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Movie Night [X-Men Month]: X-Men: First Class

14/05/202204/07/2024Dr. K7 Comments

To commemorate, the culmination of their long-running and successful X-Men movies, 20^th Century Fox declared May 13^th as “X-Men Day”, a day to celebrate all things Mutant and X-Men and celebrate Marvel’s iconic collection of superpowered beings who fight to protect a world that hates and fears them. After exhausting all of their storylines with their original cast, save for Hugh Jackman, 20^th Century Fox began producing a series of loose prequels centred on younger X-characters and, while X-Men Day coincided with Friday the 13^th this year, I’m going to spend the next few weeks looking back at the first three entries in this “Beginnings Trilogy” and see if they still hold up today.

Released: May 2011
Director: Matthew Vaughn
Distributor: 20^th Century Fox
Budget: $140 to 160 million
Stars: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Rose Byrne, Nicholas Hoult, Lucas Till, Caleb Landry Jones, Zoë Kravitz, and Kevin Bacon

The Plot:
In 1962, right in the middle of the Cuban missile crisis, newly-graduated Professor Charles Xavier (McAvoy) meets Erik Lehnsherr (Fassbender) for the first time. United in their search for the Mutant terrorist Sebastian Shaw (Bacon), the two join forces with the United States government in forming the first team of Mutants and working to avert World War Three.

The Background:
The X-Men have been an integral part of Marvel Comics ever since they debuted back in 1963. Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, the X-Men offered, through their Mutant heritage, an easy excuse to introduce multiple new superheroes with minimal effort. Since then, the X-Men, and all of Mutantkind, have existed as a metaphor for a variety of social issues and seen much success outside of the pages of Marvel Comics thanks to a number of action figures, cartoons, and videogames. After purchasing the film rights, 20^th Century Fox profited greatly from the franchise; the first three X-Men movies (Various, 2000 to 2006) alone brought in over $600 million and they had seen similar financial success with a spin-off movie centred around the franchise’s breakout star, Logan/Wolverine (Hugh Jackman). It was during the production of X-Men 2 (Singer, 2003) that the idea of a prequel revolving around younger versions of the X-Men was first proposed; after X-Men: The Last Stand (Ratner, 2006) effectively ended the series, with most of the main cast either dead, depowered, or having exhausted their story arcs, Fox returned to the idea of producing prequels with plans for a spin-off focusing on a young Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto (Ian McKellen). Perhaps shaken by the mediocre critical reception of X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Hood, 2009), Fox abandoned any further ideas of individual spin-offs and ordered a rewrite of the script to focus on Erik and Charles’s early years and the formation of the original X-Men. Although Bryan Singer, who had helmed the first two X-Men movies and very much set the tone and standard for Fox’s franchise, was unable to direct, he returned as a producer and Fox hired Matthew Vaughn (who had previously dropped out of directing the third film) to direct and the idea for the prequel began to take real shape. X-Men: First Class released to strong reviews, a warm critical reception, and eventually made over $350 million in worldwide gross; for many who were disappointed with X-Men Origins: Wolverine, X-Men: First Class represented a step in the right direction for the franchise but, for me, it represented the first sign that Fox were playing it fast and loose with continuity.

The Review:
X-Men: First Class begins with a shot-for-shot recreation of the opening from the first X-Men movie: that is, a young Erik Lehnsherr (Bill Milner/Brett Morris) first discovering his ability to control metal in a Nazi death camp. The purpose of this scene is blatantly obvious and two-fold; the film wants you to remember Erik’s tragic and complex beginnings while also wanting to course-correct back on track to align with Singer’s original vision for the franchise. Oddly, as I’ll get into later, this desire to shift the franchise back towards that quasi-science-fiction, grounded approach is at odds with the direction First Class’s script wants to take its characters so, for me, opening with this scene was more of an insult than a welcome homage.

*Lacking Erik’s troublesome childhood, Xavier works to raise awareness of Mutants.*

The film could easily have just began with Erik in the office of Nazi scientist Doctor Klaus Schmidt (Bacon); this scene extends that of Singer’s original, impactful opening to show how Erik’s powers were a source of fascination for the Nazis and does just as much to setup his motivations for the remainder of the film. Schmidt, a Mutant himself, forces Erik to use his powers by first threatening and then executing his mother, which would be the driving force for Erik’s lust for revenge and hatred of humanity. At the same time, a young Charles Xavier (Laurence Belcher) meets and befriends Raven Darkhölme (Morgan Lily) and, honestly, this should have been the first clue that these new X-Men movies were not going to concern themselves with things like logic or continuity. While X-Men: First Class gives some much-needed backstory to Raven (who, when she goes up to be Jennifer Lawrence, eventually takes the name “Mystique”), it does so at the cost of the continuity of the original trilogy as Xavier never once mentions that he had this brother/sister relationship with Mystique (Rebecca Romijn) nor does the older Mystique ever use this relationship to her advantage in those films.

*Michael Fassbender steals the show from the proto-X-Men with his complex, seething menace.*

Still, we continue, giving the film the benefit of the doubt, when these characters grow into James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender, respectively. Rather than the wise, all-knowing father-figure of the original X-Men films, Xavier here is a young, post-grad student who downs alcohol and uses both his knowledge of Mutations and his mental powers to pick up chicks in bars. With his long, thick hair and sixties sensibilities, Xavier is a far more “hip and groovy” character but the moment he meets Moira McTaggert (Byrne) and learns of Schmidt’s (now calling himself Sebastian Shaw) plot to incite a third world war, he’s all about assembling his own team of Mutants and working alongside Moira and the CIA to build better relationships between humans and Mutants. It’s an interesting look at the character’s early years but it’s nothing compared to the far more interesting story involving the future Magneto; desperate to hunt down Shaw and make him pay, Erik has spent his entire life tracking down those responsible for his incarceration, torture, and the deaths of his family and people. Fassbender excels in the role, bringing a tortured, focused edge to the character and shines in every scene he’s in; his quiet, seething vengeance is tempered somewhat when he meets and befriends Xavier (another contradiction to the original films as Xavier is clearly not seventeen in this movie…) but their relationship is destined to fail based solely on Erik’s desire to kill Shaw, to say nothing of his own conflicting desire for Mutant prosperity. Still, once the two begin working together, they are introduced to Henry “Hank” McCoy/Beast (Hoult) and, thanks to his prototype Cerebro technology, begin recruiting a team of young Mutants to help oppose Shaw’s own club of misfits. In true X-Men fashion, this means a whole bunch of characters are suddenly thrown into the mix with little to make them stand out beyond them all being young and sexy and having cool-looking powers. Of them all, it is, thankfully, Hank who gets the most screen time and development thanks to his immediate attraction to Raven, his awkward, quirky characterisation, and his desire to develop a serum to suppress his more unattractive physical qualities. Though it seems he and Raven are united in the desire to appear “normal”, she ultimately comes to embrace her unique appearance and, when Hank’s serum actually accelerates his Mutation, he is forced to do the same.

*Despite it literally being his Mutant power, Darwin is unable to adapt to survive Shaw’s attack.*

The other members of this proto-X-team aren’t so lucky; Sean Cassidy/Banshee (Jones) does alright, being the amusing comic relief of the team, but Alex Summers/Havok (Till) is little more than the “moody bad boy” of the group who, with very little motivation, comes to accept the team as his friends and surrogate family. Angel Salvadore (Kravitz) randomly decides to defect to Shaw’s side when he offers them the chance, with no real explanation or reason beyond the deal apparently sounding better than being mocked by the CIA, but the real slap in the face is the ultimate fate of Armando Muñoz/Darwin (Edi Gathegi) who, despite literally being able to “adapt to survive”, is unable to keep himself from being blown to pieces by Shaw. I mean, we’ve seen that he is able to spontaneously grow gills and armour-plating but it’s apparently too much to find a way to resist Alex’s concussive blasts. Yet at least these proto-X-Men get a neat little training montage to show off snippets of their personalities and powers, however this loses quite a bit of its impact when it’s revealed that they trained and mastered their powers in one week, which honestly isn’t quite as bad as the fact that Xavier found it perfectly acceptable to use this time in this way even though the threat of war is literally hanging over their heads. It’s almost as if the film has too many characters and should have just focused on Xavier, Magneto, Beast, and Mystique as the primary protagonists but this is, of course, only exacerbated by the fact that Shaw has his own evil team of Mutants.

*Shaw’s little club all look cool but are painfully under-developed as characters.*

Similar to Magneto’s original Brotherhood, the sheer number of characters and the pace of the film demands that these antagonists simply look cool and not much else, with the exception of Emma Frost (January Jones), who also looks sexy and has a slightly bigger role as she is Shaw’s right-hand woman and a telepath. Azazel (Jason Flemyng) has a great look and is clearly meant to be evoking Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler (Alan Cumming) but we learn absolutely nothing about him; no seeds are planted for a relationship between him and Mystique that might lead to Nightcrawler’s birth and he gets only one line. Still, it’s one line more than Janos Quested/Riptide (Álex González), who says nothing the entire movie and simply whips up a few mini tornados (or twisters, whatever) and causes some minor inconveniences for the team. Again, it’s almost as if Shaw’s team should have been scaled down to four characters rather than five. Luckily, though, Shaw gets plenty of screen time and Bacon is clearly relishing the role, chewing the scenery and portraying Shaw as an unhinged sociopath who lays much of the groundwork for the villain Erik is destined to become. Able to absorb and redirect energy to maintain his youth, Shaw is a near-unstoppable antagonist, even more so when he acquires a special helmet from the Russians to protect himself from psychic attacks. His motivations are simple to grasp; like Erik, he’s seen the lengths of man’s inhumanity to man and wishes to use a full-scale nuclear war to cleanse the Earth and bring about an age of prosperity for Mutantkind and, as such, he’s a despicable character through and through with an undeniable amount of charisma, making for a fitting challenge for these proto-X-Men.

The Nitty-Gritty:
X-Men: First Class has an interesting premise and does a decent job, for the most part, of fleshing out the early years of Xavier and Magneto. However, despite its pacing being far better than that of X-Men (Singer, 2000) and X-Men Origins: Wolverine, it suffers from trying to cram everything into its runtime despite the fact that a sequel was clearly set up and going to be produced that would have allowed some of these storylines to play out at a much more comfortable pace.

*Desperate to cram everything into its runtime, the film inexplicably ends with Xavier paralysed!*

As a result, we get numerous timeline discrepancies in the film: Xavier grew up with Mystique and meets Erik when they’re much older than first stated; Hank builds Cerebro rather than Charles and Erik, Xavier’s first students are wildly different than those hinted at in the previous films and, most egregious of all, the film concludes with Xavier being paralysed by an errant bullet and Erik assuming the role and name of Magneto. No matter how you slice it, none of this aligns with the continuity of the time as we saw a young, bald, walking Xavier, still friends with Magneto, in the opening sequence of The Last Stand and a young, bald, walking Xavier at the conclusion of X-Men Origins, both of which were still canon at this point. The film seems to be in a rush to catch up to the beginning of the first X-Men movie and, honestly, should have ended with Xavier fully-functional and planning to open his house to more Mutants alongside Erik, who would be affected and changed by his final confrontation with Shaw.

*Erik eventually becomes Magneto and look ready to strike back at the world…until the next film…*

There is quite a big inconsistency in this film as well, though, wider canon notwithstanding. Obviously, I touched upon Darwin being offed so easily but, for me, the main issue is how vehemently Xavier opposes Erik’s desire to kill Shaw. Xavier believes that killing Shaw in cold blood will set Erik down a dark path he won’t be able to recover from and he’s right, of course, but the inconsistency is that we’ve seen (and, thanks to reading Erik’s mind, Xavier has seen) that Erik has plenty of blood on his hands already. He describes himself as a “weapon” and this appears to be true; he’s tortured and killed numerous people in his bid to track down and end Shaw so why should one more death darken his fate? It doesn’t help that Erik’s descent into villain as told in this film is repeated over and over again in the next three sequels, all of which repeat the same arc (Erik starts off good, becomes morally grey, and ends the film fully-garbed as Magneto and ready to strike back at humanity…only to start the next film good and the cycle repeats). It’s one of those things that seems to work on the surface but falls apart when you think about it and is, again, something that could have been improved upon had the script focused on just Xavier and Erik and a slightly altered greater conflict rather than throwing in a bunch of under-developed or superfluous characters.

*This brief cameo did more for Logan’s character than his own spin-off movie!*

Speaking of which, the also contains a bevy of cameos; Rebecca Romijn briefly appears in a fun cameo when Mystique is randomly seducing Erik (seriously, their sudden sexual relationship kind of comes out of nowhere and is purely motivated by Raven wanting to hurt Charles and feeling alienated from Hank) and veteran actors like James Remar, Ray Wise, and Michael Ironside all randomly show up in the film’s third act but the true icing on the cake was the brief cameo by Hugh Jackman as Logan. X-Men: First Class was the first real test to see if an X-Men movie could survive and be just as successful without Jackman in a leading role and, judging by its box office and reception, it clearly succeeded in this regard but it’s still fun to see Jackman randomly pop up and tell his future mentor and adversary to “Go fuck [themselves]”.

The Summary:
X-Men: First Class is a fun and engaging X-Men movie; it’s got a fantastic revenge subplot involving the future Magneto and is clearly inspired not only by Singer’s original X-Men movies but also 1960s spy thrillers, all of which give it a familiar, and yet unique, flavour within the franchise. McAvoy and Fassbender steal the show from start to finish but Bacon is a deliciously devilish villain and the acting and action sequences are pretty good, overall, with the film showing new and interesting takes on established characters and shedding more light on events only previously hinted at. And, yet, for me, Fox made a massive mistake by marketing and constructing this film as a prequel. It honestly should have just been a straight-up reboot, restarting the franchise with young actors and a whole new timeline of events rather than trying to awkwardly align with the established canon. For me, continuity is everything and you simply cannot watch X-Men: First Class as part of the wider X-Men canon because it just doesn’t fit; they should have done what the James Bond franchise did and kept Jackman but recast everyone else and started completely fresh because, when you need a convoluted timeline to explain what’s going and where things fit and it still doesn’t completely line up, you’ve kind of lost me as a viewer. The irony is that the very next movie had the perfect excuse to explain these inconsistencies and chose not to, meaning that my opinion of X-Men: First Class is decidedly frosty and conflicted, at best.

My Rating:

Pretty Good

What are your thoughts on X-Men: First Class? Were you as annoyed by its disregard for the existing canon as I was or do you think the film is able to hold up despite this? What did you think of the cast and characters and the bigger role given to Mystique? Which heroes and villains, or storylines, do you think would have worked better for a proto-X-Men team? How did you celebrate X-Men Day this year? Whatever you think, feel free to leave your thoughts and opinions on X-Men below and be sure to come back next week for another X-Men review.

Game Corner: The Simpsons Game (Xbox 360)

10/05/202226/09/2022Dr. KLeave a comment

Released: 30 October 2007
Developer: EA Redwood Shores
Also Available For: Nintendo DS, Nintendo Wii, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable

The Background:
The Simpsons was created by Matt Groening as a series of short cartoons created for The Tracey Ullman Show; jumping at the chance to produce an alternative to the “mainstream trash” that was currently airing, Groening’s yellow-skinned creations soon became a multimedia sensation as “Bartmania” swept the nation. The Simpsons featured in every piece of merchandise imaginable, from action figures and comics to videogames, though the franchise doesn’t have the best reputation when it comes to videogame adaptations. For years, Konami’s 1991 arcade game was the stand out but Electronic Arts (EA) sought to change that by working closely with Groening and notable Simpsons writers on a new Simpsons videogame, which was written as a parody of popular videogame tropes and incorporated a cel-shaded graphical style to recreate the aesthetic of the show. The game received a mixed reception; some praised the game’s humour and appeal for die-hard Simpsons fans but others took issue with the game’s mundane combat and puzzles. While EA initially planned to produce a sequel, it was ultimately cancelled and The Simpsons eventually ended up moving to mobile gaming, but, since today is Whacking Day, I figured it would be a good excuse to revisit this title and see how it holds up today.

The Plot:
In a self-referential plot, the Simpsons family (Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie) discover that they are part of a videogame world when they acquire a game guide that grants them the superpowers necessary to not only star in what they hope will be a successful videogame for a change but also defend their town from attacks by aliens and explore videogame worlds in a quest to confront their creator, Matt Groening.

Gameplay:
The Simpsons Game is a third-person action game in which players explore a relatively faithful three-dimensional recreation of Springfield, which acts as something of a hub world where you can access the game’s story-based missions as well as enter certain houses, view collectibles, change costumes, and find collectibles. At any one time, you’ll control two of the titular family members; you can switch between them using the directional pad (D-Pad) and swap them out for other combinations at a number of bus stops dotted around the city. If you have a friend, you can play in split-screen co-op but, for the most part, the computer does a decent enough job of following you around, attacking enemies, and pressing switches as needed (and if they don’t, you can just swap over to the other character using the D-Pad).

*Homer puts his weight to good use while Marge nags others into doing her bidding.*

The game’s basic controls are the same for every character with the exception of Maggie: X punches (press three times and hit Y for a pretty basic “Power Combo”), Y allows you to interact with the environment to pull levers, press buttons, and talk to non-playable characters (NPCs), and A sees your character jump (press again in mid-air for a double jump). You can also hold down the Left Trigger to target enemies or objects, bring up your current objectives with the ‘Back’ button, and will automatically cling to certain ledges when you jump or fall down near them. However, each Simpsons character has different Special Attacks performed by both pressing and holding the B button and use of certain intractable objects and the Left and Right Triggers. Homer can stun enemies with a burb, transform into a massive Homer Ball that lets him blast along at high speeds and slam into enemies and destructible objects by jumping and pressing X, use air canisters to become the light-weight Helium Homer and float about with A or blast ahead in a burst of gas for a short period of time, and later transform into a gelatinous form that lets him toss gummi projectiles. Marge uses her megaphone to recruit nearby NPCs, whom she can direct to attack enemies, destroy targets, or clean up the environment. She can also send Maggie into special vents; Maggie is controlled through a first-person perspective and simply crawls around until you find a button or object to fire her dummy at with Y.

*While Bart fires pellets and glides, Lisa blasts enemies with her sax and the Hand of Buddha.*

Bart comes armed with his slingshot, which fires a number of different projectiles that change depending on your environment; Bart’s ammo, like all of the character’s Special Attacks, is limited only by your Power Meter, which automatically refills over time and can be refilled by defeating enemies or collecting dropped power-ups like food or flowers. Bart can also turn into Bartman and glide for short periods by holding RT, ride air currents in the same way, climb up vines and certain surfaces, and grapple to special hooks to reach new areas sand solve puzzles. Lisa can stun nearby enemies with a blast of her saxophone or compel them to fight on her behalf. By interacting with Buddha Statues, she can also control the Hand of Buddha to lift and drop objects, freeze, flick, and electrocute enemies, all of which is essential for creating bridges, solving puzzles, and completing story-based objectives.

