror, Sonic vibrates the ropes that bind them at super speed and breaks them free seconds before their gruesome demise. Spotting the Marxio’s nearby, now in possession of the disruptor device, Sonic pursues them into the nightmarish pinball machine that functions as the heart of the Casino Night Zone and runs rings around them as they try to smash and bash him with their metal pole…things (a weapon Sonic’s ill-fated ally, Johnny Lightfoot, would later take as his own). Although Grouchio smashes the device, Sonic is far from perturbed; in fact, he was simply stalling for time to allow Porker to reprogram the Casino Night’s main computer and cause all of the machines to pay out bucketloads of cash. As an exclamation point, Sonic has Porker destroy the head of Dr. Robotnik’s statue, disrupting his hypnotic rays and delivering a decisive victory in the ongoing war against the egg-shaped tyrant.

Sonic’s efforts to save a Hill Top Zone village see him becoming the maniacal Super Sonic once more.

Super Sonic made a return in the very next issue, which took place at one of my favourite Sonic 2 Zones, the Hill Top Zone. “Hill Top Terror” sees Sonic and Tails assist a small village at the base of an active (and very close to erupting) volcano. Before landing, Sonic has to take out a small group of Turtloids, oddly seeming to fly at superspeed and then observing that he can’t actually fly and needs Tails to rescue him with his biplane (which earns the two-tailed fox what can be loosely called a compliment). Sonic and Tails meet the bird-like tribe and their leader, Chief Kordon, who explains that the Mountain of Destiny threatens to wipe them out, claiming it to be the wrath of the Gods, which Sonic dismisses with a casual flippant comment. Racing to investigate, Sonic and Tails are surprised by a Rexxon dwelling in the boiling lava of the mountain; with Tails struggling to keep them from falling to their deaths, the stress of the situation causes Sonic to transform into his demonic other half once more. After taking his anger out on the Badnik, Super Sonic is left hungry for something to destroy and therefore unimpressed by Dr. Robotnik’s seismatron, which causes the volcano to violently explode and spells doom for the village. Thankfully, Tails hitches a ride out of there on Super Sonic’s leg and then manipulates the malevolent creature into stopping the volcano by questioning his power and ability. The effort of creating a “Super Sonic fan to cool the lava” is enough to not only save the villagers from a horrible death but also to return Sonic to normal; though he has no memory of his time, actions, or the threats he made towards Tails as Super Sonic, just enough of his personality remained to carve an effigy of himself on top of the mountain for the villagers to admire.

Sonic encounters the greedy Captain Plunder deep in the Mystic Cave Zone.

Finally for today, we have “Pirates of the Mystic Cave”; this story is actually something of a prelude to StC’s later adaptation of Sonic CD and introduces readers to one of StC’s more annoying recurring original characters, Captain Plunder and his Sky Pirates. The story sees Sonic, Tails, Porker, and Johnny exploring the Mystic Cave Zone in search of Amy Rose, Sonic’s lovelorn number one fan who joined the Freedom Fighter team some issues prior and had a knack for getting herself in trouble. While there, they’re attacked by the caterpillar-like Crawltons but, unlike usual, these Badniks are empty of helpless woodland critters. Sonic and Tails are soon cut off from Porker and Johnny by a massive steel door and summarily attacked, and knocked out, by electrical bursts courtesy of a gaggle of Flashers. When they awaken, they find themselves in a cove where Amy is held prisoner in a wooden cage by the hulking, warthog-like Captain Plunder. Desiring Sonic’s cache of Chaos Emeralds, Captain Plunder first threatens Tails with walking the plank and then ruthlessly kicks him down a chasm, but Sonic reminds his young friend that he can fly and therefore the attempted murder is easily thwarted. While Sonic is unable to hurt Filch, Captain Plunder’s resident poltergeist (whom the captain himself murdered for being greedy with the biscuits), he is able to fight the hook-handed warthog. However, far from a mere meek damsel in distress, Amy talks sense into the two and convinces them to join forces against Dr. Robotnik; although Sonic can’t surrender the Chaos Emeralds, he can offer information which of Dr. Robotnik’s air freighters are worth robbing and the cutthroat crew offer the Freedom Fighters some much-needed backup in the fight against the dictator. Although Captain Plunder agrees to the deal and the Freedom Fighters are allowed to leave unharmed, he vows to use the situation to his advantage regardless and steal the Chaos Emeralds at the first opportunity.

The Summary:
There’s a real variety in these six (technically seven, I guess) stories; none of them are a direct adaptation of Sonic 2 by any means and, indeed, the comic plays fast and loose with the game’s continuity at the best of times. One thing I enjoy about Sonic’s comics is how the game locations are actually used and expanded upon, becoming intricate cities, populated areas, and really feeling alive and part of this diverse and often wacky fictional world. The cartoons and movies really struggle with this aspect; occasionally, Zone names and locations are referenced, seen, or somewhat evoked, but it’s never as explicit as in the comics, where anthropomorphic characters live and work and struggle like in the real world. Other concepts, like gameplay mechanics such as Golden Rings and such, were never quite as easily translated in the comics; like the cartoons, these were downplayed or ignored, with stories largely focusing on the Chaos Emeralds and using Rings very sparingly, as though this mechanic were something that only existed in the context of the videogames and wasn’t quite the same thing in this new fiction.

The stories do a great job of bringing Sonic 2‘s locations to life.

Regardless, these stories tell quite a few fun and interesting tales in just a few pages. All but two of these were illustrated by the great Richard Elson, the premier artist of StC who always delivered some of the best, dynamic, and visually interesting sequences and panels. However, this isn’t to discredit Ferran Rodriguez; while his art style is noticeably less detailed than Elson’s and far more simplistic, his characters and locations evoke the anime aesthetic channelled in the manuals and advertisements for the games, especially over in Japan, therefore bringing a more “SEGASonic” version of the character to StC. While some of the writing is a little off (Sonic’s constant heckling of Tails and Porker can make him out to be more of a bully) and it’s a little weak that Super Sonic’s first big appearances were a result of mediocre Badniks like Aquis and Rexxon, the visual representation of the Zones used is absolutely spot on. StC rarely, if ever, took much inspiration from the actual plots of the videogames beyond Dr. Robotnik enslaving animals and polluting the environment, but they always did a bang-up job of bringing the game’s Zones to life in their adaptations, and all of these look great. Sure, Wing Fortress and Death Egg are a little lifeless and dull and Hill Top Zone is less of a lush mountainscape and more of a barren, rocky volcano, but Elson’s depictions of the bustling, pollution-spewing Oil Ocean and Chemical Plant Zones is a joy to behold. There’s so much detail there, with elements from the games (like the oil slides, the toxic gunk, the pinball arena, and the ominous caves) tweaked to become somewhat believable and fully flesh out environments. This is probably best evident in the Casino Night Zone, which takes more from the bustling city you see in the background of the Zone but still includes the bounce springs and bumpers, though Oil Ocean Zone really came off incredibly well, too.

Some unique supporting characters and world-building bolster these stories.

Like basically all external Sonic media, StC was rife with original characters; many, especially those in Sonic’s gang, were adapted from the Mobius lore but others, like Captain Plunder, were a little more surreal and yet fit quite well with this version of Sonic’s world. Few of them make much impression in these stories beyond Captain Plunder and, I guess, the Marxio Brothers for being parodies of SEGA’s rival, Nintendo. One thing you may notice is that Dr. Robotnik doesn’t show up much in these stories and Sonic doesn’t actually fight him directly; this was actually quite common, especially after Dr. Robotnik took over Mobius and became virtually untouchable, and much of the ongoing story was about striking victories and disrupting his operations, not unlike what we saw in SatAM, casting Sonic firmly as the underdog despite him always coming out on top. For those who were hoping to see a traditional Zone-by-Zone adaptation or a bigger, more dramatic showdown on the Death Egg, these stories will probably be a disappointment; indeed, the Death Egg wouldn’t be properly explored or seen as a real threat until later, after Knuckles’ introduction, so I can understand why “Attack on the Death Egg” might fall a little flat in that regard. Still, I think these stories collectively do a decent job of capturing some of the essence of Sonic 2 and recontextualising the Zones and gimmicks into something that would actually work as a living, real place. Many of the elements seen in these stories would return in later issues, with Captain Plunder, Megatox, and the Marxio Brothers becoming recurring villains and anti-heroes, and basically all of Super Sonic’s unique characterisation as this out of control, destructive force was established here. Naturally, there’s a lot of bias on my part; I grew up reading these stories and was an avid collector of StC and really enjoy how they adapted the source material into something recognisable, but still distinctive in its own right, and I definitely think their efforts to incorporate and expand upon Sonic 2 resulted in some fun and visually engaging stories here.

My Rating:

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Great Stuff

What did you think to Sonic the Comic’s adaptations of Sonic the Hedgehog 2? Did you read StC as a kid and, if so, what did you think to its unique take on the source material? Which of these stories was your favourite and what did you think to the StC version of Super Sonic? Would you have liked to see a more direct adaptation of the games in the comics and how would you compare with StC did with the American comic books? What are some of your favourite stories, characters, and moments from StC? How are you celebrating “Sonic 2sday” this year? Whatever your thoughts on Sonic 2, and Sonic comics in general, share them below or join the discussion on my social media.

Screen Time: Ms. Marvel

Dr. K2 Comments

Air Date: 8 June 2022 to 13 July 2022
Network: Disney+
Stars: Iman Vellani, Zenobia Shroff, Matt Lintz, Nimra Bucha, Aramis Knight, and Mohan Kapur

The Background:
In 1939, Fawcett Comics introduced readers to the magically-empowered boy-turned-superman Billy Batson/Captain Marvel; however, a 1953 lawsuit forced them to cease publication of their Captain Marvel comics and allowed Marvel Comics to trademark the name for themselves. While Stan Lee and Gene Colan’s Mar-Vell ended up being more famous for his death from cancer, his mantle was continued by a number of successors, most notably Carol Danvers. However, before she took name Captain Marvel, Carol went by Ms. Marvel, an identity later adopted by young Kamala Khan, an Inhuman Muslim girl who idolised Carol. Created by Sana Amanat, Stephen Wacker, G. Willow Wilson, Adrian Alphona, and Jamie McKelvie, Kamala’s adopting the Ms. Marvel mantle and subsequent solo series marked the first time a Muslim character headlined a Marvel publication and she drew significant praise from the Muslim community and for representing a marginalised youth demographic. After Captain Marvel (Boden and Fleck, 2019) proved a critical and commercial hit, star Brie Larson expressed interest in including Kamala in the MCU, something Marvel Studios were keen to do considering the character’s diversity and mainstream popularity. Development of a six-episode series for streaming service Disney+ began in 2019, with the writers keen to stay true to the source material (despite some alterations to Kamala’s powers) and tell both a coming-of-age story for the fledgling heroine and explore aspects of the Muslim faith and traditions through Kamala’s whimsical perspective. Newcomer Iman Vellani won the title role and her outfits and costumes, which are infused with cultural trappings, were designed by Arjun Bhasin; the showrunners also took great pains to ensure cultural authenticity throughout the entire process. Despite complications from the COVID-19 pandemic, Ms. Marvel released in weekly instalments on Disney+ and the first three episodes received a cinematic release in Pakistan. Although suffering from short-sighted hatemongering, the show was met with overwhelmingly positive feedback; reviews praised the blend of quirky humour with its authentic representation of Pakistani-American culture, Vellani’s performance, and the depiction of her new powers, and Ms. Marvel was heralded as a turning point for the MCU and mainstream representation of the Muslim faith. Although there has been no mention of a second season as of this writing, Kamala and her family featured prominently in the The Marvels (DaCosta, 2023), ensuring that the character has a future in the MCU in one form or another.

The Plot:
Sixteen-year-old Kamala Khan (Vellani) idolises Captain Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) but her strict Muslim mother, Muneeba Khan (Zenobia Shroff), disapproves of her constant daydreaming. Already struggling to fit in at school and juggling the minefield of a teenage social life, Kamala’s world is changed forever when she acquires cosmic powers from a family heirloom and discovers a mystical background to her family lineage.

The Review:
So, first of all I think it’s only fair to say that I know practically nothing about Ms. Marvel; if she’s appeared in some of the crossover events I’vr read, it was usually in a minor, supporting role and just about all I know about her is that she’s a Muslim girl with stretchy powers and has become quite popular in recent years. I say this only to establish that I went into Ms. Marvel without any kind of expectations, thus I didn’t really care that they altered her powers and, as I understand it, her origin into an amalgamation of her comic book counterpart, perennial sidekick Rick Jones and the Nega-Bands, and even a splash of the various Green Lanterns from DC Comics. I think it was probably a good idea; it ties into the mystical slant to the MCU’s cosmic side, separates her from Doctor Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic, and makes her powers a little more visually diverse. Kamala is probably the most relatable and grounded MCU protagonist yet; a young high schooler who’s just trying to find her way in the world, she’s an avid fan of the Avengers, specifically Captain Marvel, and makes fun animated videos about them and the battle against Thanos (Josh Brolin). Thanks to Scott Lang/Ant-Man’s (Paul Rudd) podcast interviews, she and the rest of the world have a pretty good idea of what happened in this battle but, despite the effort she puts into her videos, she only has two subscribers, barely any views, and a lot of her comments are just spam…which I can totally relate to! Kamala represents the MCU’s core audience in many ways; youngsters who have grown up with these films and characters and want to emulate them, decorate their rooms in superhero paraphernalia, and eagerly attend conventions so they can dress up as their heroes and be around likeminded, hardcore fans. Kamala is so excited about AvengerCon that she and best friend Bruno Carrelli (Lintz) cobble together an impressive costume for the event and she’s amazed in the finale when her father, Yusuf (Nimra Bucha Kapur), tells her that her name can be translated to mean “marvel”, which only makes her idolisation of Danvers even stronger.

Kamala idolises Captain Marvel and is absolutely adorable but has a strained relationship with her mother.

If there’s a word to describe Kamala, it’s “adorable”! She’s a little shy and introverted and other kids and even teachers are dismissive and rude to her, but she’s not exactly harassed like in a lot of high schools. Her powers do give her a newfound confidence that sees her become more assertive and engaging but she remains a bit clumsy and accident prone and is constantly reprimanded by her mother, Muneeba, and her try-hard principal (Jordan Firstman) about her constant doodling and daydreaming. Like all teens, she’s at a crossroads in life and is always being told that she needs to think about her future; her belief that girls should be able to make their own choices, to go out into the world and discover themselves, is met with stern disapproval by her mother since she firmly believes that Muslim women need to get married, put down roots, and start a family rather than drift away into fantasy, something Kamala can’t help but do as she has such an overactive imagination. Her relationship with Muneeba throughout is thus strained throughout; while she accepts Bruno and her older brother, Aamir (Saagar Shaikh) can seemingly do no wrong, Muneeba has high expectations of Kamala and isn’t impressed that she wants to “go to a party…at night” while dressed in a tight costume. To Yusuf’s chagrin, Muneeba initially openly admits that she doesn’t trust Kamala and she is constantly frustrated by her stubbornness. Kamala does truly love her parents, and wants to make them proud, but she also wants to pursue her dreams; this results in her causing them pain and shame when she lashes out at Muneeba’s insistence that Yusuf accompany her to AvengerCon and when she’s forced to disrupt Aamir’s wedding to safeguard her family and friends later in the series.

Muneeba’s strict nature stems from her relationship with Sana but she comes to accept and encourage Kamala.

Muneeba is quite the contradiction a lot of the time; she’ll defend Kamala and be warm and loving towards her one minute, and then chip away at her self confidence and desires the next. Because of this, Kamala has a much closer relationship with her elderly grandmother, Sana (Samina Ahmad), who is a dreamer just like her. Aamir and Kamala were raised on stories of how young Sana (Zion Usman) was forced from her home during a period of social unrest known as “The Partition”, which saw India divided up following years of British oppression. Separated from her mother, Aisha (Mehwish Hayat), and her father, Hasan (Fawad Khan), Sana was led back to her father by a mysterious trail of stars, but Muneeba was driven to leave her homeland after Sana’s tall tales brought her nothing but persecution and shame. Muneeba hasn’t had the easiest life, to be fair; she shares with Kamala how difficult it was after the Partition and how she found solace in the United States through the local mosque, their community, and, most importantly, her family. Indeed, there’s no question that she doesn’t love and care for Kamala; both her and Yusuf just want the young girl to be safe and to not be ogled over and Muneeba is clearly distraught when Kamala disappears in Karachi while investigation Sana’s past. Having long denied that magic that is a part of their heritage, the show eventually brings Muneeba closer to her daughter and her mother; when Kamala’s powers are revealed to her, she accepts her and even provides her with an upgraded costume, with Yusuf christening her “Ms. Marvel” in the finale and the two encouraging her to use her powers for good while still whittling over her wellbeing because parents gotta parent.

After initially struggling with her powers, Kamala masters them as she embraces her past and true self.

Kamala’s powers are activated by a mysterious bangle sent to her by Sana; this bangle is one of at least two and was discovered back in the 1940s on the dead body of an unidentified blue humanoid by a group of interdimensional travellers known as the Clandestine. When Kamala wears it, she’s bathed in a strange cosmic energy and beset by visions of her grandmother’s escape from India, which eventually lead her to the Clandestines and discovering that she shares their bloodline as a Djinn, a mythological race of people from the Noor dimension who have been interpreted as both angels and demons in folklore. Alongside Bruno, Kamala tries to get to grips with her powers, which don’t come with super strength, speed, or dexterity but do allow her to form hard light constructs that, after many pratfalls, she’s able to run and jump on, form shields with, cover herself in a protect crystalline armour of sorts, and occasionally “embiggen” herself to give her stretchy limbs like her comic book counterpart. Visually, these powers manifest quite well but the CGI is a bit wonky and cartoony at times; it could be argued that this ties into her artistic side but that’s a bit of a stretch (no pun intended). Unsurprisingly, considering the young cast, Kamala’s unstable powers flare up as a metaphor for puberty at one point; she flees to the toilets when her nose glows (like with a spot) and her other best friend, Nakia Bahadir (Yasmeen Fletcher), offers her a period pad when she misreads the situation. Despite having no formal training, Kamala generally holds her own in a tight spot; when attacked by Kareem/Red Dagger (Aramis Knight), she’s at a disadvantage due to his superior acrobatic and fighting skill but still defends herself, at least on instinct. When the Djinn try to force her to co-operate with their plot and gate-crash Aamir’s wedding, Kamala fends them off mostly through instinct and panic and is only able to focus her powers when Bruno is injured in the fracas. Indeed, Kamala’s powers quickly exacerbate her struggles to find her place in the world; often misunderstood at home and an outsider at both school and the mosque, she doesn’t always feel like she belongs and this means her powers are often dangerous to those around her, which only makes her question herself further. It’s only after literally reliving Sana’s past and reconciling with her mother, and accepting her newfound heritage, that Kamala is able to master her powers for the finale and win the support and appreciation of her community.

Damage Control, particularly Deever, are now fully framed as a prejudiced and antagonistic force.

However, because of her public demonstrations of power, Kamala attracts some undue attention. She’s immediately identified as a potential threat by the Department of Damage Control (DODC), which is now firmly an antagonistic government agency in the MCU that uses Stark Tech to track down and isolate or imprison potentially dangerous superpowered people. Here, they’re primarily represented by agents P. Cleary (Arian Moayed) and Sadie Deever (Alysia Reiner); however, it’s Deever who takes the most explicitly antagonistic role as she immediately targets the local Muslim community, disrespecting their culture and traditions at every turn, and then uses armed forces to barricade and openly attack Kamala and her friends at school. When Cleary realises the bad press this will bring them thanks to Kamala having her former friend turned avid supporter Zoe Zimmer (Laurel Marsden) livestream the incident, he orders Deever to withdraw but she refuses to listen and even advocates for lethal force simply because the confused and unstable Kamran (Rish Shah) refuses to get down on the ground when ordered. There’s definitely a sense that Deever fully believes she’s doing the right thing and protecting lives from dangerous individuals but she also makes many subtle prejudice comments that edge her closer to the black and out of the grey. Damage Control have no qualms about subduing their targets, interrogating and threatening vulnerable high schoolers, and locking prisoners in supermax prisons, which is literally the opposite of what the organisation was founded for and their trigger-happy agents are clearly positioned as an allegory for the racial prejudice and gung-ho nature of America’s police department throughout history, but particularly in recent years.

Najma’s obsession has driven her to violence and leads her to sacrifice herself to atone for her actions.

