movie night

Movie Night [PokéMonth]: Pokémon 3: The Movie: Spell of the Unown

Dr. K2 Comments

Upon the release of Pokémon: Blue Version and Pokémon: Red Version (Game Freak, 1996), a new craze swept through playgrounds across the world. An entire generation grew up either playing Pokémon, watching the anime, playing the trading card game, and watching the feature-length movies as clever marketing and a co-ordinated release and multimedia strategy saw Nintendo’s newest franchise become not just a successful videogame franchise but a massively lucrative and popular multimedia powerhouse that endures to this day. Accordingly, February 27th is now internationally recognised as “National Pokémon Day”, which I expanded to an entire month of Pokémon this February.

Released: 8 July 2000
Director: Kunihiko Yuyama
Distributor: Toho
Budget: $3 to 16 million
Stars: Veronica Taylor, Eric Stuart, Rachael Lillis, Amy Birnbaum, Dan Green, and Ikue Ōtani

The Plot:
Professor Spencer Hale (Green) is transported to a chaotic dimension by the mysterious Unown (Various), leaving his young daughter, Molly (Birnbaum), devastated and alone. Her grief causes the Unown’s power to rage out of control, manifesting an illusionary Entei (Green) and transforming her home into a crystal-like palace. When Entei kidnaps Ash Ketchum’s (Taylor) mother, Delia (ibid) to appease Molly’s wish for a mother, Ash and friends must brave the danger to break the Unown’s unruly spell.

The Background:
Pokémon (Nintendo/Creatures/Game Freak, 1995 to present) was an absolute phenomenon when it came over from Japan: it swept through playgrounds as kids played the videogames, collected the trading cards, and were mesmerised by the still-ongoing anime series (1997 to present). This fantastic marketing strategy was all it took for the aptly-titled Pokémon: The First Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back (Yuyama, 1998) to become a box office success and kick-started a whole series of feature films designed to expand upon the anime and promote both the newest Pokémon videogames and showcase the franchise’s most powerful and elusive beasts. Although it earned less than the blockbuster first movie, Pokémon the Movie 2000: The Power of One (Yuyama, 1999) still made over $130 million against a $30 million budget and Pokémon was arguably at its peak thanks to the anticipation around the newest games in the series. The third feature-film was afforded a much smaller budget than its predecessors and was the first Pokémon movie to premier in IMAX cinemas. Unfortunately, the film’s $68.5 million box office meant that it was the least successful of the first three Pokémon movies and it was met with largely negative critical reviews; however, it has amassed something of a cult following and is regarded by some to be one of the best Pokémon movies.

The Review:
Pokémon 3: The Movie opens in the beautiful town of Greenfield, a lush and verdant town in the Johto region that is knowing for is sweeping hills, windmills, and fields of flowers. It’s also home to the Spencer Hale and his daughter, Molly, who live in a luxurious mansion that overlooks the entire town. Every evening, Spencer reads to his inquisitive and loving young daughter from a picture book that imagines what some Legendary Pokémon look like; although she’s particularly taken with Entei, she also highlights the mysterious Unown, a group of interdimensional, Psychic-type Pokémon who have long been the subject of Spencer’s extensive research. However, while Spencer and Molly have a very close, loving relationship, it’s clear that there’s a void in the lives and their household due to the disappearance of the Spencer matriarch, who mysteriously vanished one day while helping Spencer with his research, leaving Molly without a mother and Spencer to carry the burden of guilt.

Molly is devastated when her father disappears, and overjoyed when he “returns” as Entei.

Spencer has doubled down on his research; aided by his assistant, Schuyler (Ted Lewis), Spencer has been conducting an in-depth investigation into a site of ruins where the stone walls are covered in carvings that resemble the Unown. Unfortunately, after discovering a chest full of small stone tablets engraved with the different alphabetical shapes of the Unown, Spencer is also whisked away to the cosmic void of the Unown Dimension, a swirling place of mystery while the Unown constantly rotate around and sing their names. Schuyler is left dumbfounded at Spencer’s sudden disappearance, and Molly is left absolutely heart-broken and alone; with both of her parents gone, she’s left only with the Unown puzzle pieces and the heartfelt wish to have her father returned to her. Her tearful plea summons the Unown and, while she is delighted that they’ve come to “play with [her]”, their true intention is slightly more malicious as they apparently feed off of her grief-stricken wishes in order to become stronger. Fuelled by her dreams of a crystalline home, the Unown transform the mansion a piece at a time until it represents pictures from Spencer’s book, and their power is so great that they’re able to answer her desire for the return of her father by conjuring an illusion of Entei, whom Molly believes is her father’s spirit returned to her.

Ash risks everything to rescue his mother, who is captured and brainwashed to be Molly’s “Mama”.

Quite coincidentally, Ash, Pikachu (Ōtani), and former gym leaders Misty (Lillis) and Brock (Stuart) just happen to be passing by and run across a trainer native to the area, Lisa (Lisa Ortiz). After Brock strikes out with her (with one of the film’s most amusing lines, “I’m Brock, from Pewter City! And I want to be your boyfriend!”) and Ash is able to beat her in a surprisingly evenly matched Pokémon battle during the film’s opening credits, Lisa guides them to Greenfield so that they can rest up at the Pokémon Center and take in the town’s much-lauded beauty. Suffice it to say that Ash is unimpressed, and the group is horrified, to find that the once stunning landscape has been almost completely overtaken with the Unown’s bizarre crystalline wasteland. Even perennial bothers Jessie (Lillis), James (Stuart), and wise-cracking Meowth (Maddie Blaustein) of Team Rocket are stunned to find Greenfield in such a state, and it’s not long before a news crew (Kathy Pilon and Roger Kay) arrive to try and restore order and report on the strange events. Back in Pallet Town, Delia Ketchum, Ash’s mother, sees the news report and is distraught at the continued suffering of her old friend, Spencer Hale, and she and Professor Samuel Oak (Stuart Zagnit) resolve to travel to Greenfield to get to the bottom of the what’s happening, and to check on Molly. While others are alarmed by the startling transformation of Greenfield, Molly revels in her crystal palace; she delights in playing with her “Papa” and seeing her wishes literally spring to life before her eyes, but her longing for her mother remains. Seeing Delia on the news broadcast reminds her not only of her own mother, but also of the times when Delia and Ash would visit her and her family in years past, and she wishes for Entei to bring her a “Mama” to complete their little family. This adds an interesting personal wrinkle to the film’s plot that has been absent from the previous two films as Entei boldly introduces itself to our heroes by subduing and kidnapping Delia right before Ash’s eyes and holding her captive in Molly’s crystalline palace. Ash is horrified when his mother is kidnapped, and immediately leads his friends on a rescue mission to get her back, literally putting his life at risk to brave the crystal wasteland and scale the tower and reach her.