*The game features a few puzzles but only a handful amount to more than switches and buttons.*

The Simpsons Game is made up of sixteen missions, labelled “Episodes”, indicated by beams of light around Springfield. Springfield is quite large and full of things to distract yourself with, such as collectibles and recreations of iconic locations from the show, such as the school and Kwik-E-Mart, with your opportunities for exploration opening up as you progress and unlock more of the Simpsons’ abilities. While the game only features a map on one particular mission, the levels are so linear that you won’t really need one and you can utilise a fast travel system to quickly get around Springfield if you need to. The Simpsons are relatively durable; your character’s health will slowly refill if you avoid damage for a short time and you can revive your fallen partner by pressing Y near their downed body. A series of checkpoints and auto saves help to keep you going when you inevitably slip off a ledge thanks to the game’s janky camera, which can get a bit stuck and troubled when you’re not in a wide, open area. Combat is quite monotonous, for the most part as your character’s attack range is quite short and your fighting ability is basically limited to that one combo (though each character pulls it off a little differently). Combat is made more interesting by the different Special Attacks, allowing you to pick enemies off at a distance with Bart, have Marge direct her mob to overwhelm foes, or blast them away with the Hand of Buddha, and it’s generally kept to short, sharp bursts. The remainder of the game is made up of some awkward platforming (as mentioned, it’s pretty easy to slip off ledges and jumping across platforms can be a bit tricky as your jump doesn’t take you very far and they can be difficult to judge) and some pretty simply puzzles. These mainly consist of pulling a lever, standing on pressure pads (often with both characters), and pressing buttons as well as using your Special Abilities to reach one of these intractable objects.

*Gameplay is given some variety by parodying other, more successful videogames.*

Occasionally, you’ll have to battle against a time limit, fending off enemies and activating switches to reach new areas, and more often than not you’ll be using your Special Attacks to progress through levels; this amounts to shooting targets, moving stuff about with the Hand of Buddha, or having Marge direct a mob towards specific targets. Invariably, gameplay is broken up with a few sections that are clear references to classic videogames; these see you hopping from logs and crocodiles across a river, fending off waves of aliens, and keeping ice cream trucks safe in clear tributes to Frogger (Konami, 1981), Space Invaders (Taito, 1978), and Missile Command (Atari, Inc., 1980). You’ll also be platforming across conveyor belts, dodging wood cutting machinery, and be joined by a recognisable NPC in a couple of missions who’ll help you fend off killer dolphins and aliens. It isn’t really until the penultimate Episode of the game that you’ll see some proper variety in the gameplay, however: here, you play through four missions parodying more modern titles, such as Medal of Honor (DreamWorks Interactive, 1999) and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (Rockstar North, 2004), gaining new abilities and outfits in the process. This sees you defending a town of fantasy creatures from a two-headed dragon and navigating through both a top-down and third-person dungeon in a parody of fantasy role-playing games (RPGs), collecting flags, defending a jeep from turrets and mines, and using C4 to scale a battleship, traversing a Japanese land of fire and ice that resembles both Ōkami (Clover Studio, 2006) and Pokémon (Game Freak/Various, 1996 to present), and battling through a rundown neighbourhood of pimps and hoes. Essentially, however, you’ll encounter the same puzzles and obstacles repeated over and over but in different environments and with slightly different enemies, which is just enough to keep things relatively interesting despite how troublesome the combat and platforming can be.

Graphics and Sound:
Thanks to incorporating a cel-shaded graphical style, The Simpsons Game holds up relatively well; Springfield is easily the game’s most impressive environment, being unquestionably the largest and most accurate videogame interpretation of the famous fictional town, but it is quite barren. Sure, NPCs wander around and spout lines at you and it’ll be invaded by aliens later in the game, but you can only enter a handful of the most recognisable buildings and houses and there aren’t any side quests to occupy your time beyond hunting down each character’s collectibles.

*Many of the environments are decent recreations of memorable* Simpsons episodes and locations.

Environments continue to shine in each of the game’s Episodes; these will load in new areas of the city that are self-contained levels separate from the overworld and are full of awesome call-backs to popular videogame franchises. These are most evident in the videogame factory, which contains parodies of Super Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog and enemies lampooning the Madden NFL (EA Tiburon/Various, 1988 to present) and Street Fighter (Capcom/Various, 1987 to present) franchises, and the aforementioned fantasy mission that parodies both EverQuest (Verant Interactive/989 Studios, 1999) and the Legend of Zelda (Nintendo EAD/Various, 1985 to present) franchise. You’ll also visit a number of recognisable locations from the Simpsons cartoon, such as the pier, the Land of Chocolate, Mayor “Diamond” Joe Quimby’s building and office, the Springfield Natural History Museum, and the game features a couple of Episodes based on specific “Treehouse of Horror” episodes.

*The in-game cutscenes and 3D models pale in comparison to the top-notch 2D animation.*

For the most part, the in-game graphics are perfectly suited to rendering these environments and the character models. Everything is very bright and light on detail, similar to the cartoon, playable characters all have idle animations and plenty to say, and the game does its best to recreate the aesthetic style of the show at every opportunity. Unfortunately, the game also features a number of traditionally animated cutscenes that stand out in stark contrast to the ugly cel-shaded, 3D models that can look distorted and disturbing when characters talk and interact using the in-game graphics. Why the developers didn’t simply use 2D animation for all the cutscenes is beyond me but ugly 3D models are expected when creating a videogame based on a traditionally 2D medium. The game somewhat makes up for this by featuring an abundance of voice acting from the entire Simpsons cast; while you’ll recognise a lot of jokes recycled from the cartoon and quickly grow tired of the same exclamations and catchphrases being spouted again and again, the game’s writing and humour is generally on-point for the show and I was mostly satisfied with the game’s overall presentation.

Enemies and Bosses:
You’ll battle against a wide variety of enemies in The Simpsons Game. Well, I use the term “variety” loosely because while you’ll face lumberjacks, thinly veiled parodies of Ryu, gun-toting Scratchys, aliens wielding boards with nails in them, and killer dolphins, they generally all fall into the same predictable categories. This means that battling sumo wrestlers who resemble Comic Book Guy is very similar to fending off Groening’s army of lawyers as, beyond a handful of unique attacks for some enemies, enemies can generally be categorised as melee attackers and ranged attackers. Typically, enemies will spawn in from a central point (a porto-potty or pimpmobile, for example) and you’ll need to destroy these spawning points to clear enemies out of the area and you’ll have to battle all of the game’s enemies when you reach the game’s final mission. Easily the most annoying enemies come before this, however, as Matt Groening spawns in an infinite number of Benders and Doctor Zoidbergs to hassle you as you try and bring him down.

*The game’s larger bosses require a bit of team work to bring down.*

Each Episode ends in either a boss battle or something akin to it; while fighting through the Springfield Natural History Museum, you’ll run across bullies Jimbo, Dolph, and Kearny and you’ll need to take each of the three out by shooting targets to drop them or chase them away and then glide and platform across planets in the planetarium to finish off Jimbo all while dodging blasts from their laser guns. You’ll also need to blast Homer through a renaissance fayre and smash up a recreation of the Statue of Liberty to win his eating contest and use the Hand of Buddha to rescue Lenny and Carl from a giant woodchipper as Lisa and Bart. When in the “Game Engine” Episode, you’ll have to platform your way through a factory of parodies to battle a satire of Donkey Kong; the giant ape tosses explosive barrels at you and sends an infinite number of minions your way who you’ll need to flick back at him with the Hand of Buddha when he steps forward on his stage. Perhaps the most well-known boss is Lard Lad, a gigantic doughnut mascot come to life who rampages through a construction site blasting at you with his eye lasers and who sends swarms of evil Krusty dolls your way. To take Lard Lad down, you must distract him with Homer so that Bart can get around behind him and blast at the three targets on his back and butt, which briefly opens up panels you can glide to in order to rip out his wires and send him crashing to the ground.

*While some bosses require a bit of strategy, Mr. Burns folds faster than Superman on laundry day.*

Rather than have to battle with recurring antagonist Sideshow Bob, Bart’s would-be-murderer is restricted to, and defeated in, a cutscene, leaving you to fend off aliens in that Space Invaders homage I mentioned above and alongside Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel when inside their mothership. You’ll also have to contend with Snorky, leader of the killer dolphins, who stands far out of reach in the Springfield aquarium; luckily, you can send him tumbling into the water beneath him with Bart’s slingshot and then drop an electrifying jellyfish into the water three times to defeat him as the Sea Captain helps you fend off his minions. In the EverQuest parody, you’ll have to battle a two-headed dragon baring Selma and Patty’s faces; the first time you encounter this, she’s flying around a village and setting fire to houses. You need to have Marge direct her mob to put out the fires and then have Homer bash into the dragon when she hovers between one of the village’s bridges and then have the mob attack her when she’s downed. After fighting through the dungeon, you’ll battle her again in a homage to single-screen arcade games like Mario Bros. (Nintendo R&D1, 1983) that sees you bashing into her using Helium Homer while fending off the Orc Moes she spawns with her eggs. In the Medal of Honor parody stage, you’ll get to punch out multiple versions of César and Ugolin, sailor-garbed versions of Waylon Smithers, and destroy turrets before finally facing off with Private Charles Montgomery Burns…which boils down to you simply landing your combo and knocking him out.

*After a fun turn-based boss and an aggravating battle with Groening, it all boils down to a rhythm game.*

Things get interesting when Homer and Lisa travel to a Japanese land and have to defeat and capture three Sparklemon to awaken Mister Sparkle by battling against three very familiar looking monsters controlled by Jimbo, Sherri and Terri, and Ralph Wiggum in traditional turn-based RPG battles that are reminiscent of both Pokémon and the Final Fantasy franchise (Square Enix/Various, 1987 to present). Although Homer and Lisa’s attack options are limited, each Sparklemon has a weakness to a specific attack so it doesn’t take much to defeat the three and, similarly, thanks to the Space Invaders-like mini game from earlier, it’s not too taxing to bring down Poochie in the “Grand Theft Scratchy” mission; simply use the Hand of Buddha to drop explosive barrels on his minions before they destroy the ice cream trucks and then have Marge direct her mob to destroy Poochie’s stage. By far the most annoying and frustrating boss is the penultimate battle against Matt Groening himself; first, you must wade through an army of high-priced lawyers to storm his grandiose mansion and then he spawns an endless swarm of Benders and Dr. Zoidbergs all while pits of molten gold sap your health and Groening tosses projectiles at you. To defeat him, you need to use Ball Homer to hit him when he’s exposed and you’ll need to have Bart glide and climb up to levers to get him into position. Finally, the grand dining table will angle up into a launching pad for you to blast up as Ball Homer to bring Groening down but the game doesn’t end there. With Springfield still under attack, the family heads to Heaven itself and has to battle every single enemy they’ve faced in the game’s previous missions and even William Shakespeare and Thomas Jefferson. While Shakespeare is easily defeated using Bart’s halos, Jefferson duplicates into smaller versions of himself when hit and can instantly kill you and your partners with his key attack, making him a troublesome foe. God himself is a complete cakewalk though; rather than require you to utilise the skills you’ve built up over the game, this final boss is a simple parody of music rhythm games like Guitar Hero (Harmonix, 2005) that has you pressing the D-Pad at the right moments to defeat him and is a bit of an anti-climatic final trial.

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
As you defeat enemies, they’ll drop power, food, ammo, and other items to refill your health and Power Meter. You can also smash crates and other objects to help with this and, if you find all of the collectibles in each Episode, you’ll extend your health bar, which is a nice incentive to explore your environments. Although I didn’t play alongside a human partner, it doesn’t seem as though there are any co-op attacks you can use and the extent of your co-operation boils down to you fending off enemies or activating certain switches with your different Special Attacks.

*Each character can grab a power-up to become temporarily stronger and invincible.*

Each character acquires additional Special Attacks as you progress for the story but you’ll simply be gifted the remainder of them by Professor Frink after you rescue your low-pixel counterparts. Each character also has a power-up they can collect that will temporarily make them invincible and boost their attack power by transforming them further. Bart becomes Robo-Bart and shoots lasers from his eyes, Lisa and Marge become Clobber Girl and Cop Marge, respectively, which makes them super strong, and Homer eats a Guatemalan Insanity Pepper to become a burning version of Ball Homer.

Additional Features:
The Simpsons Game comes with forty-four Achievements for you to earn; unfortunately, virtually none of these are tied to anything more than completing the game’s Episodes and beating the various time challenges. You’ll get a 5G Achievement just for starting the game, and a 0G Achievement when you die ten times, but there aren’t any fun ones like visiting Moe’s Tavern as Homer or the school as Bart or anything like that.

*Clichés, collectibles, and time challenges add to the game’s replay value.*

Every single character has a number of collectibles to collect; these are strewn across the length and breadth of the Springfield overworld and hidden in each Episode and it’ll often require your Special Attacks and abilities to hunt them down. Collecting them all extends your health bar, as mentioned, but also unlocks trophies to display in the Simpson’s house, unlocks alternate attires, and will net you Achievements. You’ll also encounter videogame clichés, seemingly at random, which will add to your overall completion score but hunting down everything will definitely require a guide and a lot of patience. You can replay any mission from the main menu at any time to hunt down anything you’ve missed and you’ll also get to take on a number of time challenges for a series of 5G Achievements. These are a bit more than just finishing an Episode quickly, as well, and have you rescuing NPCs, fending off enemies, playing some of the mini games, or performing other tasks against a time limit which all helps to add a little variety to the game.

The Summary:
I remember being largely underwhelmed and frustrated when I first played The Simpsons Game on the PlayStation 3; a janky camera, dodgy controls, and lack of Trophies hurt my experience with the game but revisiting it for this playthrough on the Xbox 360 was a far more enjoyable affair. It’s a flawed game, for sure, but not quite as bad as most videogame adaptations tend to be; for one thing, it seems as though some time and effort was put into the game, particularly in its writing and presentation, and the parodies of popular and classic videogames made for some amusing moments. It’s fun exploring Springfield, interacting with recognisable Simpsons characters, and playing through new versions of classic episodes from the cartoon and the family’s different abilities are generally quite fun, if aggravating at times (though a lot of these issues can probably be solved by having a human partner to play alongside, which would cut down the back and forth and solve puzzles faster). Sadly, the ugly cel-shaded cutscenes let the game down somewhat, as does the repetitive and uninspired combat, puzzles, and platforming; it also feels like the developers played it a bit safe by doing a metatextual plot and Springfield is a little too barren at times. Still, it’s a decent enough title if you can find it at a decent price and probably the best Simpsons videogame for its attempt at variety and more fitting use of the license.

My Rating:

Pretty Good

Are you a fan of The Simpsons Game? Which of the playable characters was your favourite? What did you think to the recreation of Springfield and recycling of elements from the show? How do you feel the game holds up today and what did you think to the way it parodied other videogames? What is your favourite Simpsons game? Do you have a favourite character, episode, or moment from the show? How are you celebrating Whacking Day today? Whatever your thoughts on the world’s most famous yellow family, feel free to leave a comment below and be sure to check back in for more Simpsons content!

Game Corner [Dragon Ball Day]: Dragonball Z: Battle of Z

09/05/202222/02/2023Dr. K1 Comment

When the Great Demon King Piccolo was released upon the world, he broadcasted a message on television declaring May 9^th as “Piccolo Day”…and promptly celebrated by announcing his ownership over the planet. Since then, May 9^th has been officially recognised as “Goku Day” but, to make things simpler, I’m using this as a good excuse to celebrate all things Dragon Ball,

Released: 23 January 2014
Developer: Bandai Namco Games
Also Available For: PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita

The Background:
Akira Toriyama’s Dragon Ball franchise, particularly Dragonball Z, has a long history with videogame adaptations; the first Dragonball Z videogame released for the Family Computer (Famicom) back in 1990 and, since then, a range of different titles based on the long-running manga and its popular anime counterpart have been released, generally in the form of tournament fighters or one-on-one beat-‘em-ups that retell the events of the anime over and over again. In 2009, Bandai Namco acquired the rights to the franchise and, since then, got into a bit of a routine of releasing new Dragon Ball titles on an annual basis. With Dragonball Z set to make a long-awaited return with the first feature-length production in seventeen years, Dragonball Z: Battle of Gods (Hosoda, 2013), the publishers produced a new Dragonball Z game to coincide with the film’s release, one that focused on team-based combat rather than one-on-one fights or role-playing mechanics. Dragonball Z: Battle of Z received mixed reviews upon release, however, with criticisms levelled at the game’s repetitive and unreliable combat mechanics and artificially augmented difficulty.

The Plot:
Through a series of battles, ranging from one to four characters at a time, Dragonball Z: Battle of Z retells famous events from the long history of the Dragonball Z franchise, from the arrival of the Saiyans, to the Z Fighters’ battles against Frieza, the Androids, Perfect Cell, and Majin Buu, and even select fights from the many non-canon movies and alternative timelines, culminating in battles against the franchise’s biggest names, enemies, and characters and a showdown with the God of Destruction himself, Beerus.

Gameplay:
I’ve played a handful of Dragonball Z videogames in the past; I remember really enjoying Dragonball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3 (Spike, 2007) and have been putting off picking up Dragon Ball FighterZ (Arc System Works, 2018) for ages as I’m waiting to see if it gets re-released with all the downloadable content (DLC) included. As a result, and being a big Dragonball Z fan, I was intrigued when I was gifted Dragonball Z: Battle of Z but instantly a bit perturbed when I discovered that the game was a team-based fighter. Call me a traditionalist but I really don’t enjoy team-based fighters; I find it just artificially drags out the gameplay and the fights because you’re forced to fight two or more fighters in every round, meaning more chances to lose and more frustrations. I just don’t get why games that utilise this feature can’t just have the option to disable it and let players fight one-on-one. Interestingly, you can do this in Battle of Z but it’s really not recommended as you’re generally fighting a slew of enemies at once so you’ll need all the backup you can get.

*Rush at your opponent and smash them into the air to pull off a Meteor Chain combo.*

Controls and fighting in Battle of Z are surprisingly complicated for a fighting game; you can attack your enemy with Y, fire a ki blast with B, and use X and A to ascend and descend, respectively. You can target an enemy with RB (remember to do this or else you’ll have a hard time actually landing a hit on your opponent), cycle through available targets with the right analogue stick, and dash towards your intended target (and, usually, head-first into their attacks) by holding A or X. Holding LB will see your character put up their guard to minimise the effects of incoming attacks (though, annoyingly, there is no counter attack system in place), and you can press LT and RT simultaneously to unleash your character’s signature attacks when they have enough ki energy. You can also perform a side step and dodge with LB and the left analogue stick and hit your opponent with a “Strike Impact” blow that allows you to chase after them and bash them around the environment and build up a “Meteor Chain” combo with your teammates.

*Fill up the Genki Gauge to unleash your character’s most devastating Ultimate Move.*

As you attack your opponents, you’ll build up the “Genki Gauge” as well as your ki energy. When your ki energy is full enough, you’ll be able to pull off more powerful ki attacks such as Son Goku’s Kamehameha, Vegeta’s Garlick Gun, or Majin Buu’s Chocolate Beam. However, wasting your ki on normal ki blasts and your character’s other special attacks can make it harder for you to pull off these more powerful attacks and, if the bar is completely drained, you’ll be left stunned and vulnerable as you wait for it to refill. If you manage to completely fill up the Genki Gauge, though (and if you’re playing as the right character), you’ll be able to pull off an Ultimate Move, such as Goku’s Spirit Bomb or Super Saiyan 2 Son Gohan’s Father-Son Kamehameha blast. In some battles, the only way to win is to pull off these Ultimate Moves and fights are specifically structured in these cases to allow you to perform them but you’ll still have to work to build up the gauge. Occasionally, you’ll be asked to rapidly tap B to “share your energy” from the Genki Gauge, which seems to restore the ki energy of you and your fighters but, honestly, I must have missed the actual point of this as it just seemed like a waste of time, especially when you’re forced to switch your team out in the next mission more often than not. Of course, a major feature of Battle of Z is its team-based mechanic; before each mission, you’re asked to assemble a team of four fighters (comprised of you and three computer-controlled players or you and fellow human players if you’re connected to the internet) but, unfortunately, you’re rarely ever given free reign to pick your team as the characters you can select are restricted to the Saga you’re playing. For example, in the Saiyan Saga, you won’t be able to play as characters from the Cell Saga and you won’t be able to play as the Androids when taking on the Buu Saga.