Kamala also attracts the attention of the Clandestines, Djinn who were trapped on our world decades ago and have been trying to return to the Noor dimension ever since. Their leader, Najma (Bucha), reveals to Kamala that they’ve existed on Earth for hundreds of years, maintaining their youth and vigour thanks to the Noor, an extradimensional energy from their dimension and which is channelled by the bangle. Initially, Najma adopts a warm and friendly demeanour as she asks for Kamala’s help in returning them home and Kamala believes helping them would make up for the mistakes she’s made since receiving her powers, but Najma quickly becomes far more sinister as she leads the Clandestine in forcibly acquiring the bangle. Kamala is stunned by this, even after Bruno’s initial research suggests that helping the Djinn could result in an explosive catastrophe and is even more shocked when an impromptu trip to the 1940s reveals just how malicious Najma can be. When Aisha fell in love with Hasan and chose a life amongst humanity, she hid the bangle from her fellow Djinn to keep them from destroying the world by breaching the Veil of Noor and thus consuming the Earth with the Noor dimension’s destructive energy. For her defiance, Aisha was fatally stabbed by Najma and the Clandestines have been searching for the bangle ever since; when they recognise its power in Kamala, Najma sends her son, Kamran, to befriend her so they can acquire it, but they’re so obsessed with returning home that they quickly turn to violence to achieve their goals. When Kamala returns from the past, she unwittingly breaches the Veil, resulting in a rift between dimensions that vaporises on contact and grows increasingly destructive. Although Kamala isn’t able to talk Aisha out of approaching the rift, she is able to convince her to close it; her sacrifice saves the world and sees Kamran endowed with powers comparable to Kamala’s for the finale, which sees him struggling with both them and his emotions.

The Summary:  
Honestly, I have very little knowledge of Muslim religion or the history of India and Pakistan; it’s not something that’s ever really come up in my life and, while I’m aware that it’s a very rich and spiritual faith, my exposure to it is understandably limited since that’s not my culture. However, it’s naturally a central aspect of Ms Marvel and is presented in a very engaging and digestible way. It helps that Kamala is struggling to find her place in the world; she’s just as uncomfortable and awkward at school as she is at mosque (where women are literally separated from the men by a partition), around her “aunties”, and when being dressed up for Aamir’s wedding. Born and raised in New Jersey, she’s very much a modern American girl; she likes superheroes and YouTube and isn’t exactly an expert in her culture and heritage like her elders. Consequently, it makes sense for people to relate some of the tradition and folklore of her people to her, so it never comes across as blatant exposition. When in Karachi, Kamala is awestruck by the colours, the bustling crowds, and how different it is from the graffitied streets of her neighbourhood, where her culture is primarily kept alive in homes, the mosque, or annual Eid Al-Adha celebrations. A lot of the Muslim faith and culture is reflected through Nakia’s small side story; she chooses to wear a hijab as part of her identity but also actively advocates for more equality for her gender by running for the Mosque Board, a pursuit she accomplishes with Kamala’s encouragement. One thing I particularly liked was that, despite how strict Muneeba is, she fully accepts Bruno; she regularly texts him about Kamala’s life, much to her embarrassment and, since he doesn’t have a family, he’s kind of been adopted by Kamala’s, to the point where he’s invited to join them for Eid and helps sort out their tech issues.

Kamala certainly isn’t short on allies and potential boyfriends as she uncovers the truth about her heritage.

This culture is also represented by Sheikh Abdullah (Laith Nakli), a relatively down to earth religious figurehead who cares for everyone in their community despite holding on to the tradition of separating the genders to preserve their modesty. Still, he unknowingly offers Kamala some useful advice when she struggles with how to use her powers and greets the constantly disrespectful Deever with ridicule when she shows up at his mosque looking for Kamran, stalling her and allowing Kamala, Bruno, and Kamran to slip out garbed in the sheikh’s flimsy disguises, and also imploring Kamran not to hurt others just because they hurt him. The partnership between Bruno and Kamran is one of desperation; Bruno clearly has a crush on his long-time friend Kamala and is slighted when she takes an instant like to the fit and mysterious new kid, Kamran, who drives a fancy car and is into the same music and movies as she. It doesn’t help that Kamran constantly calls him “Brian”, which is a genuine mistake on his part, but Bruno remains loyal to Kamala even though he feels hurt. Ultimately, this quasi-love triangle resolves itself since Bruno eventually accepts an unprecedented opportunity to put his near-genius technological skill to good use at to the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and Kamran is forced to flee the country after his very public display of power in the finale. While in Karachi, Kamala also connects with Kareem, an adept vigilante who is the latest in a long line of scarfed vigilantes dedicated to defending the world from threats like the Clandestines. A mysterious organisation operating out of an elaborate temple hidden behind a restaurant, the Red Daggers are far better equipped and adept than Kamala and help her to further home her powers through training as well as filling in some gaps about the Djinn, and opening her eyes to their true threat. As adorkable as Kamala and Bruno’s friendship is, her banter with Kareem is just as entertaining and the two have real chemistry; in fact, Kamala has great chemistry with all her supporting cast, winning over Zoe with her heroic nature and even quickly patching up a falling out with Nakia after failing to tell her about her powers.

Kamala’s coming-of-age story is wonderfully told and allows her personality to shine through her cosmic powers.

At its heart, Ms. Marvel is a coming-of-age story. Kamala is an wide-eyed, enthusiastic dreamer who isn’t quite ready to take her first steps into adulthood but is on the cusp of facing some big changes in her life as she inevitably gets older. When low or bored, Kamala daydreams Captain Marvel and the Avengers as construction paper cartoons, which distracts her from reality; these animation techniques are also frequently employed to bring her imagination, elaborate plans, and even her text messages to life, which really gives the show a distinct visual style. When she gets her powers, Kamala’s first instinct is to help people and emulate her heroes, something she struggles with due to her inexperience and her youth and the damage she causes impacts her self-confidence almost as much as Muneeba constantly trying to keep her head out of the clouds. This, as much as the budget, is why her constructs are rarely more elaborate than shields and platforms but, when Muneeba accepts her and helps complete her superhero outfit, she’s able to do so much more with her powers, from “embiggening” her entire body to containing Kareem’s raging powers with a cocoon of her own. Kareem reacts to his powers with fear and panic and, having lost his mother and finding himself hounded by Damage Control, lashes out despite Kamala and her friends trying to protect him. His anger and instability make him extremely dangerous and everything Kamala feared she was after just a few mistakes but also provide Ms. Marvel with the perfect opportunity to put her newfound confidence to the test and defend Kareem from himself and others. This earns her the respect and protection of her grateful community, who shield her and allow her to escape just as she does for Kareem, whom she talks down and arranges safe passage to Karachi so he can come to terms with his powers and potentially use them for good, as she has learned to. The result of this is that the once unsure and awkward girl who stood unconvinced in her cosplay outfit now stands tall and proud in a comic-accurate outfit and ready to truly live up to the standards of her heroes by defending her community.

Ultimately, Kamala embraces her powers and identity and is set for a much bigger adventure!

I really enjoyed Ms. Marvel. I was honestly worried that I wouldn’t really connect with it since I’m not exactly the target audiences but it’s a really fun and charming coming-of-age story with an absolutely adorable main character. I loved Kamala’s awkward enthusiasm and her attempts to strive for her own independence while still being respectful to her elders and really connected with her strife; what teenager hasn’t felt their parents are holding them back, after all? I appreciated that she wasn’t a pouty, moody teen and that she always strived to make amends with those she’d hurt and that she was driven to do the right thing after being inspired by Captain Marvel. The Djinn aspects were an interesting adaptation of Indian folklore; while Najma is the only Clandestine who really matters, she’s quite a compelling antagonist since she just wants to return home and is willing to kill and even sacrifice our entire world to achieve that. There’s still a fair amount of mystery surrounding them and the bangle; although we learn a bit about the Noor and the Djinn, it’s not revealed why the bangle was in a Ten Rings temple, what the creature was that was holding it, and the series ends on a massive cliff-hanger as Kamala spontaneously trades places with Captain Marvel to set up their feature-length team up. Not only that but Bruno’s investigation into Kamala’s powers reveals that she’s different from her family and potentially her fellow Djinn because her DNA contains a “mutation”, effectively making her the MCU’s first acknowledged mainstream Mutant, clearly laying the foundations for bigger things in the character’s future. Most importantly, though, none of this overshadows Ms. Marvel’s main plot; it’s a visually unique series that flies by despite most episodes being nearly an hour long and I really enjoyed all the quirky and colourful characters, their lovable interactions with Kamala, and the acknowledgement of the hardships her people have gone through in the past. What it lacks in action it more than makes up for with entertaining dialogue and character beats and establishing a new corner of the MCU, one both grounded and cosmic in its scope and which further broadens the diversity of this ever-growing superhero universe in compelling and interesting ways.

My Rating:

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Great Stuff

Did you enjoy Ms. Marvel? What did you think to Kamala; did you find her adorable or did you think she was annoying? Did you enjoy her interactions with her family and friends and her doubts about her powers and place in the world? Were you annoyed that they altered her powers and origins and what did you think to the Djinn and their plot to return home? Did you like Kamala’s final costume, the revelation that she’s a Mutant, and Damage Control being cast as villains? Do you think the series did a good job of representing Indian culture and folklore or did that alienate you? What are some of your favourite Ms. Marvel stories and moments and are you excited to see her in future MCU projects? Feel free to leave your thoughts about Ms. Marvel in the comments and be sure to check out my other Captain Marvel content!

Game Corner [F4iday]: Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer (Xbox 360)

Dr. K2 Comments

In November 1961, Marvel Comics readers witnessed four intrepid explorers be forever changed by mysterious cosmic rays. Marvel’s “First Family” of superheroes were the first of many colourful superheroes for Marvel Comics and are more than deserving of some attention today.

Released: 15 June 2007
Developer: Visual Concepts
Also Available For: Nintendo DS, Nintendo Wii, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3

The Background:
Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s family of dysfunctional superheroes finally made it to the big screen in 2005 after a chaotic journey; their 1994 movie was never released, but Fantastic 4 (Story, 2005) was a modest box office success despite mixed reviews and earned itself a sequel in 2007. Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer (ibid, 2007) was also a somewhat lacklustre critical and commercial release that led to a disastrous reboot some eight years later, but it did result in another rare standalone Fantastic Four videogame being released. This was, of course, at the peak of the time when every single cinema release was accompanied by a hastily created videogame tie-in, but the Fantastic Four have had a couple of videogame adaptations in the past, the first being an obscure and obtuse text-and-image based adventure and the second being a universally derided brawler. While the Fantastic 4 videogame tie-in was published by Activision and received slightly-above-average reviews, Rise of the Silver Surfer was published by 2K Games, with this version being developed by Visual Concepts, a studio more known for their sports tie-ins, and its marketing was built around the four-player co-op, destructible environments, and “Fusion Attack System”. Sadly, the best this adaptation could hope for was mixed reviews, if that; the game was widely regarded as being another disappointingly cheap, repetitive, tie-in that failed to offer anything engaging or unique for gamers to get to grips with.

The Plot:
World-renowned superheroes and scientists the Fantastic Four find their lives interrupted when an extraterrestrial dubbed the “Silver Surfer” causes havoc with their powers and revives their old nemesis, Victor Von Doom/Doctor Doom, all while preparing the world for consumption by a cosmic being known only as “Galactus”.

Gameplay:
Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer is a third-person, team-based brawler in which players pick from each member of the titular team (Doctor Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic, Doctor Susan Storm/The Invisible Girl, Johnny Storm/The Human Torch, and Ben Grimm/The Thing) and battle through six distinct levels ripped both from the movie the game is based on and the original source material. The game supports up to four players in simultaneous co-operative play, and players can jump in at any time to assume control a character, but a single player is more than capable of playing through the game without any difficulties thanks to a relatively competent partner A.I. and the ability to switch between the characters using the directional pad. While each character has their own superpowers that give them slightly different playstyles, they share the same basic control commands: A and X allow pull off weak and strong attacks, respectively, and you can string these button inputs together to perform simple combo attacks, Y allows you to jump (and you can do jumping attacks, naturally), while B unleashes an “area attack” or is used to grab and use objects. The Left Bumper allows you to block incoming attacks, while the Right Bumper lets you change your team’s tactics; tapping it will cycle through commands like aggressive and defensive and holding it will see your teammates form up on your current position.

Each member of the team has different attacks and special moves according to their powers.

Not only does each character have different attack animations (with the Thing favouring slow, strong punches and the Invisible Girl pulling off roundhouse kicks and spinning attacks, for example), they also have their own unique superpowers that slightly change how they play and affords them different capabilities in combat or puzzle solving. You can perform these by holding the Right Trigger and pressing A, B, X, or Y but doing so will drain your “Cosmic Meter” and you’ll need to either give this a few seconds to refill or collect “Cosmic Orbs” from downed enemies or smashed crates. Reed Richards is elastic, giving him decent reach by default but this also allows him to perform a “Periscope Punch” to hit switches or control boxes that are high up on walls or ceilings, slip through laser traps with his stretchy evade, slingshot enemies across the arena, or toss a grenade to send enemies flying. Sue can fade from sight, allowing her to temporarily slip past enemies and security cameras undetected, but she can also (oddly) use “telekinesis” to move and hurl enemies and certain objects, toss energy discs for a ranged attack, erect a shield that protects her and anyone in it, and can redirect light beams to melt crystals and solve puzzles. Johnny is the Human Torch, so naturally he bursts into flame whenever he uses his powers; this allows him to fly over energy barriers (effectively making him the only character with a double jump), toss fireballs, scorch enemies with a flamethrower attack, and protect himself with a wall of flame. The Thing just loves to fight, so he gets a super useful ground pound (seriously, I spammed this move over and over), a powerful shoulder charge, can cover himself in a temporary protective aura, and can pick up objects the others can’t (like cars and lampposts) and swing or hurl them at enemies. There are times when a specific character’s ability is required to progress, such as using the Thing to smash through boulders or Mr. Fantastic to deactivate switches, and these are marked by a silver 4 symbol and you’ll often find yourself needing to switch between a few different characters to lower barriers and open doors so you can progress.

Combine the Four’s powers or use their unique abilities to get past barriers and other obstacles.

All these super powers, in addition to some other basic, overall stats, can be upgraded at the cost of the coins dropped by enemies or found when smashing the environment, and the Fantastic Four can also combine attacks by holding down the Left Trigger and pressing the corresponding face button when close by to pull off a super-powerful, super draining “Fusion Attack” that allows for fun combinations of their abilities, like filling up Sue’s forcefield with fire to effectively create a bomb and tossing Reed’s rubbery body at enemies. While you’ll need to collect health orbs to restore your health, characters will only be temporarily knocked out if their health is completely drained; you can’t revive them, but they’ll recover after a few seconds and re-join the fight, but it is easy to get overwhelmed and see some, or all, of your team mates knocked out, leaving you frantically running around avoiding damage until they spawn back in. The game is pretty generous with its checkpoints, but that’s probably because its levels are soooo long; levels stretch on forever and consist of multiple areas, separated by lifts and doors and barriers or other obstacles you either have to activate, ride, or break through with the Fantastic Four’s powers. It’s not long before you’ve seen most of what the game has to offer, however; cave-ins need clearing with the Thing, barriers need flying over or passing through with the Human Torch and the Invisible Girl, respectively, and laser traps need stretching through with Mr. Fantastic. Often, you’ll need to activate consoles to lower lifts or open doors, or smash control boxes to disable turrets; sometimes, you’ll need to power up generators using Johnny’s fireballs, use Sue’s telekinesis to bring floating transports closer, or avoid getting too trigger happy and risk taking damage from explosive barrels.

Occasionally, you’ll need to use a solo hero to progress past obstacles or chase down the Silver Surfer.

Easily the most frustrating puzzles are found in the Himalayas, where you’ll need to smack around spherical rocks or move weird crystals to redirect light and open new ways to progress. It can be tricky figuring out which crystals to move and to where, and you’ll often have to use Sue’s shield to bounce light beams to crystals, all to ring bells so you can move on to the next area. Occasionally, you’ll control a character for a solo mission; Reed must use his evade to get through laser traps on a Russian space station, taking out turrets and enemies as he goes, while Ben gets locked into a fighting arena for a brief period. Johnny gets the majority of these sections, however, as he’s tasked with flying down rock tunnels, through the city streets and underground, blasting enemies or pursuing the Silver Surfer. These can be quite fun as you boost along with A and toss fireballs with X, dodging traffic and other hazards, but both of these abilities are tied to your Cosmic Meter, which can severely hamper you, though it’s not exactly difficult to keep up with the Surfer and pass the mission successfully. By far the worst section of all of these, and the entire game, was guiding Sue through a heavily guarded military base. This means using your invisibility to slip past security cameras and trigger-happy robots, while also destroying turrets and awkwardly using her telekinesis to smash control panels to lower barriers. There are no checkpoints in this poor attempt at a stealth section so it can be extremely frustrating to slip past the robots and turrets (which absolutely barrage you with laser fire if they spot you) and finally reach the control panel, only to fail right before the exit because you were surprised by another robot or ran out of juice for your superpowers.

Graphics and Sound:
To be fair, the in-game graphics of Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer aren’t all that bad. Bland as all hell, for sure, but not that bad. Each character is modelled pretty closely to their live-action counterparts and feels very different to control, with the Thing being slower and heavier and the Human Torch being slipperier and more agile. When left idle, they’ll offer commentary and, honestly, I was pleasantly surprised by their banter and voice work; so often these tie-in games feature stilted, phoned-in performances, but there’s actually a lot of fun and fitting dialogue here that’s sometimes more interesting than what we saw in the movies. Sadly, this praise doesn’t extend to the pre-rendered cutscenes, which are a plasticy, ugly mess that continues this generation’s tendency to render characters as though they were action figures. The music is equally not much to shout about, being comprised of generic tunes and samples from the film’s soundtrack. The game also has very little to do with the move it’s based on; the Silver Surfer barely shows up, Galactus is mentioned but never seen, and the focus is more on enemies from the group’s comic books and Dr. Doom.

While the dialogue is okay and character models work well, environments can be a bit bland.

On the one hand, this means we get to explore far more diverse locations than we ever saw in the live-action movies; you’ll venture into a lava-filled cavern where the shapeshifting Skrulls have taken root and onto a very dark, steampunk-like Russian space station to battle against Doctor Ivan Kragoff/The Red Ghost and his genetically enhanced Super-Apes. The game does recreate some locations from the movie as well, however, specifically Sue and Reed’s rooftop wedding venue, the streets of New York City, and the military base where the Silver Surfer is held captive (although it’s vastly different from the film version, featuring electrical barriers and robotic sentries). The game also takes the team to the crystal caves and misty clifftops of the Himalayas where they have to fight off rock monsters and to the streets of Shanghai for a final showdown with Dr. Doom, and every environment features a lot of destructible elements for you to smash your way through. Unfortunately, they’re also painfully linear, so much so that the game doesn’t even provide you with a mini map or radar; despite this, it can be easy to get a little turned around as some locations are so dark and similar that it’s easy to get lost and the game gives you no indication when you’re heading in the wrong direction or where you need to go if you miss that an elevator lowered just offscreen or a door opened one screen back. Compounding matters is just how long levels are; they just go on and on, making each section a chore to play through and really stunting your motivation to tackle the game’s harder “Fantastic” mode.

Enemies and Bosses:
The Fantastic Four will wade through a number of nameless, faceless, disposable grunts as they race to track down the Silver Surfer. However, while the enemies you face in each location are visually distinct, they share many traits that quickly make them very dull and predictable, no matter how fantastical or faithful they are to the source material. You’ll fight off Skrulls, weird silvery alien…things, chicken-like robots and hovering drones, Doombots, rock monsters, and Super-Apes, many of whom can block your attacks, attack up close or from afar with pistols or missiles, or who come in larger variants that can tank your attacks. Many enemies can be picked up and thrown, and you’ll often get to hurl them off bridges or cliff edges to their immediate death, so I recommend doing this whenever possible to help with crowd control. The larger Skrull variant swings a large pillar at you while a gaggle of annoying, regular Skrulls swarm around you, but it can be useful to pummel him with Johnny’s fireballs from a safe distance. Larger rock monsters also dog your progress in the crystal caves, but the Thing is more than capable of smashing them and their smaller cousins to pieces, especially if you’ve upgraded his ground pound attack. You’ll first encounter the massively annoying turrets when on the Red Ghost’s space station; these can be destroyed with your attacks if you can get close to them, but it’s generally easier, faster, and safer to disable them by activating or destroying a nearby control box. Finally, heavily armed robots and Doombots await you in the military base and the streets of Shanghai; these are much tougher than other enemies and sport cheap long-ranged attacks, so it’s advisable to have upgraded some of your stats and abilities to help even the playing field.

Until you face Cosmic Doom, most bosses follow a simple rinse-and-repeat strategy.

When you eventually make it to the end of each location, you’ll generally have to face off with a boss. The first is Kl’rt/The Super-Skrull who sports the Fantastic Four’s powers, allowing him to perform a ground pound like the Thing and disappear from the battlefield like the Invisible Girl. Protected by an endless swam of regular Skrulls, the only way to damage the Super-Skrull is by throwing enemies or your projectiles into the huge spherical shield generator in the centre of the room; once it’s overloaded, the Super-Skrull will be stunned and be left open to your attacks, and you’ll need to repeat this tactic over and over, tediously waiting for him to reappear while fending off the endless enemies. After fighting through the strangely deserted streets of New York City, you’ll come across a large, spiked alien craft that sucks up cars and launches them at you while sending you flying with its annoying laser beam. You can throw cars back at it, and your other projectiles, to damage it, but it’s easy to get stun-locked into an annoying cycle from its projectiles. You won’t actually fight the Red Ghost, however; instead, you simply pursue him down a hallway, fending off his Super-Apes and turrets, making for a decidedly anticlimactic ending to a largely frustrating level. Similarly, you won’t battle the Silver Surfer; instead, you fight off his minions and chase after him as Johnny, first through a subway tunnel and then through an underpass, avoiding trains, traffic, and low-hanging signs and his energy-draining trail. You will, however, battle another of Galactus’s heralds, Terrax the Tamer, in the Himalayas; this massive rock-like being tosses his huge axe across the arena, which is really difficult to avoid and can leave you knocked on your ass for some time. Even worse is the fact that you have to contend with a never-ending gaggle of rock monsters and complete those annoying light puzzles to stun him so you can damage him, making this easily the most annoying and tedious boss battle in the game. Larger mechs (very much akin to All-Terrain Scout Transport (AT-ST) walkers) await in the military base, but they’re easily bypassed with your upgraded abilities, though Dr. Doom is a far more aggravating enemy. Having stolen the Silver Surfer’s near-limitless Power Cosmic, Dr. Doom flies about raining energy bolts down and the only way to damage him is to activate a nearby power generator and blast him out of the sky but, even then he can absorb and dish out a great deal of punishment, to say nothing of his massive electrical area attack, shield, and ability to shrug off your attacks. Your best bet here (and in all of these boss battles) is to quickly cycle between each character and spam your Fusion Attack, retreating to safety, when necessary, until he finally goes down.