Entei is the Unown’s avatar and determined to protect Molly, regardless of the morality.

Although Entei’s powers are formidable enough to render Delia a mindless drone who fully believes that she’s Molly’s “Mama”, its spell is broken when Delia sees Ash in danger, but she’s smart enough to quickly realise what’s been going on and to play along with the deception in order to try and reach Molly. Delia recognises that Molly has been very alone for a long time, even before Spencer went missing, and sympathises with her pain, but cannot condone Entei’s enabling and the disruptive influence of the Unown. It’s important to note for Poké-enthusiasts out there that the Entei seen is this film is not the Legendary Pokémon whom it resembles. Rather than being a reincarnated Pokémon known for its blazing Fire-type attacks, Entei is a creation of the Unown and more akin to a Psychic-type Pokémon. At the time, I considered this an odd decision as it kind of wastes the natural characterisation of this creature as one of a trio of Legendary Pokémon, but it actually goes a long way to supporting the deeper themes of the film surrounding grief and a child’s desire for love and affection. Born from Molly’s memories of her father, her love for him, and her idolisation of his strength and loyalty, Entei is granted incredibly powers by the Unown that are contrary to those it has in the games; it can teleport, control the minds of others, create crystalline structures at will, and spit out a powerful aura blast in addition to its durability and strength being theoretically inexhaustible. It is as strong and as capable as Molly wishes it to be, and as long as she believes in it, it can accomplish almost any feat, regardless of whether that action is morally right or wrong. A constant companion and guardian to Molly, Entei fully accepts her belief that it is her beloved “Papa” and goes to any lengths to keep her happy and to protect her, even battling against its out of control masters.

The Unown’s power is virtually limitless, and directly fuelled by Molly’s innermost desires.

So devoted is Entei to Molly that it not only bows to her every wish, but also encourages her to wish for more and to believe that she can anything she desires. When the authorities try to breach the crystal formation, Molly throws a temper tantrum and demands that they be kept out but, when she spots that Ash and the others are Pokémon trainers, she quickly wishes to engage them in Pokémon battles. Thanks to the Unown’s near-limitless power, the interior and environment of the palace constantly changes, and also allows Molly to conjure unbeatable illusionary Pokémon and even age herself up to be a more competent Pokémon trainer. Of course, thanks to the Unown’s power, she’s easily able to best her more experienced opponents with the likes of Teddiursa (Erica Schroeder) and Phanpy (Megumi Hayashibara) even when she should be hopelessly outmatched. She’s even able to flood the area with water, and allow her and Misty to breath underwater, so great are her powers, are she becomes so lost in her fantasy that Entei is empowered enough to battle even Ash’s stubborn and formidable Charizard (Shin-ichiro Miki), which arrives not only to help its former trainer but also to pit its strength against an opponent such as Entei. However, the battle proves destructive, wrecking much of Molly’s new home and leaving the heroes’ Pokémon hurt, and Charizard in danger of being killed by the furious Entei; the only hope for the heroes is for Delia, Ash, and the others to help remind Molly of her real family, both those who are gone and the family she could have by forming a bond with real Pokémon, which causes her to finally snap free from her fantasy and demand an end to the fighting.

The Nitty-Gritty:
One of issues I had with Pokémon the Movie 2000 was that it tried a little too hard to raise the stakes in comparison to the first film; while Pokémon: The First Movie was reconfigured into more of a worldwide threat in the English dub, the second film explicitly put the entire world at risk, so it’s a nice change of pace to see the third film tell a far more grounded, more personal story. This is most obvious in Delia’s larger role; up until now, she’s merely been a cameo or a bit-player in the films, but she’s a pivotal inclusion in this film and the driving force behind Ash’s excursion into the crystallised Greenfield. Indeed, he is driven to an uncharacteristic anger at her abduction, which is focused entirely on Entei and transforms into a battle of wills as Ash regards the beast as a mere illusion and Entei adamantly seeks to prove its reality and defend Molly by any means necessary.

Molly’s desire to have her family back means she dreams up her own fantasy world free from sadness.

Of course, it’s Molly’s sadness and grief that is at the heart of the movie’s story; already struggling after the loss of her mother, she was left despondent when Spencer disappeared as well and unable to properly process her anguish. When the Unown respond to her dreams and wishes, she finally feels that hole in her heart has been filled and is easily convinced that everything she is seeing is “real” and that she can be and have whatever she wants “as long as that is her wish”. It’s a powerful, emotional aspect of the film, and easy to forget that Molly isn’t some malevolent or mean-spirited antagonist. She’s just a frightened, lonely little girl who desperately wants her beloved “Papa” and “Mama” back, and is overjoyed to see her father returned in the form of Entei and her every wish brought to life by the Unown’s power. Similarly, Entei is not a necessarily vindictive entity; it’s simply acting out Molly’s wishes, whatever they may be, but bolstered by such vicious and formidable power that it transforms the once beautiful crystal tower into a hazardous landscape of spikes and battles Charizard with such an unmatched ferocity that it’s even posed to kill the helpless and outmatched creature. While Entei seems to fill the void in Molly’s life and heart, Delia and Ash and the others try to convince her that it’s merely another aspect of the Unown’s illusionary power; a false reality she’s conjured to shield her from facing the real world. Through them, she sees that real relationships can be forged through friends, partners, and make-shift families that can be just as fulfilling as having her every wish granted.

Probably the darkest and most personal Pokémon movie despite the odd changes to the source material.