*Assemble a diverse team of fighters and issue commands on the fly to best your opponents.*

You can, however, assemble a team of multiple duplicate fighters, which can be helpful for the game’s tougher missions. Each fighter has a different speciality and, thus, each behaves and controls a little differently: Melee Types excel in up-close melee attacks; Ki Blast Types deal greater damage with their ki attacks and can fire three blasts at a time instead of just one; Interfere Types specialise in distracting and disrupting enemy movements; and Support Types will prioritise healing, reviving, and restoring you and your teammates in battle. During a fight, you can issue basic commands to your team using the directional pad (D-Pad) to instruct them to fight at full power, join forces with you against an opponent, go on the defensive, or hang back and leave the fighting to you (not really recommended and I never found a time when this was preferable). If you co-ordinate with your teammates, you can chain together Meteor Strikes to bash a target all over the place and even perform a “Synchro Rush” combo where you and your allies will pummel a chosen target with a combo of strikes. You can also target your allies and restore their health, ki, or revive them if they’re fallen but I found it much easier to concentrate on the offensive and leave the reviving to my teammates. When you head into a battle, you share a limited number of retries with your team mates; when your health is drained, your allies have ten seconds to revive you before you lose a try and, if all tries are exhausted by you and your teammates falling too often, the battle ends. It’s essential, then, to keep an eye on how many tries you have left as, quite often, battles can abruptly end without warning simply because your allies have fallen once too often. You’re also constantly battling against a time limit (usually about ten minutes), which makes every fight a constant struggle and a chore to get through, especially when you’re faced with wave upon wave of seemingly endless enemies.

*Battles are hetic and leave you pummelled relentlessly, which can be extremely frustrating.*

Like pretty much every single Dragonball Z videogame, Battle of Z takes you through an (extremely) truncated retelling of the entire Dragonball Z saga using a strict mission-based structure, with a few bonus missions tossed in that adapt some of the feature films or present hypothetical scenarios. If you’re not that familiar with Dragonball Z then you might get a little lost as the story is told in brief snippets and character interactions before each fight and split across different missions; if you simply play the main missions, you’ll only experience events from one perspective and will have to switch to playing as the villains to experience the full story. On the one hand, this is a pretty decent way of getting you accustomed to a variety of different fighters but, on the other, it makes the story mode very fragmented and has you constantly switching out your load outs and setups as you’re forced to assemble new teams each time. Personally, I found it much easier to stick to one fighter (usually Super Saiyan Goku, Super Vegeta, or Full Power Frieza) and have three computer-controlled allies who all specialised in healing (such as Android #18 or Jeice) to avoid being pummelled into oblivion within the first few seconds battle. Since you’re forced to make a team of four for every fight, Dragonball Z’s story is tweaked to accommodate characters who weren’t present at certain events. Other times, you’re forced to battle against waves of opponents or certain foes (such as Raditz) who are inexplicably joined by disposable grunts who relentlessly bombard you with ki blasts. Every time you win (or, at least, complete) a fight, you’re given a ranking, earn a number of Battle Points (BP), and acquire cards and items. Unlike most Dragonball Z fighting games, Battle of Z opts for a quasi-open world presentation which allows you to freely fly and dash around a large environment ripped right from the anime from a third-person perspective. Unfortunately, the camera, physics, and controls are often as detrimental to your success as the often overwhelming difficulty of your opponents and you’ll be struggling with the janky camera as much as trying to land blows on your chosen target. If you forget to lock on to a target, you’ll simply swipe at thin air and, often, you’ll be battered by ki blasts from all angles or attacked from behind and, in the time it takes you to switch targets, you’ll probably end up knocked out on the ground like a chump. Helpfully, you can view your character’s abilities, your mission objectives, and the difficulty level of each mission from the pause menu and can simply manually retry if you are close to failure, which you may have to do a few times as, while the game starts off pretty simple, it quickly ups the difficulty level. It doesn’t help that downed enemies don’t seem to lose health when you attack them and you can never assemble a team of your favourite characters as you often need to have specific characters of Support Types on your team in order to succeed.

Graphics and Sound:
As is the case for pretty much every single Dragonball Z videogame, Battle of Z emulates the style and fast-paced, kinetic energy of the anime by employing a cel-shaded aesthetic. This is fitting but nothing you’ve not really seen before in other Dragonball Z games or similar fighters and results in character models looking pretty much spot on, if a little static and lifeless at times as they tend to just stand there or strike a dramatic pose while spouting abridged lines from the anime. Battle of Z expands on its roster by having each character’s different forms and transformations take up a character slot; as a result, you won’t be powering up or transforming mid-battle like the characters do in the anime and, instead, must select these forms from the character select screen. This means that we miss out on the iconic visual of the characters surrounded by crackling auras and powering up (outside of cutscenes, at least) but the game does a pretty good job of recreating the big, explosive special attacks from the anime…when you actually have enough ki to pull them off, that is. Still, it’s pretty cool to finally bust out attacks like Evil Buu’s Assault Rain, Super Vegito’s Spirit Sword, and Super Saiyan Broly’s Burst Eraser.

*Environments may be accurate to the* anime and partially destructible but they’re also quite barren.

Environments are just as faithfully recreated, almost to a fault; you’ll battle out in the countryside, in the middle of cities, out in the desert, and on iconic planets such as Namek and the Supreme Kai’s world. Unfortunately, while much of the environments are destructible (if you manage to smash your opponents into them properly), they’re largely barren and lifeless and often only varied by such exciting elements as different times of day. They’re also quite large, which is helpful if you’re trying to take a break from being relentlessly attacked and means that the onscreen radar actually comes in useful at times, but also means that it’s very easy for you to be attacked from afar due to lack of cover and results in you flying head-first into attacks as you desperately try to dash across the open plains to reach your target.

*After an incredible* anime *opening, the game relies on its in-game graphics to give a little context to its fights.*

As I mentioned, the game’s story takes a bit of a backseat; the in-game graphics are used to relay a condensed version of Dragonball Z’s sagas and movies through a few brief interactions between your team and their enemies. This can result in some different lines and interactions if you have different characters from the Saga present, and unique interactions between characters like Goku and Bardock, and all of the voice actors from the anime return to recreate and redub their lines from the anime. The game also recreates the music from the anime, including a remix of the iconic theme song, ‘Cha-La Head-Cha-La’, over an impressive anime opening sequence created specifically for the game that is, honestly, one of the more entertaining moments of Battle of Z.

Enemies and Bosses:
Since Battle of Z recreates the events of the anime and a handful of the feature-length movies, you’ll be tasked with tackling all of the series’ most iconic villains and characters as you play through the different missions with certain specific characters. Along the way, you’ll also have to contend with waves of disposable enemies who either come at you over and over again, support the more formidable characters, or respawn after being defeated. This means you’ll face numerous palette swapped variants of the Saibamen, Frieza’s grunts, Cell Jnr’s, and facing off against Z Fighters like Piccolo, Yamcha, and Tien Shinhan who often come in to tip the odds against you right when it seems like you’re on the cusp of victory.

*The Saiyans arrive on Earth to cause trouble and wreck havoc in their Great Ape forms.*

In the Saiyan Saga, you’ll have to battle Raditz, Nappa, and Vegeta in a variety of different formations; the first time you face Raditz, you’ll first have to dispose of a wave of Saibamen, which can leave you quite drained and underprepared for the actual battle against Goku’s brother. After recreating Gohan’s training against Piccolo out in the wastelands, you’ll then have to take on Nappa, first accompanied by Saibamen and then joined by the main antagonist of this Saga, Vegeta. Vegeta’s ultimate threat comes when he transforms into his gigantic Great Ape form, which you can stun by targeting its limbs while trying to dodge his massive mouth laser and crushing grip. Honestly, though, the most annoying enemies in this Saga are Nappa (who constantly targeted me with relentless melee attacks) and Vegeta (who fires a non-stop barrage of ki blasts when you’re trying to fend off his cohorts). When playing as the villains, you’ll have to take on the Z Fighters as the perspective shifts to you mainly battling against Goku; you’ll also have to take on Gohan’s Great Ape form, which is far more rampant than Vegeta’s and likes to toss boulders right at your head.

*To finish off Frieza, you’ll have to also battle against a tight time limit and deal with his rapid teleporting.*

In the Frieza Saga, you’ll mostly be confined to the planet Namek in various stages of disarray; Frieza’s soldiers are a constant headache all throughout this Saga and make battling the Ginyu Force much more annoying than it needs to be. The Ginyu’s are also far more versatile and frustrating than their Saiyan counterparts as Guido will freeze you in place with his telekinetic powers, Recoome will constantly fly at you with melee attacks much like Nappa, and things only get more annoying when the entire Ginyu Force comes at you in waves. Thankfully, Captain Ginyu doesn’t bust out his annoying change form mechanic (or, at least, he didn’t in my playthrough) so you don’t have to worry about him taking over your body or being forced to play as him but it’s quite a shock to find the Ginyu Force being so formidable when they’re generally depicted as being incompetent nincompoops. Once you get past the Ginyu Force, you’ll have to battle against Frieza’s various forms as Namek disintegrates around you. While his first form is a walk in the park, his second form allows him to shield himself with a protective aura and, as if that wasn’t bad enough, you’ll be forced to take on his third form in the same mission, making it more of a gauntlet. Another mission has Frieza zap your team to half health and asks you to either defeat him or survive for three minutes before he reaches his full power form, which you’re given just five minutes to defeat him. This makes this fight needlessly frustrating as Frieza is an absolute bitch and teleports all over the place while blasting at you with devastating ki attacks but it does work to your advantage in the villain story where you get to play as Frieza and battle against Super Saiyan Goku. Another alternative mission in the Frieza Saga has you battling all of Frieza’s forms at once which, honestly, I found easier than battling the damn Ginyu Force!

*After besting the Androids, you’ll face your toughest challenge yet in the form of Perfect Cell.*

In the Android Saga, you’ll first have to spar against the other Z Fighters before tackling Future Trunks and then confront Android #19 and Doctor Gero; unlike in some Dragonball Z videogames, and the anime, the androids are susceptible to your ki attacks rather than absorbing them and you’re also given a bit of a break as you don’t have to defeat Dr. Gero when he decides to run from the battle. Android #18 and #19 are more formidable, primarily because of how good #18’s healing abilities are, but they’re easy to target individually since they’re not supported by endless swarms of goons. Once the Cell Saga starts, you can actually have Cell attack the Androids on your behalf as the mission briefing is to destroy Cell’s different forms and the only real benefit to taking out all your enemies is the acquisition of additional BP. Cell isn’t much of a threat in his Imperfect form but he loves to spam Solar Flare to evade your attacks and his threat dramatically increases when you’re forced to battle Android #16 and #17, then them and Semi-Perfect Cell, and then fight Perfect Cell all in the same mission! This, however, is nothing compared to the sudden brick wall of Mission 26, which sees you annihilated by aggressive and frustrating Cell Jnr’s before being wrecked by Perfect Cell once more. The only way I could clear this mission was to have my three teammates be Teen Gohan so that I could be consistently and reliably healed and revived during the fight, which was particularly annoying to me as I wanted to use a team of Super Saiyans. Things only get more challenging in the villain and alternative missions, which have you battling against Perfect Cell as the Androids or fighting as Perfect Cell against Super Saiyan 2 Gohan (alongside Super Saiyan Vegeta, Super Saiyan Trunks, and Android #16, of course).

*Buu becomes a significant threat once he assumes his powerful, maniacal Kid Buu form.*

Things get a little less frustrating in the Buu saga, which sees you battling the likes of Dabura (who can turn you to stone with his spit) and, of course, Majin Buu’s various different forms as well as Majin Vegeta (who loves to block your attacks and is, fittingly, super aggressive). In these missions, Buu will also attack your enemies so it can be useful to hang back and let him weaken them on your behalf while conserving your ki energy but you’ll also have to battle Evil Buu right after defeating regular Buu, which can be quite the chore. The shit really hits the fan when you face off against Kid Buu, a maniacal and hyper aggressive enemy who is super fast and super tough, dashing and teleporting all over the place, blocking your attacks, and attacking with his stretchy limbs, furious ki combos, and even gaining invincibility frames and taking refuge behind the environment to really drag out the battle. When playing on the villain’s story, you’ll also be tasked with defeating or surviving for three minutes against Super Saiyan 3 Goku and a particularly gruelling gauntlet that sees you battling Son Goten and Kid Trunks individually, fused as Gotenks, their Super Saiyan 3 form, and Piccolo all in the same mission within the Hyperbolic Time Chamber.

*Fight hard enough and you’ll unlock missions based on the feature-length movies and specials.*

As mentioned, you’ll also recreate some of the most recognisable fights from the feature films; this means battling the Androids as Future Trunks, taking on Bardock (who has his own Great Ape and Super Saiyan forms), and fighting against the likes of Cooler (a battle that I found impossible to clear because of how tough and annoying his goons were), Hirudegarn, Meta-Cooler (which are essentially the same as battling the Great Apes but made far more frustrating), and Broly. As you might expect, Broly represents one of the game’s most challenging battles as he’s not only accompanied by constantly-respawning Saibamen but he also powers up to his Super Saiyan and Legendary Super Saiyan forms. Additionally, there are a number of alternative battles on offer that see you fighting against all of Vegeta and Goku’s family, all of the Saiyans in waves where they power up to their strongest forms, the entire Ginyu Force followed by all of Frieza’s forms and Cooler, and, eventually, a battle against Beerus (and against Super Saiyan Vegito as Beerus) in an adaptation of the Battle of Gods feature film. Unfortunately, to reach this (and unlock all of the game’s fights), you must complete and clear every single mission in the game, which is an incredibly tall order and one unfortunately, beyond my ability as I tapped out some time after losing to Super Saiyan 3 Gotenks.

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
When you select characters, you can customise their palette and power them up with cards and items. These are often earned, or unlocked, by clearing missions but are primarily purchased in the in-game shop using your BP. Cards can be used to increase your character’s melee attack power, defence, ki blast attack power, and have their natural abilities increase or cause their attacks to have detrimental effects on their targets. You can also earn Premium Points (PP) by meeting certain conditions or earning SS ranks in missions. PP can be spent in the Premium Shop and allow you to acquire more powerful items (most of which can only be used once before you have to buy another one and cards). These will buff your character and team’s stats, increasing them under certain conditions or draining health or ki from your enemies, speeding up your ability to level up and earning you more BP, or restoring you to full health upon defeat using Senzu Beans. Since you’ll be switching your teams out quite often, it’s best to make use of the auto customise options, which allow you to assign the most powerful cards to your characters (or which remain after equipping cards) at the push of a button.

Additional Features:
There are forty-nine Achievements on offer in Battle of Z; a lot of these are awarded simply for clearing each of the available story routes, though this becomes increasingly challenging as you tackle the alternate story missions. Others are tied to performing Ultimate Moves, clearing every mission, earning certain cards, playing as every character, or meeting certain conditions in the game’s online mode. You can team up with other players online to take on the game’s missions in co-op mode, battle against each other in a standard four-on-four fight, fight to attain the highest score, or race to acquire the seven Dragon Balls scattered throughout the environment. Sadly, the game doesn’t include couch co-op or offline multiplayer, so I never got to experience any of these modes as the servers don’t appear to still be active (or, if they are, players are few and far between these days). There’s a decent amount of replayability on offer through the many different story mode missions on offer; clearing missions unlocks parallel, adjacent, and subsequent missions that see you playing as different characters or taking on characters from the feature films. However, as these are some of the more frustrating and difficult missions in the game, it can be very tedious and challenging to clear every mission and unlock all the game’s playable characters (many of which can only be attained by clearing certain missions with the highest rank). You can also purchase some additional DLC in the form of extra fighters and forms, such as a Naruto (1999 to 2014) inspired outfit for Goku, Super Saiyan Bardock, and Super Saiyan Vegito.

The Summary:
Dragonball Z: Battle of Z certainly looks and sounds pretty good; its cel-shaded aesthetic closely mirrors the look of the anime and it’s great to hear the voice cast come back and re-record their lines for some new interactions in certain situations. It provides a slightly different spin on the usual formula through its use of team-based fighting mechanics, meaning that it’s a little different from most videogame adaptations of the anime but, essentially, if you’ve played any Dragonball Z videogame, there’s not really anything new here narratively speaking and it’s the same retreading of the Sagas we’ve seen numerous times before. What lets Battle of Z down, though, is the steep difficulty curve and the reliance on these team-based mechanics. Your teammates are often not really good for much more than distracting your enemies and will drain your retries if you don’t heal them up; it’s equally annoying that you can’t form your own, personalised team right off the bat and have to compromise or cheese the more challenging missions by loading up on Support Type characters. The game’s focus on a heavily condensed version of the story also hurts it as you simply jump from fight to fight and mission to mission with very little context and have to hop between the different story routes to get the full story, which is a bit annoying. In the end, it was fun at times but infuriating for the most part as missions were a chore to clear, the requirements to unlock everything were ridiculously unfair at times, and I can’t say that I’d recommend this one over other more traditional, 2.5D/tournament-based Dragonball Z videogames.

My Rating:

Could Be Better

Have you ever played Dragonball Z: Battle of Z? If so, were you a fan and how would you rate it compared to other Dragonball Z videogames? Are you a fan of team-based fighters? Who was your go-to team in this game? What did you think to Battle of Z’s recreation of the anime and the slight twists it took with the different missions? What is your favourite Dragon Ball videogame and how are you celebrating Dragon Ball day today? Whatever your thoughts on Battle of Z, or Dragon Ball in general, leave a comment below.

Movie Night [Multiverse Madness]: Doctor Strange

08/05/202211/01/2025Dr. K4 Comments

In September 1961, DC Comics published “Flash of Two Worlds” (Fox, et al), a landmark story that brought together two generations of the Flash: the Golden Age Jay Garrick and the Silver Age Barry Allen thanks to the concept of the multiverse, an infinite number of parallel universes that allowed any and all stories and characters to co-exist and interact. Marvel Comics would also adopt this concept and, to celebrate the release of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (Raimi, 2022) this month, I’m both celebrating the Master of the Mystic Arts and exploring the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s (MCU) equivalent of the multiverse every Sunday of May.

Released: 4 November 2016
Director: Scott Derrickson
Distributor: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Budget: $165 to 236.6 million
Stars: Benedict Cumberbatch, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rachel McAdams, Mads Mikkelsen, Benedict Wong, and Tilda Swinton

The Plot:
Doctor Stephen Strange’s (Cumberbatch) life is a celebrated neurosurgeon is shattered when a car accident robs him of the use of his hands. When traditional medicine fails him, he turns to the enigmatic Ancient One (Swinton). Quickly, and arrogantly, mastering spells and magics, Dr. Strange is forced to choose between his life of fortune and status and defending the world from rogue sorcerer Kaecilius (Mikkelsen).