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
Unfortunately, there aren’t any temporary power-ups to find in Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer. Smash all the crates and boulders and what-not you like and all you’ll uncover are health and energy restoring orbs, coins, and the odd collectible. You should still smash everything you see, however, and let those coins fly into you as you’ll need them to power-up the characters and their superpowers; everything from their attack, defence, recovery and meter regeneration time to the cost, range, and impact of their individual abilities can be upgraded at the cost of these coins. Unfortunately, the cost increases as you spend, meaning you’ll need to farm and replay areas to collect all the coins you need, so you can either power characters up a little bit to make things easier to save them all up and blow them on fully upgrading a single character…or put yourself through the agony of a second playthrough.

Additional Features:
There are nineteen Achievements to earn in Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer, with nine poppin simply for clearing each level and defeating their bosses. Oddly, there are no Achievements for playing with other players or anything fun (like, I dunno…destroying Reed and Sue’s wedding venue) or tedious (like defeating 100+ enemies). You’ll get an Achievement for beating the game on both “Normal” and the harder “Fantastic” mode, one for performing a single Fusion Attack, one for upgrading every character, and three more for finding every collectible and unlocking all the bonus content. Bonus content is unlocked by finding Fantastic 4 symbols and destroying Dr. Doom’s tiny, barely noticeable spybots; doing so will unlock cinematics, comic covers, concept art, and four alternative costumes that come with extra perks (like increasing your attack or defence by default), which is a nice touch. Once you beat the game, you can access a level select and the game restarts with all your upgrades intact, but I suspect you have to start a whole new game from the ground up if you choose a different difficulty mode. As I had no desire to play this game once I’d finished it and unlocked as many Achievements as I could, I can’t speak to that, but you could try playing with a friend or two to see if that helps improve the experience.

The Summary:
I had low expectations for Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer; I’d not really heard much about it except the usual vague chatter about how it was another tedious, cheap tie-in to a big budget movie and, unfortunately, I can’t argue with that. Fundamentally, it’s not really that insulting; the titular foursome are all represented pretty well, even if I favoured the Human Torch and the Thing (but that’s just personal preference on my part), with some fun superpowers to experiment with using the Fusion System. I get why you’d tie this to a regenerating meter, but it drains so quickly that you’ll be relying on the lacklustre combo strings more than anything. The dialogue and expansion on the movie’s story are also quite enjoyable and the game tries to show some new and visually interesting areas, but it never quite capitalises on any of the mechanics it includes beyond the bog-standard brawling. It’s fun chasing around as the Human Torch, but these sections are very brief and don’t ask much of you than to spam A or X as often as possible and avoid obstacles, and don’t even get me started on Sue’s God-awful “stealth” section. What really drags this game down, though, is just how long and boring the levels are and the lack of replayability; the unlockable costumes are pretty good (and it’s nice to see more than one included for a change) but I really don’t think anyone will be excited to slog through this on the harder difficulty or grind to upgrade and unlock everything as it’s such a time-consuming and monotonous experience. The bosses are also a massive let down and the game misses opportunities to have you recreate scenes from the film; like, why not shorten a couple of the levels and put in a forest mission where you need to activate those generators to bring down the Silver Surfer? Or, better yet, why not include a Silver Surfer auto-racer/shooter for the climax where you fend off Galactus’s attack? Instead, we get a very rushed and cobbled together, uninspiring brawler that’s only worth a playthrough to increase your Gamer Score with some relatively simple Achievements.

My Rating:

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Could Be Better

What did you think to Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer? Did you enjoy the Fusion Attacks and the variety of superpowers on offer? What did you think to the levels and boss battles, and were there any elements from the movie you felt were missing from the game? Did you ever unlock everything in this game? Would you like to see another, better Fantastic Four videogame some day? How have you been celebrating the debut of Marvel’s First Family this month? Whatever you think, sign up to share your thoughts on Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer in the comments below.

Movie Night: The Crow: City of Angels

Dr. K7 Comments

Released: 30 August 1996
Director: Tim Pope
Distributor: Miramax Films
Budget: $13 million (estimated)
Stars: Vincent Pérez, Mia Kirshner, Richard Brooks, Thuy Trang, Iggy Pop, Thomas Jane, and Eric Acosta

The Plot:
Mechanic Ashe Corven (Pérez) and his young son, Danny (Acosta), are brutally murdered by zealot Judah Earl (Brooks) and his thugs. After being resurrected by a mysterious and supernatural crow, Ashe is guided by the aloof Sarah Mohr (Kirshner) and assumes the guise of a tragic clown to avenge his loss using his newfound superhuman abilities.

The Background:
Beginning as a comic book published by Caliber Comics in 1989, The Crow was the brainchild of James O’Barr. The main character, named simply “Eric”, was modelled after prominent rock musicians and brutally slayed those who killed him and his fiancée as a reaction to the pain and loss O’Barr felt after losing his own fiancée. The Crow became an underground success and, since dark comic book narratives were becoming popular in Hollywood, transitioned into a critically and commercially successful film adaptation despite the accidentally on-set death of star Brandon Lee. While The Crow (Proyas, 1994) is regarded by many as a cult hit, the same accolades can’t be said about its sequel, which came as a direct response to the financial success of the first film. Initially, director Tim Pope and writer David S. Goyer planned to take the sequel in a different direction to avoid copying or emulating the original movie. They pitched having Sarah become a female Crow (a concept later explored in the comic books) or setting the story in the 19th century before ultimately settling on another tale of urban vengeance. It was the producers, however, who most directly engineered the film to be more of a carbon copy of the first, dramatically cutting down Pope’s original 160-minute cut into a jumbled mess of muddy visuals and confusing plot points. Despite the popularity of the first film, The Crow: City of Angels failed to recapture the magic of its predecessor; it barely grossed over $25 million at the box office and has been met with scathing criticism for its awful execution, lacklustre lead actor, and woeful narrative and pacing. Despite this, Miramax continued producing Crow movies and spin-offs, and some have even argued that The Crow: City of Angels is an under-rated entry in the franchise. Spoiler alert: I am not one of them but, as The Crow is one of my favourite movies and tonight is “Devil’s Night”, I figured this would be a good opportunity to look back on this shambles of a film and see how it holds up.

The Review:
I’ve been a huge fan of The Crow ever since I was a kid and randomly stumbled upon it on one of our many VHS tapes; it took me a little while to be equally impressed with the bleak and harrowing comic book, but the film had a huge impact on me at a time when I was really getting into dark and gritty comic book comics, stories, and anti-heroes. While the story didn’t really lend itself to a sequel since everything was wrapped up nicely in the film and it seemed very self-contained, the concept leaves plenty of wriggle room for other avatars to be resurrected and seek justice (or revenge, depending on your perspective) for the wrongs they suffered in death. It’s not as if it should really be all that difficult, either; there was plenty of material in James O’Barr’s comic that hadn’t been used in the first film, or was left on the cutting room floor, that could’ve been worked into a new movie, or a reboot. In this regard, I’m okay with new actors taking on the iconic role as the Crow’s very nature allows legacy characters, and I can understand the studio wanting to try and emulate the look, feel, and narrative of the first film, and there’s even some interesting new wrinkles in the lore and concept of The Crow: City of Angels, but the final product and overall execution is lacking in almost every regard beyond the soundtrack and the general moodiness of the film. The first and biggest problem is the lead himself; while I had the faintest idea of who Brandon Lee was prior to The Crow thanks to a vague familiarity (at the time) with the legendary Bruce Lee, I have no idea who Vincent Pérez is and, frankly, still don’t. I have no idea why he, of all people, was cast in such an iconic role; it’d be hard for any actor to fill Lee’s shoes, especially after the tragedy he suffered during filming, but Pérez is incapable of matching Lee’s tortured, charismatic performance and comes across as a pale imitation in his attempts to channel the same mixture of grief, anger, and morose conviction of his predecessor.

Reborn from a violent death, Ashe embarks on a mission of vengeance with a manic theatricality.

Ashe is quite a different character to Eric Draven; rather than being a loved-up rockstar, he’s a mechanic and a single father living in Los Angeles, here rendered as a bleak, gritty, crime-infested hellhole swamped with drugs and rampant violence thanks to the fanatical Judah Earl. Though there are few places free from Judah’s influence; Ashe lived a simple, quiet life near the pier with his beloved son, Danny, but the two were brutally tortured and executed by Judah’s maniacal followers, primarily Kali (Trang) and “Curve” (Pop), after accidentally witnessing them murdering another drug dealer. Some time later (in the first film it was a year; here, we don’t really know, but it can’t be that long as Ashe’s garage/home is largely untouched since his death), the mysterious and semi-supernatural crow brings Ashe back from his watery grave to seek vengeance but, whereas the crow guided Eric and assisted in his similar quest, Ashe is primarily aided by Sarah Mohr (Kirshner), who is all grown up from the last film and working as a melancholic tattoo artist. While Eric rose in a state of confusion, he became committed to his cause after the crow helped him relive his traumatic death; Ashe similarly reawakens confused and disorientated, but is overwhelmed by his situation, as related by Sarah, and reacts with denial and hostility before reluctantly accepting that he’s now an undead spirit of vengeance after being bombarded with memories. Sarah uses Danny’s paints to make Ashe into an imitation of her former friend (even his make-up is a poor facsimile of Eric’s, however, with the white barely visible in the film’s poor lighting and the black only going around his lips rather than covering them) and he throws on a bad-ass trench coat, hops on an equally bad-ass motorcycle, and heads into the misty and filth-ridden streets to track down his killers. Thanks to the crow, Ashe is led to “Spider Monkey” (Vincent Castellanos), where he showcases his dramatic flair, performing sleight of hand and card tricks while toying with his prey, while also exhibiting just how corny and bad Pérez’s acting and line delivery is. This becomes a common theme, with his weird screaming, cackling countenance, odd appropriation of the “One for sorrow” nursery rhyme to now include crows, and desperate attempts to appear menacing only serving to make him appear unhinged. Whereas Eric somewhat revelled in the virtual invincibility and superhuman abilities afforded to him, Ashe wallows in the constant cycle of pain and healing his body goes through when he’s hurt (which, to be fair, is somewhat similar to the comic book Eric) and fluctuates between being violently, maniacally unbalanced when facing his killers, and miserable and brooding when with Sarah or contemplating his newfound afterlife.

Though seeking revenge for his son’s death, this new Crow is tempted to stay behind with Sarah.

While this is reminiscent of his predecessor, Ashe comes off as far gloomier and sullener than Eric, and it’s not like he makes up for it with any decent fight scenes. The few he does have are brief, poorly shot, and completely one-sided in his favour until the end, and we’re even denied decent shoot outs this time around as Ashe largely forgoes firearms (except for when hunting Curve), though he does evoke the crow imagery by stuffing a paper crow into “Nemo’s” (Thomas Jane) mouth, forming Kali’s blood into a crow upon her death, and leaving Curve surrounded by a crow outline of petals. Naturally, Ashe isn’t just out to avenge his death, but is primarily driven to avenge the brutal murder of his son; this causes him the most pain, as Danny was just an innocent, wide-eyed kid (a stupid one, but an innocent one nonetheless) and reliving his murder causes grief and rage to wrack Ashe’s body and, in many ways, makes his plight far worse than Eric’s but this tragedy really belongs in a better movie (or in the hands of a better actor). He goes out of his way to retrieve Danny’s corpse and give him a proper burial and is even visited by Danny’s spirt when he starts to lose his way. This wrinkle is added because, for whatever reason, Ashe develops a strong attraction to Sarah; surprising, as the two have very little chemistry and, while she seems fascinated to see another reborn by the crow and is sympathetic to him, I never got any romantic feelings from her. A snappy, somewhat feisty goth girl who partially narrates the film and has a familial bond with her boss, Noah (Ian Dury), Sarah’s influence over Ashe becomes so strong that he considers staying behind with her. This is juxtaposed by the Day of the Dead festival that’s being celebrated in the city, and through a conversation with a priest (Reynaldo Duran), who tells Ashe that wandering souls can get lost, believing themselves to be alive, and need guidance to achieve eternal rest. Honestly, the idea of a Crow wandering the Earth with no memory of how or why they got there is a fascinating one, and one I believe was strongly emphasised in the original cut of the film, where Ashe decides to stay behind rather than join his son, and Sarah, in death.

Some terrible performances stunt whatever menace Judah and his followers are meant to have.

Of course, this plot is barely notable in the finished film and is used more as motivation to keep Ashe fighting and help him overcome the loss of his powers, courtesy of Judah Earl. I hate to keep making comparisons, but Judah Earl is no Top Dollar (Michael Wincott); he exudes a decent menace and is a reprehensible and zealous figure in his own right, but Richard Brooks’ performance is all over the place as well, ranging from stoic and gravelly to over the top theatre as he proudly proclaims: “I’m your shadow, Ashe! […] I’ve tasted the blood of the crow and taken your power!” Like Top Dollar, Judah Earl is surrounded by a gaggle of cackling, shit-kicking underlings, none of which have any of the personality (however one-note and despicable) of Top Dollar’s and most of whom are constantly out of their minds on Judah’s tainted crack to be little ore than a knock-off combination of Skank (Angel David) and Funboy (Michael Massee). The most notable exceptions, beyond Nemo’s eccentricities, are Kali and Curve. Kali is a sadistic bitch who takes great pleasure in mocking and killing Danny; she also exhibits some martial arts prowess, giving Ashe his first real physical competition, and is one of three characters who I actually enjoyed seeing offed due to her aggravating nature. The other was Curve, played with manic abandon by rock icon Iggy Pop; I’m no fan of Iggy Pop’s music, or his acting, however, and Curve comes across as completely off his rocker, constantly raging about a tattoo Sarah gave him and assaulting the senses with his weird line delivery and atrocious acting (his “Do you think I’m afrai-i-id?” spiel is probably the worst performance I’ve ever seen). While Top Dollar seemed to have his hands in everything and was more about anarchy, Judah’s deal is drugs; he swamps the city with the stuff and has little concern over how badly his merchandise affects people. Once a product of the streets, Judah has taken to spending his time in his penthouse surrounded by the macabre and supernatural, and conveniently has a blind seer on hand Sybil (Tracey Ellis) to fill him (and us) in on the nature of the crow and how harming or killing it can hurt Ashe and render him mortal. Judah Earl takes this one step further, however, and drinks the crow’s blood to become “The Shadow”, a dark version of Ashe who gains all of his supernatural abilities for their final climatic showdown in the streets.

The Nitty-Gritty:
It’s so interesting and weird to think about the Crow franchise; the premise is incredibly simple and shouldn’t really be that hard to make a gritty, gothic, somewhat low budget film that’s a mixture of action, horror, and romance. It turns out, however, that The Crow was lightning in a bottle; not only did everything about its presentation work exceptionally well, but its reputation was bolstered by Brandon Lee’s tragic death, which has elevated the film above whatever shortcomings it might have to make it a monument to a young actor cut down in his prime. In that regard, you could argue that it didn’t make sense to follow it up, especially so soon after, but to do so with this knock-off, poor quality effort is a real insult to both Lee and O’Barr and comes across as a poor man’s attempt to recapture the magic. While the soundtrack is still pretty strong thanks to Graeme Revell’s haunting score (even if it is basically the same as last time) and some notable names, like White Zombie and Deftones, contributing to the film, the quality of acting takes a dramatic nosedive. Rather than a strong assortment of character actors and charismatic performers, The Crow: City of Angels features a bunch of one-dimensional, underdeveloped scumbags or aggravating performances from people who never should’ve been cast in the first place or actors who had yet to really hit their stride in their art.

Whatever visual appeal this film may have is lost beneath a muddy filter and poor special effects.

Easily the worst aspect of The Crow: City of Angels, though, is the presentation; this was legitimately the first film I’ve ever watched where I’ve criticised the direction and cinematography, and the look and feel of this film is a far cry from the harsh, rugged streets seen in the first film, which was almost a noir thriller in its aesthetic. The sequel swamps every scene in this grimy, mustard-yellow glare; mist and smoke covers everything, making the city appear to be either a poorly-constructed miniature or obscuring sets and real-world locations, and everything looks cheap and rushed, as though the filmmakers were trying to cover their inadequacies with this ugly, choking fog. Honestly, it looks like a homemade movie filmed on a soundstage or in a back garden, it’s that bad and, while the city occasionally seems like one of the worst places you can ever imagine, with its seedy underworld, sex clubs, and bars and such, everything just seems more fake and staged compared to the first movie, and this carries through to the action scenes. Sure, Ashe looks awesome cutting through the fog on his motorcycle, but he gets none of the rooftop-running action of Eric and doesn’t really acquit himself well in fight scenes. More often than not, Ashe simply slaps around and scuffles with his victim rather than threatening them with Poe or mutilating his body to intimidate his opponents, and the only physical challenge he’s presented with comes from Kali, whom he easily dashes out a window thanks to his invulnerability. Otherwise, Ashe’s mission of vengeance is an absolute mess of murky visuals, jerky camera moments, and awful acting; Pérez desperately tries to come off as intimidating when confronting Spider-Monkey but it’s a poor effort made worse by some dodgy CGI effects, and seeing him mock Nemo with a pouting countenance is more disturbing than menacing. Even Ashe’s big fight scene with Kali is ultimately disappointing, being a plodding affair with slow, awkward movements, erratic editing, and some weird contorted body language from Pérez, and his rundown of Curve ends up being a pitiable chase and confrontation thanks to such memorable lines as “Fuck you, bird dick!” and the down-right ugly visual presentation of the film.

Although rendered powerless and unable to save Sarah, Ashe is…somehow…able to destroy Judah Earl.

Fittingly, Ashe’s greatest physical challenge comes in the film’s conclusion; desiring to take the Crow’s power for his own, Judah Earl takes Sarah hostage and, after capturing the crow with a ridiculous amount of ease, has her witness a bizarre ritual where he kills the bird, inflicting Ashe with stigmata for a very on the nose Christ allusion and causing him to plummet from Judah’s high-rise dwelling and be rendered vulnerable. This fulfils Judah’s life-long fascination with death; his stoic demeanour and callous nature isn’t just to try and paint him as a malicious threat, but is because he’s completely numb to the concept of death since he has already experienced, and survived it, before. Having “liked what he saw” in his brief time in Hell, the only pleasure Judah has been able to take since is in the suffering of others, and the power of the crow allows him to indulge this to the fullest extent…however, while much of this is inferred and implied throughout the film, it really only becomes explicit when you know that, apparently, the original script went into greater detail about Judah’s near-death experience as a child. Regardless, thus empowered, Judah (or “The Shadow”, or whatever-the-fuck he’s supposed to be) easily manhandles Ashe, who’s completely helpless against Judah’s superior strength. The cruel zealot takes a sadistic pleasure in stringing Ashe up and lashing him before a raucous crowd but, when he goes to finish him off, Sarah intervenes and takes a knife to the stomach (without him even trying), dying in Ashe’s arms. Spurred on by Danny, who eagerly awaits his return, and enraged at Sarah’s death, Ashe skewers Judah on a piece of scaffold and…somehow…calls up a murder of (presumably) supernatural crows to tear the cruel kingpin into a mess of dodgy CGI. Again, quite how Ashe does this considering he has no powers at this point isn’t explained, nor is it really made clear exactly what the hell’s happening; it’s just another of the many drawbacks to huge chunks of the story being excised from the film, and this is only further reinforced in the rushed and vague ending, which suggests Ashe actually did stay behind rather than what the film is actually going for (which is that he rode off into the fog to be with Danny and, most likely, Sarah).