I have to say that, given the trajectory of the Pokémon movies, I was surprised that a Pokémon as unremarkable and weak as Unown be such a focal point of this film, especially considering the next most obvious choice would have been to focus on Ho-Oh and the Legendary Beasts. Instead, though, Entei, Raikou (Katsuyuki Konishi), and Suicune (Masahiko Tanaka) were split up across specials and movies and it would take quite some time for Ho-Oh to actually make a real movie appearance. I guess this helped to make the movies a bit more unpredictable, and it certainly helped to make the Unown a surprising threat in this film, but I can’t help but feel like it was a missed opportunity. Still, the Unown are given an unexpectedly malicious edge in this film; while ostensibly appearing to be somewhat mischievous and aloof, their ability to read people’s minds and alter reality based on their wishes and dreams quickly makes them a threat to all of Greenfield. Not only do they transform the landscape, but they but many lives in danger through their quasi-avatar, Entei, and the strength of Molly’s tumultuous emotions soon sends their Psychic powers into overdrive. By the time she’s ready to leave behind her dreamworld and return to reality, the Unown have exerted so much power and thrown into such chaos by Molly’s emotional state that they’ve lost control of the illusion and the crystalline formations threaten to trap, or kill, everyone within. Their only hope is Entei, whom Molly pours all of her hopes and dreams and belief into to break through the Unown’s protective barrier and undo their magic, dispelling itself in the process. Although distraught to see her father-figure unmade, Molly has learned the value of friendship, co-operation, and family from Ash’s example and her story ends on a happy not when the Unown return not only Spencer but also his wife from their dimension. Thus, Greenfield is restored, Molly regains her true family, Delia is rescued, and Ash and the others continue on their Pokémon journey.

The Summary:
As much as the first two Pokémon films were a spectacle that released right as the franchise was at its peak, Pokémon 3: The Movie opts to tell a far more personal and emotionally-charged story by focusing on a little girl’s loneliness and despair and having Ash’s mother be caught up in a chaotic situation. This is easily the best part of the movie’s appeal, beyond the brutal and unrelenting battle between Entei and Charizard, and definitely makes it a worthwhile watch and worthy follow-up to its predecessors. It’s a very different movie from the last two, which placed the most powerful, mysterious, and elusive Pokémon at the centre of their stories and kind of slapped action set pieces around them, such was the allure of the Legendary Pokémon they featured, whereas Pokémon 3: The Movie fundamentally alters the characterisation, abilities, and role of Entei and the Unown in service of its story. As much as I appreciate the effort put into crafting a more poignant story that tackles the grief felt be the loss of a loved one and reinforces Pokémon’s overall themes of friendship and partnership, I still can’t help be disappointed by the depiction of Entei in this film. For me, splitting the Legendary Beasts up for so long as a major misstep and deprived us of seeing them make a proper, big screen impact. Still, this doesn’t dilute the story we’re given here and Pokémon 3: The Movie remains a unique entry in the Pokémon movie series since it keeps the stakes grounded and personal; while the literal world isn’t at risk, Molly’s dreamworld is and so is Ash and Delia’s (since they mean the world to each other), which really helps to make for a much more relatable and focused narrative. The Unown’s limitless and unpredictable powers, coupled with Entei’s mounting ferocity, make for a surprising threat against the heroes, who are constantly outmatched at every turn and only triumph by appealing to a frightened and hurt little girl’s heart, which definitely helps the film to make an impact even if I would have preferred more focus on the actual Legendary Pokémon.

My Rating:

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Pretty Good

Are you a fan of Pokémon 3: The Movie? What did you think to the more personal grounded focus? Did you like the depiction of Entei and the Unown or would you have preferred to see them portrayed closer to the source material? What did you think to Delia’s larger role and the focus on Molly’s grief? Which Pokémon game, generation, and creature is your favourite and why? How are you celebrating National Pokémon Day today? Whatever your thoughts, sign up to drop them in the comments below or feel free to leave a reply on my social media.

Movie Night: Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

Dr. K5 Comments

Released: 17 February 2023
Director: Peyton Reed
Distributor: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Budget: $200 million
Stars: Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Jonathan Majors, Kathryn Newton, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Michael Douglas

The Plot:
After aiding the Avengers in saving the world, Scott Lang/Ant-Man (Rudd) has become a beloved celebrity now focused on making up for lost time with his daughter, Cassie (Newton). However, when Cassie inadvertently sucks Scott and his family into the mysterious Quantum Realm, Ant-Man faces his greatest challenge when he comes face-to-face with the maniacal Kang the Conqueror (Majors), a tyrannical despot from beyond time!

The Background:
In his first comic book appearance, Doctor Hank Pym/Ant-Man wasn’t the unstable, garishly-costumed hero who would form the Avengers, nor was he the only character to take up the Ant-Man mantle. Perhaps his most notable successor was Scott Lang, a reformed criminal created by David Michelinie, Bob Layton, and John Byrne, who assumed the role in 1979, and both characters eventually featured in the first live-action Ant-Man (Reed, 2015) film. Ant-Man’s impressive $519.3 million gross and largely positive reviews led to a sequel, Ant-Man and the Wasp (ibid, 2018), which outperformed the first at the box office but was met with more mixed reviews. Although the core cast returned to the film, Emma Fuhrmann was disappointed to learn she’d been recast; Kathryn Newton replaced her as Cassie in a decision apparently motivated to better highlight Cassie’s coming-of-age story. Having been established as one a pivotal hero of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) in Avengers: Endgame (Russo and Russo, 2019), the third film sought to further explore the Quantum Realm and the complexities of time travel through the inclusion of Kang the Conqueror. Returning director Peyton Reed was excited to pit Ant-Man against such a villain as part of his wish to produce a pivotal entry in the MCU rather than a simple palette cleanser, and Majors was equally excited about exploring the multiple facets and iterations of Kang in this film and beyond after previously portraying an alternative version of the character in Loki (Various, 2021 to present). Following numerous delays, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania finally released to a nearly $450 million worldwide box office and mixed reviews; critics expressed disappointment with the pacing and content of the film, though Jonathan Majors’ performance was met with unanimous praise and that there were some visually impressive sequences to be found amidst the jumbled plot.