The Background:
The creation of legendary artist Steve Ditko, Dr. Strange started out as a five-page pitch prior to his debut in the pages of Strange Tales and was known for his elaborate spells and quirks and bizarre adventures. Dr. Strange is renowned as one of Marvel’s most pivotal figureheads, and actually has quite the storied history with adaptation. Like a number of Marvel superheroes, the Master of the Mystic Arts first flirted with the silver screen in the seventies thanks to an extremely obscure live-action adaptation that I’m sure the vast majority of people have never heard of. Dr. Strange also cropped up in Marvel cartoons over the years, and even had a feature-length animated adventure back in 2007, but another live-action adaptation very nearly happened in the late-eighties and mid-nineties as well. After many failed attempts to bring the character to cinema screens throughout the 2000s, the legalities surrounding Dr. Strange were tidied up when, in 2014, Dr. Strange was officially announced to be part of the MCU’s third phase of films. Scott Derrickson was chosen to helm the film after producing not only a twelve-page scene for the film but also a ninety-minute pitch, concept art, and even an animatic all at his own expense. Derrickson’s background was in horror, and he aimed to ensure that he had actors of the highest calibre to experience the film’s fantastical elements. Although many actors were considered for the title role, Derrickson (and many fans) always envisioned Benedict Cumberbatch as the Sorcerer Supreme, and the actor took great care to properly reproduce the character’s hand gestures from Ditko’s art work. Derrickson also returned to Ditko’s original art for the film’s special effects, which aimed to bombard the viewer with surreal imagery and fantastical visuals to set the film apart from others in the MCU. Despite being one of Marvel’s more obscure superheroes, Doctor Strange was a massive success; its worldwide gross of almost $680 million ensured that the film would receive a sequel, and the film was universally praised for its visuals and originality in a genre quickly becoming bloated with superhero adventures.

The Review:
I remember being quite excited and intrigued when Doctor Strange was announced and the first trailers dropped; Dr. Strange is another Marvel superhero who I am not really all that familiar with, as my reading of him is limited to a few sporadic appearances in other stories and the comics collected in his Marvel Platinum compilation. Thus, the bulk of my knowledge about him comes from what I’ve read online, his appearances in the 1994 Spider-Man cartoon, and the aforementioned animated feature; however, it turned out that this was more than enough to make me familiar with the character, some of his abilities, and a couple of his major enemies ahead of seeing his live-action debut for the first time.

*Arrogant neurosurgeon Dr. Strange is ironically left unable to operate after a devastating car crash.*

When we’re first introduced to Dr. Strange, he’s already a wealthy, acclaimed, and arrogant neurosurgeon; so talented are Dr. Strange’s abilities that he can easily perform life-saving brain surgery while identifying music tracks, and not only instantly identify a premature case of brain death and operate on a man already declared clinically dead but also perform complex invasive procedures into the brain without the aid of scans or camera imagery. Dr. Strange is so full of himself that he talks down to others at every opportunity, offering little in the way of professional courtesy or respect, and routinely turns down surgical prospects that he deems unworthy of this time and attention in order to be given a real challenge. He believes that a normal, everyday Emergency Room is a “butcher’s shop” that is capable of only saving one life at a time compared to the scope of his more specialised field of expertise, which has brought him fame and acclaim. This has bought him a luxurious apartment full of expensive clothes and accessories, and a supercar that he drives with reckless abandon that is only compounded by his insistence on talking on speaker phone while rocketing around tight, winding roads outside of the city; distracted by his phone, Dr. Strange is blindsided and sent careening down a cliff side in a horrific car crash that leaves him a bloodied, broken mess. Although he survives, his hands are completed shattered from the accident and, following many painful and desperate surgeries, he is left frustrated and angered by a constant trembling in his hands that spells the end of his surgical career.

*Former lover Christine is the closet thing Dr. Strange has to a friend.*

Dr. Strange’s condescending attitude and tendency to show off means he clashes with fellow surgeon Nicodemus “Nick” West (Michael Stuhlbarg), a fully qualified and experienced doctor whom Dr. Strange sees as an incompetent fool at the start of the film. Dr. Strange partially blames Nick for the state of his wrecked hands mid-way through the film, but he is forced to turn to him later on when his trembling hands still prove incapable of performing surgery. However, while also frustrated by Dr. Strange’s attitude, his medical skill and sheer genius in the operating room are a source of awe to Doctor Christine Palmer (McAdams), a former lover of Strange’s and the closest thing he has to a friend. While he helps her with a misdiagnosed patient, he does so mainly to stick it to Nick and more to show off his incredible talents rather than out of any kind of professional courtesy, and, though the two share some banter given their previous relationship, she knows all-too-well how vain and self-centred Dr. Strange is. However, even she couldn’t predict the sudden shift in his attitude following the accident; where he was once arrogant and condescending, Dr. Strange becomes a broken, infuriated, embittered man who lashes out at her attempts to help, drains his fortune on experimental procedures, and is so driven to desperation that he seeks out Jonathan Pangborn (Benjamin Bratt), a former paraplegic who made a miraculous recovery and points him towards Kamar-Taj.

*Mordo is a devout follower of the Ancient One, an all-powerful sorcerer with a dark secret.*

Using the last of his resources, Dr. Strange travels to Kathmandu to seek out the mysterious Kamar-Taj and attracts the attention of Karl Mordo (Ejiofor), who saves Strange from a brutal beating at the hands of muggers and brings him to the doorstep of a dilapidated building, where he is introduced to “The Ancient One”. Even in his pain and suffering, Dr. Strange remains sceptical and somewhat insolent; this is understandable, to be fair, given he’s a man of science and logic and the idea of magic is as bizarre to him as it would be to us, but his insolence is only exacerbated thanks to his relentless ego and temper. Mordo empathises with Strange’s scepticism, and even relates to it, but is a far more respectful and informed individual after learning from the Ancient One. The Ancient One literally forces Dr. Strange to open his eyes to a wider world, one beyond the limits of the physical body and his rational perspective on life, by pushing him into the Astral Dimension by separating his Astral Form from his body. There, beyond time and space and the limits of reality, he is given the briefest glimpse of the vast, dangerous wonder of the multiverse. Though cast away from Kamar-Taj, Dr. Strange’s stubbornness impresses Mordo, who is able to convince the Ancient One to give the damaged neurosurgeon a chance to redeem himself under their tutelage, despite the similarities she sees between Strange and Kaecilius.

*Though a quick study, Dr. Strange struggles to overcome his scepticism and his physical ailments.*

What follows is an extended training montage in which the Ancient One introduces to Dr. Strange (an the audience) the logistics of magic and how it works in the MCU; through training and hard work, sorcerers are able to draw upon energies from across the multiverse to conjure weapons, cast spells, and work wonders. Because of the damage to his hands, Strange initially struggles with the physical aspects of his training, but is humbled when he sees an amputee performing spells and learns that he must set aside his ego, and his disbelief, in order to succeed; the Ancient One pushes him to this revelation by stranding him on Mount Everest and forcing him to transport himself back or risk death. Thankfully (or conveniently, depending on your perspective), Dr. Strange possesses a photographic memory; just as this allowed him to acquire Medical Doctorate and PhD at the same time, this means that he can digest multiple volumes from the Kamar-Taj library both while awake and asleep thanks to utilising his Astral Form. Dr. Strange’s thirst for knowledge and incredible learning ability impresses the Kamar-Taj librarian, Wong (Wong), who puts Strange onto more advanced tomes and warns him against stealing from the Ancient One’s private collection. Stoic and gruff, Wong provides much of the film’s comic relief, but it’s also through him (and while learning combat alongside Mordo) that Dr. Strange learns more about Kaecilius and how he fell from grace.

*Kaecilius is determined to expose the Ancient One and “save” the world from death and suffering.*

Kaecilius was introduced at the very start of the film, when he and his zealots attacked Kamar-Taj, and stole pages from one of the library’s many mystical tomes before managing to escape from the Ancient One after one hell of a visually impressive confrontation in what we later learn is the “Mirror Dimension”, a pocket reality where the environment is constantly shifting and changed around the inhabitants as the caster dictates. Proud and headstrong, Kaecilius questioned the Ancient One’s teachings and turned against his teacher after learning that the Ancient One was drawing forbidden powers from the Dark Dimension to extend her lifespan and grant her her awesome powers. A cold, driven man, Kaecilius believes her to be a hypocrite who deceived all of her pupils and, alongside those he has convinced to his cause, works to decipher the pages he stole from Kamar-Taj to both draw from that same dark energy and expose the Ancient One’s true nature. This sees him, and his fellow zealots, become imbued with the malevolent influence of the Dread Dormammu (Cumberbatch), a primordial cosmic entity that is seemingly the embodiment of hatred and seeks to infest and conquer all realities using sorcerers like Kaecilius as puppets. Kaecilius, sadly, falls into the same trap as many MCU villains in that he’s largely a waste of a talented actor and disappointingly absent for much of the film; spoken about as a kind of bogeyman and as a dark mirror of Dr. Strange, Kaecilius ends up being a lot like Malekith (Christopher Eccleston) in that he makes an impression when he is on screen thanks to Mikkelsen’s scowling countenance and silky-smooth line delivery but ends up being a regrettably forgettable villain who is simply there to give Dr. Strange someone to fight against and strive to be the opposite of.

The Nitty-Gritty:
Magic such as this is a tricky concept to bring to life, and was wholly new to the MCU at the time; we had seen a version of magic before, of course, one that is just as much attributed to near-God-like alien physiology and technology, but had never seen literal, unequivocal magical spells and abilities before. Thus, it was smart of the film to introduce this franchise-changing concept slowly, and in a way that kept things tantalisingly grounded (for the most part) while hinting at magic’s incredible (and near-limitless potential). Sorcerers tend to limit their magic to glowing, sparking whips, shields, or melee weapons and to instantaneously shift from one location to another, and often focus their abilities through weapons or objects such as the Staff of the Living Tribunal or the Sling Ring. The film slowly develops the wealth and potential of magic as it progresses, localising it in the mysterious foreign land of Kamar-Taj and then expanding it to encompass more familiar and urban locations, such as New York City. This allows us to see that this kind of magic has always existed in the MCU, we just haven’t experienced it yet, and it was smart to frame magic, and the secret of Kamar-Taj, as a mystery that Dr. Strange must solve.

*Dr. Strange mostly focuses on defensive magic, but recklessly experiments with the Time Stone.*

Wong reveals to Dr. Strange that the true purpose of Kamar-Taj, and the sorcerers, is to man three Sanctum Sanctorums across the world and continuously fend off threats from beyond their world, such as Dormammu, in an on-going battle of light against darkness. Despite everything he’s seen and learned, this is where Dr. Strange initially chooses to bow out since he has no intention of fighting a magical war, but he is forced to fight alongside Mordo and Wong when Kaecilius suddenly attacks the Sanctum Sanctorums. Though a talented and peerless surgeon, Dr. Strange struggles to learn the ways of magic; even after absorbing knowledge from Wong’s library, he is severely outmatched against Kaecilius and his followers, and succeeds only through luck, the use of rudimentary spells, and the intervention of the Cloak of Levitation, a semi-sentient cape that allows him to fly and adds more comic relief to the film. Dr. Strange’s scepticism soon turns to an insatiable thirst for knowledge and to challenge himself by experimenting with more and more advanced magic; this not only leads him to steal volumes from the library and question the nature of Kamar-Taj, but also to experiment with the Eye of Agamotto. This ancient relic houses the Time Stone and allows the user to control the flow of time itself, localising it to reverse or speed up time as they dictate, and Wong and Mordo are angered by Strange’s recklessness with the Infinity Stone. Mordo, in particular, is outraged at Strange’s careless tampering with the laws of reality, something he believes should be protected at all costs, just as he whole-heartedly believes in the teachings and standards set by the Ancient One.

*The Ancient One teaches Dr. Strange about the vast dangers of the multiverse which* *dwarf his ego.*

The multiverse is presented as a veritable acid trip, a bizarre bombardment of colours, energy, and surreal environments that overwhelm Dr. Strange’s perception of reality and throw all logic out of the window. This, and the fantastical nature of Dr. Strange, allows the film to stand out from others in the MCU with some truly trippy visuals, such as New York collapsing in on itself, Dr. Strange’s Astral Form directing Christine’s attempts to save his physical body (and even killing one of Kaecilius’s followers, something he is aghast at thanks to his Hippocratic Oath), and worlds full of fantastic visuals, warped gravity, and cosmic impossibilities that exist side-by-side with a Dark Dimension full of malice and hatred, where only malevolence lives. Seduced by Dormammu’s influence, Kaecilius longs to destroy all concepts of time and allow the Dark Dimension to envelop the world in a perverted attempt to “save” it. So driven by his conviction and power is Kaecilius that he fatally wounds the Ancient One, but not before revealing that the Ancient One has been drawing power from the Dark Dimension. Before dying, the Ancient One explains to Dr. Strange, in the Astral Dimension, that her methods were necessary in order to defend the world and that such bending of the rules will be necessary to balance out Mordo’s steadfast nature and defeat Kaecilius.

*Dr. Strange successfully bargains with Dormammu, but Mordo is left disillusioned by deception.*

Indeed, Dr. Strange is faced with an apocalyptic scenario when Kaecilius and his zealots conjure Dormammu in Hong Kong, leading to widespread chaos and destruction and the deaths of Wong and many other sorcerers. Taking the Ancient One’s words to heart, Dr. Strange sees no other option but to first reverse time to restore those who have fallen and journey to the Dark Dimension himself and confront Dormammu head-on. There, in a world of swirling, nightmarish, eldritch horror, we see how truly gigantic the scope of the MCU is as the titanic cosmic being that is the Dread Dormammu dwarfs the fledging sorcerer and threatens to overcome the entire world and spread his reach to every man, woman, and child. However, Dr. Strange has the last laugh when he unleashes the power of the Time Stone to trap Dormammu in an ever-repeating loop of time; there, Dormammu’s continual attempts to kill Dr. Strange, though successful, ultimately fail as the loop resets over and over, angered the malevolent creature since he is unfamiliar with the concept of time and forced to bargain with Dr. Strange. In return for taking Kaecilius and his followers and abandoning his desires to consume the Earth, Dr. Strange agrees to release Dormammu from the loop, thus saving the entire world and ending the threat from the Dark Dimension. Although we see Dr. Strange die again and again, we have no way of knowing exactly how long this loop lasted for, or how much pain and suffering Dr. Strange endured as he made perhaps the greatest sacrifice of anyone in the MCU as he was fully committed to ending his days in that cycle of death and this moment not only completed Dr. Strange’s character arc in the film of learning to set aside his ego but also cemented him as a big-time player in the larger MCU. Unfortunately, while Dr. Strange finally sees that his true destiny is to serve a greater good, Mordo is disillusioned by the revelations and the lengths that Strange goes to to repel Dormammu and pledges to rid the world of sorcerers.

The Summary:
Doctor Strange remains one of the most unique and intriguing entries in the MCU; even when Thor Odinson (Chris Hemsworth) first burst into the franchise and shook it up by introducing Gods and a version of magic, and we started seeing the first hints of the Infinity Stones, I never would have guessed that we would see the Sorcerer Supreme reversing the flow of time, fending off cosmic entities like Dormammu, or blowing the fabric of his fictional world apart with concepts like the multiverse. And yet, at its core, Doctor Strange is the humbling story of redemption for a vain, arrogant asshole of a man who endures a horrific accident, has his entire world destroyed, and is forced to accept a greater destiny. It’s pretty clear now that the intention was to set up Doctor Strange as a counterpart to Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr); both are snarky, self-absorbed men who put their unique talents to use in service of both personal glory and the wellbeing of the world around them. However, while Iron Man helped to ground the MCU and make its fantastical elements relatable, Dr. Strange’s very existence meant that the scope of the MCU was basically limitless and we’ve since seen that it stretches beyond even our reality. Full of mind-bending visuals that make for some entertaining action sequences, Doctor Strange might have played things a little too safe but that’s not exactly a bad thing when it comes to a concept like magic, which can basically do anything and make characters like Dr. Strange severely overpowered. Thankfully, the film frames Strange as very much a rookie and struggling to master and even fully understand this bizarre world he has entered into, meaning that subsequent appearances by the character can simply build upon the foundations laid by this fantastical first film.

My Rating:

Great Stuff

Were you a fan of Doctor Strange? What did you think to the introduction of magic to the MCU and the way the film explained the concept? Did you enjoy Dr. Strange’s character arc and portrayal in the film? What did you think to the Ancient One and the depiction of Mordo? Were you also a little disappointed by Kaecilius, and what did you think to the final showdown between Dr. Strange and Dormammu? What are some of your favourite stories involving these characters and do you think Dr. Strange is too overpowered as a character? Whatever your thoughts on Doctor Strange, sign up to leave your thoughts below or leave a comment on my social media, and check back in next Sunday for more Multiverse Madness!

Movie Night [National Superhero Day]: The Shadow

28/04/202206/05/2024Dr. K7 Comments

In 1995, Marvel Comics created “National Superhero Day” and, in the process, provided comics and superhero fans the world over with a great excuse to celebrate their favourite characters and publications.

Released: 1 July 1994
Director: Russell Mulcahy
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Budget: $40 million
Stars: Alec Baldwin, John Lone, Penelope Ann Miller, Tim Curry, Peter Boyle, and Ian McKellen

The Plot:
Having terrorised Tibet as a ruthless kingpin, wealthy aristocrat Lamont Cranston (Baldwin) is given the chance at redemption and learns the ancient art of clouding men’s minds to operate as a mysterious, duel-pistol-wielding vigilante known as “The Shadow”. However, the Shadow must use all of his skills and vast network of allies and informants to oppose Shiwan Khan (Lone), the last descendant of Genghis Khan and Cranston’s equal in the art darks, when he awakens and sets about threatening New York City with an atomic bomb.

The Background:
One of the original pulp vigilantes of the 1930, and the inspiration for one of comic book’s most popular characters, the Shadow first appeared as the mysterious narrator of the Detective Story Hour before graduating to a series of self-titled pulp novels in 1931, which were written by Walter B. Gibson. Over the years, the Shadow’s abilities were changed many times and he assumed a number of different identities, as well as irregularly appearing in both Marvel and DC Comics. Still, the pulp hero is pretty obscure compared to his successors and yet, in 1982, producer Martin Bregman bought the rights to the character and David Koepp was hired to pen the script. Working hard to craft a story about guilt and atonement, Koepp wrote with star Alec Baldwin specifically in mind for the character and, though the film would naturally employ both practical and computer-generated effects to bring the pulp character to life, director Russell Mulcahy stressed that it was to remain very much a character-driven production. Considering the success of Tim Burton’s Batman movies (ibid, 1989; 1992), Universal Pictures were banking on The Shadow being a big success; unfortunately, it grossed a measly $48 million at the box office and was (unfairly, in my opinion) torn apart by critics and reviewers.