The Summary:
What happened to Brandon Lee on the set of The Crow was a tragedy. What happened to James O’Barr as a hopeful teenager was a tragedy. The Crow: City of Angels is a tragedy. The whole film is just an ugly, distorted, incoherent mess from start to finish; oh sure, there’s flashes of a somewhat decent sequel here, but everything that’s good about it is based on what worked in the first film and is a mere copy (a shadow, if you will) of it. Rather than taking the formula of its predecessor and expanding upon it, offering more action and bloodshed and more visually interesting fights and kills, The Crow: City of Angels ends up looking like a direct-to-video rush job that completely squanders not only its own premise, but everything that the first movie did so well. The idea of a father returning to enact revenge on those that killed his son is palpable, as is the concept of a crow avatar falling in love with a living female and resisting returning to the grave; hell, even the idea of a sadistic thug stealing the powers of the crow has some merit, but the execution of all of these ideas is ruined by muddy visuals, piss-poor performances, and an absolutely butchered narrative pacing. There’s some cool visuals of the Crow on his motorcycle and dramatically stalking and toying his prey or brooding in the dark, but Vincent Pérez is absolutely terrible here; he does the more melancholic aspects quite well, but his madcap buffoonery, grating accent, and stilted line delivery leave him a charisma-less void, especially compared to his predecessor. Iggy Pop desperately tries to hog every scene but he’s in way over his head here, and I doubt a better script or direction could’ve helped his tone-deaf performance, and Richard Brooks fails to exude any type of menace, even when he’s trying his hardest, thanks to his random descents into mania. Overall, it’s baffling to me that the studio managed to butcher a sequel to The Crow so badly; when its aping the first film, there’s some appeal here, but no one in their right mind would ever choose to watch this over the first movie and it does nothing but leech off of The Crow’s cult appeal in the laziest and most insulting ways possible, leaving us with a patchwork imitation of its predecessor that deserves nothing but scorn and derision.

My Rating:

Rating: 1 out of 5.

Terrible

Am I being too harsh on The Crow: City of Angels? Do you think the film had any chance of living up to the popularity and reputation of its predecessor? What did you think to Vincent Pérez’s performance and Ashe as the new Crow? Did you buy his romance with Sarah, or enjoy his flair for the theatrical? What did you think to Judah Earl and his crew? Did you enjoy the murky, foggy presentation of the film or was it also a struggle to endure? Which of The Crow’s sequels was your favourite, if any, and would you like to see the character return in some form or another in the future? How are you celebrating Devil’s Night tonight? Whatever you think about The Crow: City of Angels, join the discussion below or leave a comment on my social media.

Game Corner [Asterix Anniversary]: Asterix and the Great Rescue (Mega Drive)

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Asterix the Gaul (and his best friend Obelix) first debuted on 29 October 1959 as a serial in the French/Belgium magazine Pilote. Since then, the plucky Gauls have gone on to have many adventures in comic books, videogames, and feature-length productions and Asterix himself has become a popular and enduring character in his native France and beyond as his stories have been translated into over a hundred languages across the world.

Released: November 1993
Developer: Core Design
Also Available For: Game Gear and Master System

The Background:
It didn’t take very long at all for the French comic book series Asterix to make the jump from the comics and into other media; the first Asterix book was adapted into a feature-length animation in 1967 and both animated and live-action Asterix films have been pretty consistent over the years. Similarly, there have been a number of Asterix videogames; the first of these was released for the Atari 2600 in 1983 and one of my absolute favourites was Konami’s arcade game from 1992. Growing up, I had a lot of fun playing Astérix (SEGA, 1991) on the Master System, a colourful and entertaining little platformer that I’ve yet to finish ever thirty years later, and figured that the Mega Drive title would be a good investment. Asterix and the Great Rescue was developed by Core Design, the team behind the classic SEGA title Chuck Rock (Core Design, 1991), and was met with mixed reviews upon release. With today also being the birthday of the SEGA Mega Drive, I figured it was the perfect time to put this game in and see how it holds up compared to its 8-bit counterpart.

The Plot:
The year is 50 BC. Gaul is entirely occupied by the Romans. Well, not entirely… One small village of indomitable Gauls still holds out against the invaders and life is not easy for the Roman legionnaires thanks to the Gauls’ magic potion, which gives them superhuman strength. Like in many Asterix videogames, the Romans kidnap the village druid, Getafix, to stunt the village’s supply of magic potion so their bravest warriors, Asterix and Obelix, set out to rescue Getafix and teach those crazy Romans a lesson.

Gameplay:
Asterix and the Great Rescue is a 2D, sidescrolling action platformer in which one player gets to pick between Asterix and Obelix before each journey across six Levels to rescue the druid Getafix from the Romans. Disappointingly, unlike in the majority of Asterix videogames, there’s very little actual difference between Asterix and Obelix; both characters move at the same plodding speed, have the same amount of health, jump at the same height, and have exactly the same special abilities. Indeed, the only discernable difference I could identify is that Obelix’s hit box is larger (due to his characteristic girth) but it’s not like Asterix’s is that much smaller. You can customise the game’s controls from the main “Options” menu but the default setup is functional as is. Players can jump with A, attack with a punch with B, and use a “Special Weapon” with C. Pressing up on the directional pad (D-pad) in conjunction with C allows you to pick from four different Special Weapons while pressing down on the D-pad allows you to crouch and crawl to avoid incoming projectiles.

Rooms can be short but also painfully frustrating at times.

Sadly, considering the characters’ and comics’ focus on madcap fighting, combat is extremely disappointing and limited here; there are no jumping attacks, your punches have a pathetically short range, and the only additional combat option available to you is that you can hold down B to perform a series of rapid punches while moving to take out groups of enemies faster. Asterix and the Great Rescue is constructed in a strangely confusing way; there are six Levels, each split into four “Huts” and each Hut has up to three “Rooms”. The wording is very confusing as you’re not necessarily inside of a hut or a room as you might think but what it actually boils down to is six levels, four worlds, and up to four zones in each world and I guess the developers thought it would be “fun” to supplant this usual videogame terminology with terms from the comic book. While six Levels might not seem a lot, the game is actually surprisingly long; the Rooms are generally short sprints asking little more from you than to travel to the right, bashing enemies, and reaching the goal (“magic elixir” for Asterix and a roast boar for Obelix) but you’ll also be tasked with finding keys, performing some tricky jumps, or navigating some confusing areas.

Your biggest obstacles are the time limit, hit boxes, and obtuse nature of the gameplay.

Your greatest enemy in each Room will be the time limit; every Room has a time limit that is anywhere from less than a minute to two minutes of game time and, if you fail to reach the goal before the time runs out, you’ll lose a life and have to restart from the beginning of the Room. There’s very little room for error in some of these Rooms and, if you mess up or take too long, then that’s just too damn bad as there are no checkpoints. Thankfully, you can acquire extra lives by earning enough points or stumbling upon a beating heart pickup. You start each game with three lives and three credits and, when you lose all of your lives, you’ll be given the option to cash in a credit and continue from the start of the last Room you played but, if you use up your credits, it’s game over. After clearing each Level, you get a password to jump to later in the game, which is helpful, but the damage you sustain throughout the game carries over to each Room, which is extremely frustrating, and you’ll find an abundance of bottomless pits as you progress, which mean instant death.

Gameplay is very inconsistent, being ridiculously easy one minute and frustratingly difficult the next.

Gameplay in Asterix and the Great Rescue is extremely inconsistent and frustrating; generally you just have to fight your way to the goal but other times you have to dodge bursts of fire, press switches to progress further, dodge falling blocks or incoming boulders, or hop around moving or temporary platforms to get through the Room. This can be extremely frustrating as some enemies are too small to hit, others take multiple hits to defeat, and it’s not always clear what you have to do in order to progress; all too often, platforms will suddenly drop underneath you, animals or bridges will collapse after carrying you across gaps, and you’ll need pixel-perfect timing to reach far away platforms. You’ll also need to hop across lava pits, make a number of blind jumps, contend with murky water that slows you down, teleport across Rooms using special statues, or use a series of bubbles, springs, and catapults to travel higher and further. Spikes, thorns, spiked balls, flames, and rotating platforms all compound matters, making avoiding damage extremely difficult even when playing on “Easy” mode, where enemies are less frequent and aggressive. Thankfully, there’s no knockback from taking damage but my experience was that my character would simply keel over and die more often than not since their hit box is so big that it’s extremely difficult to avoid being hit (especially when you get dropped literally right into the path of oncoming enemies in some Rooms).

Graphics and Sound:
Asterix and the Great Rescue has a lot of promise but doesn’t quite manage to deliver in terms of its graphics. Sprites are colourful and faithful to the comics, for example, but not especially big or full of animation frames; there are no idle animations, for instance, and neither Asterix, Obelix, or their enemies exude the same charming humour as they do in the comics or even the Master System game. Environments can similarly be very hit and miss; the Gaulish village is beautiful to behold but little more than a tutorial to learn the basic controls. Occasionally, you’ll see familiar Asterix characters like Unhygienix in the background but he’s wildly out of proportion compared to the avatar’s sprites. Other times, the background will be quite sparse (a simple night sky) or somewhat detailed but then it’ll also look really crude (especially in the Forest and Rome levels). There are a lot of different environments to explore, however. You’ll travel from the Gauls’ village, cross the dock, enter a Roman camp, explore a dense forest and jump through the treetops and past gigantic spider’s webs, battle through dungeons in Germany, hop across clouds and birds and wander around stages made out of Frankfurters, pass through an ice Room (with some impressive snowflake effects falling over the screen) on the way to a Roman galley, and finally jump and fight through water ruins, an ornate garden, a lavish banquet hall, and the coliseum in Rome.

Levels are quite varied and can be quite bit but they’re hampered by the constant ticking clock.

All of these are locations that will be familiar to any Asterix fan but, for most videogame players, will seem very by-the-numbers for the average platformer and full of clichés such as weighted switches, temporary platforms, and rising or moving platforms. A lot of the time it can be difficult to tell where you need to go as you can sometimes pass through certain walls but not others, despite them both looking the same, and you’ll need to experiment with your Special Weapons in order to progress (if you have enough time left to figure that out, of course). I did experience a bit of slow down at times, which is quite ludicrous as there’s rarely a lot happening on screen, and some graphical hiccups here and there. The music is quite jazzy, however; it’s not especially varied but it’s decent enough, and certainly far better than the game’s sound effects. The game’s story is told through text and a recreation of the map of the invaded Gaul, all of which will be more than familiar to any Asterix reader. Though the game’s title screen leaves a lot to be desire, each Level is proceeded by a pretty nice still picture of the famous duo but you’ll have to wait for the final screen on the game for anything resembling any kind of impressive sprite art and even then it’s basically just a partially animated still.

Enemies and Bosses:
As any self-respecting Asterix fan might expect, your primary enemies in this game will be the Romans. Roman soldiers charge at you with spears, march along in groups wielding swords, toss spears at you from above, and gold-armoured Centurions will also show up to try and skewer you as you progress. These are all pulled straight from the comics and even include Roman’s hiding in tree disguises; most of them will go down in just one hit but the more rotund and golden Romans will take two to three hits. You’ll also have to content with woodland critters scurrying and flying your way, axe-throwing Germans, German maidens who explode when you get too near, mermaids and sea creatures, archers whose arrows stay on screen way too long, Romans trying to jab you from beneath with their swords, spiders and other bugs, dogs, and even hatchlings trying to take a bit out of your ass. By far the worst obstacle is the mule-kicking horses who will send you flying clear across the screen; I swear you need as much luck as you do skill to time your jumps past those assholes!

It makes sense to be fighting Romans but Cacofonix is a strange choice for a boss…

Each Level culminates in a boss battle, the first of which is, oddly, against the village bard Cacofonix (I know he’s an annoyance in the comics but to make him a boss seems a bit extreme). Cacofonix stands in one spot atop his tree hut and spits musical notes at you from his lyre and can only be damaged by hopping on top of one of village chief Vitalstatistix’s shield bearers and tossing rotten fish at him. It takes a lot of hits to finally put the bard down so, again, your biggest enemy here is the time limit as it’s pretty easy to avoid his musical notes by standing in the right spots. The second boss fight sees a Roman encampment firing rocks at you; these must be hit back over and over again until the camp finally surrenders to your might. After this, a Roman soldier awaits you on a log and will instantly force you to your death unless you mash A, B, and right as fast as possible to knock him off instead but, of course, the game never tells you any of this so it is easy to simply fail time and time again.

After besting many enemies, the last two Levels culminate in battles against large, voracious animals!

The final Room of Germany has you desperately outracing a rising sea of red and taking out enemies as you make your way up to a goal which, again, is more a test of your skill and patience with the game’s controls than any sort of actual combat. On the Roman Galley, you’ll be attacked by a gigantic alligator (or is it a crocodile?); simply hop up onto the platforms to avoid the creature’s snapping jaws and then jump down to smack him in the head but watch out for his massive hit box clipping your avatar. The finale sees Julius Caesar set two vicious tigers against you in the Coliseum; these will randomly pop in and out of archways under Caesar’s view box and must be smacked whenever they appear and hopped over to avoid damage. Like all of the game’s bosses, though, this is simply a test of patience and landing hits before you get a time out and the bosses are, by far, the least challenging aspect of the game.

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
There are numerous items to pick up and collect in Asterix and the Great Rescue; you’ll find gold coins, bags of coins, and Roman helmets, all of which will add to your score and bring you one step closer to an extra life. You can also replenish your health either partially or fully by collecting pieces of roast chicken or a chalice, respectively, and you can grab a sickle for a brief period of invincibility or a bomb to enter “Mega Attitude Mode”, which increases your speed and strength so you can blast through enemies and obstacles.

Special Weapons are useful but limited and you won’t always have to to backtrack for more ammo.

The main thing to keep an eye out for, though, are the gourds that you’ll find scattered throughout each Room. These will give you ammo for your Special Weapons and will respawn when you move the screen a little bit. Your Special Weapons are essential to your progress but it’s not always abundantly clear where or when you have to use them (such as the first screen of Rome where you’re seemingly trapped but actually have to blast a wall that doesn’t appear to be destructible). The Fireball adds a ranged attack to your arsenal and can be used to destroy certain blocks, hit targets, or deactivate certain traps; the Ice Block (which is actually a cloud) creates a temporary platform to allow you to reach higher areas or cross spike or lava pits safely (if you can get the angle of the throw right…); the Disguise covers you in a series of vines and flowers so that enemies will walk right past you; and Levitation allows you to (chunkily) float about using the D-pad to avoid spikes and reach higher or further areas. 

Additional Features:
There’s not really much else on offer in Asterix and the Great Rescue beyond the single-player experience; there’s no two-player simultaneous play, meaning that the only way for two players to play is to take it in turns, and no real benefit to playing as either of the two main characters. You can tackle the game on a harder difficulty setting and try to get your name at the top of the high score table but the game is so tough anyway that I wouldn’t recommend it. There aren’t even any decent cheats for the game as the password system is simply for jumping to the game’s levels so you’ll probably be done with this game after one playthrough or session.

The Summary:
Boy, was I disappointed with Asterix and the Great Rescue. Once again, I as met with a 16-bit iteration of a videogame that pales in comparison to its bright, humourous, and fun 8-bit counterpart; you know it’s bad when even the Master System’s game gives Asterix and Obelix different abilities and playstyles and has more gameplay variety. Honestly, I can’t even say that this game looks good as, compared to other games of a similar genre that came out at the same time, Asterix and the Great Rescue looks and sounds like 1989 Mega Drive title rather than a 1993 release. Clunky, awkward controls, a rubbish combat system, confusing and frustrating gameplay, and just a complete lack of entertainment and engagement make Asterix and the Great Rescue an extremely disappointing title that saves itself from a one-star review simply because I am a big fan of the comics and characters but, honestly, I wouldn’t recommend anyone actually bother playing this letdown of a game.

My Rating:

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Could Be Better

What did you think to Asterix and the Great Rescue? How do you think it compares to other Asterix videogames and games of its genre? Did you enjoy the title and feel I’m being too harsh on it or do you agree that it was a frustrating and disappointing mess of a game? Which character, book, or movie is your favourite? How are you celebrating Asterix and Obelix’s anniversary, and the release of the Mega Drive, this year? Whatever your thoughts on Asterix, feel free to leave a comment below or on my social media.

Movie Night: Man-Thing

Dr. K1 Comment

Released: 30 April 2005
Director: Brett Leonard
Distributor: Sci-Fi Pictures
Budget: $5 million
Stars: Matthew Le Nevez, Rachael Taylor, Jack Thompson, Steve Bastoni, and Conan Stevens

The Plot:
New Sheriff Kyle Williams (Le Nevez) arrives in the sleepy town of Bywater, only to find the area subjected to a series of gruesome murders. As he investigates, Kyle uncovers a plot to pollute and desecrate the sacred swamp waters, and the presence of a horrific swamp creature (Stevens) looking to enact revenge!

The Background:
Due to the implementation of the Comics Code Authority (CCA) in 1954 following widespread public concern, comic book publishers like Marvel had to dance around nonsensical rules to avoid corrupting vulnerable child readers from such horrors as violence, supernatural threat, and sexual content. Consequently, publisher Martin Goodman cancelled the none-CCA-approved Savage Tales after just one issue, though it released long enough to introduce Doctor Theodore “Ted” Sallis/Man-Thing. A creation of writers Stan Lee, Roy Thomas, Gerry Conway, and artist Gray Morrow (and entirely different from DC Comics’ Alec Holland/Swamp Thing), Man-Thing has had a not insignificant impact in Marvel since his debut but, it’s fair to say, is one of their more obscure monstrous characters so it was a little surprising to see him included in Marvel’s deal with Artisan Entertainment to produce at least fifteen adaptations of Marvel properties. Development of a Man-Thing movie can thus be traced back to 2000, where the project flip-flopped between a straight-to-video and a cinematic release before the then-recent success of superhero movies like Blade (Norrington, 1998), X-Men (Singer, 2000), and Spider-Man (Raimi, 2002) made a theatrical release more financially viable. Filming took place entirely in Sydney, Australia, which producer Avi Arad later blamed for the film’s failures as Marvel Studios were unable to properly micromanage and supervise the production to ensure a higher standard of quality. A low-budget production meant that the titular creature’s screen time was often rushed, causing the impressive practical effects and suit to become mired in sub-par CGI and, while the film had a very limited theatrical release, it eventually saw the light of day on the Sci-Fi Channel and home video. Consequently, Man-Thing made a paltry $1.1 million gross and was torn apart by scathing reviews that attacked everything but the special effects. Largely forgotten these days, the Man-Thing rights eventually reverted back to Marvel Studios and, after a few subtle allusions to the character, the Man-Thing officially joined the MCU in the Werewolf by Night special (Giacchino, 2022).

The Review:
If I’m being completely honest, I barely had any knowledge of the Man-Thing prior to this movie; I think he cropped up in an issue of Howard the Duck or a Hulk comic I once read as a kid, but it could’ve just as easily been someone like Taboo or Joseph Timms/The Glob. I was slightly more familiar with his DC Comics counterpart, Swamp Thing, thanks to watching (and being unimpressed by) Wes Craven’s 1982 movie and hazy memories of his short-lived cartoon from the nineties but, suffice it to say, I was not some die-hard Man-Thing fan, and in the years since I first picked up this movie the most I’ve really experienced of the character is this movie and his debut story. Still, back when this film came out, I was intrigued by the footage I’d seen; being a big fan of monster and horror films and gory practical effects, I was well on board for experiencing a different kind of comic book movie at a time when the genre was properly moving into a “safe zone” of family-friendly action spectacle. All of this means that I had relatively low expectations, couldn’t really get worked up about any changes made to the source material, and was mildly satisfied upon my first viewing and, even now, I often chuck Man-Thing on if I’m in the mood for a gore-fest that’s not something more mainstream.

Kyle Williams is new in town and beset by local issues and a string of grisly murders.

That’s not to say that Man-Thing is very impressive, by any means; it has a definite made-for-television presentation in the camera work and the quality of the actors, with the cast made up of mostly Australian television and bit-part players, which is fine for this kind of B-movie but keeps it from living up to the standards (however low they may be) for similar films released around this time, like Doom (Bartkowiak, 2005) and Hatchet (Green, 2006), which were both B-movie horrors that were bolstered by a bigger budget, bigger stars, or from being throwbacks to the slasher genre of old. Nowhere is this more evident than in our lead character; a kind of Ben Browder knock-off, Matthew Le Nevez does what he can, but his fish-out-of-water character is nothing we haven’t seen a million times. Looking for a fresh start and a chance to prove himself in a position of authority, the new sheriff is flustered to find his hideously departed predecessor has left him only one deputy, Eric Fraser (Alex O’Loughlin), and that the town is torn between preserving the sacred swamplands of Dark Water and welcoming the profits brought in by industrialist Frederick Schist (Thompson). Still, while Fraser is amicable enough towards Kyle, there’s a degree of distrust and scepticism levelled towards him not just because he’s new in town but also because of his youth and perceived lack of experience, especially considering the many missing people and gruesome deaths in the small town. Though he’s very much a by-the-book sheriff, Kyle’s also quite fair and humble; he doesn’t want to ruffle any feathers and is eager to ensure total co-operation with his department, but is equally sympathetic towards schoolteacher Teri Elizabeth Richards’ (Taylor) attempts to oppose the desecration and pollution brought by Schist’s operation. The feisty and moralistic Teri immediately clashes with Kyle, kicking him to the dirt and winning herself a stay in the cells for her disruptive actions; however, Kyle admires her fighting spirit and soon turns to her for assistance with the swamp and the legends that permeate it. Naturally, as the two most attractive characters in the film, a mutual attraction sparks up between the two as they’re both captivated by their shared sense of moral justice and desire to do what’s right, and they find a common cause to rally against once the extent of Schist’s violent nature becomes apparent.

Local industrialist Schist has no problem killing or rolling over those who threaten his operation.