The Review:
I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Ant-Man; I’ve never been the biggest fan of the character, especially as his characterisation and relationships can be a bit dated, hokey, and inconsistent, but framing it as a superhero heist film and focusing on Scott Lang as this flawed, but loveable, reluctant hero, a dad just trying to make amends, was a really refreshing idea and helped contrast the MCU’s cosmic scope with a nice grounded adventure. I remember not really being too impressed by Ant-Man and the Wasp; I really should revisit it sometime, especially as it laid a lot of the foundation not just for a major plot point in Avengers: Endgame but also for this film, which takes Ant-Man so far away from a quirky, sci-fi action comedy and into the absolutely batshit realm of other dimensions and timelines. Scott is a great character to thrust into these situations; despite all of the abilities the Pym Particles give him, he’s still just a regular guy, someone who reacts realistically to the crazy events happening around him, so he makes for a charismatic and relatable character to help focus these mind-bending concepts through.

While there’s surprisingly little for Hope to do, Scott and Cassie’s relationship is a focal point of the film.

This is immediately emphasised in the opening scene of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania; Scott is now a recognised and celebrated personality who remains awestruck at the fantastical things he’s seen in his adventures. However, as much as he enjoys the limelight, the abilities afforded to him by the Pym Particles, and the experiences he’s had alongside his fellow Avengers, Scott is now content to focus on promoting his inspirational memoirs and making up for lost time with his family. Hope van Dyne/The Wasp (Lilly) has now taken control of her father’s company, renaming and restructuring it in her image and to help displaced families following the Blip. She and Scott are seen to have a loving relationship and are no longer at odds with each other like in the previous film, but the two spend a surprising amount of time apart considering both of their names are in the title of the movie, so Quantumania is less a story about these two pint-sized heroes/lovers saving the Quantum Realm and more focused on developing the relationship between Scott and his daughter, Cassie. Cassie is now a somewhat rebellious teenager; she’s getting arresting and causing Scott headaches because she wants to follow in his example, “look out for the little guy”, and help others, and is disappointed in him giving up his superhero duties when there are still people that need help. Her arc throughout the film is both learning the value of patience and how to control her own shrinking/growing abilities, and understanding that the life she is so enamoured by is dangerous. While Scott is proud of her moral compass, her ingenuity, and her moxie, he also wants to protect her first and foremost; thankfully, while this is a point of contention between the two, the film doesn’t portray her as a cliché sulky teenager who acts without thinking or unreasonably lashes out at her father and they still have an adorable bond, she just wants his respect.

Janet’s stubbornness and fear cost the characters valuable time.

As part of this, Cassie has secretly been spending her time working with Hank (Douglas) to research and map the mysterious Quantum Realm. Despite Hope’s repeated efforts to find out more about the time her mother spent trapped there, Janet (Pfeiffer) remains stubbornly tight-lipped and this was a real issue for me in the early going of the film. Because Janet refused to talk about the Quantum Realm, the characters had no idea of the dangers that lurked there; her warnings came too late to prevent them all being sucked down there and, once they are stranded in the Quantum Realm, she continues to refuse to tell them anything for no real reason at all when that knowledge really would have helped them be better prepared once the source of her fears, Kang, inevitably showed up. Instead, Janet leads Hank and Hope on a merry tour of the Quantum Realm, now expanded into a strange alien environment full of colourful beings and bizarre creatures, most of whom, like the enigmatic Lord Krylar (Bill Murray), know Janet from her time as a freedom fighter. Hank, who has spent his entire life researching the Quantum Realm, is understandably fascinated by the ecosystem and society that dwells there, and equally stunned to get a glimpse of his wife’s tumultuous life amongst these beings. Both characters receive more screen time this time around and are certainly more of a focal point to the plot than Hope, and Hank’s demeanour is now noticeably far more relaxed; he’s lost a lot of his edge and is now portrayed as a quirky scientist with an unhealthy obsession with ants, whereas Janet is shown to be unreasonably cagey and to have fought against the all-powerful Kang during her time trapped in the Quantum Realm

With his nuance performance and incredible power, Kang was the undeniable highlight of the movie.

Although we get a glimpse of his arrival in the Quantum Realm in the film’s opening moments, Kang is a mystery throughout most of the film; he’s talked about with a mixture of awe and fear by the colourful freedom fighters Scott and Cassie hook up with and Janet is so terrified of him that she goes out of her way to keep her family in the dark just to try and avoid catching his attention. This is a shame as, once Kang arrives onscreen, he is unquestionably the most interesting and charismatic character, eclipsing even Scott with his nuanced performance. A cold, calculating, driven individual, Kang is a man from beyond time who was betrayed by his own alternate selves (or “variants”) and banished to the Quantum Realm because of his destructive nature. I know a little bit about Kang from the comics but am by no means a Kang expert, and Quantumania decides to keep his exact backstory and motivations a bit vague, presumably to explain them in further productions. It’s not really explained how or why he has the powers he exhibits or what his limits are; at first, he’s weak and helpless and needs Janet’s help to repair his ship, then he regains his fantastically comic accurate suit and shows an ability to stop characters in their tracks with a thought and swat his pint-sized adversaries out of the air. Yet, though he appears unstoppable and has built an empire comprised of (literal) faceless stormtroopers and advanced technology, Kang can still get down and dirty in a fist fight. Yet, for all his imposing menace and the captivating allure of his unhinged psyche, Kang is very much a desperate man; he’s clearly been broken by some unknown tragedy and is fuelled not just be a need to conquer and avenge himself, but a desperate desire to bring a twisted order to the multiverse, regardless of who he has to torture, enslave, or kill along the way. He’s not just some maniacal villain, though; he seems to genuinely value Janet’s friendship and is driven to violence only as a means to facilitate his escape and seems to regard himself as a necessary evil n the face of some unknown future threat.