The Review:
One thing that separates the Shadow from his more well-known counterpart is the fact that Lamont Cranston begins his film as a vile and despicable drug baron; having lost himself completely to the darkness and taken the name Yin Ko, Cranston resembles little more than a twisted, merciless warlord who kills friend and foe alike to maintain his untouchable position of power. His fortunes change, however, when the Tulku (Brady Tsurutani) has him brought to his grandiose temple and, sensing that a good man dwells deep beneath Cranston’s darkness, offers him the chance at redemption under his tutelage. Cranston, of course, angrily refuses but the Tulku basically forces him to turn the evil he has done against those who would harm others and, impressed by the Tulku’s ability to shield his palace from “clouded minds” and control a vicious little knife called Phurba (Frank Welker), Cranston submits to the Tulku’s teachings.

*Thanks to the Tulku, Cranston appears invisible and has a network of agents as the Shadow.*

Rather than see Cranston learning how to cloud the minds of men (and thus leave behind the one thing he cannot hide, this shadow) over the course of a montage, the film gives us the short story through some scrolling text and jumps ahead seven years, and halfway around the world, to Cranston’s home, New York City. There, he saves Doctor Roy Tam (Sab Shimono) from a group of mobsters in his guise as the cloaked and shrouded “Shadow”. Thanks to the Tulko’s teaching, Cranston is able to appear completely invisible and omnipresent to those around him through sheer force of will and this, as well as his impressive hand-to-hand combat abilities and dual pistols, allows him to strike fear into the hearts of even the most hardened criminals. Those he saves, such as Tam and his faithful driver, Moses “Moe” Shrevnitz (Boyle), become his agents and help him by feeding him information or providing him with resources and tools to fight crime more efficiently, effectively allowing him to know, through and through, what is happening all over town.

*Cranston poses as a bored playboy but Margot’s telepathic potential catches his attention.*

When he’s not strong-arming criminals into confessing to their evil deeds, the Shadow operates as a distracted and nonchalant wealthy socialite. Much to the chagrin of his uncle, police commissioner Wainwright Barth (Jonathan Winters), Cranston is constantly late for every little engagement and seems to have no hobbies or interests. Wainwright is kept from suspecting his nephew of his double life, and from assigning a task force to hunting down the Shadow, by Cranston’s ability to convince (basically hypnotise) him to ignore all reports of the Shadow. Cranston’s attentions are aroused (as is the rest of him…) when he spots Margot Lane (Miller) in his favourite social spot, the Cobalt Club, and the two immediately hit it off through their shared psychic abilities. Cranston is perturbed, however, when Margot picks up vague hints of his past purely by accident and even further concerned when she proves to be completely immune to his hypnotic powers.

*Shiwan Khan plots to continue his ancestor’s dreams of conquest with an atomic bomb.*

When Shiwan Khan has himself transported to America, he immediately sets about using his powers of manipulation to continue the conquest begun by his ancestor; maniacal in his ambition, Khan desires nothing more than to rule the entire world and, quickly acclimatising himself to American society, sees the perfect means to achieve this goal by mesmerising Margot’s father, eccentric scientist Doctor Reinhardt Lane (McKellen), into twisting his peaceful energy research towards the construction of an atomic bomb. Khan is, in essence, the manifestation of Cranston’s dark past; full of ego, self-entitlement, and bloodlust, Khan delights in using his powers to force others to sacrifice themselves to his power or to do his bidding as little more than mindless puppets (such as Reinhardt’s assistant, the slimy and detestable Farley Claymore (Curry)).

*Margot proves instrumental in Cranston uncovering Khan’s sinister plot.*

Admiring Cranston’s path of destruction as Yin Ko, Shiwan Khan initially proposes an alliance between the two; however, having committed himself to the fight against evil thanks to the Tulku’s teachings, Cranston vows to oppose him with all his power and is only further motivated when Khan reveals that he murdered the Tulku (and claimed Phurba as his own) after rejecting his attempts to turn him. What follows is an intricate game of cat and mouse as Cranston uses all of his resources to try and track Khan down, discovering that he has hypnotised the entire city in the process, while Khan uses his powers to hypnotise Margot into trying to kill the Shadow. This, of course, causes her to try and kill Cranston, thereby revealing his dual identity to her but, rather than forget about him as he initially demands, she stubbornly refuses to leave her father to be used by such a madman and proves an invaluable resource in Cranston’s efforts to locate the would-be-dictator’s fortress (to say nothing of saving him from drowning to death).

The Nitty-Gritty:
One thing that’s always stuck with me about The Shadow is Jerry Goldsmith’s haunting and rousing score, which, to me, is just as fitting, memorable, and haunting as Danny Elfman’s Batman theme. Additionally, Alec Baldwin is completely transformed by the Shadow’s ominous hat and cloak; hiding his identity behind a thick red scarf and sporting a glistening, metallic tint in his eyes whenever he uses his psychic powers, the Shadow cuts a formidable figure, especially when he appears to emerge from the shadows and be little more than a monstrous blur of mist and darkness. Furthermore, his voice takes on a dark, gravelly, haunting whisper and he often announces his presence with a cackling, demonic laughter, all of which only add to the mystique of “The Shadow”.

*A powerful, but haunted, figure, Cranston’s past comes to life when Khan arrives in New York.*

While he has successfully turned his life around and devoted himself to combatting evil, Cranston is constantly ashamed and haunted by memories of his past misdeeds; these take the form of horrifying nightmares that depict him as a blood-thirsty tyrant and he laments to Margot that his past is far too bloody to simply be forgotten about. Shiwan Khan embodies the very worst of his past; not only does he have all of Cranston’s abilities, he isn’t handicapped by notions of morality and is far more adept at controlling others as a result. Thus, for Cranston, fighting Khan is like fighting his own dark reflection and nowhere is this better emphasised than in a fantastically horrifying scene in which Cranston has a nightmare where he rips his face off to show Khan’s underneath! Another thing I always enjoyed about The Shadow is its period-based setting, which lends it a real charm and unique presentation amongst most other superhero films from that era (and even now). I also enjoy how Cranston has agents all of the city (and, he claims, the world), in addition to a vast communications network, and the film builds in a perfect explanation for how he would have been able to build all of that and acquire his resources: he either acquired agents with those resources or “convinced” others to assist him with his powers. As incredible as the Shadow’s powers and abilities are, however, he is far from superhuman; he can be hurt, injured, and is placed in vulnerable positions throughout the film, especially when his concentration is broken or his powers are muted by people like Margot and Khan.

*Cranston overcomes his limitations and puts an end to Khan’s mad dreams of conquest.*

This means that the finale contains a fair amount of tension for, while the Shadow is easily able to overcome Khan’s Mongol warriors and send Claymore to his death, he struggles to match Khan in a physical and mental battle as he is on enemy territory and his distracted by the ferocious little dagger. It is thus a triumphant achievement when Cranston summons all his mental facilities to finally earn the respect and command of Phurba and turn it against Khan. Wounded, Khan escapes into a hall of mirrors where Cranston shatters the glass all round them and ends his rival’s threat once and for all not by killing him but by driving a shard of glass into Khan’s frontal lobe, thereby removing his telepathic and psychic powers and confining him to a mental institution. Cranston thus ends the film having quelled some of the tumult and pain of his past and, fully supported by Margot and his network of allies, in a much better position to continue his fight against the evil and unjust.

The Summary:
When I first saw The Shadow as a kid, I had no idea who the character was; he was way before my time and I don’t think his radio show, novels, and comic books were that readily available in the United Kingdom back then. I was, however, a big fan of Bruce Wayne/Batman and the 1989 Batman movie so, when I saw The Shadow, I was immediately intrigued by the parallels between the two characters. I didn’t even consider The Shadow to be a rip-off of Batman as Cranston is such a different character to Bruce (realistically all they have in common is their wealth, dual identities, and penchant for the theatrical) and not only are his abilities very different, but the film is presented very differently, being much more of a period piece and thus being visually distinctive and exciting like other, similar films, I enjoyed at the time like Raiders of the Lost Ark (Spielberg 1981) and The Rocketeer (Johnston, 1991). I still don’t really get why people didn’t like The Shadow when it first came out; I guess there was quite a bit of competition back then, in general, but the superhero genre wasn’t anywhere near as inflated as it is today and I definitely think there’s enough here to make the film stand out against its competitors. I’m thus very happy to see that, in certain circles, The Shadow is regarded as an under-rated gem and I’d absolutely say that it deserves that distinction. With a slick presentation, a unique hero with both a visually interesting power and appearance, a evocative and stirring score, a great balance of action, humour, and intrigue, and some solid performances, The Shadow totally deserves more time in the spotlight as even now, after all the superhero films I’ve seen, it still manages to entertain from start to finish and I am very hard pressed to find much fault with it.

My Rating:

Great Stuff

Have you ever seen The Shadow? If so, what did you think to it? If you’re a fan of the character, did you enjoy the film as an adaptation or did it change too much for you? What did you think to the Shadow’s powers and representation? Did you enjoy the score the performances from the actors? Would you like to see another Shadow film made someday, or perhaps a Netflix series? How are you celebrating National Superhero Day today? Whatever your thoughts, leave a comment below and be sure to stick around for more superhero and comic book content throughout the year.

Back Issues [Crossover Crisis]: Dark Horse Presents #34-36

27/04/202209/04/2025Dr. K9 Comments

In April 1985, the first issue of the ground-breaking Crisis on Infinite Earths (Wolfman, et al, 1986) released and saw the temporary destruction of the “Multiverse”. To celebrate this momentous event, I’m discussing multiversal crossovers all throughout April in an event I dubbed “Crossover Crisis”.

**Writer:** Randy Stradley – **Artist:** Phill Norwood

Story Title: “Aliens vs Predator: Aliens”
Published: November 1989

Story Title: “Aliens vs Predator: Predator”
Published: December 1989

Story Title: “Aliens vs Predator”
Published: February 1990

The Background:
Founded in 1980 by Mike Richardson, Dark Horse Comics separated itself from the heavy-hitters like DC Comics and Marvel Comics by primarily publishing creator-owned titles. In 1988, the company achieved greater mainstream success by publishing licensed stories and adaptations of horror and science-fiction films and franchises, the most prominent of these being the merging of the Alien franchise (Various, 1977 to present) and the Predator films (Various, 1987 to present). About a year before a Xenomorph skull appeared as a trophy in Predator 2 (Hopkins, 1990), the two alien species clashed in this three-issue short story that was the brainchild of writer Chris Warner. This story served as the basis for a five-issue follow-up that greatly expanded upon the premise, which soon exploded into a slew of additional publications, action figures, video games, and (eventually) live-action movies that pitted the two creatures against each other.

The Review:
Our story begins “some time in the future” where the commercial transport vessel Lecter is making its way to the ranching outpost of Prosperity Wells on the planet Ryishi. Pilots Scott and Tom provide the entirety of the story’s narration, and are deeply engaged in a debate about the ethics and morals of mining other worlds for their resources, especially after humanity used up Earth’s in such a short space of time. Tom believes that it’s irresponsible to strip other worlds of their resources as it could stunt or even prevent the evolution of entire species, while Scott believes that it’s absolutely necessary to ensure the long-term survival of the human race.

*Against the backdrop of a philosophical debate, Predators forcibly harvest Xenomorph eggs.*

Their debate is briefly interrupted by what they assume is a meteor but is actually a Predator spacecraft darting through the cosmos. Scott and Tom’s discussion about the morals of harvesting unintelligent species for food and such are paralleled by the Predator’s harvesting on Xenomorph eggs aboard their ship; as Scott delivers a lecture about survival of the fittest and the strong overpowering the weak, the eggs and their Facehugger contents are scanned and processed and placed into pods to be seeded on other worlds. The eggs are all being forcibly harvested from a captive Xenomorph Queen, here an allegory for the “bitch” that is Mother Nature, who has no choice but to pump out egg after egg and watch as they are summarily processed and shot into space in a clean and efficient system.

*Broken Tusk fends off a challenge by the upstart Top-Knot.*

As Scott and Tom move their philosophical debate on to the merits of technology versus man’s primal nature, the story introduces us to a Predator warrior known colloquially as “Broken Tusk”. As Broken Tusk arms himself with all the standard Predator weaponry we’ve come to know and love over the years, Scott and Tom endlessly comment on the difference between passive leaders and active combatants. Broken Tusk observes a bout of ritual combat between other Predators and we catch a glimpse of just how many worlds have been seeded with Xenomorphs by the creatures in order to give them something worthwhile to hunt. When upstart Predator “Top-Knot” wins the bout, he’s not content with just choosing which hunting ground he gets to visit and challenges Broken Tusk’s position, which results in the rookie being bested by his superior.

*The Predators engage in a successful hunt and gain their ritual markings.*

One of the Predator’s seeding pods touches down on a marsh-like alien world; the automated, tank-like vehicle drives around the environment dropping off Xenomorph eggs in its wake before finally exploding, ensuring that many of the native creatures become impregnated by the Facehuggers. As Scott and Tom move their discussion to safari hunts and the like, Top-Knot and his hunting party make landing to begin their hunt, quickly and efficiently moving through the foliage and tracking their Xenomorph prey by following the exploded dead bodies. Soon, the Predators are attacked by the full-grown Xenomorphs; despite the Aliens’ greater numbers, the Predators have the benefit of their advanced weapons and their absolute devotion to the thrill of the hunt. They emerge victorious, having suffered only one casualty, and Top-Knot brands one of his subordinates with the Xenomorph’s acid blood for successfully executing his first kill.

The Summary:
The original, three-issue run of Aliens vs. Predator is basically just a prelude to greater things to come in the subsequent Aliens vs. Predator (Stradley, et al, 1990) comics series. Consequently, it’s quite the brief and tantalising glimpse into this shared universe of the two popular, sci-fi/horror franchises, but establishes a lot of the themes for how these franchises would crossover going forward. Rather than being set in the present day or on Earth, like the Predator films tend to be, Aliens vs. Predator takes place in the future like the Aliens films; it also heavily borrows from the aesthetics of Alien (Scott, 1977), especially in the depiction of the Lecter, which is essentially the same kind of vessel as the Nostromo. Similarly, the Predator’s spaceship and appearances are heavily inspired by what we see in the first two films, but the comic greatly expands upon their society and depiction even while utilising a philosophical debate between two humans for the entirety of its dialogue.

*The story provides a glimpse into the Predator’s society and lore.*

Aliens vs. Predator took the idea of the Xenomorphs being this biomechanical infestation, a swarm of vicious insect-like creatures, and really ran with it; because they lack the higher levels of intelligence seen in the Predators, they are reduced to being forcibly bred specifically for young Predators to test their mettle. The visual of the Xenomorph Queen being strung up and held captive is a powerful one, and one that subsequent comics, and movie and videogame adaptations would heavily borrow from, and is a humbling visual considering how formidable the Alien Queen was depicted in Aliens (Cameron, 1986). The implication is clear: The Predators, with their greater intelligence and superior technology and weapons, were easily able to overpower and capture a Xenomorph Queen and make a regular routine of harvesting her eggs for their own ends. They’re so efficient at it that the entire process is completely automated, with the eggs being forcibly removed, processed, and seeded without any manual intervention on the Predators’ part. Predator society is expanded upon greatly here; we see the hierarchy and feudal nature of the species, with ritual combat being the norm and the younger, less experienced hunters having to fight against their peers for recognition and the chance to hunt. Like lions and other members of the animal kingdom, it’s common for the young upstarts to challenge their betters in an attempt to claim the top position. While this doesn’t go well for Top-Knot, as he’s easily bested by Broken Tusk, he’s still dispatched to lead a hunting party, so it seems as though making the challenge isn’t necessarily a sign of disrespect. During the hunt, even the inexperienced Predators are formidable and capable warriors; while we don’t get to see much of their traditional strategies (there’s no cloaking, no need to modulate their prey’s voices, and very little use of the plasma cannon), we do get to see them working in a co-ordinated effort to eradicate their prey. Although the Aliens are fast and strong and have the numbers advantage, the Predators are keen hunters and superior warriors, meaning they are victorious with minimal effort, and the honour that comes from killing a Xenomorph is of high standing in their society (which, again, would be a crucial plot point in later stories).

*A decent story, but clearly just a taste of greater things to come for this crossover.*

However, it has to be said that the concept of bringing together the Aliens and Predator franchises probably sounded better on paper than it worked in execution. I have read the subsequent comic series, and it’s definitely a lot better and more in-depth, but I didn’t want to get into that without first tackling the three-issue arc that kick-started this entire sub-franchise and Aliens vs. Predator, while a novelty, is really just an appetiser for the main course. Dark Horse Comics teased readers by framed the first two stories as Aliens and Predator tales, so the actual Aliens on Predator action doesn’t kick in until right at the end, and it’s very brief when it does happen. I applaud the creative use of Scott and Tom’s philosophical debate as a parallel to the events of the story, but I found myself tuning the text boxes out and focusing more on the visuals. While the art does tell us a lot about what the Predators and even the Xenomorph Queen are thinking and feeling, I am not a massive fan of the art on show here. It’s both messy and yet simple, oddly coloured (I get that we hadn’t seen much of the Predator society or their ships but there’s a lot of odd purples and yellows and blues here), and it’s not that easy to tell the Predators apart. Obviously, this is in keeping with the aliens as depicted in the movies, which had very subtle differences, but I think for a comic you need a little more than just a barely distinguishable broken tusk or hair being styled differently. It’s also a little disappointing that we don’t get more variations of the Xenomorphs; considering they were all born from alien lifeforms, it’s a little odd that they are just carbon copies of the drones seen in Aliens, but again I can understand why this decision was made as it makes sense to focus on the familiar visual of a Predator we recognise from the movies fighting Aliens as they appear in the films. Overall, it’s a fun little novelty that’s worth checking out as long as you read it as a prelude to the longer, far more exciting and visually interesting follow-up.

My Rating:

Could Be Better

Have you ever read the original, three-issue Aliens vs. Predator story? If so, what did you think to it? Do you own a copy of the original comics or did you pick up the collected edition as I did? Were you also disappointed by the brevity of the story and the artwork or did it get you excited to see subsequent clashes between the two aliens? Which of the two creatures, and franchises, was/is your preference? Which of the Aliens vs. Predator stories or adaptations was your favourite? Would you like to see the two battle again in some form or another? Whatever your thoughts on Aliens vs. Predator, and comic book crossovers of this kind, drop a comment down below.

Game Corner [Robin Month]: Young Justice: Legacy (Xbox 360)

25/04/202227/04/2023Dr. KLeave a comment

In April of 1940, about a year after the debut of arguably their most popular character, Bruce Wayne/Batman, DC Comics debuted “the sensational find of [that year]”, Dick Grayson/Robin. Since then, Batman’s pixie-boots-wearing partner has changed outfits and a number of different characters have assumed the mantle as the Dynamic Duo of Batman and Robin have become an iconic staple of DC Comics. Considering my fondness for the character and those who assumed the mantle over the years, what better way to celebrate this dynamic debut than to dedicate every Monday of April to celebrating the character?