Kyle’s most pressing concern, however, isn’t local politics or superstition, but the number of violent deaths that have recently occurred in Bywater and around the Dark Water swamp. Initially, the most obvious suspect (at least, according to Schist) is Mestizo extremist Rene LaRoque (Bastoni), who has been sabotaging Schist’s facilities. Schist resents the backlash from locals and the Seminole community of Bywater since he legally appropriated all of his land from Ted Sallis, the Seminole shaman and chieftain, who then disappeared after stealing the money for himself. However, in truth, LaRoque helped broker the deal to improve things for the tribe, while Sallis was vehemently opposed to it and, in an effort to make up for his greed, LaRoque has been disrupting Schist’s operations ever since. Schist is a force to be reckoned with, however; firmly seeing himself as nothing more than an industrialist, Schist is protected by his wealth and influence and the fact that all the paperwork says he hasn’t broken any American laws. With no time for mysticism or mumbo-jumbo, Schist is concerned only with profit and expanding his empire but, while Kyle is smart enough to initially be respectful and amicable to Schist, it’s pretty clear that he’s a shady character not just through his boisterous and somewhat condescending nature but also in the startling similarity between his company logo and the Nazi swastika. Since he’s a prominent entrepreneur and wealthy businessman, Schist holds a lot of sway in Bywater; he can influence the hiring and firing of sheriffs, encourages Kyle to play the game and pursue LaRoque, and even orders people to be arrested for disturbing his building and oil digging. Naturally, he’s also an extremely ruthless and shady character; bolstered by his son, Jake (Pat Thompson), and local thugs Wayne (John Batchelor) and Rodney Thibadeaux (Ian Bliss), Schist has no problem ordering LaRoque’s death, aggressively leaning on those who get in his way, or getting his own hands dirty since he killed Sallis and photographer Mike Ploog (Robert Mammone) when they threatened his empire.

Ted Sallis is transforming into a monstrous creature that slaughters anyone who threatens its swamp.

At first, all evidence points to LaRoque being behind the sabotage and even the strange events in town, no matter how bizarre they may be; despite Teri’s insistence that LaRoque is innocent of murder, Kyle has no choice but the venture into the swamp to find him to get to the bottom of what’s going on. Of course, Schist’s operation has a far bigger threat, one that’s caused the murky swamps of Bywater to become a hazardous land and violently takes lives, such as Fraser’s, with an inhuman brutality. The region, which is seeped in mysticism and dark supernatural power, is regarded by Native Americans like Peter Horn (Rawiri Paratene) to be the “Nexus of All Realities”, a place where a malevolent spirit dwells that brutally attacks any trespassers, especially those who taint its lands. This is the force that transforms Sallis after his murder at Schist’s hands; while the locals have long believed in a swamp guardian, it’s only after Sallis’s corpse is buried in the Dark Water that this actually comes to life in the form of a hulking swamp creature the obsessive and eccentric Ploog haphazardly dubs the “Man-Thing, man!” While many scoff at such local superstitions, they still actively avoid the swamp because of how dangerous it can be, but Horn knows full well the extent of the dark magic that dwells within it. Horn explains that the angered creature seeks blood to atone for the blood spilled on its sacred land, and has determined that everyone will die, though this is a bit misleading as the creature seems satisfied once Schist’s pump is destroyed in the finale (raising the question why the Man-Thing didn’t just destroy the pump itself, especially considering it was formed right in front of it!) Although the creature shows no real signs of intelligence or humanity, appearing more a force of nature (or supernatural wrath) than anything, it’s driven to slaughter those who venture into its waters, especially any that try to desecrate its swamp. It does this through increasingly brutal means, such as tearing its victims apart, causing roots and foliage to burst from their bodies, or pumping him full of Schist’s polluting oil. Those who know fear have no chance of burning at this Man-Thing’s touch as its whipping tentacles and huge, claw-like hands are far more likely to leave its prey little more than bloody, swamp-covered remains. Even people like Plooq and LaRoque, who routinely visit and live in the swamp, and Sallis’s friends and fellow Seminole aren’t safe from the Man-Thing’s rage; the monstrous being rids its swamp of all interlopers and violatiors, friend or foe and, to make matters worse, is functionally immortal and impervious to harm, even to ancient rituals and sacrifices designed to appease its wrath.

The Nitty-Gritty:
While Man-Thing might be a decidedly low-budget (and low-brow) affair, I have to give it props for going all-in with its genre and its premise. It’s fascinating re-watching these licensed properties from before the Marvel Cinematic Universe found a winning formula in family-friendly productions that only touch upon horror or violent elements, and Man-Thing is far more a throwback to the violent, carefree slashers and monster movies of the eighties than anything else. This is evident right from the beginning thanks to a raucous sex scene out on a canoe in the wilds of the swamp that leaves busty Sarah (Imogen Bailey) a screaming, bloody mess and the frequent, barking use of curse words and dark, sticky blood effects. As you might expect, the swamp is very much a big part of Man-Thing; a dark, murky, overgrown mess of withered trees, vines, gloopy muck, and full of alligators and bugs, the swamp is unsightly and hazardous place. While Teri regards it with a great deal of affection, Horn is filled with a respect for its dark power, and Schist just wants to plunder its natural resources, Kyle is completely out of his depth when he ventures into those dark and muddy waters and the film does a decent job of presenting it as a very ominous and mysterious place. Personally, however, I have no love for swamp settings; they’re invariably murky and suffer from low lighting and green filters, all of which is true here, but you can’t really make Man-Thing without a swamp and, considering the time the film takes in building up to the Man-Thing’s first full appearance, the swamp makes for a visually unsettling compromise.

The impressive Man-Thing monster takes its brutal revenge.

Still, if there’s one thing Man-Thing has going for it, it’s the impressive and ambitious special effects. The Man-Thing itself is introduced slowly, building tension and anticipation towards its big reveal, which comes about an hour into the film’s runtime when it stalks and slaughters the Thibadeaux’s before ripping Fraser apart like an insect. Before that, we get an idea of how the creature came into being in flashbacks that resemble the grisly horror of Hellraiser (Barker, 1987) and we see the gruesome aftermath of its unique methods of killing, with Fraser left sickened by the awesome brutality (though both Kyle and coroner Val Mayerick (Brett Leonard) are surprisingly nonplussed by the mangled corpses, which have long been chalked up the alligator attacks). The creature itself is an incredibly impressive combination of a practical suit enhanced by CGI, which is the perfect blend when creating a movie monster, and it’s pretty clear that a big chunk of the budget (if not all of it) went to bringing Marvel’s monstrous swamp-man to life. A hulking beast dripping with vile vines and oozing menace, the Man-Thing easily manhandles and rips apart even the likes of Pete Horn after he tries to sacrifice himself to quell its rage, glaring at its prey with burning eyes and pursuing Kyle and Teri relentlessly for trespassing in its swamp. Determined to track down and kill LaRoque, who seeks to destroy his drilling tower in the Dark Water, Schist ventures into the swamp only to find Kyle and Teri being chased by the Man-Thing in their own attempts to get to LaRoque. Although Schist confesses to killing Sallis and wounds both LaRoque and Kyle, he ultimately meets his grisly end when the Man-Thing impales him with vine-like tentacles and pumps Schist’s own oil back into his body for a fitting and gory demise. Devoid of all humanity and fixated only on eliminating intruders, the Man-Thing turns on Kyle and Teri, forcing LaRoque to sacrifice himself by blowing up the drilling tower, taking himself and the Man-Thing with it. The blast doesn’t actually destroy the beast, however; it simply absorbs the flames and then, after seeing that Schist’s destructive influence has been driven from the Dark Water, it is reclaimed by the swampland to slumber once more until needed, allowing the injured and stunned Kyle and Teri to gingerly make their way back to what passes for civilisation in those parts.

The Summary:
For many, Man-Thing will be little more than a low-budget, made-for-television B-level monster movie that pales in comparison to other films in its genre, especially those it owes much of its horror and imagery to. For fans of the titular character, many may also be put off by how different the film is from the source material, which casts the Man-Thing as an uncompromising force of vengeful nature rather than a more sentient and complex character like I assume it is in the comics. For me, though, as a fan of gory monster movies of this type, there’s a lot to like about Man-Thing; the atmosphere, the sense of dread and horror building throughout the film thanks to the near constant darkness and the disgusting murkiness of the swamp really give the film a foreboding ambiance. Of course, the main selling point is the Man-Thing itself; kept in shadow and blending in with the trees and vines of the gloomy swamp, the creature is an extraordinary and terrifying mixture of CGI and practical effects and impresses every time its on screen, which isn’t often, and always makes an impact. Unfortunately, the acting and overall presentation is very cheap and befitting of its made-for-television status; you don’t really watch a film like this for the performances or any kind of nuance beyond one-dimensional villains, gratuitous sex and violence, and somewhat capable lead characters, and Man-Thing definitely doesn’t try to deliver anything beyond these clichés. Overall, I do feel it’s an under-rated and often forgotten Marvel film that can be fun at times, but I can see why this didn’t really make much of an impact, though I am interested in seeing how the MCU utilises the Man-Thing going forward.

My Rating:

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Could Be Better

Have you ever seen Man-Thing? Were you a fan of the film or did it leave you disappointed? What did you think to Schist and his plot to besmirch the sacred land, and the lead characters and their performances? Were you impressed by the Man-Thing’s special effects and brutal kills? If you’re a fan of the source material, what did you think to this adaptation? Whatever your thoughts on Man-Thing, leave them below and go check out my other horror content!

Movie Night: Ghost Rider: Extended Cut

Dr. K2 Comments

Released: 12 June 2007
Originally Released: 16 February 2007
Director: Mark Steven Johnson
Distributor: New Line Cinema
Budget: $110 million
Stars: Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes, Wes Bentley, Donal Logue, Sam Elliott, and Peter Fonda

The Plot:
Motorcycle stunt rider Johnny Blaze (Cage) finds his past literally haunting him when the fiendish Mephistopheles (Fonda) calls upon a blood debt from Blaze’s youth. Transformed into the demonic Ghost Rider in the presence of evil, Blaze must hunt down Blackheart (Bentley), a rogue demon who seeks to acquire power to rival that of Mephistopheles!

The Background:
Created by Gary Friedrich, Roy Thomas, and Mike Ploog, Johnny Blaze/Ghost Rider made his Marvel Comics debut in the pages of Marvel Spotlight #5 in 1972. He graduated to his own self-titled comic about a year later and was at the forefront of many supernatural adventures in one form or another. In addition to cameo appearances in various Marvel videogames, Ghost Rider has popped up in other avenues outside of the comics; he cameod in Marvel’s nineties cartoons and an incarnation of the character later featured in a semi-prominent role in the fourth season of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2016 to 2017). However, development of a live-action adaptation of the Spirit of Vengeance can be traced back to 1992, when Marvel tried to shop the idea around Hollywood. In 1997, Gale Anne Hurd and Jonathan Hensleigh were attached to the project but things really took off in late-2000, when writer David S. Goyer, director Steven Norrington, and stars Jon Voigt and Johnny Depp were all associated or involved with the film in some capacity. By May 2002, Columbia Pictures had purchased the rights; all previous associates dropped out of the project and Shane Salerno was brought in to rewrite Goyer’s script, but eventual director Mark Steven Johnson did his own script soon after being hired to helm the film. Life-time superhero fan and nineties action star Nicolas Cage won the title role and chose to portray the character not as a hard-drinking bad-ass but more as someone desperately trying to come to terms with the curse hanging over his soul. The character’s visual effects were the work of Kevin Mack and Sony Pictures Imageworks, who painstakingly animated Ghost Rider’s flames on a shot-by-shot basis, with one of their most difficult and time-consuming sequences being the first horrific transformation and the digital transformation of the iconic “Hell Cycle”. With its final worldwide gross falling just shy of $230 million, Ghost Rider didn’t exactly set the world on fire (pun intended) and this was reflected in the reviews; critics were left disappointed by the film’s focus on humour rather than horror, with the dialogue and Cage’s performance drawing the most criticism, though the special effects were praised and some have since re-evaluated it as an under-rated comic book film. Despite being labelled as one of the worst films of the decade, Ghost Rider not only received this extended edition on home media but was actually followed by a sequel…of sorts…in 2011, that was a critical and commercial failure which, coupled with Cage’s disappointment with the role and franchise and the rights being reacquired by Marvel in 2013, dashed any plans for a third entry.

The Review:
Ghost Rider is another of those Marvel superheroes I’m not all that familiar with; unlike others like this, I can’t even say that I’ve been able to get a sense of the character and his incarnations and adventures as Marvel haven’t yet released one of their Marvel Platinum definitive collections for him and a lot of his classic collections are a bit overpriced for my tastes. I’ve always been drawn to the character, though, since he’s visually very striking and his powers and background really speak to me as a long-time fan of Al Simmons/Spawn, but the most I’ve experienced of him are his debut story and the Spirits of Vengeance: Rise of the Midnight Sons trade paperback (Cooper, et al, 2016), his appearances in Marvel cartoons and TV shows, and a few sporadic appearances in videogames. I’d love to read more of him, but I definitely wasn’t as clued up on the character as I usually am when I first went to see Ghost Rider. Hell, I wasn’t even (and still am not, really) a big fan of Nicolas Cage; I’d seen him in The Rock (Bay, 1996), Con Air (West, 1997), and Face/Off (Woo, 1997) but he never really clicked for me as an actor or personality because he always came across as being more than a little nuts. Thus, I originally went into Ghost Rider with quite low expectations; I was expecting an action-packed romp full of special effects and bonkers visuals and fights and that’s basically what the film delivers, though even I was hoping it’d lean a bit closer towards the dark connotations of the character and Ghost Rider’s more horror-themed elements.

Johnny’s deal with the Devil costs him his soul and his happiness that no amount of fame can assuage.

The film is immediately handicapped by an opening narration. I’ve talked about this a few times but this really is a cliché that’s hard to get right in cinema; it makes sense to want to clue the audience in early on to what’s going on and give some lore and context to the world being presented, but it ends up becoming redundant as Carter Slade/The Caretaker (Elliot) repeats it to Johnny later in the film so it’s just another example of narration for narration’s sake. Anyway, when we first meet Johnny Blaze, he’s just a kid (Matt Long) working as a carny stunt cyclist alongside his father, Barton (Brett Cullen). Although he enjoys the thrill of entertaining the masses with increasingly dangerous and ludicrous jumps (to the chagrin of his father, who chastises him for being a show off), Johnny is frustrated with the lifestyle and playing second fiddle to his father and is determined to leave it all behind and run away with his girlfriend, Roxanne Simpson (Raquel Alessi). When he spots a convenient letter detailing the seriousness of Barton’s cancer, however, Johnny hesitates; his concern and desperation for his father’s welfare are all the leverage Mephistopheles needs to convince Johnny into signing away his immortal soul to keep Barton from succumbing to his illness. Johnny’s elation at seeing his father rejuvenated is soon dashed when the slightest twitch from Mephistopheles causes Barton to die in a motorcycle stunt, leaving young Johnny wracked with guilt, devastated at losing the only family he has, and burdened by the debt he now owes to the conniving Devil, who promises to one day collect on his contract. Having lost everything and fearing for Roxanne’s safety, Johnny opts to abandon her and hit the road, eventually growing up into Nicolas Cage. The now-adult Johnny Blaze has become a media sensation; famous for his privacy and death-defying stunts, we catch up with him in the middle of a cross-country tour with his entourage, which includes best friend and impresario Mack (Logue). However, despite his best attempts to overcome his fear, Johnny is haunted by his past, which is annoyingly drummed home to us through constant flashbacks to events we just witnessed, as though we’d forget what happen less than a minute ago. Constantly questioning whether he’s actually as good as everyone says or whether it’s Mephistopheles’ influence keeping him successful and healthy, Johnny just about gives Mack an ulcer due to his insistence on pushing his stunts to the absolute limit to maintain his reputation as “Mister Invincible”

Johnny is cursed to transform into a flaming skeletal demon at night and in the presence of evil.

Though he forgoes alcohol and drugs, preferring to swig down cocktail glasses of jelly beans and sooth his anxiety with the Carpenters (amongst other weird traits), Johnny is a tortured soul who is forever trying to outrun the literal Devil. When he happens to cross paths with the grown-up Roxanne, he sees it as a sign that his days of living in fear are over; reinvigorated with a newfound zest for life, he regresses to a child in his attempts to impress and woo her and, despite being burned by him in the past and her better nature, the budding reporter agrees to give him a chance. However, right as he’s about to begin his new life, Johnny is approached by Mephistopheles once more; rather than claiming Johnny’s soul, Mephistopheles orders him to track down and kill his son, Blackheart, and imbues him with the power of the Ghost Rider to fulfil this mission with the promise of releasing him from his vow once the deed is done. Although Johnny has no interest in doing the Devil’s bidding, he’s horrifically transformed into a monstrous being, a leather-clad demon with a flaming skull for a head and a semi-sentient blazing motorcycle for transport. In a change of pace from most superhero movies, Johnny actually confesses to his curse and newfound duality to Roxanne but, naturally, she doesn’t believe him and he just comes across as a madman thanks to his awkward personality quirks and madcap nature. Ghost Rider is a tricky character, in many ways; a supernatural creature with near-unlimited power, it’s hard to put him in situations where he would be vulnerable, so the film lumbers him with the caveat that he can only appear at night and in “the presence of evil”. Even then, and when faced with other supernatural foes, the Ghost Rider is a formidable creature; practically impervious to pain and injury, his wounds heal abnormally fast, he exhibits superhuman strength and dexterity, and he can supernaturally ignite and extended his chain and conjure hellfire at will. His most powerful weapon is his “Penance Stare”, which forces a victim to relive all the pain and evil they’ve done and, presumably, be consumed by it. What’s not made immediately clear in the film, however, is whether or not the Ghost Rider is a separate entity from Johnny or if Johnny retains his personality when transformed. It seems like he does, and Johnny can fully recall everything he did while transformed, but other times the Ghost Rider talks and acts very differently, but there’s no mention of Zarathos in the film and the Ghost Rider doesn’t say much, so it’s a bit unclear as to what’s going on there. Even more ludicrous, however, is the part when Johnny just takes control of the “possessing spirit” after reading a single passage in one of his occult books and stating he wants control, which both skips over any kind of hardship he might have to face and undermines even the slightest but of duality between him and the Ghost Rider.

Neither Blackheart or his minions ever come across as a serious, monstrous threat.

Johnny (and the audience) are given some context through the Caretaker, a wizened and gruff old man whom Johnny stumbles upon after his first transformation. It’s the Caretaker who narrates the film and delivers the bulk of its exposition regarding Mephistopheles, Blackheart, the Ghost Rider, and the Contract of San Venganza, a binding note of a thousand damned souls which Mephistopheles covets and Blackheart seeks to acquire in order to gain the power necessary to overthrow his father. Mephistopheles is a bit of a contradiction as well; he can assume a human guise, affects the weather and environment around him simply by walking, can bargain for people’s souls, and grant unimaginable power to a human host…but is somehow rendered “powerless” to actively oppose Blackheart. Conversely, Blackheart has no such limitations; he can come and go as he pleases, lower the temperature through his sheer presence alone, drain the life and flesh from humans with a touch, and even enter hallowed ground without any consequences, to say nothing of being immune to his father’s influence while on Earth. Blackheart enlists the help of the Hidden, three Fallen Angels with elemental powers: Abigor (Mathew Wilkinson), Gressil (Laurence Breuls), and Wallow (Daniel Frederiksen), however we learn very little about them (or even Blackheart, for that matter, beyond his childish resentment towards his father and lust for power and conquest) and they mainly exist to give Ghost Rider someone to fight against. Indeed, despite Abigor being able to become practically intangible, Gressil transforming to earth and stone, and even Wallow having the advantage during an underwater skirmish with the titular Spirit of Vengeance, all three are dispatched by the Ghost Rider with relative ease (Johnny even offs Gressil mere moments after his first transformation, showing no hesitation or trouble with his newfound powers). Despite being fully aware of his father’s favouritism to the Ghost Rider, and showing a flicker of fear at the demon’s power, Blackheart is so arrogant that he expresses suprise when the Ghost Rider survives his futile attempts to kill him and bests his minions…even though he knows what the Ghost Rider is capable of so he should’ve known better. Blackheart puts up a bit more of a fight, but this is mainly because their final showdown happens at the onset of sunrise, thus dispelling the Ghost Rider curse, and because Blackheart “[has] no soul to burn”. Those who are familiar with the comic book versions of Blackheart and Mephistopheles will be left disappointed by their decidedly undemonic appearances; though both show signs of their true, monstrous nature and Blackheart eventually transforms into a dark-skinned demon referring to itself as “Legion”, neither appear as demonic forces, which is great for maintaining the actors’ likenesses and performances but not so good for matching the visually impressive Ghost Rider against similarly interesting enemies and leaves Blackheart resembling more of a try-hard emo than a menacing threat.