The Nitty-Gritty:
There are a few themes at work in Quantumania; you might think that it’s a movie about Scott and Hope as surrogate parents and the dynamic of the Pyms and van Dynes co-existing as this superhero family, but it’s sadly not. You might also think that it’s geared towards showcasing Cassie’s journey into her own superhero persona and, while that certainly is a development in the movie, the focus is more on Scott learning to accept that her daughter wants in the life (which he’s happy to do, he just worries about her) and her learning to walk before she runs (perfectly exampled when Scott has to teach her how to properly make use of the Pym Particles in a fight). The film does shed a bit more light on Janet, a largely mysterious character who clearly has been through some stuff and seen some things down in the Quantum Realm, but it, like her, is unnecessarily coy about the specifics and we’re left with only the briefest, vaguest mentions of her as an inspirational fighter in the war against Kang. Like the other Ant-Man movies, Quantumania leans heavily on the comedy; mostly, this is demonstrated through character’s being awestruck by their surroundings, struggling to adapt to the Quantum Realm’s bizarre society and characters, and riffing off each other. For the most part it works, though the absence of Scott’s more comedic supporting cast is felt in the movie and there’s one scene in particular where the dramatic tension is completely undercut by unnecessary forced comedy.

While the visuals generally impress, others are a bit cartoonish and disappointingly realised.

This would be the death of Darren Cross (Corey Stoll), who’s revealed to have survived the ending of Ant-Man but been left a misshapen and embittered troll of a man; rebuilt by Kang’s technology into the ultimate cybernetic killing machine, he chases down Scott and his family with a vengeance as the MCU version of George Tarleton/ Mechanised Organism Designed Only for Killing (M.O.D.O.K.) M.O.D.O.K. is one of the most bizarre villains of Marvel Comics and one I never thought we’d ever see translated to screen, so it’s pretty amazing to see him flying about shooting lasers and missiles and sprouting buzzsaws, but then the face plate lifts up and we’re forced to look at this really unsettling, cheap-looking CGI face and listen to Darren spouting pithy declarations and the character loses a lot of his menace. It’s a shame but, for the most part, Quantumania looks really good; it’s naturally a very CGI-heavy film and as far removed from its more grounded predecessors as you could get and goes to great lengths to expand upon the Quantum realm, while also handwaving a lot of the specifics. Humanoid characters like Jentorra (Katy O’Brian) and telepath Quaz (William Jackson Harper) exist alongside anthropomorphic houses and surreal alien creatures like the protoplasmic Veb (David Dastmalchian) and a robot with a laser for a head! These characters, while visually interesting, aren’t very well developed, though; I barely caught most of their names and their single characteristic is wanting to oppose and dethrone Kang, but they do help to show how versatile the Quantum Realm is. Before, characters couldn’t survive in the Quantum realm without special suits or suffering severe time dilation; that is now no longer a problem as they’ve conveniently travelled to a part of the dimension where they don’t need their helmets to breath and suffer no consequences of lost time once they return. The world is colourful and alive, but also feels strangely restricted; I also can’t help but feel like exploring the Quantum realm should’ve been a sub-plot in Ant-Man and the Wasp and that maybe it would’ve been better if Quantumania had take place entirely in Kang’s city, Chronopolis, to avoid the slow start to this movie. Everything also just feels a bit too cartoonish and intangible, and it’s again far too obvious that many actors aren’t actually in the same shots in some scenes, which really took me out of it.

There’s an intriguing conflict and looming menace lurking amidst the bombardment of spotty CGI.

Yet, there are still some exciting and bonkers action scenes on offer here; any time M.O.D.O.K. shows up the screen I filled with explosions and frantic action, and seeing Scott, Hope, and Cassie come together in their small and giant forms for the finale was exhilarating, though it was difficult to appreciate Giant-Man’s scale from the framing. One really inventive scene in the film sees Scott shrink further down to reach the core of Kang’s ship; there, he splits into an infinite number of variants and they must work together to get him closer to the core, literally evoking the image of an ant colony working together. Cassie later has a cool coming-of-age moment where she inspires the people of the Quantum Realm to rise up against Kang, and even Hank gets to have a moment to shine by leading his army of technologically advanced ants into battle, though the same unfortunately can’t be said for Hope, who spends most of the film sporting a ridiculous haircut and being understandably annoyed at her mother’s stubbornness before swooping in to aid Ant-Man in reaching the core and in defeating Kang. After Scott retrieves his ship’s core, Kang sets about escaping his confinement using an elaborate set of spinning rings, which will bring him and his army out of the Quantum Realm and allow him to get back to conquering the multiverse. Giant-Man storms his citadel and, despite all of Kang’s vaulted and incomprehensible time powers, a fist fight breaks out between Scott and the conqueror that sees Ant-Man absolutely decimated. Scott frantically gets his family to safety and chooses to stay behind and sacrifice his freedom to prevent Kang’s escape, only for Hope to show up and help fend Kang off, presumably killing him or banishing him to a further sub-sub-atomic dimension. The film then teases that Scott and Hope will be trapped in the Quantum Realm but the Cassie just immediately saves them and everything’s fine…save for Kang’s troubling warning of an oncoming danger and an entire legion of his variants turning their attentions towards the MCU following Kang’s defeat. Personally, I think it would’ve made more sense for someone in the core cast to die or even have it be Hank and Janet who make the last-minute save and end up trapped in the Quantum Realm. That would’ve been quite fitting given Hank’s obsession with it and small things and Janet’s past there but, instead, things wrap up in a nice little bow despite Kang’s Variants still posing a threat.

The Summary:
I had high expectations for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania; knowing full well that Kang was set to be an Avengers-level threat in the future and having had some knowledge of the character, I expected this to be a little darker, a little more high stakes, and to have serious repercussions for the MCU going forward. Hell, there was the suggestion that Ant-Man might not live through the tale, let alone be victorious, and it seemed like this could be the shake-up the MCU needed to start seriously working towards their next big team-up movie. Instead, it was just lacking in a lot of ways; I get the idea of exploring and expanding upon the Quantum Realm, but it felt like it took way too much time and I just wasn’t that interested in what was happening there as it felt somewhat inconsequential. It tied in nicely to Cassie’s arc of wanting to help people no matter where or who they are, but a lot of the new characters were forgettable, despite being visually interesting. There was next to no onscreen chemistry or development for Scott and Hope; she could’ve been entirely absent and it wouldn’t have mattered all that much as Cassie could’ve easily done everything she did. Paul Rudd continues to shine as Ant-Man but he’s bogged down by all this CGI mess and protracted world-building, and the environment really didn’t give his unique powers a chance to stand out. The sole saving grace was Kang; Jonathan Majors did an excellent job of portraying a nuanced villain, one who is filled with regret for the evils he must do, and he stole every scene he was in. sadly, though, we really don’t learn anything about him; I have no idea where he’s from or why he’s compelled to be the way he is, meaning a lot of the connection I felt to him came from inference, which is fine but I would’ve liked to see some of the early runtime focused more on him so we get a better sense of his motivations. I think Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania will land better on repeat viewings, especially once Kang returns to the MCU in future productions but, for now, it was a bit of a let-down for me and definitely a case of style over substance.