Released: 19 November 2013
Developer: Freedom Factory Studios
Also Available For: Nintendo 3DS, PC, and PlayStation 3

The Background:
After debuting in the pages of The Brave and the Bold #54 in 1964, the Teen Titans had a relatively consistent presence throughout the 1960s and 1970s and acted as a way for DC Comics to appeal to younger audiences. The team arguably achieved their greatest mainstream success when writer Marv Wolfman and George Pérez breathed new life into the concept by introducing many characters who are now synonymous with the team but I actually became a fan of the group after reading the adventures of their later contemporaries, Young Justice. Although functionally similar to the Teen Titans, Young Justice brought together the then-modern incarnations of their predecessors, who had long since grown up and assumed other identities. Created by Todd Dezago, Todd Nauck, and Lary Stucker the team operated between 1998 and 2003 before disbanding (most likely so that DC Comics could captalise on the success of the Teen Titans cartoon (2003 to 2006)) before reuniting in 2019. Some four years after Teen Titans ended, the Young Justice concept was evoked for a new DC animated series that ran from 2010 to 2013 before finally receiving a long-awaited revival in 2020. Young Justice’s critical acclaim and popularity also led to the development of this videogame adaptation; unfortunately, the game suffered delays, ports to other consoles were cancelled, and it released to mainly negative reviews.

The Plot:
Taking place in the five-year gap between season one and season two of the cartoon, Young Justice sees the titular team joining forces against the combined might of “The Light”, a cabal of supervillains with intentions to take over (or destroy) the world.

Gameplay:
Young Justice: Legacy is a team-based beat-‘em-up with very light puzzle elements that sees players form a team of three (why it isn’t four is beyond me…) characters from a roster of twelve and fight their way through fifteen missions. If you don’t have one or two friends to play alongside, you can switch between the three characters with a press of left or right on the directional pad and, when you’re not playing as them, the computer will take over and batter any nearby enemies with a reasonable amount of competence. When selecting a team for the game’s main campaign, you’re unable to alter the story-based team leader, which can mean that you’re stuck with a character you don’t really like and limits the customisation options available to you, but that doesn’t really matter as, essentially, every single character plays the same way. Tapping X performs a light attack while pressing Y performs a heavy attack (you can also hold Y to charge this up) and you can mix up these button presses to perform a few clunky combos (although it has to be said that you can easily just run past the vast majority of the game’s enemies and not get bogged down in the monotonous combat). You can jump with A and certain characters can fly (more of a hover) with a subsequent press of A, perform an awkward dash with B that can help you move a little faster or dodge incoming attacks, hold the Left Trigger to block, and pick up and throw objects with B and X, respectively.

*Combat is laborious and characters don’t really feel that different from each other.*

Each character has four superpowers available to use; these are performed by holding the Right Trigger and pressing either X, Y, A , or B and can be performed as long as the blue bar on the heads-up display is full. This bar fills up over time and you’re able to pull off such ranged attacks as tossing Batarangs, shooting arrows, throwing fireballs, and blasting enemies with water, area blast attacks that may stun or knock back enemies, cast a healing spell or boost your attack, defence, and energy consumption, or freeze enemies, compel them to attack their allies, or turn your character briefly invisible. As you defeat enemies, you’ll build up your character’s “Hero Boost” meter; once it’s full, you can pull off a Hero Boost than defeats or heavily damages all onscreen enemies by holding RT and pressing the Right Bumper or build up all three characters’ bars and unleash a massive “Squad Boost” attack by holding RT and pressing the Left Bumper. Sadly, every character has the same Hero Boost attack and animation, which really limits the distinctiveness of each character beyond their individual superpowers. Combat in Young Justice: Legacy is mind-numbingly simple; as you run through painfully linear environments, you’ll be set upon by a near-endless supply of goons, all of whom might look a bit different area to area but basically attack in the same ways and can be put down with a bit of mindless button-mashing (or, as I said, avoided completely in some instances).

*Combat is broken up by simple puzzles and a few tedious tasks.*

Opportunities for exploration are limited; sometimes you can (and have to) smash through rock walls to access secret areas that lead to some collectibles or control panels and such but you won’t really find multiple paths through stages or areas that can only be accessed by certain characters and/or team combinations. The game also tries to mix things up with some extremely simple puzzles; these generally involve smashing something, usually a generator, activating a console to open a door, or pushing something big to activate bridges, open doors, or reach new areas. Stages are super linear but there’s a helpful mini map on screen at all times to point you in the right direction and you can look up your current objectives with a press of the ‘Back’ button but, while missions are split into three sub-missions at a time, the game’s monotony is made all the more frustrating by a serious lack of checkpoints. While you can’t pick anything up to refill your health, it will automatically refill once all onscreen enemies have been defeated and, if an ally is knocked out, you can revive them by pressing B. You can select from two difficulty settings (Normal and Hard) which, obviously make the game’s enemies a bit tougher and what-not but it can be extremely aggravating to get knee-deep into a mission only to have your health drained to nothing by instant-kill laser traps. Some stages are full of environmental hazards like this, such as flames and spikes from the floor and large statues that come to life as you progress through rooms. Other missions also prove unnecessarily frustrating, such as forcing you to clear out all onscreen enemies in a time limit (bizarrely without an onscreen timer to gauge your progress), rescue hostages, defend John Stewart/Green Lantern while health-sapping debris and waves of enemies attack you, avoid enemy-spawning search lights, smash engines or generators while avoiding missile-shooting turrets, or push forklift trucks to avoid being taken out by snipers.

Graphics and Sound:
I should stress here that I haven’t ever seen the cartoon that Young Justice: Legacy is based on but the game opts to use a variation of cel-shaded graphics to recreate the look of its source material and, for the most part, this works…unless you’re watching the game’s cutscenes. When playing the game, thanks to the skewed, top-down perspective, the lack of detail and rigidity of the character models isn’t as noticeable since you’re so focused on combat and the perspective is quite zoomed out but, when the game tells its story, characters are all very flat and kind of resemble lifeless puppets more often than not. While the main characters look fine for what they need to be, the enemies aren’t so great; you’ll fight the same goons and robots over and over, which all gets very monotonous very quickly.

*Character models are okay but environments and cutscenes are a bit bland and stilted.*

Environments are surprisingly big considering how linear and empty they are; there’s usually a lot of open room to manoeuvre and you’re rarely forced to fight down boring, narrow grey corridors. You’ll visit places like Siberia, Santa Prisca, Gotham City, and battle on LexCorp hovercrafts, all of which provide a decent amount of visual variety to the game. It’s just a shame, then, that there’s very little opportunity to explore; you can go off the beaten path but will often find only a dead end or useless boxes to smash, and there’s no opportunities to platform or utilise specific character powers outside of combat. At one point, Edward Nygma/The Riddler challenges you to solve a light-based puzzle in a neon-drenched sewer system-made-funhouse, which is quite a unique area, but there’s really not that much on display here to keep you that engaged, which only adds to the game’s repetitiveness. The music and sound effects are equally bland but, while the game appears to utilise the same voice cast from the cartoon, this is actually to its detriment; characters will spout the same quips and lines over and over again and I was about ready to snap the disc in half after hearing Dick Grayson/Nightwing moan about being “whelmed” all the damn time!

Enemies and Bosses:
A slew of generic goons will dog your progress in every mission. After playing through the first stage, you’ll basically have encountered every enemy the game has to offer as they simply get swapped out with different character models in each mission. You’ll battle teleporting, sword-wielding members of the League of Shadows, a variety of robots (Spider Bots and larger, more humanoid robots being the most common), Bane and David Hyde/Black Manta’s mercenaries, and the Riddler’s baton and shotgun-wielding goons throughout the game’s story. Things get interesting in the game’s final missions, where you’ll battle a larger mech, fight against mummies, and come up against gigantic statues that deal massive damage and get jumped by an assortment of enemies in enclosed areas.

*Cheshire and Sportsmaster require a hit-and-run strategy to whittle down.*

Each mission culminates in a boss fight against at least one member of the supervillain cabal known as The Light; the first mission ends with you battling Jade Nguyen/Cheshire, who teleports around the arena in a puff of smoke and throws projectiles your way but, while she’s the toughest enemy you’ll have faced at that point, she leaves herself wide open for an attack when she pauses to setup an explosive device and isn’t too difficult to whittle down as long as you keep moving, attacking, and reviving as necessary. This strategy basically applies to every boss but will become abundantly clear when you battle the second boss, Lawrence “Crusher” Crock/Sportsmaster. Sportsmaster is accompanied by a seemingly endless supply of goons, all of whom cause a massive headache when you’re trying to dodge Sprotsmaster’s health-sapping spinning and charge attacks. Thankfully, though, these enemies are finite and, if you quickly take them all out, you can focus on battling Sportsmaster using hit-and-run and ranged attacks.

*Many of the bosses cannot be attacked directly and must be stunned first.*

In Siberia, you’ll fight Crystal Frost/Killer Frost as Spider Bots attack you; Frost can’t be attacked head-on as she hides atop an ice column and blasts ice attacks at you, so you need to destroy her platform to knock her down and then beat on her before she can build a new one. Cameron Mahkent/Icicle Jr. takes over the ice-based duties for the next boss battle, where he teams up with Sportsmaster. You can utilise the same tactics to take out Sportsmaster and it’s best to focus on one enemy at a time; Icicle Jr. is different from Killer Frost in that he can freeze you and encases himself in an ice sphere that refills his health. After defeating them, you’re faced with a harrowing mission where you must battle through rooms of annoying enemies with no checkpoints and no refillable health as Clark Kent/Superman holds back an incoming avalanche, which was one of the most aggravating parts of the game on my first playthrough. Afterwards, in Santa Prisca, you’ll battle against Bane who, again, requires a little more strategy; when pumped full of Venom, Bane is invincible and you need to lure him into charging the nearby columns to stun him. He also busts out a big ground pound attack and can bash your brains in if you get too close for too long, so again it’s best to hit and run and use ranged attacks to whittle him down.

*While you can bypass Black Manta, Psimon and Riddler require a more hands-on approach.*

Next up, you’ll have a tough battle where you must disable Black Manta’s submarine; the game doesn’t make it massively clear how you do this but basically you have to fight off Black Manta’s goons and push these red bars near the large generators to overload his sub, all while avoiding his instant-kill lasers by taking advantage of the big metal shields that rotate around the arena. After that, you’ll fight Black Manta himself; make sure you avoid his massive eye beams but don’t worry about fighting him or his goons as you can simply attack and destroy the shield generators to end the fight that way. While at Haly’s Circus, you’ll have to fight through waves of enemies in a mini gauntlet before battling with Doctor Simon Jones/Psimon, who spawns in mirror versions of your team (who seem to randomly stun and defeat you without really landing any attacks) and then rains massive red energy lasers into the arena but if you simply mash the attack button, he’ll go down pretty easily. Finally, you’ll have to do battle with the Riddler, who randomly spawns bombs, poison gas, goons, and other hazards into the arena. To defeat the Riddler, simply ignore everything and attack and destroy the panels on his big circus-wheel-thing in perhaps the game’s easiest (if tedious) boss battle.

*The final boss battle just goes on and on and even contains a game-breaking glitch!*

The game ends with a gruelling and aggravating multi-stage fight against Klarion Bleak/Klarion the Witch Boy, Mark Desmond/Blockbuster, and the eldritch beast known as Tiamat. While Klarion and Blockbuster aren’t too difficult to best (simply lure Blockbuster into Klarion’s meteor attack to stun him and then beat on him until he goes down), the fight against Tiamat feels like it’s never-ending! In the first phase, he blasts the arena with water attacks that will basically kill you in one or two hits and he can only be damaged when he dips down into the water. In the second phase, he shoots a massive mouth laser at you and tries to swipe and squash you with his claws and fists; after avoiding his attacks, pummel the limb with everything you have until his health is drained. In Tiamat’s final phase, he flies about above you and comes crashing to the ground, unleashing a devastating series of attacks that will leave you “whelmed” in seconds. The only way to damage him is to attack the minions that spawn into the arena; after defeating two, you’ll build up your Hero Boost and you must unleash your Squad Boost to damage Tiamat, and then attack him immediately afterwards to whittle him down even more. This is easily the most frustrating boss battle in the entire game because of how tough Tiamat is; make sure to bring a healer like Zantanna Zatara or M’Gann M’orzz/Miss Martian or else you’re gonna have a bad time but be warned as there’s an almost-game-breaking glitch in this fight that can see the enemies stop spawning in, leaving you unable to finish the fight and forcing you to quit the game and try again but, thankfully, there are save points between each phase of this finale.

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
As you defeat enemies, you’ll gain experience points (XP) that will cause you to level-up; each character has different statistics that affect how much health, power, and energy that have and levelling-up allows you to increase the power and range of each character’s superpowers. You can also find crates in stages and earn “Hero Points”, which can be spent on Wayne Industries upgrades, two of which can be equipped to each character after being purchased and will increase your melee or weapon attacks, energy consumption, and a host of other stats. Thankfully, these Hero Points seem to be shared amongst every character; so, if you have ten Hero Points, you can spend them upgrading Tim Drake/Robin’s superpowers and then switch out to Kaldur’ahm/Aqualad and spend the same ten Hero Points upgrading him, too. Sadly, though, there are no pick-ups on offer; yes, you can pick up and throw boxes and barrels and such, but you can’t pick up weapons or power-ups during gameplay, making smashing all those boxes pretty pointless.

Additional Features:
Young Justice: Legacy comes with forty-eight Achievements for you to earn; many of these pop simply by playing the main campaign and defeating a certain number of enemies, the game’s bosses, and finishing the game on Normal or Hard. You can also snag some G by destroying crates, finding collectibles, or playing the game in co-up but there are also some stage-specific Achievements, such as avoiding searchlights in the Gotham City docks and solving a puzzle in a certain way. Every stage in the game has a few collectibles to find; these include dioramas, additional costumes for the game’s characters, and journals left behind by Roy Harper/Red Arrow. Playing through the campaign on Normal and Hard will see you unlocking additional characters, which is always nice, and there are four additional characters available to purchase as downloadable content if you like the sort of thing. Also on offer are an array of challenges; while these can only be played in single-player, these will pit you against ten waves of enemies that progress in difficulty, or have you battling against a time limit and you’ll unlock additional challenges and stages by playing the story mode. You can also view character biographies, concept art, and take part in a quiz that will test your knowledge of the cartoon to earn points.

The Summary:
I wasn’t expecting much from Young Justice: Legacy except some mindless, arcade-style beat-‘em-up action; I’ve played team-based, top-down fighters like this before and been perfectly satisfied with them but I have to say that this game is just a repetitive, tedious, aggravating experience from start to finish. There’s a decent amount of characters on offer and some of them have more appeal than others, but they all essentially play exactly the same way. Since they lack character-specific super moves, you may as well just pick anyone and it’s ridiculous how you can just run past enemies to progress or simply look away from the screen and mash the X button to win. There’s very little actual skill or intelligence needed for this game, which would be fine if it was actually fun but it really isn’t; it’s dull and down-right infuriating at times, with some bland bosses, linear and empty stages, and very little incentive to replay the game beyond mopping up any missed Achievements.

My Rating:

Terrible

Have you ever played Young Justice: Legacy? If so, what did you think to it? What character and team combination was your favourite? What did you think to the combat and gameplay and which of the game’s missions and bosses was your favourite? Were you a fan of the cartoon and, if so, do you think the game did a good job of recreating the action and energy of the show? Would you like to see more videogames based on Young Justice and/or the Teen Titans? Feel free to share your thoughts on Young Justice: Legacy, and Young Justice, down in the comments.

Movie Night [Robin Month]: Teen Titans: The Judas Contract

18/04/202202/09/2024Dr. K1 Comment

In April of 1940, about a year after the debut of arguably their most popular character, Bruce Wayne/Batman, DC Comics debuted “the sensational find of [that year]”, Dick Grayson/Robin. Since then, Batman’s pixie-boots-wearing partner has changed outfits and a number of different characters have assumed the mantle as the Dynamic Duo of Batman and Robin have become an iconic staple of DC Comics. Considering my fondness for the character and those who assumed the mantle over the years, what better way to celebrate this dynamic debut debut than to dedicate every Sunday of April to celebrating the character?

Released: 4 April 2017
Director: Sam Liu
Distributor: Warner Home Video
Budget: Unknown
Stars: Sean Maher, Kari Wahlgren, Stuart Allan, Christina Ricci, Gregg Henry, and Miguel Ferrer

The Plot:
Dick Grayson/Nightwing (Maher) rejoins his old team mates, the Teen Titans, who are now training a new generation of costumed heroes. Alongside their newest recruit, Tara Markov/Terra (Ricci), the Titans work to end the maniacal aspirations of Sebastian Blood/Brother Blood (Henry). However, things escalate when Blood hires mercenary Slade Wilson/Deathstroke (Ferrer) to kill the Titans and the team are faced not only with Slade’s burning desire for revenge against them but also a very real threat from within their ranks.

The Background:
The Teen Titans first came together in the pages of The Brave and the Bold #54 in 1964, some four years after the debut of their adult counterparts, the Justice League of America. The team was comprised entirely of the teenage sidekicks of DC Comic’s adult superheroes, potentially to appeal to younger audiences. The team had a relatively consistent presence throughout the 1960s and 1970s but was given new life when writer Marv Wolfman and George Pérez, who introduced characters like Victor Stone/Cyborg and Princess Koriand’r/Starfire who would become synonymous with the team for years to come. One of the team’s most celebrated stories was “The Judas Contract” (Wolfman, et al, 1984) in which they were betrayed by one of their own thanks to the machinations of the vindictive Deathstroke. An animated adaptation had been in the works for some time but, after a few false starts, finally came to life as part of the DC Universe Animated Original Movies series. The film, which was the third in this new animated continuity of films and iconic actor Miguel Ferrer’s last role before his untimely death, made over $3,250,000 in home video sales and was modestly received compared to what had come before it.

The Review:
The film begins with the original incarnation of the Teen Titans – comprised of Dick Grayson/Robin (Maher), Wally West/Kid Flash (Jason Spisak), Roy Harper/Speedy (Crispin Freeman), Garfield Logan/Beast Boy (Brandon Soo Hoo), and Karen Beecher/Bumblebee (Masasa Moyo) – meeting Starfire (Wahlgren) for the first time. If you’ve watched the awesome Teen Titans (2003 to 2006) cartoon before then many of the Titans’ characterisations will be instantly familiar: Robin is the composed leader, Beast Boy is the comic relief, Kid Flash is impatient, and so forth. This version of Starfire, while still being somewhat naïve and innocent, is far less childish compared to her counterpart; however, she nevertheless forms an immediate bond with the team after learning to communicate through kissing.

*After a random flashback, we rejoin the Teen Titans adjusting to their new team dynamic.*

We then jump ahead to “NOW” to find Brother Blood and his lover and right-hand, Mother Mayhem (Meg Foster), packing up their most recent Hive base. Choosing to ignore Deathstroke’s warning, the cult are caught completely off-guard when the Titans – now made up of Nightwing, Starfire, Beast Boy, Rachel Roth/Raven (Taissa Farmiga), Jaime Reyes/Blue Beetle (Jake T. Austin), Damian Wayne/Robin (Allan), and newcomer Terra – break into the facility using Terra’s power over earth and rock. Nightwing, who has only recently rejoined the team, finds it difficult adjusting to the new dynamic, which places Starfire as the field commander, but his experience and combat strategies are nevertheless appreciated by Starfire and his older teammates. There is, however, some discord within the team; not only are Nightwing and Starfire a little distracted by their intimate relationship outside of the team but she doubts her place as the team’s leader (despite Robin approving of her) and Robin constantly clashes with Blue Beetle over the unpredictability of Jaime’s alien Scarab suit. Still, the team takes out Blood’s goons and reconvenes at Titan Towers, where their teamwork and interpersonal relationships are developed a little more. Damian continues to have a somewhat disconnected and abrasive personality and remains fully committed to his role as Robin (he’s the only member to never appear outside of his costume during the film) and, interestingly, the film makes a subtle allusion to unpredictability of the Scarab to puberty during Jaime’s video call with his parents (Maria Canals-Barrera and David Zayas, respectively) and his interactions with a young girl he is attracted to that helps to highlight how, despite their superpowers or physical abilities, the Teen Titans remain just that: troubled teenagers trying to find their place in the world.