The Nitty-Gritty:
This extended version of the film adds a paltry nine minutes to the runtime, which mostly translates into further fleshing out Johnny’s youth and his relationship with his father but is most notable in an altered meeting between Mephistopheles and Blackheart, which changes the location and placement of the scene but basically serves the same purpose as in the theatrical cut. Even with these extra scenes, Ghost Rider doesn’t really seem to know what it wants to be; in its drive to avoid being too dark and scary, it veers way too much towards awkward comedy and bizarre inclusions. While many of these are exemplified by Cage’s weird take on the character, they’re not exclusive to him: Roxanne bizarrely takes a Magic 8 Ball to her date, but Eve Mendes fails to really impress as an interesting or forthright character and is mainly here to look hot, chew Johnny out, and be a hostage for him to rescue. To make things worse, the always-aggravating Rebel Wilson hams up her cameo like she’s the film’s comic relief (a role Mack fills wonderfully), and Blackheart’s minions are robbed of any sense of menace by their over the top performances and line delivery. Wes Bentley is equally guilty of this, with every line being delivered with a spitting, deliberate campness that completely destroys any allure and threat his character might (and should) have. However, it’s Nicolas Cage who absolutely tips Ghost Rider over the edge with his truly bonkers ideas and performance: I’ll admit, it’s refreshing to not see another alcohol-dependent, tortured character but Johnny’s reliance on sweets, pop music, and daft clips just make him seem like an absolute goofball…and he doesn’t need any help in that department! From his drawly Southern twang, his childish antics with Roxanne and the way he greets the paparazzi, to his over the top screams of anguish and joy when first transforming into the Ghost Ruder, it’s hard to really get a sense of who Johnny is since he just seems like a cartoon character on acid or hyped up on sugar, bouncing from mood to mood, dramatically pointing at people and growling “You!”, and chastising Mack for “steppin’ on Karen” or trying to talk him out of jumping over a field of helicopters. All I can say is thank God for Peter Fonda, Sam Elliot, and the underutilised David Roberts (whose Captain Jack Dolan is more of a nuisance than anything and the film arguably would’ve benefitted from replacing the police pursuit of the Ghost Rider with more development of Blackheart and his cronies); these three carry the film, playing the straight men in a glorified comedy and adding a gravitas to even the most ridiculous lines and concepts.

While the film struggles with its identity, at least the Ghost Rider’s special effects look great.

Thankfully, the film is also bolstered by its impressive special effects; although many of these suffer from a lack of polish (Blackheart’s arrival, for example, where he appears out of flaming rain and randomly screams at the camera for no reason, his minions, and the finale haven’t benefitted from age), it’s clear that all of the time, money, and energy was spent on making the Ghost Rider himself look absolutely top notch and bad-ass. Although there’s been some debate over whether Cage’s abs were real or not, Ghost Rider is easily one of the most visually impressive comic book characters on the page and on the screen; garbed in a spiked leather jacket, wielding a flaming chain, and having a flaming skull for a head, seeing him rocket down roads, leaving a trail of fire and devastation in his wake, is quite the spectacle and the flame effects still hold up pretty well. Probably as a consequence of how difficult the character was to conceive and animate, the Ghost Rider doesn’t talk much, and his action sequences tend to be very blunt; it’s all about ending things quickly, with as much visual and dramatic impact as possible, rather than having overly choreographed fight scenes or dragging things out. This works in context as the Ghost Rider certainly has the power to shrug off knives, blows, and even a truck to the face, to say nothing of leaving Gressil a charred mess of stones with a single lash of his whip. Easily one of the best parts of the film comes when Johnny is locked in a cell full of criminals, where he manhandles the lowlifes and reclaims his bike to race through the city streets in a blazing inferno while Dolan frantically tries to chase him down. This results in cool shots like Ghost Rider idling on top of the Southbank Pedestrian Footbridge, emerging from water completely ablaze, and racing up the side of a building to reel in a police chopper using his chain. This is also where he fights with Abigor; despite the fact that the Wind Elemental can become nigh-on intangible, even this creature is no match for the Ghost Rider, who easily immolates the Fallen Angel by whipping up a flaming tornado. The movie then makes a big show of revealing that the Caretaker was Carter Slade, the Ghost Rider who kept the Contract of San Venganza, and then completely squanders it by simply having him wander off to his death after accompanying Johnny to the ghost town rather than heroically die in battle with Blackheart, which kind of makes the entire reveal pointless beyond a cool shot of the two riding through the desert to a cover of “(Ghost) Riders in the Sky: A Cowboy Legend”.

Johnny bests Blackheart and then keeps the Ghost Rider power since that’s something he can do, apparently…

For all his immense power and his lofty dreams of domination, Blackheart ends up being little more than a petulant child; he’s dangerous, for sure, and even Mephistopheles fears his ambition, but he’s really only seen as a threat to humans. Although he increases Johnny’s personal stake in the plot (as if saving the world from untold eons of darkness wasn’t motivation enough) by killing Mack, Blackheart loses a lot of credibility by taking Roxanne hostage to bargain for the contract. This is especially egregious considering Carter hid the contract in the handle of his spade, so Blackheart had the means to acquire it all along and just…didn’t…because he wanted to toy with his prey rather than be a little more thorough. The movie tries to escalate things in the finale by forcing Johnny to retreat to the shadows to summon his powers, but it just ends up seeming like the filmmakers ran out of money and couldn’t render Ghost Rider in his full glory for the final showdown. Blackheart doesn’t fare much better, either; after absorbing San Venganza’s damned souls, he gains a moderately more monstrous appearance but is actually less of a threat as he’s now filled up with a thousand souls for the Penance Stare to run through, leaving him a useless, catatonic lump of wasted potential for Mephistopheles to take back to Hell and punish for being a naughty boy. Despite the fact that all Mephistopheles has done is lie, it’s surprising when the Devil actually makes good on his promise of releasing Johnny from his curse but, rather than finally be free and live the life he’s always wanted with Roxanne, Johnny inexplicably vows to wield the Devil’s power as the Spirit of Vengeance. While this is treated like some big dramatic character moment and Johnny finally embracing his destiny, it’s another of the film’s many head-scratching moments: Mephistopheles can bestow the Ghost Rider power against a person’s will but can’t remove it against their will? It’s almost as if the film’s implying that the Ghost Rider is more powerful than the Devil himself (and, in actual fact, he is since Mephistopheles couldn’t touch Blackheart on Earth!) Of course, the real reason for this nonsensical ending is to set-up a sequel, but I’d argue we could’ve still gotten that while also offering something a little bleaker. Like, have Mephistopheles betray Johnny and say he’s still bound by his contract, but Johnny could still vow to put his powers to good use and to oppose Mephistopheles wherever possible. Instead, it just seems like Mephistopheles is all bark and no bite as he just throws a temper tantrum (clearly where Blackheart gets it from…) and promptly disappears to allow his greatest and most powerful creation to wander the Earth outside of his control.

The Summary:
I think the biggest issue with Ghost Rider, even for someone like me who barely knows anything about the character, is that it’s just a bit of a disappointment from start to finish. It seems like the filmmakers thought the concept alone and Nicolas Cage’s star appeal would be enough for the film to compete against other blockbuster superhero franchises and didn’t really believe in the source material or the essence of the character’s horror roots. While I’m an advocate that 12/15-rated movies are more than suitable for most superhero properties, Ghost Rider definitely feels like it would’ve benefitted from being a smaller, more gritty horror vehicle rather than this bog-standard, over the top production. Considering the film is clearly pulling from classic horror movies like American Werewolf in London (Landis, 1981) and the Universal Horror movies, it’s a shame that it veers so far into the comedic and the absurd; everything from the acting, the soundtrack, and the overall corny nature of much of the movie constantly holds Ghost Rider back from being a more memorable picture, regardless of how good the titular character looks in the film. And he does look good, but the issue is the confusion regarding whether there’s any duality between him and Johnny, how ridiculously overpowered he is, and the vaguely defined powers of Mephistopheles and Blackheart. I can’t help but feel a smaller production, one more focused on Johnny Blaze struggling to cope with his monstrous curse, demonic alter ego, and his past mistakes while the Devil pulls his strings would’ve made for a darker, more unique horror piece but, instead, the film doubles down on its star power and visual effects rather than trying to give the Ghost Rider a tangible threat or tighten up the script. It’s definitely not the worst film I’ve ever seen, and has some fun and amusing and cool moments, but it’s far more akin to the disaster that was Spawn (Dippé, 1997) rather than a cross between The Crow (Proyas, 1994) and Constantine (Lawrence, 2005) or even something along the lines of Hellboy (del Toro, 2004), all far better movies that came out prior to this and which I feel are far more suitable to the tone of the Ghost Rider comics.

My Rating:

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Could Be Better

Did you enjoy Ghost Rider? If you’re a fan of the comics, how do you think it worked as an adaptation and what would you have changed? What did you think to Nicolas Cage’s performance in the film and the changes made to Johnny Blaze’s character? Were you a fan of the special effects, and what did you think to the villains and their minions? Can you explain why Mephistopheles has such inconsistent powers when on Earth? What are some of your favourite Ghost Rider stories and moments? Whatever your thoughts on Ghost Rider, share them below and be sure to check out my other horror-themed Marvel content!

Game Corner [Brightest Day]: Green Lantern: Rise of the Manhunters (Xbox 360)

Dr. K1 Comment

Although February 2014 was dubbed “Green Lantern Day” (because, by the American calendar, the date read as “2814”, the space sector assigned to Earth in DC Comics), the significance of this date has passed over time. Instead, I’m choosing to celebrate the debut of perhaps the most popular iteration of the character, Hal Jordan, who first appeared in October 1959.

Released: 7 June 2011
Developer: Double Helix Games
Also Available For: Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo Wii, PlayStation 3

The Background:
When Green Lantern first appeared in All-American Comics #16 in July 1940, it was as the superhero persona of of Alan Scott. However, in 1959, Julius Schwartz had writer John Broome and artist Gil Kane reinvent the character as space cop Hal Jordan, thereby creating what we now know as DC Comics’ resident intergalactic police force. After years of aborted attempts, Hal Jordan finally made his big-screen debut (alongside the Green Lantern Corps) in Green Lantern (Campbell, 2011), a critical and commercial failure that set back the formation of a DC cinematic universe a couple of years. However, one thing that came out of the movie was Green Lantern’s first (and, so far, only) solo videogame outing with this tie-in title, which was made by an amalgamated developer whose previous titles were also mostly videogame adaptations. Although featuring the likenesses and voices of many of the film’s stars and allowing players to utilise stereoscopic 3D during gameplay, Green Lantern: Rise of the Manhunters received mixed reviews; while some praised the various gameplay mechanics and the game’s presentation, others criticised the repetitive combat and lack of replayability. Since Green Lantern failed to produce a sequel, we’ve yet to see another solo videogame for the ring-slinger, which is a bit of a shame considering how much potential the character has in the near-limitless scope of the genre.

The Plot:
Before harnessing the green energy of willpower and creating the intergalactic peacekeepers known as Green Lanterns, the Guardians of the Universe employed androids called Manhunters. After being shut down for becoming too violent, the Manhunters suddenly return for revenge against their former masters, and Green Lantern’s Hal Jordan and Thaal Sinestro are just two of the emerald corpsmen dispatched to combat this threat.

Gameplay:
Green Lantern: Rise of the Manhunters is a third-person action/adventure game very much in the style of hack-and-slash brawlers like the God of War franchise (Various, 2005 to present). Players take on the role of Hal Jordan and fight their way through some pretty long and bland environments slashing about Manhunters with a variety of attacks generating by his Power Ring. If you have a friend, they can join the action at any time as Thaal Sinestro, though he’s basically just a skin and doesn’t have any unique dialogue or attacks and the camera becomes a bit restricted with two players on screen. Still, you have quite a few options available in terms of combat: X unleashes a fast attack with some sword swipes, Y delivers a strong attack that includes a fist and a hammer, B sees you grasping smaller enemies or objects with a claw, and the Right Bumper lets you blast ahead with a drill and chaining all of these together will allow you to pull off some basic combos to take out larger and multiple enemies pretty quickly.

Hal’s Power Ring affords him numerous options in combat and puzzle solving.

A allows you to jump but, unfortunately, you can’t fly unless you’re activating a Green Lantern logo to leap to a new area in a cutscene or dropped into one of the games shooting sections. You can evade, however, with the right stick and shield yourself from attacks with the Left Bumper. As you play through the story, you’ll unlock constructs to assign to the Left and Right Trigger; holding these down and pressing a button lets you pull off up to eight different Power Ring abilities that will drain your meter (though this refills over time and by collecting green orbs). Hal can blast enemies from afar with the Ring Blaster and Gatling Gun, smash them and activate pressure pads with the War Hammer, deploy and throw a Hover Mine to blow them up or destroy power cores, send them flying (and knock back projectiles) with the Baseball Bat, and swing around a couple of maces to devastate groups of enemies. Hal can also rapidly whip Manhunters, auto target and pummel them with the Rocket Punch, smash through enemy shields with the Piston Blitz, deliver targeted attacks to enemy weak points with the Missile Pack, and eventually dish out big damage with a Jet Fighter and a huge Mech Suit. The bigger and more powerful constructs will drain more of your Power Ring’s energy, but you can upgrade your Power Ring and your basic attacks by defeating enemies and smashing parts of the environment for Will Points (strangely still abbreviated to XP). The more XP you earn, the higher your level raises (up to a maximum of ten) and the more upgrades and additional constructs you’ll unlock, eventually allowing you to purchase Lantern’s Light to recharge your Power Ring with the directional pad at the risk of being left vulnerable. Finally, as you defeat enemies, you’ll build up your Ring Surge meter; once it’s full, press the Left and Right Bumper to activate a Ring Surge, which restores your health and Power Ring to full and powers up your attacks for a short time; the effectiveness of your Ring Surge can also be upgraded with XP.

QTEs, simple puzzles, and rail shooting sections add some variety.

The bulk of your gameplay revolves around combat; near endless, mindless combat against Manhunters of all shapes and sizes. The game is incredibly linear, with no need for a map or directions since it’s pretty clear where you need to go, though there are inevitably times when it’s easy to get a little turned around since environments became very samey very quickly. When you’re not smashing apart endless Manhunter drones, you’re given a handful of additional missions, such as destroying mines, leaping to Siege Towers and destroying them by smashing open their armoured cores, and destroying teleport gates to stop enemies spawning in. One mission has you taking out a bunch of lasers before they destroy the Central Power Battery, sometimes you’ll need to press A and rotate the left stick to open doors or spawn in a battery, and other times you’ll be dodging electrified walls and floors to progress. These latter elements get mixed up you play through the story, requiring you to grab a battery and get it to a power node before it explodes or smashing Hover Mines into spinning holes as the floor tries to fry you. Later in the game, yellow Fear Energy nodes and enemies drain your Ring Energy meter and limit your constructs, and Queen Aga’po helps you out on Zamaron by lowering crystal barriers, where you’ll also need to destroy Boost Crystals to stop the Zamarons being powered up. Generally, puzzles are pretty simple, requiring little more than clearing out enemies, grabbing something to plug in somewhere else, either to match symbols or to destroy an energy core, and you’ll only really get a taste of some variety in the handful of rail shooter sections. In these, you use X or Y to fire (with no limits and a rapid-fire option) and can lock onto enemies with LT to fire off energy-draining missiles or become a Jet Fighter with your Ring Surge, making for some fun shooting sections. Additionally, you’ll occasionally have to perform some quick-time events (QTEs) to finish off some of the bigger enemies and bosses, and you can lower the difficulty level after you die if the game becomes too tough.

Graphics and Sound:  
Technically speaking, Green Lantern: Rise of the Manhunters looks, sounds, and plays pretty decently; I experienced a bit of a delay when activating my Ring Surge (though this could’ve been my controller) but there wasn’t really any slowdown, which is good as things can get a bit hectic at times. Ryan Reynolds returns to voice and lend his likeness to Hal, playing him a little more straight-laced now that he’s a fully-fledged Green Lantern, and he (and the other Green Lanterns) matches his much-maligned movie appearance very well. His constructs all look big and fun and imaginative, though they are a bit restrictive; his basic attacks change appearance as you upgrade them, which is a nice touch, and the developers even made the bizarre decision to include a function where Hall becomes dizzy if you rapidly spin the control stick.

The game evokes the aesthetic of its movie counterpart, for better or worse.

Sadly, the game’s environments and music aren’t much to shout about; you visit Oa twice, at the start and end of the game, and both times it recreates the look of the movie but is little more than a bizarre alien landscape under attack from various Manhunters. Zamaron is a rocky, mushroom-strewn alien world that is more bland than interesting, though it does include canyons and crystal mines and temples and such. The only other area in the game is Biot, a massive mechanical factory and processing plant for the Manhunters that’s full of gears and pistons and consoles and such, but there’s very little to interact with in any of the game’s locations and few rewards or incentive to explore as there aren’t really any collectibles. The game’s cutscenes work well enough, with the suit and the movie’s aesthetic actually translating pretty well to the action figure presentation of this era of gaming, and I liked how the story was a sequel to the movie, though it’s weird how there was no expansion on Sinestro’s decision to switch to a Yellow Ring.

Enemies and Bosses:
The vast majority of the enemies you’ll face are Manhunters, disposable tin cans that fly or teleport in and attack in some large numbers. You’ve got regular drones, ones with shields or blasters, and annoying bastards on these hoverboards that allow them to zip around and bombard you with laser fire. Sometimes you’ll be attacked by mines and laser cannons or Manhunter ships, which can be destroyed by smashing back their projectiles, and larger Manhunter variants will rush at you and grab you in a bearhug, draining your Ring Energy and forcing you to mash A to escape. On Zamaron, you’ll battle some different enemies, mainly mind controlled Zamarons who attack with staffs and such, but you’ll also encounter Willhunters, which drain your Ring Energy, and Manhunters also exhibit this ability on Biot and later in the game.

Only Zamaron offers a reprieve from the endless Manhunter variants.

Bosses are primarily larger Manhunters, which then return as mini bosses or are strewn throughout shooting stages. The Ultra Manhunter is the best example of this; you’ll first battle it on Oa, where it stomps about firing lasers and shooting its fists at you but you can evade it, take advantage of the nearby Lantern power-up, and land some combos when it gets stuck on the ground. Ultra Manhunters reappear numerous times, often in twos and accompanied by a slew of other Manhunters; they later add a gravity bomb to their arsenal which sucks you in before exploding, but you can destroy these with your Hover Mines and you can put them down with a QTE after dealing enough damage and blast them to smithereens in the shooting sections. The Siphoner Manhunter, which bearhugs you, and the Willhunters are presented like mini bosses when you first encounter them but they quickly just become regular enemies. On Zamaron, you’ll battle Queen Aga’po after she’s corrupted by the Yellow Energy; she causes crystals to burst from the ground (which freeze you and enemies if you touch them) and sends her minions after you between attacks before attacking with her lance. After pursuing her in a shooter section and taking out another Ultra Manhunter, she sets the Zamaron Defender on you. This battle takes place on a 2.5D pane and sees you attacking its hands and the Willhunters it sends out, avoiding its swipes and the falling boulders, smashing back its projectiles and dodging its electrical barriers and shockwaves in easily the most annoying boss battle of the game so far (and you don’t even get the catharsis of finishing it yourself as Hal delivers the final blow in a cutscene).

After besting the Manhunters, you’ll face off against renegade Amon Sur.

Biot is full of Siphoners and Ultra Manhunters, Manhunters who exude Yellow Energy, and annoying reactor cores that you need to destroy with your Hover Mines. The mechanical hellhole culminates in a battle against the titanic Grandmaster, which is essentially an even bigger Ultra Manhunter and your Mech Suit comes in handy here, allowing you to go toe-to-toe with the armoured foe, who loves to blasts its fists at you and swing them around the arena to send you flying. Take it down and you get to battle the even bigger Highmaster afterwards, which is an even larger Ultra Manhunter that blasts out bigger versions of those gravity bombs and sends a massive laser beam from its hand to cut you down. The only way to damage this guy is to attack the glowing points on its knees, then run around behind it and awkwardly toss your Hover Mines into its knees so it drops to the floor, allowing you to attack the cockpit where Kilowog is being held captive. Repeat this three times, fending off the Manhunters and dodging its faster and more aggressive attacks, and you’ll progress to the final stage of the game. This sees you returning to Oa, where Amon Sur has become consumed by Yellow Energy and is leading a renewed Manhunter assault against the Guardians. You’ll need to dispatch his minions before engaging with him one-on-one, which sees Amon dashing at you with his scythe-like lance, conjuring skeletal hands, bombarding you with laser blasts, and protecting himself with an impenetrable shield. Deal enough damage and he also constructs a massive mech suit for himself, meaning the finale becomes a game of Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots as you throw slow punches at him, guard against his attacks, and stomp the ground to break his guard, completely negating all of the combat and gameplay you’ve endured and mastered and having the final boss come down to a QTE with obnoxious timing.

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
As you defeat enemies and smash pots and other parts of the environment, green, white, and blue orbs will refill your health and Ring Energy and grant you XP. Occasionally, you’ll find Lantern charge points in the environment which fully replenish your health and energy and allow you to pull off a Ring Surge, but that’s about it for in-game power-ups. New constructs are made available as the story progresses and as you level-up, which also unlocks upgrades for your attacks and Ring Meter so they become flashier, more powerful, and charge/last longer. You can assign Hal eight different constructs to use and can swap them out from the pause menu, but it’s best to keep a couple (like the War Hammer, Baseball Bat, and Hover Mine) in your arsenal since they’re useful for solving puzzles and defeating certain enemies. Other constructs, like the Jet Fighter and Mech Suit, may deal a lot of damage but they have a long charge time and drain more of your Ring Energy, though you can find and destroy coloured meteorites in each mission that will extend both of these meters.