My Rating:

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Could Be Better

Did you enjoy Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania? How did you think it compared to the other Ant-Man films? What did you think to the exploration and expansion of the Quantum Realm? Did you enjoy seeing Cassie develop into her own heroic role and the relationship between her and Scott? Were you disappointed by M.O.D.O.K.’s portrayal and the effects used to bring him to life? What did you think to Kang and his motivations, and are you excited to see him return in the MCU? Whatever you think about Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, drop your thoughts below and be sure to check out my other Ant-Man content.

Movie Night: Avengers Confidential: Black Widow & Punisher

Dr. K1 Comment

Released: 25 March 2014
Director: Kenichi Shimizu
Distributor: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Budget: Unknown
Stars: Jennifer Carpenter, Brian Bloom, Grant George, JB Blanc, Eric Bauza, and John Eric Bentley

The Plot:
After interfering with a top secret mission, Frank Castle/The Punisher (Bloom) is apprehended by Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate (S.H.I.E.L.D.) agent and Avenger Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow(Carpenter) and the two are ordered by director Nick Fury (Bentley) to stop the terrorist organisation known as Leviathan selling stolen S.H.I.E.L.D. technology.

The Background:
After his impressive debut in the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man #129, the Punisher quickly became one of Marvel’s most popular anti-heroes thanks to his tragic backstory and unwavering commitment to the eradication of crime. His popularity has led to the character appearing in a number of multimedia projects outside of the comics, including videogames and both live-action and animated portrayals. Between 2010 and 2011, Marvel Entertainment teamed up with Japanese animation studio Madhouse to produce four anime projects, known as Marvel Anime, to little success. Avengers Confidential: Black Widow & Punisher was the follow-up to those projects; released mid-way through “Phase Two” of the massively successful Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), the anime drew a mixed reception despite making over $1 million in domestic home video sales.

The Review:
The movie opens to find the Punisher monitoring a rise in criminal and gang activities, as well as newspaper reports on himself, from his apartment (which, as is tradition, doubles as his armoury) while Black Widow expresses frustration at the Punisher’s mounting reputation as a vigilante. The opening credits play over a very quick montage of stills and images that give a quick recap of each character’s background and origin, showing Frank’s time as a family man and the deaths of his family in a mob hit and Natasha’s time training as a spy and assassin and association with S.H.I.E.L.D.

The Punisher and Black Widow appear to be physical equals but their fights are constantly interrupted.

The Punisher makes short, brutal work of some black-market weapons dealers, filling them with bullet holes and easily taking them apart by himself (despite them having more weapons and the numbers advantage) until only one man, Cain (Hebert) is left. Though disturbed at the high-tech weaponry Cain was selling, his efforts to torture more information out of the perp are interrupted by the arrival of Black Widow. Unimpressed with Fury’s operation and Widow’s criticism of his methods, a fight between the two ensues; though the Punisher demonstrates greater physical ability and immediately goes for his pistols, Widow is easily able to match him blow for blow with her superior acrobatic skill until Fury (modelled after his Ultimate and MCU counterpart) and his soldiers interrupt and Frank is subdued by one of Widow’s tranquiliser darts. However, during all the commotion, Cain manages to slip away unnoticed.

Fury manages to coerce Frank into teaming with Black Widow to infiltrate a Leviathan base.

Aboard the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier, Fury attempts to reconnect with Frank, whom he has a shared history with, and to impress upon him that his methods, while effective, are disrupting the bigger picture since he has started to interrupt S.H.I.E.L.D.’s procedures. Frank, however, is disgusted at the potential lives Fury’s methods have cost and it’s very quickly established that he and S.H.I.E.L.D., while working towards the same goal, are diametrically opposite. Still, Fury is able to inform Frank that the terrorist organisation Leviathan is selling stolen S.H.I.E.L.D. technology and the two are able to reach an agreement since the Punisher sees that the only reason he has been brought into custody is so that he can be unleashed upon Leviathan. Teamed with Black Widow, the Punisher shares the information Cain gave him and, begrudgingly, the two head to a Leviathan base in the frozen wastes of Slovenia; Widow exposits some background on Leviathan, who have grown into a sophisticated and deadly terrorist organisation that, it is soon revealed, has begun to experiment in created super soldiers and bioweapons. Thanks to their unique skills and training, the two are easily able to infiltrate the base and dispatch of the handful of guards with lethal effectiveness, but the Punisher immediately goes off script as soon as he spots Cain and another fight between the two breaks out.

Amadeus accidentally sends the Punisher on a rampage with Leviathan’s mind control technology.

This time, however, it’s much briefer and Frank simply storms out and leaves Widow to blindly follow Fury’s orders. Although he captures Cain, his efforts to torture him for more information are once again thwarted when Cain blinds him with a flash of light and slips away once more. Continuing on mission alone, Black Widow subdues the Leviathan scientists non-lethally before being attacked by her former lover, and ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, Elihas Starr (George), who faked his death and has joined Leviathan. Angered at his betrayal, Widow is no match for Elihas, who easily avoids, counters, and matches her frantic attacks while expositing that he chose to develop super soldiers for Leviathan to prove himself worthy of being Natasha’s equal and partner. Elihas attempts to convince Widow into joining him in Leviathan but, though heartbroken at his betrayal, she vehemently rejects him and fights him with renewed vigour and purpose; the Punisher aids her and destroys the facility and the two bring Cain’s cell phone to S.H.I.E.L.D.’s resident kid super genius, Amadeus Cho (Bauza). Though slovenly, excitable, and a teenager pervert, Amadeus is able to decrypt the phone but inadvertently sets the flash function off once again, which puts the Punisher into a bloodthirsty trance that sees him killing numerous S.H.I.E.L.D. agents before he is brought back to his senses. However, while Widow advocates for the Punisher’s state of mind, he is shaken at his actions and willingly submits himself to S.H.I.E.L.D. incarceration after killing innocent men.