*Blood is a twisted zealot who hires Deathstroke to capture the Titans and fuel his desires for Godhood.*

Brother Blood is a ruthless zealot of a man; having organised Hive into a cult-like following, he believes that he has the gift of foresight and is fully willing to kill any who blasphemes against his beliefs. Regularly bathing in the blood of his enemies to maintain his youth and vigour and with a penchant for hanging out in graveyards, Blood has constructed an elaborate machine that is powered by the lifeforce of those connected to it that he plans to use to absorb the Titans’ superpowers and abilities to become a demigod. To that end, he hires Deathstroke to deliver the Titans to him, a task he takes great pleasure in given his past history with Damian and has prepared for by augmenting his already-impressive physical abilities by regularly bathing in a Lazarus Pit.

*Deathstroke manipulates Terra into infiltrating the Titans to get revenge on Robin.*

Terra constantly feels underappreciated by the team and perturbed by Beast Boy’s constant attentions and remains dismissive and bitter towards their personalities, hobbies, or issues. Aggressive and snappy, Terra has little interest in helping others in a way that doesn’t involve busting heads with her powers and is weary of the team’s constant attempts to reach and befriend her. Tormented by memories of her life in Markovia, where she was beaten and hounded and accused of being a witch, Terra has grown angry at and resentful towards humanity and has no interest in serving it for the greater good. Thus, she willingly infiltrates the team on Deathstroke’s behalf and allows him to capture Damian for Blood. Terra is absolutely besotted with Deathstroke after he saved her life in Markovia prior to the start of the film; devoted to him, she sees him as more than a mentor and father-figure and constantly attempts to seduce him in some truly awkward scenes that have her dressed in an overly provocative outfit. Although he rebukes her advances, he nevertheless commands her complicit behaviour by promising that they’ll be a couple and take command of the League of Assassins once the contract is fulfilled. Thus, begrudgingly, she returns to Titans Tower, now equipped with an audio/visual link up to Deathstroke, to continue her subterfuge. Though her anti-social personality begins to crack when she sees just how appreciative they are of her and she even shares a kiss with Beast Boy, she nevertheless lures each of the Titans into a series of traps that lead to them all being captured by Deathstroke and placed in Blood’s machine.

The Nitty-Gritty:
Teen Titans: The Judas Contract shares the same quasi-anime, stilted animation as other DC Universe Animated Original Movies. Still, the animation and visual presentation is made more appealing due to the aesthetic distinctiveness of each of the Titans and their individual powers. Raven, for example, exudes dark, ethereal magic while Beast Boy cycles between a variety of amusing animal forms as part of his somewhat awkward and hyperactive personality. Unfortunately for me, many of the Team’s appearances are taken from their New 52 designs, meaning that Nightwing is wearing his awful red suit; however, Deathstroke more than makes up for this with his bad-ass outfit that is only made all the more intimidating thanks to Ferrer’s distinctive gravely tones. The voice acting, in general, is really good, actually; Stuart Allan is particularly great at capturing Damian’s dickish attitude, I’ve always had a soft spot for Christina Ricci (and it’s great to see her voicing Terra rather than someone more cliché, like Raven), and (though I’m not really his biggest fan) the film even includes a brief cameo by Kevin Smith.

*Terra’s abrasive attitude cracks but she remains loyal to Slade … right up until he betrays her.*

Having the reveal of Terra’s dual nature quite early into the film makes for a great bit of suspense as we see her emotionally and physically manipulate each of the Titans into Deathstroke’s traps. The relationship between Terra and Slade has always been an unnerving and disgusting one full of appalling sexual subtext and this remains largely prevalent in the film as Deathstroke manipulates Terra’s motions in order to craft her into the perfect double agent. Even though Damian, with his unique insight into both Deathstroke and the League of Assassins, attempts to reach her, Terra is ruled by her bitterness and anger and is thus completely blindsided when Deathstroke betrays her in order to fully deliver on his contract with Blood.

*Ultimately, Terra shows her true colours and sacrifices herself to stop Blood and Deathstroke.*

In the finale, Nightwing frees his friends thanks to faking his death at Deathstroke’s hands and interrupting the party. Still, Blood is able to absorbs most of the Titans’ powers, which transforms him into a demonic creature and makes him more than a match for Starfire, Beast Boy, Raven, and Blue Beetle while Nightwing and Robin attack Deathstroke head-on in easily the film’s most impressive fight scene. Despite his near-unstoppable new powers, the Titans are only able to overcome Blood when Raven unleashes the full extent of her supernatural powers to strip him of his abilities and render him helpless, though Mother Mayhem kills Blood before he can be brought into the Titans’ custody. At the same time Terra, enraged at Deathstroke’s betrayal, mercilessly attacks and kills him with her incredible powers by bringing the entire area down him. Unable to live with her betrayal and pain, she then destroys the entire temple, taking herself along with it in recompense for her actions but, while Beast Boy is left heartbroken, the team honour their former comrade as a Teen Titan to the end.

The Summary:
As an adaptation of the source material, Teen Titans: The Judas Contract does the best that it can in its limited time; obviously, the story has been changed a little, the team is almost completely different, and even Deathstroke’s motivations are very different compared to in the original story but a lot of this is to be expected from the adaptation process. The film’s main concern seems to be with telling another story in the DC Universe Animated Original Movies series; however, while it might be beneficial to have seen Justice League vs. Teen Titans (Liu, 2016) for a bit of additional context, it works pretty well as a standalone story. I do question why the film went to the effort of including a prelude where an almost completely different version of the team first meets Starfire as this doesn’t really tie into the main story (maybe it would’ve been better to have the older team be comprised of grown-up versions of the characters seen in the prelude) and I also feel like the story might have been better served by removing Brother Blood completely and instead focusing on Deathstroke and his vendetta against the Titans as the primary antagonist. Still, it’s a decent enough animated venture and adaptation of the seminal storyline, with some engaging action and intriguing character beats and some great vocal work from Allan, Ricci, and the late, great Miguel Ferrer especially.

My Rating:

Pretty Good

Did you enjoy Teen Titans: The Judas Contract? Were you a fan of the changes that the film made to the story and the new team line-up? Have you ever read the original comic book the film is based on and, if so, where does it rank for you amongst other Teen Titans stories? Who is your favourite Robin and how are you celebrating the Boy Wonder’s debut this month? Whatever your thoughts on this film, Teen Titans, and Robin, leave a comment below and thanks for joining me for Robin Month!

Movie Night [National Anime Day]: Akira

15/04/202206/11/2025Dr. K2 Comments

15 April has been designated National Anime Day to celebrate the stylistic genre, which achieved mainstream success thanks to animators like Osamu Tezuka.

Released: 16 July 1988
Director: Katsuhiro Otomo
Distributor: Toho
Budget: ¥700 million
Stars: Cam Clarke, Jan Rabson, Lara Cody, Tony Pope, Lewis Arquette, and Bob Bergen

The Plot:
The year is 2019 and Neo-Tokyo is plagued by corruption, anti-government sentiment, and terrorism following Tokyo’s sudden destruction on 16 July 1988. Amidst the chaos, biker Shōtarō Kaneda (Clarke) uncovers a diabolical government conspiracy when his friend, Tetsuo Shima (Jabson), acquires incredible telekinetic abilities after a motorcycle accident that eventually threaten an entire military complex.

The Background:
It’s hard, if not practically impossible, to talk about anime without mentioning Akira; pretty much single-handedly responsible for the popularity of the genre outside of Japan, Akira remains an incredibly influential and popular animated feature and, arguably, the principal reason why anime remains so prevalent in the western world. Akira began life as a cyberpunk manga series written and illustrated by Katsuhiro Otomo. What was initially thought to be a short work of only ten chapters ended up ballooning into a 120 chapter piece that was serialised bi-weekly in Young Magazine from 20 December 1982 to 25 June 1990. Akira proved such a success in its native Japan that Otomo was approached to publish an English language version in 1983; indeed, Akira is often credited for introducing manga to Western audiences, and Otomo was eventually intrigued at the prospect of adapting his story for the screen…as long as he retained creative control, which meant not only collaborating on the screenplay, but also helming the adaptation, which was the most expensive anime film at the time. In a first for the genre, Akira used pre-scored dialogue where the dialogue was recorded first and the animation was keyed to match it and over 16,000 animation cels were used to bring the story to life, although Otomo later expressed disappointment at making the anime before the manga was finished due to how many omissions had to be made. Although a moderate success at the Japanese box office, Akira eventually grossed $49 million worldwide, and its success on home video basically kick-started the widespread release of anime outside of Japan. Anyone with even a passing knowledge of anime will be unsurprised to learn that Akira is held in extremely high regard; critics praised the dubbing and presentation, especially the slick animation and kinetic action, and film went on to be extremely popular and influential on a generation of writers, filmmakers, and creators and is widely regarded as one of the greatest anime films ever made.

The Review:
I feel like it’s important to preface this review by saying that I’m watching the original 1989 version of the film, dubbed into English; I know a lot of anime “purists” might take exception to this, but I always prefer a dubbed version over subtitles or the original Japanese language as it’s easier for me to digest it and understand the content. Secondly, I never really cared for Akira; I’ve seen this version, and the 2001 re-dub, a few times both dubbed and with subtitles and, while the animation and attention to detail and the premise has always intrigued me, it tends to lose me about halfway through so I went into this viewing a little hesitant, to say the least. The film opens on 16^th July 1988 to dramatically set the stage for its narrative by showing the utter obliteration of Tokyo from a massive energy blast; thirty-one years later, Neo-Tokyo was built on artificial islands nearby and all that’s left of the once bustling metropolis is an ominous crater. 2019 Neo-Tokyo is both a technologically advanced civilisation and a crime-ridden cesspit full of seedy bars and dilapidated back alleys. It’s in both of these locations that we meet our two main characters; abrasive Kaneda, the leader of a biker gang known as the Capsules (who are embroiled in a bitter feud with the rival Clown gang), and Tetsuo, a young, embittered member of the Capsules who both idolises Kaneda and is envious of his iconic high-tech bike. A brutal high-speed chase between the Capsules and the Clowns is cut short when the cops arrive to chase them off and, amidst all of this, the city is under lockdown following a student riot; armed police are called in to help manage the chaos, and end up shooting an armed man as he tries to desperately protect Takashi (Barbara Goodson), a young boy with a wizened appearance who exhibits incredible psychic powers when under stress.

*A chance encounter with a strange child sees angst-ridden Tetsuo develop incredible powers.*

The streets are thrown into chaos as the cops use gas to disperse the crowd, and Tetsuo takes a bad fall from his bike after running across Takashi; Takashi’s abilities attract the attention of Masaru (Bob Bergen), a fellow ESPer, who leads Colonel Shikishima (Pope) of the Japan Self-Defence Forces right to him, resulting in Takashi, Tetsuo, Kaneda, and the rest of the Capsule gang being apprehended. While the injured Tetsuo is transported away, Kaneda and his gang prove too clueless to be involved in the greater concerns of anti-government protesters and resistance fighters, and are released from custody. However, Kaneda spots Kei (Cody) amidst the suspects and, taking a shine to her, manages to trick the cops into releasing her alongside them by claiming she’s part of his gang, though she rebukes his advances afterwards. At school, Kaneda and his gang are severely disciplined for their actions, which only riles the anti-authority biker up even more; he and the Capsules attract a lot of female attention for their bad boy antics, but he’s in no mood for socialising after the night he’s had, and openly criticises Tetsuo for “showing off”. Only Tetsuo’s girlfriend, Kaori (Barbara Goodson), shows concern for the boy, and he goes to her after escaping from the military facility; traumatised by his experiences, and fearing for his life, he steals Kaneda’s bike and prepares to leave the city with Kaori, but their escape is cut short by a group of vengeful Clowns. They attack Kaori, humiliating and hurting her as Tetsuo is held helpless and, though they’re saved by Kaneda and the Capsules, Tetsuo is angered at Kaneda’s constant interference in his life. Suffering from crippling headaches, nightmarish visions, and a voice tormenting him with an unknown name, “Akira”, over and over, Tetsuo is easily detained and returned to the facility for further observation by Shikishima’s staff.

*Shikishima is a complex soldier who takes the ESPer’s word, and threat, very seriously.*

Shikishima acts as the stubborn, pig-headed, yet surprisingly complex antagonist of the feature; convinced that there’s a mole within the executive council and determined to shut down any anti-government sentiment and apprehend anyone who learns of the ESPers no matter the cost. With no time for political games, Shikishima is more concerned with identifying and controlling telekinetic abilities so that the military can gain a formidable weapon without the risk of mass destruction exhibited by Akira; when Doctor Ōnishi (Lewis Arquette) identifies that Tetsuo has the potential to become as powerful as Akira, Shikishima orders that he be subjected to a series of painful and invasive procedures to unlock that potential but warns that the angst-ridden biker is to be terminated the minute any danger arises. Despite his implacable, hardened exterior, Shikishima seems to have a greater deal of respect and admiration for the ESPers in his employee and care and thus takes Kiyoko’s (Melora Harte) warnings of Neo-Tokyo’s impending destruction very seriously. Although he is disgusted at how quickly the city has degenerated into a den for hedonistic excess and believes that the people have lost their way, he’s not a scientist or an optimist and instead sees the world in very black and white terms and from a strict military perspective of action versus inaction, with little room for debate or hesitation between these extremes. Unfortunately, the supreme council fail to heed his warnings or to grant him the funding necessary to prepare against Kiyoko’s prediction; instead, they cast doubt over Akira’s existence and involvement in the last World War, call the colonel’s integrity into question, and would rather bicker and squabble about preparations for the upcoming Olympics, which only enrages Shikishima. Determined to track Tetsuo down and contain him before his powers reach their full, destructive potential, Shikishima takes control of the government and the entire military in a coup d’état and engages Tetsuo with the military’s full force, which results only in countless soldiers perishing and tanks being destroyed by Tetsuo’s raging powers, which allow him to form protective shields, toss back tank shells, and tear apart an entire bridge in his fury.

*Tetsuo is a slave to his emotions, consumed by rage, envy, and his own monstrous body!*

Kaneda continuously runs across Kei and is so besotted by her that he even tries to downplay her first kill and ends up following her to a resistance safehouse; there, he learns not only that they are trying to free the ESPers from their confinement but also that Tetsuo has become the military’s newest test subject, and he agrees to join their efforts both to help his friend and get close to Kei (and he’s allowed to if only to serve as a patsy for the resistance’s actions). While at the hospital, Tetsuo is plagued by vivid and disturbing nightmares of both his childhood, his destructive powers, and the mysterious Akira, the most powerful of all the ESPers who once potentially represented the next stage in human evolution. Akira’s power was virtually limitless, but when the government tried to take control of him, he lashed out in self defence and caused the catastrophe that decimated Tokyo. His remains are kept in cryogenic suspense beneath the Olympic Stadium’s construction site, and Shikishima has no desire to see that destructive power unleashed once more, and takes a vested interested into making sure that the remains stay dormant, though Akira still has a strong influence as many zealots in the city foretell of his destructive return. Sensing that Tetsuo’s powers are raging out of control, the ESPers try to kill him before he can awaken Akira and trigger another catastrophe; however, despite them being more adept at creating illusions and wielding their psychic powers, Tetsuo’s abilities are exacerbated by his anger, confusion, and trauma, which makes him more than a match for them, to say nothing of Shikishima’s forces. Revelling in his newfound powers, Tetsuo is driven to near insanity, lashing out at friend and foe alike with a maniacal glee; he kills a couple of his former comrades in search of Kaneda’s bike, garbs himself in a dramatic cloak, and is heralded as the returning “Lord Akira” for his immense powers. Despite Kiyoko’s best efforts, Tetsuo exhumes Akira’s tomb and is astounded to find that the feared psychic is nothing more than just organs and remains in jars; Kaneda attacks Tetsuo with a high-powered laser rifle and berates his friend with taunts, only to be outmatched by Tetsuo’s powers and at the mercy of his power-drunk friend. Despite losing at arm to Shikishima’s orbital cannon, Sol, Tetsuo proves his superiority by flying into space and obliterating the orbital weapon before constructing a replacement mechanical arm for himself. Although Kaori tries to comfort him, and even Shikishima tries to talk him into returning to the hospital for treatment, Tetsuo’s powers grow dangerous and out of control; wracked with constant pain and mutating at an alarming rate, Tetsuo metamorphosises into a horrific, foetus-like monstrosity that is only stopped by the ESPers reviving Akira and drawing him into a singularity.

The Nitty-Gritty:
The animation quality in Akira remains almost unparalleled; the feature-length anime definitely set a standard for all to follow with its gorgeous chase sequences, intense attention to detail, and slick, striking character designs. Neo-Tokyo is a neon-drenched metropolis that owes more than a debt to Blade Runner (Scott, 1982) and, alongside that classic science-fiction thriller, helped popularise the “cyberpunk” art style and genre. The city is ruled by the classic class system, with the lower-class and impoverished literally fighting for survival in the filthy back alleys and the upper-class living in opulence and luxury in the high-rise skyscrapers, far above the violence on the city streets. Neo-Tokyo is under constant threat from terrorist attacks by resistance fighters, who set of explosions across the city and cause anarchy in the streets in a desperate effort to fight back against an oppressive government. The city is alive with advanced technology, from futuristic motorcycles, flying craft, and complex machinery to monitor and contain the ESPers, the city, and the people and this is juxtaposed with rancid sewers and the comparative squalor of the alleys and lower street levels. The facility where Tetsuo and the other ESPers is kept is both a sophisticated military hospital and a bizarre nursery for the decrepit, child-like psychics, but the triumph of the modern age is Sol, a weaponised space station that Shikishima turns on Tetsuo in a desperate attempt to destroy him before his powers can rage out of control.

Akira *is full of horrific imagery and body horror as Tetsuo’s powers rage out of control.*

One thing that separates Akira from other traditional cartoons and animation is the gritty, unabashed adult themes and content in the feature; biker gangs race through the streets at high speeds, with little protection and even less regard for who they hurt or the damage they cause in their wake, curse words are dropped with reckless abandon by the hot-headed youngsters who make up our main characters, and bodies break and blood splatters as characters beat and pummel each other. This latter aspect is only escalated by the trigger-happy Neo-Tokyo police, who brutally gun down Takashi’s handler without a second thought, and both the visions Tetsuo is plagued by and the horrific mutations he undergoes as his powers rage out of control. Tetsuo is tormented by hallucinations of demonic toys and, angry and afraid, lashes out at everyone around him to leave orderlies and guards a mere bloody mess on the hospital walls. As Tetsuo’s powers grow, his ability to control them wanes; overcome by pain and hatred, he lashes out in a mindless fury and ends up becoming a rampaging monstrosity that kills Kaori and threatens to absorb Kaneda, the ESPers, and Shikishima. This replaces Tetsuo’s fanatical lunacy with outright panic as his body refuses to listen to his demands; as if the sight of him raging into the upper atmosphere with a bloody mess where his arm once was wasn’t bad enough, the sight of this grotesque mass of screaming flesh and muscle engulfing everything in its path certainly escalates the stakes of Akira from one boy’s madness to a disaster that potentially threatens all life in Neo-Tokyo and beyond.