Additional Features:
There are forty Achievements to earn in Green Lantern: Rise of the Manhunters, with eleven being awarded simply for clearing the game’s missions and story mode. You’ll also get Achievements for racking up high combos, acquiring and upgrading every construct and ability, defeating certain enemies with each construct, and fully expanding Hal’s health and energy. There are three difficulty levels for the game, with an additional Achievement awarded for beating it on the hardest setting, and two more for playing in co-op, making for some pretty simple to earn Achievements. Co-op mode is pretty good, though there’s a distinct lack of individuality to Sinestro, and you can replay any cleared mission from the main menu and even take advantage of a 3D functionality if you have one of those 3D TVs. Sadly, there really isn’t much to keep you playing; you can go back and look for things you’ve missed, but there are no collectibles, no concept art or gallery, and no skins to unlock, making for a pretty cheap and barebones experience.

The Summary:
Green Lantern: Rise of the Manhunters is a pretty decent hack-and-slash videogame; fans of the God of War franchise will be immediately familiar with the vast majority of the gameplay, but those who crave a little more depth to their games will be left wanting more from this tie-in title. The controls and combat are pretty good, but the stages are extremely restrictive and tediously drawn out, artificially extending the length of the game without really providing much visual variety. Combat quickly becomes tedious and you can easily mow through most enemies with the same button inputs or constructs without needing to mix things up and, while the rail shooting sections are fun, they’re few and far between and don’t really have a great deal of challenge to them. The enemies you battle get old very quickly, making things even more monotonous, and the few puzzles offered are ridiculously easy to solve and recycled over and over. Graphically, the game does a good job of emulating the style of the movie it’s based on and the story functions as a lacklustre follow-up to a mediocre film, but there’s very little replay value to be offered here. As a quick, cheap cash-in that rips off the gameplay of a more successful franchise, Green Lantern: Rise of the Manhunters does alright but there’s obviously better hack-and-slash titles out there and the only reason to really get this is if you see it cheap and you fancy adding some quick and easy Achievements to your gamer score. Overall, the game just lacks in imagination; Green Lantern is a character who can potentially do and conjure almost anything he desires but he feels needlessly handicapped here and the lack of skins, unlockables, or visual variety really drag this game down.

My Rating:

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Could Be Better

Have you ever played Green Lantern: Rise of the Manhunters? If so, what did you think to it? How do you feel the combat and constructs worked in the context of the game? What did you think to the plot and its status as a follow-up to the movie? Were you disappointed by the lack of variety in the enemies and locations? Which of the constructs was your favourite and were you a fan of Ryan Reynolds reprising the role? What did you think to the movie the game’s based on and would you like to see a new Green Lantern game in the future? Which Green Lantern character, villain, or story is your favourite and why? How are you celebrating this pseudo-Green Lantern day today? Whatever you think about Green Lantern: Rise of the Manhunters, and the Green Lantern comics books, feel free to leave a comment below.

Movie Night: Blade (1998)

Dr. K10 Comments

Released: 21 August 1998
Director: Stephen Norrington
Distributor: New Line Cinema
Budget: $45 million
Stars: Wesley Snipes, Stephen Dorff, N‘Bushe Wright, Donal Logue, Kris Kristofferson, and Udo Kier

The Plot:
Blade (Snipes), a half-human, half-vampire dhampir born with all of the strengths of a vampire but none of their weaknesses (save the thirst for human blood), hunts vampires alongside his grouchy mentor and father-figure, Abraham Whistler (Kristofferson). Their mission is upended when Blade helps haematologist Doctor Karen Jenson (Wright) after she is bitten, and when sadistic upstart vampire Deacon Frost (Dorff) sets in motion a plot to usurp his elders and evoke the mythical “Blood God”.

The Background:
Eric Brooks/Blade began life as an extremely obscure, culturally problematic vampire hunter in the pages of The Tomb of Dracula, courtesy of Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan, after Marvel Comics were were finally allowed to publish stories involving vampires and other supernatural creatures. Development of a Blade movie can be traced back to 1992, when New World Pictures bought the rights to the character and rapper LL Cool J was initially attached to the role. Obviously, this never came to fruition and the rights eventually ended up with New Line Cinema, where the property caught the attention of writer David S. Goyer. After battling against the studio’s wishes to make a spoof film, and change Blade’s race, Goyer won out with his gritter, bloody, realistic reimagining of the character. Goyer’s revised ideas for Blade were reflected in his guest appearances on the nineties Spider-Man animated series where he was also a dhampir and accompanied by Whistler (Malcolm McDowell/Oliver Muirhead). Although actors Denzel Washington and Laurence Fishburne were considered for the role, Goyer pushed for Snipes, who had previously been attached to star in an unproduced Black Panther movie. Norrington’s first 140-minute cut was heavily trashed by test audiences, necessitating not just heavy reshoots but also an entirely new ending, but the final movie went on to be a huge success; it grossed over $131 million at the box office and was highly praised for its slick visual style, seedy depiction of vampire society, and unapologetic violence and gore. Though there were some reservations with the disparate genres at work in the film, the results spoke for themselves; not only was the comic book Blade altered to match his live-action counterpart, but Blade spawned two sequels of varying quality and an unfortunately short-lived TV show. Blade was also one of the first movies to really kick-start the surge in popularity for superhero properties in cinema, so it was only fitting when Marvel Studios reacquired the rights to bring the character back to the big screen with a reboot.

The Review:
Before Blade, I (like many) had never heard of Marvel’s most famous vampire hunter. Hell, I wasn’t even that familiar with Wesley Snipes, having seen him in Demolition Man (Brambilla, 1993) and very little else since my action movie dance card was firmly filled up with Arnold Schwarzenegger’s body of work. Still, like The Matrix (The Wachowski Brothers, 1999) and Armageddon (Bay, 1998), Blade was a  constant presence at sleepovers and birthdays, and probably the last good vampire film I watched until 30 Days of Night (Slade, 2007)). It didn’t help that the genre became oversaturated with lame-ass, love drunk teenage vampires and Blade and Matrix rip-offs like the God-awful Underworld franchise (Various, 2003 to 2017). Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan of the dark, gory, gritty, leather-and-guns aesthetic that these films popularised at the time, but crafting a good vampire film in this day and age seems like a lost art as filmmakers lean a little too heavily towards the camp and an excess of CGI. But still, Blade was (largely) immune to all of that, and barely even had the stigma of being a comic book movie (the film doesn’t even have the classic Marvel logo in the opening) since no-one really knew who he was; I’d seen him in Spider-Man and even I hardly remembered him, so in many ways this was the perfect “back door pilot” for the superhero movies we were about to see explode onto cinema screens. Unfortunately, we wouldn’t see R-rated superhero films take centre stage during this movement, but I still maintain that not every superhero property even needs to be full of gore and cuss words; but those who do deserve it, like Blade, should definitely veer more towards that and would do well to take a few notes from this classic horror/action film.

With all a vampire’s strengths but none of their weaknesses, Blade wages a relentless crusade.

Blade is the story of…well…Blade…a stoic and highly skilled vampire hunter who was born Eric Brooks. When his mother, Vanessa (Sanaa Lathan), was bitten by a vampire (later revealed to have been the big bad, Deacon Frost) while pregnant, Eric was born a “dhampir” (though the film prefers the term “Daywalker”), a human being with all the strengths of a vampire (heightened senses, superhuman strength, agility, and durability, and skin-piercing fangs) but with none of their weaknesses to sunlight or ultraviolet radiation (which burns and eventually explodes on contact), garlic, or silver. For all his fantastic abilities, though, Blade still ages like a normal human and is still hampered by perhaps the vampire’s most crippling affliction: “The Thirst” for human blood. While other vampires freely indulge their bloodlust, luring in unsuspecting prey and literally raving at underground bloodbaths, Blade relies upon a special serum, derived by his half-crippled mentor, Whistler, to keep the Thirst at bay. Blade takes this serum at least once a day and this is the first time (and one of the rare times) that we see him in an kind of vulnerable state; strapped to a chair, grasping Whistler’s hand for support, his body is wracked by seizures as the serum courses through his veins, leaving his hunger satiated and his body trembling. Aside from this, Blade is an absolute machine when out in the field; stone-faced and exuding menace and confidence, he thinks nothing of walking into a club filled to the brim with horny, blood-hungry vampires and even little of storming a hospital or Frost’s penthouse in the pursuit of his targets. Harbouring a deep-rooted hatred towards vampires since they killed his mother and cursed him with a life of violence and pain, Blade is relentless in his quest to kill every vampire that crosses his path, disrupt and destroy their entrenched hierarchy, and track down and kill Frost, which has earned him a reputation amongst the vampire community as a feared and formidable figure, the aforementioned Daywalker, who is effectively their bogeyman. However, Blade is deeply ashamed by himself; disgusted at his inhuman thirst for blood and sickened at what Frost did to his mother, he seeks solace in the only thing he knows: killing the monsters responsible for his existence to gain just a small sliver of his humanity back with each victory.

Grouchy hard-ass Whistler has devoted his life to training Blade and killing vampires.

Although Blade is somewhat cold and dismissive towards Whistler, who is a crotchety and jaded old man with a prominent limp and a tendency to smoke around flammable liquids, there’s a mutual respect and admiration between the two. When Blade was a boy, Whistler stumbled upon him on the streets and nearly killed him before realising what he was and has been teaching him everything he knows ever since. Whistler has even less love for vampires than the titular hunter; years ago, his wife and children were killed after taking in a drifter, who turned out to be a vampire, and he was forced to watch as they were tortured before his eyes. Quite how he survived this encounter isn’t elaborated, but he’s made it his mission to take them out one by one. Despite their contentious relationship, where Whistler is often admonishing Blade for his actions, there’s a father/son bond between the two; it’s obvious that they care about each other, and Whistler is clearly disturbed at the serum’s increasing ineffectiveness and concerned for Blade’s welfare out in the field. Unfortunately, age, injuries, and cancer have taken their toll on Whistler and he’s no longer able to be an active combatant, something you can tell is a source of great frustration for him. Despite this, he’s still a valuable ally and resource for Blade; his vast knowledge of vampire society and their inner workings allows Blade to pursue Deacon Frost, and Whistler furnishes Blade with all his weapons and his supped-up muscle car, and even makes a dramatic and amusing last-minute save later in the film (his “Catch you fucker’s at a bad time?!” and “Somebody get me a Goddamn wheelchair!” lines are some of the best in the film). For all his piss and vinegar, Whistler has a large heart; he truly cares for Blade and sympathises with Karen’s plight, and his whole mission is motivated by a desire to protect others from the vampire’s bloodlusts. However, while he has an indomitable fighting spirit, his best efforts to protect Karen and fend off Frost are for naught, leaving him beaten, bloodied, and bitten. Blade is left shell-shocked and refuses to finish off his father figure; it’s all he can do to clean Whistler’s wounds and, seeing his protégé’s struggle, Whistler demands that he walk away so he can finish the job himself, and Blade begrudgingly obeys, resuming his grim façade and fuelled by an even greater need to extract revenge on Frost.

Violently thrust into Blade’s world, haematologist Karen works to find a cure for vampirism.

When we first meet her, Karen is just an average overworked and underpaid haematologist trying to get through a nightshift while dismissing the advances of her colleague and former flame, Doctor Curtis Webb (Tim Guinee). She’s violently introduced to Blade’s gruesome world, however, when the charred corpse of Frost’s underling, Quinn (Logue), springs to life and violently attacks both her and Curtis. Although it’s admittedly a bit weird that Blade went to all the trouble of setting Quinn alight to send a message to Frost and then immediately came back to “finish [him] off”, thereby endangering innocents by letting Quinn live, it does mean that he crosses paths with the injured and infected Karen. In a rare moment of emotion, Blade sees a resemblance between Karen and his mother and chooses to take her to his lair rather than finish her off or leave her to turn. Karen thus becomes the audience surrogate; it’s through her interactions with Whistler and Blade that we learn about Blade’s origin, the rules of these vampires, and the lore behind the movie. At first, she’s naturally terrified; not only has she just been attacked by a ravenous, burned up corpse but this hulking motherfucker just threw her out a window and effectively kidnapped her, and her fear only worsens when she’s told that she has a high chance of becoming a vampire even after the treatment they give her. Determined to avoid this fate, and fascinated by their operation, Karen experiments with ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA), discovering that it not only has explosive results when mixed with vampire blood but could also hold the key to curing vampirism. Though this wouldn’t have any affect on Blade since he was born with his abilities, she’s confident that she can cure him with enough time but, ultimately, he requests that she synthesise a more effective serum for him. Since she was attacked, Karen becomes “marked” and thus remains at risk of vampire attacks; this comes to a head when she’s taken hostage by Frost, meaning she willingly allows Blade to drink her blood in order to restore his strength for the finale, but any romantic subplot between them is continually (and refreshingly) downplayed due to Blade’s intense focus on his never-ending mission (although the scene where he drinks her blood seems purposefully shot to evoke an intense love scene).

Upstart sadistic Frost wants nothing more than to rule over the humans and usurp his antiquated elders.

As different as Blade is from his comic book counterpart, Frost is equally a departure from the silver-haired, middle-aged man seen in the comics. Indeed, the movie version of Frost has more in common with David Powers (Kiefer Sutherland) from The Lost Boys (Schumacher, 1987), both aesthetically and in terms of his motivation. Frost is seen by his more composed elders as a disruptive and chaotic individual, one who regards vampires as the dominant species and humans as mere food and whosr antics draw unnecessary attention to their kind not just from Blade, the scourge of vampire society, but also from the humans they so tentatively live alongside. Frost’s mindset is an intriguing one; since he was “merely turned” into a vampire, and was thus once human, his hatred and resentment towards humanity seems to stem from an untampered, sadistic lust for power, bloodshed, and a superiority complex afforded by his superhuman abilities. Seeing the vampire high council as relics of a bygone era, Frost wants nothing more than to run free and rampant, unrestricted by antiquated rules and treaties, and has even found a way to operate in the sunlight using sun block (a ludicrous solution, but it makes for an intimidating confrontation between him and Blade and one of the first popular instances of “bullet time” in cinema). Frost is a twisted, arrogant punk who surrounds himself with a gaggle of likeminded cronies, all of whom revel in indulging their thirst for blood and anarchy, and this extends even as far as to threaten a young girl just to hold Blade at bay and to take the head of the vampire council, Gitano Dragonetti (Kier), rip his fangs out with pliers, and leave him to be annihilated by the rising sun. Despite his disrespect and frustration with the old ways, Frost devotes a great deal of his time, energy, and resources to translating the secret of the “Blood God”, La Magra, from the Book of Erebus (the “Vampire Bible”), discovering that sacrificing twelve “Pure Bloods” will summon the eldritch force and infuse him with its power. A cruel-hearted and vicious individual, Frost takes great pleasure in beating Whistler half to death and delights in torturing Blade not just with the knowledge that his mother is still alive (and a vampire now entirely loyal to Frost) but also by draining his blood to fuel his transformation into the Blood God. Imbued with a virtual immortality, Frost’s ambition more than exceeds his grasp, allowing him to effectively usurp his elders and ascend to a level of existence that threatens to spell the end of days for both humans and any vampires that don’t pledge undying fealty to him.

The Nitty-Gritty:
If there’s a downside to Blade, it’s that it suffers from the annoying trend of having its antagonists sit around in suits and in elaborate boardrooms and office buildings, lording their power and control over the city. However, this actually plays into Frost’s character; unlike the vampire high council and the likes of Gitano Dragonetti, Frost shuns the corporate ways of their society and prefers to indulge his whims, and this dispute leads to a great deal of antagonism between his upstart group and their elders. Indeed, vampire society in Blade is depicted as being firmly entrenched within what we recognise as the real world; they’ve infiltrated every level of society, from politics to law enforcement and real estate, and enjoy the wealth and privileges such influence brings, allowing them to carefully select their victims and modulate their base desires so as not to draw attention to themselves. In contrast to these Pure Bloods, Frost and his cronies are seen as petulant children; admonished for encouraging gatherings of similarly turned vampires and threatening the “treaty” they have with the human politicians (indicating an awareness of vampire society at a higher governmental level, but it’s ignored and/or tolerated to keep from sparking an all-out war that would cost humans their lives and vampires their lofty position). If you’ve ever watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997 to 2003), you’ll be immediately familiar with vampire society in Blade: there’s the older Pure Bloods at the top of the food chain, those they’ve turned and inducted into their cabal (like Frost), but there are also more monstrous variants in their ranks. The morbidly obese Pearl (Eric Edwards), who’s been feeding on children while helping translate the Vampire Bible, is just one such example, but Curtis later pops up as a horrific zombie-like creature as a common by-product of being bitten. On the other side of the coin, the vampires frequently employ “Familiars”, regular humans like Krieger (Kevin Patrick Walls), a police officer who carries Frost’s tattoo and hopes to one day be turned for assisting his master.

Blade excels in its action-packed fight scenes, gritty presentation, and unapologetic gore.

One of the things I absolutely love about Blade is, like The Crow (Proyas, 1994) and The Matrix before it, the film has a heavy reliance upon bad-ass leather trench coats and kung-fu. Garbed head to toe in black and sporting a nifty armour vest, Blade cuts quite the intimidating figure; our introduction to him, standing bone dry amidst a literal bloodbath, couldn’t be more striking and watching him dismantle vampires left and right with ease and skill is always a joy thanks to Snipes’ slick movements and some incredibly well-shot and well-choreographed fight scenes. The action is easy to follow, even when in low or strobe lighting, and Blade oozes confidence and charisma every time he’s on screen even though the character is largely stoic and no-nonsense. Having said that, though, Blade’s grim demeanour does crack on more than one occasion; he gives himself a little fist pump after nailing Quinn to a wall, shares some banter with Whistler, expresses concern over Karen and appreciation towards his allies, but perhaps his most amusing attribute is that he often delivers cool, snappy one-liners (his outburst of “Motherfuckah, are you outta your damn mind?” when the cops shoot at him never fails to amuse and his “Some motherfuckahs are always tryin’ t’ice skate uphill” is exactly the right level of awesome and ridiculous). Blade is so proficient at killing vampires because his superhuman abilities are bolstered by some awesome weapons, courtesy of Whistler; he carries a variety of silver stakes to instantly turn vampires to charred ash, wields a modified MAC-11 for rapid fire like he’s fuckin’ Alex Murphy/RoboCop, blows vampire heads clean off with his shotgun and, of course, carries a titanium, silver-tinted sword that easily allows him to not only sever limbs and reduce even roomfuls of armed vampires to dust but also contains a security feature that means no one but him can hold it without losing a hand! Whistler even furnishes Karen with a compound of “vampire mace” to fend off any unwanted attention, and has put together quite the sexy muscle car for Blade to bomb around the city streets in.

Unfortunately, the film’s effects and finale are bogged down by some ugly CGI blood.

I mentioned Buffy the Vampire Slayer earlier and the comparison is more fitting that you might think; while the vampires don’t sport monstrous make-up like in the show and appear much sexier with their glistening fangs and gothic attire, they die in very much the same way. After being stabbed or sliced with silver, or exposed to sunlight, vampires quickly and violently burn to ash and cinders, an effect that is visually interesting if a little dated. For the most part, Blade does a great job of keeping everything nice and practical; Snipes excels in his fight scenes and shoot-outs, which are all nice and varied and have a great balance of fast-paced, hard-hitting action, explosions, and blood, and the sets are equally diverse, ranging from high-tech archives, the juxtaposition between Frost’s elaborate penthouse and Blade’s rundown lair in the industrial district, and the ancient stone of the Temple of Eternal Night. On the other hand, Pearl is little more than a disgusting mass of rubbery flesh, Frost’s Mac is strangely able to render a complete 3D recreation of the temple simply from translating the Vampire Bible, and, of course, there’s the final confrontation between Blade and Frost himself. After being restored by Karen’s blood (and receiving a power boost as a result) and cutting through Frost’s underlings, and even killing his mother (ultimately an underutilised plot point, I feel, that could’ve easily been dropped), Blade battles the empowered Frost one last time. This one is actually a challenge for Blade; not only is Frost able to match him blow for blow and sword swing for sword swing, but he’s functionally immortal thanks to the Blood God. Despite Frost’s henchwoman, Mercury (Arly Jover), killing one of the twelve Pure Bloods, the ceremony goes off without a hitch, imbuing Frost with the powers of the God (although it’s possible that Mercury’s actions caused him to be more of a demigod than a literal whirlwind of blood). When Blade does cut through Frost’s abdomen for a killing blow, the upstart vampire easily reconnects himself using probably the worst CGI blood effect you’ll ever see. Luckily, these poor blood effects are fleeting and don’t overpower the finale like in the first disastrous test footage, but they do rear their ugly head when Blade bests Frost by injecting him with his entire supply of EDTA, causing him to violently explode in an ugly, bloated mess. Although Frost is dead, this was merely a battle in an ongoing and never-ending war and the film ends with Blade more willing than ever to see his cause through to the conclusion (even ending up hunting vampires in Russia) rather than accept the vague promise of a cure.