United by a common goal, the Punisher and Black Widow eventually form a mutual respect.

Natasha is left feeling further betrayed when Fury reveals that he not only knew about Elihas but was also fully aware that leviathan possessed mind control technology and that he had stolen the Avengers’ blood in order to create his super soldiers. This is, of course, perfectly in keeping with portrayals of Fury as the ultimate spy whose “secrets have secrets” but his willingness to sacrifice both her and the Punisher spurs Black Widow into defying Fury’s orders and convince the Punisher to help her bring down Elihas and Leviathan. This takes the two to an underworld auction in Mandripoor where Elihas’ super soldiers are being sold off to a number of Marvel’s notorious supervillains and, ultimately, forces the two to pool their resources as a more effective team rather than being at odds with each other. In the end, though the two have opposing methods and beliefs, they are able to find some common ground and build a mutual respect for each other’s methods that culminate sin Widow willingly letting Frank return to his never-ending, one man war on crime rather than arrest him as per Fury’s orders.

The Nitty-Gritty:
Of course, every anime lives and dies by the quality of its animation and Avengers Confidential is a pretty slick and smoothly animated feature. Blood and gore fly in the air with a beautiful grace and characters move with either grace and poise or a heavy, weighty physicality when not standing around like statues. Amadeus is probably the most over the top character in terms of his animation, which plays into his quirky and impulsive personality, and the film does a decent job of emphasising the differences between its two main characters through their movements and physicality as much as their personalities.

While the Punisher is a blunt, brutal instrument, Black Widow is sleek and efficient.

The Punisher is cold, blunt force while Black Widow is slick efficiency; the Punisher seems disconnected from humanity and focused only on solving problems in the most direct way possibly, while Widow (and Fury) are concerned with the bigger picture and a strategic approach to secured the safety of millions. The Punisher’s presence turns a lot of heads around S.H.I.E.L.D., who view him with a mixture of awe and fear, and he earns this reputation thanks to his vicious efficiency; when under the influence of Leviathan’s mind control, he resembles little more than an emotionless killing machine. In comparison, Widow is effortlessly smooth and sexy in her movements, moving like liquid and with a serene grace that allows her to easily incapacitate even larger foes. Initially, Elihas is positioned as the primary antagonist of the feature and, thanks to his rushed connection to Black Widow, ensures that Natasha has a more personal stake in the film’s events beyond simply doing her duty to safeguard the world from Leviathan’s technology. Elihas exposed himself to his own super soldier serum, augmenting his strength and abilities in an effort to prove himself worthy of Widow’s love; though he believe that she loved him in the past, he was spurred by her always choosing missions with the Avengers and her life as a superhero over him and resolved to find a way to truly be her equal. Elihas truly believes that S.H.I.E.L.D. is actually oppressing people rather than saving them and that war and conflict are inevitable; as a result, he is perfectly fine with escalating and even starting wars with Leviathan’s technology and resources and sees his super soldiers as the next logic step towards consolidating their influence on the world.

Both the Avengers and Orion show up too late to do much of anything.

Although the Avengers get top billing in the film’s title and feature prominently on the DVD artwork, they don’t actually play a big role in the film and only show up right at the end. Despite having defied Fury’s orders, Black Widow and the Punisher’s mission to stop Leviathan is provided much-needed support when Tony Stark/Iron Man (Matthew Mercer), Doctor Bruce Banner/The Hulk (Fred Tatasciore), Thor Odinson (Unknown), Clint Barton/Hawkeye (Mercer), James Rhodes/War Machine (Unknown), and Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel (ibid) all arrive to help fight off Leviathan’s super soldiers. This leads to some high-octane action but never really overshadows the more grounded and gritty storyline featuring the two leads, who remain at the forefront of the narrative thanks to Natasha’s arc with Elihas and the Punisher’s vendetta against Cain. This is made even more explicit with how unimpressed the Punisher is by Stark’s bravado and the Avengers’ powers and abilities; he’s there with a mission to fulfil and merely tolerates their presence rather than jumping at the chance to join forces with Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. The true head honcho of Leviathan is the mysterious Orion (Blanc), a semi-cybernetic, cloaked madman who doesn’t even physically appear until the last moments of the film. However, despite Orion’s influence and power, we learn basically nothing about him and he is ultimately unable to hold sway over Elihas; during his climatic and emotionally charged showdown with Black Widow, Elihas finally comes to his senses and realises that the love they two of them shared is still there. This proves to be his undoing, however, as he sacrifices himself to save Natasha’s life after Orion shoots at her and dies in her arms. The film does a decent, if rushed job, of trying to place some emotional significance on Elihas’s character and sacrifice but I find myself oddly apathetic since I have no idea who he is; all of their backstory is conveyed through flashbacks and is told to us. We never get to see them as a proper couple or in action together, which I feel hurts the emotional core of their story; he an extra five or ten minutes been included at the start of the film to show their relationship before his downfall, this might have gone a long way to addressing that issue.

The Summary:
Avengers Confidential: Black Widow & Punisher is a really weird production, to be honest; the animation is great and it has that slick, silky smooth quality that you expect from an anime and some brutal, bloody fight scenes but I’m not really sure what the purpose of it is. As far as I can tell, it’s not supposed to tie into any other Marvel production, which makes characters such as Elihas, Orion, and Leviathan very underdeveloped and inconsequential since I have no real personal stake in their story or motivations, and they exist solely to give the title characters someone to fight against and force an emotional conflict for Black Widow. I feel like Punisher is a strong enough character to have carried the anime by himself but, while it is interesting to juxtapose his more extreme measures with the likes of the Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D., this doesn’t really work when partnering him with Black Widow. Sure, her methods and motivations are different enough but she’s still a spy, a former assassin, with plenty of “red in her ledger” so I can only imagine that she’s partnered with the Punisher to give the anime some sex appeal. In the end, it’s a short and decent enough story; it doesn’t really add anything new to the Punisher or show you anything you can’t see in other Marvel animations or productions but it manages to be just entertaining and action-packed enough to stay afloat despite its mediocre plot and characterisations.