*Kaneda’s confrontation with Tetsuo results in widespread destruction…and the birth of a new God!*

Tetsuo is a tragic figure, one filled with conflicting emotions of abandonment, resentment, and anger; the more his abilities grow, the more overwhelmed and out of control he becomes. Finally given the power to strike back at those who seek to use or hurt him, Tetsuo’s confusion and fury are only exacerbated by the ESPers, Shikishima’s vendetta, and even Kaneda, who mocks his friend even as his body horrifyingly transforms. Realising that they’re not powerful to oppose Tetsuo, the ESPers revive Akira, who sucks the monstrous beast into a sphere of pure light. Kaneda is drawn inside this singularity and relives Tetsuo’s memories of his traumatic childhood, a time of abuse and fear where he idolised Kaneda; the ESPers willingly enter the singularity as well in an attempt to rescue Kaneda, and their memories of being subjugated to experimentation are also revealed to him. Shikishima, Kei, and Tetsuo’s remaining friends watch from a safe distance as Neo-Tokyo is engulfed by the singularity, destroying it in much the same way as its predecessor was obliterated some thirty years ago, and the ESPers are able to return Tetsuo to the remains of his home so that he can help Kei during the development of her own psychic powers. As for Tetsuo, the feature concludes with the ESPers and Akira using all the power at their disposal to help him fully transcend beyond the mortal realm; having tapping into the limitless energy and primordial power that exists within all humans, Tetsuo ascends to the level of an omniscient God and, to herald his birth, gives life to an entirely new universe! This, honestly, is not massively clear by the finale which is an ambiguous and surreal series of images, memories, and half-finished sentences, but brings the film to a conclusion that I have to say was very much out of left field considering it started off as a simple tale of an angsty gang of bikers.

The Summary:
Even now, after a few viewings of Akira, I struggle a bit with this film; while it’s undeniably beautiful to look at and full of some absolutely stunning animation, its surreal metaphysical undertones always knock me for a loop. Like a lot of anime and manga, there’s a lot happening here, from street-level violence and social discord, to childhood trauma, to government experiments and children developing psychic powers. It’s definitely a very complex and multifaceted world, with a lot of layers and sub-plots happening all at once that some characters, like Kaneda, aren’t entirely aware of; people revere Akira as some kind of prophet and saviour, resistance fighters bomb buildings and kill to try and expose the government’s experiments, and shrivelled up children with telekinetic powers bring toys to life in the most disturbing way possible. I think the concept has a lot of legs, however; this idea of a screwed up little biker kid being empowered by these destructive abilities and lashing out at the chaotic world around him leads to some of Akira’s most dramatic and memorable moments, and the relationship between Kaneda and Tetsuo as these kind of traumatised kids with a chip on their shoulder bonded by a lifetime of hardship results in them being the clear standout characters. Shikishima is also surprisingly well-rounded, and every character, even the ESPers, is seeped in shades of grey rather than being morally black or white. Of course, Akira will forever be remembered and praised for its slick and detailed animation, which results in some stunning chase sequences, dramatic moments, and grotesque imagery to really inspire the viewer to think about what they’re seeing, what it means, and rethink their surface evaluation of these characters. It can be a lot to take in, no doubt, but the visuals and narrative intrigue are well worth taking the time to give Akira a watch and, if it hooks you, check out other similar anime or even read through the manga if you want your mind blown even further.

My Rating:

Pretty Good

Are you a fan of Akira? Which of the characters was your favourite and what did you think to the morally ambiguous nature of its cast? What did you think to Tetsuo, his emotional outbursts, and his eventual monstrous transformation? Were you a fan of the film’s cyberpunk setting and the escalation from street gangs to psychically-endowed children? How did you interpret the ending, and were you a fan of how the story wrapped up? Have you ever read the original manga and, if so, how does the film compare as an adaptation? Was Akira your introduction to anime or did a different feature make you a fan of the genre? How are you celebrating National Anime Day today? Whatever you think about Akira, or anime in general, sign up to drop your thoughts below.

Movie Night: Sonic the Hedgehog 2

14/04/202223/02/2025Dr. K2 Comments

Released: 8 April 2022
Director: Jeff Fowler
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
Budget: $110 million
Stars: Ben Schwartz, Jim Carrey, Colleen O’Shaughnessey, Idris Elba, James Marsden, Tika Sumpter, and Tom Butler

The Plot:
After banishing Doctor Ivo Robotnik (Carrey) to a mushroom planet, Sonic the Hedgehog (Schwartz) is determined to defend Green Hills. However, when Dr. Robotnik returns alongside Knuckles the Echidna (Elba) in search of the mysterious Master Emerald, Sonic must join forces with Miles “Tails” Prower (O’Shaughnessey) to find the emerald before it’s too late.

The Background:
As a principal figurehead in the escalating Console War between Nintendo and SEGA, Sonic has seen his fair share of adaptations, starring in numerous comic books and animated ventures over the years, with each one altering his appearance and backstory and making him one of the most iconic and, yet, convoluted videogame mascots. Development of a Sonic the Hedgehog movie can be traced back to 1993, when the character dominated television screens with his numerous animated adventures, but, thanks to numerous legal and creative issues, the best Sonic had to settle for was the gorgeous original video animation (OVA), Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie (Ikegami, 1996). However, after Paramount Pictures acquired the rights to the franchise, development of a live-action/CGI hybrid movie finally entered production in earnest; fans, and audiences the world over, were horrified when the first teaser released, however, and the studio scrambled to redesign Sonic into something a little less nightmare-inducing. Surprisingly, Sonic the Hedgehog (Fowler, 2020) bucked the trend of most videogame adaptations by being critically and commercially successful, and a sequel was soon pushed into development. Also surprisingly, star Jim Carrey expressed interest and excitement in returning to the role and portraying a more physically accurate version of Dr. Robotnik, and the cast was bolstered not only by expanding upon Tails’ brief cameo at the end of the first movie but also by the genius decision to cast Idris Elba as Knuckles and introduce more elements from the videogames that were missing from the first film. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was met with fairly positive reviews that praised the action and humour but criticised the runtime and pacing. The film also grossed over $400 million worldwide, fully justifying both a third movie, and a Knuckles-centric spin-off, despite Carrey announcing his retirement from acting.

The Review:
Like many, I’m sure, I was very surprised by how good Sonic the Hedgehog turned out. Considering I felt (and, to be fair, still feel) like an all-CGI movie would’ve been a better, less restrictive, and cheaper option (with Carrey the only human character and donning a fat suit), it was a pretty fun road trip adventure that did a decent job of capturing the spirit of the videogames while also presenting a new take on SEGA’s super-fast mascot. All of the fan service definitely helped, as well; while I had the post-credits scene spoiled for me, I was very happy to see an echidna tribe cameo at the start of the film and felt like the film did just enough to establish its premise to build upon its lore in sequels.

*Sonic is determined to use his powers for good, which makes him somewhat reckless and impulsive.*

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 finds Sonic in a much more stable and confident position than where he started in the first film; where he was once a lonely outcast, hiding out and barely really understanding his incredible supersonic speed, he’s now a happy and energetic bundle of spines thanks to being taken in by Tom (Marsden) and Maddie Wachowski (Sumpter). Pumped up from discovering his superspeed can allow him to do incredible things, Sonic has been trying to make a name for himself as a superhero in nearby Seattle, however his enthusiasm has a tendency to make him reckless; rather than simply allow local law enforcement to handle such occurrences as bank robberies and high-speed chases, Sonic feels obligated to step in and help out, which generally results in cartoonish chaos due to his immaturity. Though Tom tries to explain to Sonic that his powers will be useful in time, and that his moment to shine as a hero is inevitable, he also stresses that Sonic is still just a kid and needs to let that moment come naturally rather than force it. Thankfully, Sonic doesn’t outright reject his friend’s advice, but he does feel a duty to make Longclaw’s (Donna Jay Fulks) sacrifice worthwhile and to make her proud by using his powers to help others and protect his newfound friends. While they were a central aspect of the first film, Tom and Maddie really don’t get all that much to do here; they treat Sonic as a combination of a pet, a friend, and a surrogate son and the three have an adorable family unit going on, which is nice to see. There’s no dissension between them, even though they may despair of Sonic’s recklessness and immaturity at times, but they don’t really factor all that much into the plot beyond Tom being a loyal, if goofy, friend and Maddie being a supportive influence.

*While the human characters are pushed aside, Sonic gains a new friend in Tails.*

I can’t say that I’m massively disappointed by this, as I’d much rather these films focus on the videogame characters, but it does lead to some odd pacing moments. The big gag of the film is that Maddie’s sister, Rachel (Natasha Rothwell), still doesn’t care for Tom and doesn’t want him ruining her wedding. Unfortunately for Rachel, Tom accidentally swaps out her wedding ring for one of Sonic’s Golden Rings, causing her wedding to be ruined by a snowstorm, and then there’s a noticeable lag in the second act as Rachel and Maddie team up to help rescue Sonic from Commander Walters (Butler) of the Guardian of United Nations (G.U.N.) and confront her would-be husband, Randall (Shemar Moore), in scenes that really interrupt the pace of the film. Thankfully, Tails is on hand to add to Sonic’s circle of friends; here portrayed as a young mechanic from another world who is awestruck by Sonic’s speed and bravery, Tails travels to Green Hills to warn Sonic of Dr. Robotnik’s return and gets swept up in his globe-trotting adventure to find the Master Emerald. A skilled inventor, Tails lacks confidence in a fight and is plagued by self-doubt after a lifetime of bullying for his extra tail, which allows him to fly by spinning his tails like helicopter blades. However, his self-esteem is boosted by Sonic’s mere presence as he pushes Tails to accompany him to Siberia, encourages him to compete in a protracted and lengthy dance-off, and is impressed at the young fox’s inventions, which include a translator, a laser pistol, and a hologram projector. Tails arrives at just the right time as, while Sonic has found a stable family unit with Tom and Maddie, he still doesn’t really have any real friends, much less anthropomorphic kin such as himself; having observed Sonic for some time using his machines, Tails is eager to just be around him and is overjoyed when they form a fast friendship due to the pressing nature of the current crisis. Tails gives Sonic the chance to pay forward the kindness Tom showed him in the last film, but his attempts to show Tails Earth customs tend to lead to cartoonish pratfalls or are cut short by Dr. Robotnik’s repeated attacks. However, Sonic quickly takes a liking to Tails and sees him as a little brother, of sorts; he’s distraught when Tails his hurt because of his recklessness and fully prepared to put himself on the line to keep his new friend from being hurt again, but comes to trust in him, and their unlikely ally, for the finale, which requires a team effort rather than Sonic shouldering the burden alone.

*Dr. Robotnik returns more wacko than ever, and joined by the aggressive and prideful Knuckles!*

While Tails’s intentions are noble, he sadly arrives too late to warn Sonic of Dr. Robotnik’s return, or the presence of Knuckles, a super-strong echidna from a long-dead tribe who is as prideful as he is aggressive. Having been marooned on the Mushroom Planet for nearly a year, Dr. Robotnik has gone even more wacko than he was before; embracing his baldness and his wild moustache, he spent his days trying to brew tea from the native foliage and constructing a machine to attract the attention of other lifeforms using one of Sonic’s quills. This led Knuckles to him, and the mad scientist was easily able to foster an alliance with the headstrong echidna by leading him to Sonic, whom Knuckles blames for the death of his father and his tribe since his people never returned from their mission to retrieve the Master Emerald’s location from Longclaw. Exhibiting physical abilities similar to Sonic’s Knuckles brings a raw, primal power that, coupled with his naïvety and pride, make him a formidable foe. Thanks to Knuckles’s blind vendetta against Sonic, Dr. Robotnik s able to reunite with Agent Stone (Lee Majdoub), reassume control of his machines, and begin a quest to locate the Master Emerald to not only get revenge against Sonic but to subjugate the entire world to his mad desires since the Master Emerald has to power to turn wishes into reality. Jim Carrey is clearly having the time of his life as Dr. Robotnik, meaning he devours every scene he’s in and is a constant highlight of the movie, but this does come with some detriments; some scenes of him going off the rails drag on a little, I felt like Agent Stone was a waste of screen time, and it’s still disappointing that he’s not wearing a fat suit. Knuckles, however, was a fantastic inclusion; he has a real weight to him, and his habit of taking everything literally reminded me of Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista) and made for some fun moments. Rather than being a complete moron as in some depictions, Knuckles is a misguided and sheltered warrior who’s burdened by his losses and is trying to fulfil his destiny, just like Sonic, and this means he has some heart and poignancy alongside being a hostile meathead.

The Nitty-Gritty:
The first movie was all about telling a heartfelt story about the power of friendship, and helping Sonic to move past his traumatic childhood and become an accepted part of Tom and Maddie’s life. Here, the central theme of the movie is destiny; Sonic is in a rush to realise his true calling and to make Longclaw proud, just as Knuckles is so blinded by his duty to retrieve the Master Emerald that it makes him susceptible to Dr. Robotnik’s obvious manipulations. Despite his recklessness, Sonic’s heroic nature allows him to recognise when his friends (Tom, mostly) are trying to help him rather than push them away, and, while he’s determined to oppose Dr. Robotnik and fend off Knuckles, he eventually reaches a point where he can see that Knuckles has been manipulated by the mad doctor and so focuses on trying to keep the Master Emerald out of Robotnik’s hands rather than waste time fighting Knuckles. Fans of the Sonic franchise will find Sonic the Hedgehog 2 as littered with Easter Eggs and reference as the first film: Tom’s ring tone is the iconic Sonic theme, Agent Stone uses a brewery called Mean Bean as cover, and there more than a few visual cues taken from Sonic Adventure (Sonic Team, 1998) such as Sonic snowboarding away from an avalanche, the Seattle sewers exploding in water geysers, and Sonic striking a pose ripped straight from the Dreamcast cover art. While I remain somewhat disappointed that these films don’t take place in a fantasy, full-CGI world, these references help to alleviate that and the addition of Knuckles only helps to infuse further visual cues from the games. The hidden temple is almost exactly like the Echidna architecture seen in Sonic Adventure, and the interior is heavily inspired by the traps, water, and layout of Labyrinth Zone.

*After going head-to-dread, Sonic and Knuckles team up to put a stop to Robotnik’s mad schemes.*

The battles between Sonic and Knuckles are easily the film’s biggest highlight, though; exhibiting superhuman strength, Knuckles can both keep up with Sonic’s speed, leap vast distances, and easily overpower him with a single punch, crackling with red energy, Knuckles can scale walls, catch Sonic’s spinning form in mid-air, and unleash a flurry of punches without breaking a sweat, and his incredible strength is matched only by his no-nonsense attitude as he doesn’t hesitate to smash first and ask questions later. Dr. Robotnik returns in full force with his army of drones; however, while some resemble Buzz Bombers, his traditional Badniks continue to be absent from the films. He does pilot a far more faithful Egg-O-Matic pod this time around, though, and Carrey is constantly wriggling his fingers and striking wild poses as he directs and controls his machines to unleash laser blasts and a barrage of missiles at every turn. Dr. Robotnik’s true goal, however, is to seize the all-powerful Master Emerald for himself; thanks to hacking Sonic’s phone, and his network of satellites, Dr. Robotnik is easily able to track Sonic’s movements after Longclaw’s map leads them (somewhat inexplicably, it has to be said) to a compass that will reveal the Master Emerald’s hidden temple. Stealing it and braving the temple’s many death traps using his machines, Dr. Robotnik turns on Knuckles and transforms into a literal God after laying his hands on the Master Emerald. His first thought is to unleash his newfound Chaos powers upon Green Hills, and it’s only after Sonic offers Knuckles a chance at redemption (and a hand of friendship) that any kind of hope of stopping Dr. Robotnik’s nigh-limitless powers becomes possible. After assembling a gigantic mechanical exoskeleton in his visage, Dr. Robotnik lays waste to Green Hills, and Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles are forced to work together to stop him. with Tails having commandeered a biplane for their use, the three brave the onslaught of missiles and the mechanical monstrosity’s stomping feet to get close to Dr. Robotnik and lure him away from the populace by using Sonic as bait. Their combined efforts allow Knuckles to land a blow on the mad doctor, knocking the Master Emerald from his body, but he remains a clear and present danger thanks to assuming command of his robot using traditional controls. This leaves Sonic, Tom, and Maddie in mortal danger but, thanks to absorbing the powers of the seven Chaos Emeralds released from the Master Emerald, Sonic becomes empowered with a golden energy that allows him to easily lay waste to Dr. Robotnik’s mech and, apparently, end his threat once and for all. In the aftermath, Sonic willingly and humbly gives up his God-like powers and he and his new friends set about making a new life for themselves with Tom and Maddie, unaware that a mysterious new foe lurks in the shadows…

The Summary:
There’s no doubt that Sonic the Hedgehog 2 goes out of its way to be bigger and better than its predecessor; the film is full of gags, exhilarating action, and fun sequences that shine all the more from the CGI models being far more detailed and expressive than before. While there are times when the film slows down to pad out its runtime with dance-offs and lingering on Jim Carrey’s madcap ab-libbing, it still does a brilliant job of being a fun adventure film, even if it’s primarily targeted at a younger audience. The addition of Tails and Knuckles really bolstered the scope of this new take on Sonic’s world; while I would’ve preferred the films just went all-in right from the start with a CGI movie that has all these characters existing in a fantasy world like in the games, I appreciate the little references and the way these films hint at there being more behind these characters. The addition of two more anthropomorphic characters also helps to shift the focus more onto these unique and colourful characters; while this means the humans are pushed to aside and reduced to supporting roles of comic relief, I’m okay with this as it means more time for Tails and Knuckles to shine. And shine they do thanks to some intense action and fight sequences which, while breaking all the laws of physics, make for the film’s most exhilarating moments. While Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles still stand out as being overly cartoony and the film missed a film tricks by not including more musical cues from the videogames, this was a really fun escalation of everything we saw in the film and did a really good job of capturing the spirit of the source material and splicing it into this new interpretation of the world’s most famous hedgehog.

My Rating:

Great Stuff

Did you enjoy Sonic the Hedgehog 2? How do you feel it holds up compared to the first film? Did you enjoy the addition of Tails and Knuckles to the film and what did you think to Knuckles’s portrayal? What did you think to Jim Carrey’s more unhinged performance this time around? Are you disappointed that he wasn’t in a fat suit and which of the many references to the videogames was your favourite Easter Egg? Where do you see the films going from here and are there any Sonic games or characters you’d like to see make an appearance in the future? To share your thoughts on Sonic the Hedgehog 2, sign up to reply below or leave a comment on my social media, and be sure to check back in for more Sonic content in the near future!

My Rating:

Pretty Good

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My Rating:

Pretty Good

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My Rating:

Could Be Better

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My Rating:

Great Stuff

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My Rating:

Great Stuff

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My Rating:

Could Be Better

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My Rating:

Terrible

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My Rating:

Pretty Good

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My Rating:

Pretty Good

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My Rating:

Great Stuff

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