The Summary:
It’s actually a little surprising to me how well Blade holds up today; the film has a slick, science-fiction edge to it that permeated subsequent comic book movies like the X-Men films (Various, 2000 to 2020) but it had something to it, a dark, gritty edge, that even now films in the same genre tend to either downplay or ignore. Although it’s undeniably comic book-y in its premise and execution, Blade eschews many of the clichés we’ve come to see from the genre; rather than being a by-the-numbers origin story or feature form-fitting costumes, Blade is primarily a horror/action film and, in this regard, it exceeds tremendously. Full of fast, exciting fight scenes, frenetic chase sequences, and action-packed shoot-outs, Blade is even a cut above other films in the action genre and may very well be the perfect marriage of all these disparate elements. Edgy, gory, and unapologetically aimed at a more mature audience, the film takes everything that worked in The Crow and expands upon it with its gothic, gruesome premise and proceeds the “wire-fu” craze popularised by The Matrix. I’ve never been a massive fan of Wesley Snipes; he’s undeniably cool and certainly has some skills, but it’s a little difficult for me to reconcile his personal life with his movies, which haven’t always been able to compete with his peers, but Blade was a great showcase of his physical abilities and easily his most iconic character for me since it allows him to be stoic, deeply emotional, and snarky in addition to tossing fools around like they were nothing. The depiction of vampire society as being a conflict of interests between the antiquated old guard and Frost’s arrogant upstarts echoed The Lost Boys and nicely challenged the cliché of all-powerful, corporate antagonists, and was a significant influence on the genre going forward. While some of the effects haven’t aged too well and the plot point of Blade’s mother still being alive didn’t really land for me, neither of these things really detract from how enjoyable Blade is. Although I actually prefer the more violent and action-packed sequel, there’s a definite appeal to how raw and uncompromising the original is, especially in its depiction of more horrific and gory moments, and it’s a great piece of dark, gritty vampire fiction for fans of the genre.

My Rating:

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Great Stuff

Are you fan of Blade? What did you think to it when it first came out and how do you think it holds up today? Were you a fan of the comic book character prior to this film and, if so, what did you think to the changes made to his powers and origin? What did you think to the performances, specifically Wesley Snipes and Stephen Dorff, and were you moved by Whistler’s death? Did you enjoy the film’s gore and action sequences, and what are your thoughts on the CGI used in the finale? Which vampire movie or story is your favourite, and which of the Blade films or comics do you enjoy? Whatever your thoughts on Blade, feel free to share them below.

Movie Night [Global James Bond Day]: The Man with the Golden Gun

Dr. K2 Comments

To celebrate the release of Dr. No (Young, 1962), the first in the long-running series of James Bond movies (Various, 1962 to present), October 5th is officially recognised as “Global James Bond Day”. Today, this franchise stands as the longest-running franchise ever and the character is one of the most recognised and popular movie icons of all time.

Released: 19 December 1974
Director: Guy Hamilton
Distributor: United Artists
Budget: $7 million
Stars: Roger Moore, Christopher Lee, Britt Ekland, Hervé Villechaize, Soon-Taik Oh, Richard Loo, and Maud Adams

The Plot:
Sophisticated super spy James Bond/007 (Moore) may have met his match in Francisco Scaramanga (Lee), a world-renowned assassin whose weapon of choice is a distinctive gold pistol. When Scaramanga seizes the priceless Solex Agitator energy convertor, Bond must recover the device and confront the trained killer in a heart-stopping duel to the death!

The Background:
James Bond, Agent 007 of MI6, was the creation of writer Ian Fleming in 1953 and was heavily inspired by his time and experiences as a navy intelligence officer. James Bond was most famously brought to life by Sean Connery, who kick-started an unparalleled cinematic franchise. However, after five films as the super spy, Connery began to tire of the role; after being lured back for a whopping $1.25 million and other perks, Connery walked away from Bond (…for a time…) and, while still finishing up with The Saint (1962 to 1969), suave Roger Moore took over and immediately set about making it his own so as not to imitate Connery’s iconic performance, eventually becoming a softer and more gentle Bond. Moore’s Bond debut, Live and Let Die (Hamilton, 1973) was a commercial success, though garnered mixed reviews, and famed Bond producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman finally set about making a big-screen adaptation of Fleming’s 1965 novel, a polarising tale that set Bond against a notorious assassin. It was writer Tom Mankiewicz who altered Scaramanga’s character into a dark mirror of Bond himself, and the adaptation ended up being very different from the source material after taking inspiration from the 1973 energy crisis. Christopher Lee, Fleming’s step-cousin, finally got his chance to play a Bond villain and received high praise for his performance, though he struggled a bit with the Golden Gun prop device. The film was shot in numerous locations around Hong Kong, with the nearby Ko Khao Phing Kan islands housing Scaramanga’s suitably elaborate and bizarre lair. The Man with the Golden Gun was notable for its car stunts, one of which made it into the Guinness Book of Records; the barrel roll was caught in one take and saw a stunt driver guide an AMC Hornet over a specially-constructed ramp for the shot, which was mired only by an unfortunate slide whistle sound effect. Although The Man with the Golden Gun grossed over $97 million at the box office, notably less than its predecessor and coming in as the fourth-lowest-grossing film in the series. Reviews were mixed upon release, with critics questioning the script and redundancy of the film, regarding it as an uninspiring entry, despite Lee’s performance, and the film very nearly ended the franchise right then and there. It didn’t, of course; Moore’s Bond was back three years later with The Spy Who Loved Me (Gilbert, 1977), which got the franchise back on track and has been regarded as one of the best Bond movies ever.

The Review:
It was very interesting in preparing for this review to find out that The Man with the Golden Gun wasn’t very successful or well liked upon release, and that it’s since garnered a legacy as one of the worst Bond films ever made. When I first started getting into James Bond, Roger Moore was my main doorway into the classic films; Pierce Brosnan was the Bond of my generation and I’d struggled to get into the Sean Connery films for some time, but Moore’s films were far more appealing to me as they were more fun and quirky and far less dry and dull like a lot of Connery’s films. Consequently, I always had a fondness for The Man with the Golden Gun; granted, much of this was because there was a mystique surrounding the title character thanks to his trademark weapon being such a game-breaking inclusion in the classic GoldenEye 007 (Rare, 1997) but this game was my primary gateway into the franchise so anything that was included in it became a fascination for me. The film opens not with a crazy action sequence or with James Bond on a mission, but on Scaramanga’s opulent island getaway near Red China. Here, surly gangster Rodney (Marc Lawrence) shows up to kill Scaramanga and claim a hefty bounty from his pint-sized butler, Nick Nack (Villechaize). Naturally, he’s unsuccessful, but this establishes many aspects of the titular assassin that come into play later in the film: he’s a skilled gunman and survivor who delights in engaging in live competition against other killers, his island is a veritable funhouse full of animatronic distractions used to disorientate both him and his foe, he’s a crack shot with his trademark weapon, easily scoring a headshot even under low lighting, and he seems to regard James Bond as the ultimate opponent since he has a life-sized dummy of the super spy in his house of tricks.

The bullish Bond appears to have met his match in renowned assassin Scaramanga.

Scaramanga holds a unique distinction amongst other Bond villains in that he’s only the second one to have not only the film but also the title song named after him. Everything you need to know about this sadistic marksman is related in Lulu’s awkward, if catchy, opening song; he’s a world-famous assassin who’s so proficient that he can afford to charge $1 million for a hit. With few morals, he’ll take any contract as long as the client pays this fee, and he likes to engage in “love” before completing his assignment, and only requires one bullet to claim his bounty. However, there’s actually a surprising amount of depth and quirkiness to Scaramanga; as a child, he worked in the circus training animals, and was so enraged when his best friend, a performing elephant, was killed by a stage hand that he immediately took his revenge and found that he enjoyed killing even more than animals. Consequently, while he basks in the opulence of his fully-automated and luxurious island abode, Scaramanga takes a perverse pleasure in every kill and thrives on testing his skills against other, equally worthy opponents. Though he’s notorious enough that even James Bond and MI6 are aware of him, few have actually seen Scaramanga’s face and lived to tell of it; he’s readily identifiable, however, by his recognisable third nipple, a curious physical quirk that allows Bond to impersonate Scaramanga. Although he comes across as a cool, calculating, and even charismatic man, charming women and clients alike with his eloquence and wealth, Scaramanga is a ruthless and abusive man; Andrea Anders (Adams) lives in constant fear of him, to the point where she risks her life and offers her body just to get Bond to free her from his grasp, and even Nick Nack appears to covet Scaramanga’s wealth and power. Bond also gives a quick rundown of the titular assassin’s life history; of course, during his time, Bond films loved to have 007 do this, so this isn’t exactly anything new and actually helps establish the a reputation Scaramanga has. Despite his constant despair over Bond’s childish antics, M (Bernard Lee) is thus understandably perturbed when one of Scaramanga’s golden bullets arrives baring not only Bond’s number but also Scaramanga’s fingerprints, resulting in one of my favourite exchanges in the film where M gruffly rattles off the list of potential suspects who would happily pay $1 million to kill Bond. Recognising the threat, M forces Bond to take a sabbatical, but surreptitiously gives him carte blanche to investigate the threat. Luckily for Bond, his concerns about the “energy crisis” and the mysterious Solex Agitator align with his efforts to track down Scaramanga, which is made easier by Scaramanga having assassinated a fellow 00 Agent in Beirut but also because Bond is approached by Andrea, the woman behind the golden 007 bullet, who offers him anything he desires to kill her abuser.

Bond is aided, and opposed, by a variety of cartoonish supporting characters.

As much as I enjoy the quirkier side of Bond as embodied by Moore, it’s true that he’s not quite in that role here; Bond is unduly rude and dismissive of Mary Goodnight (Ekland), threatens to shoot a man in the groin, tosses a little boy into water, and smacks Andrea around before seducing her in the same brutally manipulative style of his predecessor. Still, Moore’s suave charm is more than evident (he easily seduces a belly dancer (Carmen du Sautoy) in possession of one of Scaramanga’s bullets) and to be fair, it’s implied that Bond is more than familiar with Goodnight and doesn’t regard her as much of an agent (and why would he? She’s easily one of the more scatter-brained Bond Girls so I’m not surprised that Bond is exasperated by her). Bond walks into every situation with an effortless confidence; even when attacked by larger men, or highly-trained karate students, his resolve doesn’t falter and he finds a way to fight, shoot, or run from the problem with trademark physics-defying deftness. A far cry from later, more independent and capable Bond Girls, Goodnight is little more than an inconvenience; she has some local knowledge, but mostly just gets in the way and ends up taken hostage. Although she has one flash of brilliance when she superbly knocks down Bond’s charms, she’s only too eager to hop into bed with him and is incensed when he literally stuffs her into a wardrobe to screw Andrea to get closer to Scaramanga, meaning she’s one of the few Bond Girls who’s immediately besotted by Bond and desires him, whereas most of her counterparts at least need a bit of convincing first. Goodnight is juxtaposed by the alluring Andrea, a desperate victim of Scaramanga’s lusts and control who puts her life on the line getting his finger prints on the bullet and note sent to MI6 all so Bond can slap her about and bully her into revealing Scaramanga’s location. However, this is nothing compared to Scaramanga; we never see or learn exactly what he does to Andrea, aside from a brief scene of her clearly disgusted by him, but it’s clear that she has nothing but hatred for the cold-blooded assassin, who has no compunction about putting killing her for her betrayal. While in Hong Kong, Bond works with local agent Lieutenant Hip (Oh) who, wouldn’t you know it, is not only proficient in martial arts but even has nieces who are similarly trained, allowing the movie to clumsily capitalise on the recent popularity of kung-fu movies like Enter the Dragon (Clouse, 1973). Sadly, Q’s (Desmond Llewelyn) role is disappointingly small and little more than a cameo and armaments expert Colthorpe (James Cossins) steals lines and screen time away from the recurring quartermaster, and the secondary villains aren’t much to shout about either. Scaramanga takes a contract from Thai industrialist Hai Fat (Richard Loo), whom he promptly kills (for free, despite Lulu’s assertions to the contrary…) so he can assume control of his business and claim the coveted Solex Agitator for himself, and his reportedly perverted, diminutive henchman Nick Nack is little (no pun intended…) more than a cackling nuisance who Bond easily dispatches, despite wishing to take his employer’s vast estate for himself by arranging (or, at least, co-operating) in his death.

The Nitty-Gritty:
As with any James Bond film, it’s always worth discussing the title sequence and song. Sadly, The Man with the Golden Gun doesn’t impress in this department; James Bond films of this era were decidedly simple and lacklustre compared to the more elaborate title sequences that would come later, but this is a mess of glittering lights, dancing bodies, and primarily focuses on the titular weapon being held and waved in our faces just in case you forget what Scaramanga is known for. Earlier, I described Lulu’s song as “awkward”; it’s a catchy tune and definitely sticks in the head, but there’s some weird lines like “If-you-want-to-get-rid-of-some-one, the-man-with-the-golden-gun-n-n…willgetitdone!”, which would flow a lot better if “want to” was substituted with “wanna”. While Bond films tend to be quite formulaic, especially in this era, they’re often salvaged by their exotic locations, gadgets, and colourful villains and The Man with the Golden Gun excels in this latter aspect. Christopher Lee brings a charismatic menace, largely carrying the film and stealing every scene with his magnetic performance and alluring delivery, switching between affable and menacing with a natural ease. It’s a shame, then, that the film is lumbered with a far less interesting side plot regarding the Solex Agitator; Q stresses that the device is integral to solving the world’s energy crisis but it’s not clear how it works and even Scaramanga isn’t all that interested in the specifics. I guess the film wouldn’t have been as interesting without some kind of world-threatening crisis in the background, but it might’ve benefitted from making Scaramanga’s endgame a little more explicit as he’s far more focused on killing and testing his unmatched marksmanship against the world’s greatest super spy.

Scaramanga is positioned as Bond’s dark mirror and feels a kinship towards the famous super spy.

A prominent theme throughout the film is the idea of both Scaramanga and Bond being world-renowned killers; Scaramanga views Bond as the only man worthy of testing his skills against, and even gun and munitions manufacturer Lazar (Marne Maitland) is in awe of Bond’s reputation as a marksman. I have some issues with this (after all, it can hardly be conducive for a spy for all and sundry to know their name and repute), but it fits perfectly with Bond’s ego and arrogance (he always openly introduces himself as “Bond, James Bond”, gives out his number, and usually always identifies himself as working for the British government so it’s natural that the underworld is aware of him). This ties directly into Scaramanga’s belief that he and Bond are cut from the same cloth; while treating Bond to his lavish hospitality, Scaramanga goads 007 by suggesting they each get a thrill out of killing, though Bond vehemently disagrees. It’s a fascinating dichotomy, one that is probably an ill fit for Moore’s Bond, who seems nonchalant about killing half the time (always pausing to straighten his tie and deliver a pithy one-liner) and regretful the rest, with only a handful of instances where he was more brutal in his methods (none of which are here, where Bond’s body count is noticeably low). When it’s revealed that Scaramanga hasn’t been contracted to kill Bond, cracks noticeably appear in this plot thread; Scaramanga states that he “doesn’t have anything against” Bond when they finally meet, and yet has a life-size dummy of him in his funhouse and, later, delivers a menacing diatribe about how alike they are, and even M admits that things would be easier if Scaramanga were gunning for Bond as it would be less of a crisis compared to the disappearance of the Solex Agitator, which promises to end the energy crisis by making fossil fuels redundant.

While the fights aren’t great, the sets are fun and the famous car roll remains an impressive stunt.

The Man with the Golden Gun is surprisingly light on Bond gadgets; Bond doesn’t get a fancy car or even some wearable tech. In fact, the only thing Q fits him with is an artificial third nipple so he can impersonate Scaramanga, a ruse that fails since Hai Fat has a working relationship with the renowned assassin, and the only impressive gadget is the titular golden gun, a custom-built, single-shot pistol assembled from four seemingly innocuous golden objects. Still, that’s not to say that The Man with the Golden Gun doesn’t have its fair share of stunts and exciting chase sequences; Bond flees from Hai Fat’s martial arts academy (after being inexplicably left behind by Hip) on a motorised sampan for some wacky hijinks, Scaramanga escapes in an AMC Matador that bizarrely transforms into a plane, but of course the most memorable stunt is Bond’s incredible barrel roll in an AMC Hornet that’s sadly undermined not just by the aforementioned slide whistle effect but also the blustering commentary provided by the cartoonish Sherriff J. W. Pepper (Clifton James). Bond’s fight scenes are as ungainly as ever from this time in the franchise, with Moore’s Bond specialising in improvisation and underhanded tactics such as using nearby objects, attacking the groin, and disregarding kung-fu’s code of honour. Bond succeeds in every physical encounter simply because the script says he must, meaning he can hold his own against two sumo wrestlers and even punch out Hai Fats top student, Chula (Chan Yiu Lam), and unfortunately he’s not really given a physical challenge to test himself against beyond enduring Scaramanga’s funhouse. As is also a Bond tradition, The Man with the Golden Gun visits some exotic locations, primarily Hong Kong and Thailand; Bond reconvenes with his superiors on the wreckage of the RMS Queen Elizabeth, giving us a fun slanted set, fights and speeds away through rural Bangkok, and has a tense encounter with Scaramanga at a Muay Thai boxing match, but the most impressive set is, naturally, Scaramanga’s island home.

Bond outsmarts Scaramanga, ending his threat, and finally gives Goodnight some attention.

Although she ends up as little more than a piece of eye candy as Scaramanga’s hostage, Goodnight allows Bond to pinpoint Scaramanga’s location thanks to the homing device she placed in his vehicle, leading 007 to Scaramanga’s vast, elaborate estate. In addition to his elaborate funhouse, Scaramanga’s lair houses a sophisticated solar power planet facility that, luckily for the charming assassin, is all fully automated (he has one inept guard, Kra (Sonny Caldinez)). Interestingly, it’s Bond, rather than Scaramanga, who explains what the facility is capable of since Scaramanga doesn’t understand the Solex Agitator. Indeed, he’s more interested in using focused solar energy to power his destructive laser cannon, and he’s largely content to use Hai Fat’s business to give himself the monopoly in solar energy, which he can then outsource or sell to others (or take bribes from fossil fuel manufacturers). Rather than concern himself with the particulars of all this science and business, Scaramanga’s absolutely giddy at finally testing himself against the legendary James Bond. Despite putting himself at a disadvantage since his golden gun only fires one bullet, Scaramanga has the natural advantage since they’re on his home turf and both he and Nick Nack delight in watching Bond stumble around, wasting his ammo on the same distractions that were so helpfully shown in the opening sequence. Ultimately, however, Scaramanga meets his match when Bond uses his life-sized dummy to catch the wealthy murderer by surprise with a single shot from his Walther PPK, finally ending Scaramanga’s threat. Quite conveniently, Goodnight knocked Kra into a vat of liquid helium, causing the facility (and the entire island) to go into meltdown. Of course, Bond retrieves the Solex Agitator (despite Goodnight’s bumbling) and escapes, and even fends off one final attack from Nick Nack before finally getting it on with Goodnight ahead of the credits.

The Summary:
It’s hard for me to be negative about The Man with the Golden Gun as it was one of the first Roger Moore James Bond film I ever saw and I’ve always had a soft spot for it, primarily because of how alluring and enigmatic the titular assassin is. Christopher Lee always brought his A-game to every role, especially villainous ones, and he plays Francisco Scaramanga with such delicious relish that it’s hard to deny that he’s the best part of the film and seems to be enjoying himself. Roger Moore, as ever, remains one of the most fun and charismatic Bonds; although he’s got a little too much of Sean Connery’s blunt edge here, and is quite the bully towards Mary Goodnight, he effortlessly charms, fights, and overcomes every situation, no matter how unlikely the odds or how physically outmatched he is, and I’ve always been a fan of his suave delivery and unflinching confidence in the role. While the film is undeniably bogged down by some cartoonish supporting characters and perplexing side plots, The Man with the Golden Gun is the first movie to present us with a dark reflection of 007 in Scaramanga, a sadistic assassin whose skills with a pistol are more than a match for Bond’s own, and I would’ve loved to see the idea of Bond’s occasionally ruthless and cold-blooded ways being explored in a dark opposite in one of Daniel Craig’s movies since his Bond had more of an edge than Moore’s. Still, it makes for one of the best and most memorable Bond villains; the climactic showdown between the two is a tense and engaging shoot out, despite Goodnight’s pratfalls, and I enjoyed seeing Bond on the back foot for a change and having to adapt to his surroundings to win rather than simply overpowering or outshooting his rival because the script says so. Honestly, I’m not sure why people rate this one so low; it’s not perfect, of course, and has its flaws, but all Bond films do. It’s maybe not the best of Roger Moore’s outings as the famous spy, but it’s still one of my favourites of his and I find the positives far outweigh the negatives thanks to Christopher Lee’s captivating presence and performance, the thematic parallels between Scaramanga and Bond, and the lavish locations on offer.

My Rating:

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Great Stuff

Are you a fan of The Man with the Golden Gun? Where does it rank against the other James Bond films for you? What did you think to the thematic parallel between Bond and Scaramanga? Did you enjoy Christopher Lee’s performance and where does Scaramanga rank in your list of favourite Bond villains? What did you think to Goodnight and Bond’s bullish ways? Which Bond actor, film, story, villain, or moment is your favourite? How are you celebrating Global James Bond Day today? Whatever you think about The Man with the Golden Gun, or James Bond in general, feel free to leave a comment below.