My Rating:

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Could Be Better

Have you ever seen Avengers Confidential: Black Widow & Punisher; if so, what did you think to it and how do you think it holds up against Marvel’s other anime and animated depictions of these characters? What did you think to the concept of teaming these two up and the animation style? Do you think it would have been better to see a solo Punisher feature or to emphasise the more popular Avengers more or were you happy with the story it told? Do you know who Elihas Starr is and, if so, can you tell me why I should care? What is your favourite Punisher story, character, and adaptation (whether it be a movie or videogame)? How are you celebrating the Punisher’s debut this month? Whatever your thoughts on Avengers Confidential: Black Widow & Punisher, and the Punisher in general, drop a comment down below.

Movie Night [PokéMonth]: Pokémon: The Mastermind of Mirage Pokémon

Dr. K1 Comment

Upon the release of Pokémon: Blue Version and Pokémon: Red Version (Game Freak, 1996), a new craze swept through playgrounds across the world. Entire generations have grown up with Pokémon as clever marketing saw Nintendo’s newest franchise become a massively lucrative and popular multimedia powerhouse that endures to this day. Accordingly, February 27th is now internationally recognised as “National Pokémon Day”, which I’m expanding to an entire month of Pokémon every Tuesday in February, which is even more fitting given that February 6 is the day that Mew successfully gave birth to my favourite Pokémon, Mewtwo!

Released: 29 April 2006
Director: Kunihiko Yuyama and Masamitsu Hidaka
Distributor: Shogakukan Productions / Pokémon USA, Inc.
Budget: Unknown
Stars: Sarah Natochenny, Bill Rogers, Michele Knotz, Jamie Peacock, Billy Regan, Katsuyuki Konishi, and Ikue Ōtani

The Plot:
Ash Ketchum (Natochenny) and his friends are invited to the mansion of Doctor Yung (Regan), a Pokémon scientist who has developed a machine to create holographic mirage Pokémon. However, he is kidnapped by the mysterious “Mirage Master” who wishes to use the system to produce Pokémon with absolutely no weaknesses, and it’s up to Ash and friends to preserve the natural balance of the Pokémon world.

The Background:
I’ve discussed in detail before about how influential Pokémon (Nintendo/Creatures/Game Freak, 1995 to present) was when it was first released, though the videogames were only one part of the multimedia franchise as kids became engrossed in every piece of Pokémon merchandise available, including the still-ongoing anime series (1997 to present). Accordingly, the aptly-titled Pokémon: The First Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back (Yuyama, 1998) proved to be a massive financial success despite the many changes made in the translation process. With Mewtwo being one of Pokémon’s most popular characters, and considering the movie’s success, it was perhaps inevitable that Mewtwo became the focal point of the anime’s tenth anniversary special, which chief director Kunihiko Yuyama aimed to be a celebration of the evolution of Pokémon over the last ten years. Premiering on Kids’ WB and made widely available as a DVD extra, the one-hour special received crticism for replacing the long-running English language voice cast and is generally regard as the worst Pokémon special ever made.

The Review:
The tenth anniversary special opens with Ash, Pikachu (Ōtani), May (Knotz) and her little brother Max (Peacock), and former Pewter City gym leader Brock (Rogers) travelling through a forest in Ash’s home region of Kanto. Ash is feeling particularly smug because he has received an invitation from Dr. Yung to test his “amazing Pokémon training skills” against the doctor’s new battle system, and the group quickly arrived at Dr. Yung’s laboratory, which is housed within an elaborate castle known as the Mirage Mansion. There, Ash is surprised to find that his mentor and neighbour, Professor Samuel Oak (Billy Beach), and his old travelling companion and former Cerulean City gym leader, Misty (Knotz), have also been invited to attend; Ash is disappointed to find that his invitation wasn’t unique and that Dr. Yung has been passing his compliments out to other notably Pokémon trainers. Their mysterious host soon arrives, and the group do that blood annoying thing where they waste time introducing themselves to him, as though anyone really needs such an introduction, but it’s notable that Dr. Yung and Professor Oak are already familiar with each and have a previous professional relationship.

Ash and his friends are excited at pitting their skills against Dr. Yung’s Mirage Pokémon.

Ever the eager beaver, Ash asks to see the doctor’s vaulted new battle system and the group are stunned to find that the entire floor of the Mirage Mansion has been converted into a “mirage field”. Using this holographic technology, Dr. Yung is able to conjure up a variety of Pokémon based on their Pokémon data; Dr. Yung’s Mirage Pokémon are realistic down to the smallest detail, save for an obvious glow, and Dr. Yung is extremely proud of having perfected his technology, which is even capable of recreating extinct and Legendary Pokémon in order to better understand their capabilities. Naturally, Ash immediately volunteers to pit his skills against these Mirage Pokémon, but Misty overrules him on the basis of chivalry. Misty and Dr. Yung engage in a simple, one-on-one, knockout battle that pits his Mirage Aggron (Unknown) against Misty’s Staryu (Shin-ichiro Miki). This is another of those horrible mismatches that could only take place in the anime; seriously I have no idea why Misty, a former gym leader, wouldn’t send her Starmie (Ōtani) out against an Aggron, and we’ll never know if Staryu’s more powerful and competent form would have stood a better chance against the Mirage Aggron. Still, the point of the battle is to showcase not only how powerful and fast Dr. Yung’s Mirage Pokémon are, but also that he’s fully capable of programming them to use any movies he wishes; in this case, the Mirage Aggron was given an additional edge because it was able to use Bullet Seed and Thunder Wave, two moves that are super effective against Water-types like Staryu.

While Team Rocket are no threat, Mirage Master is a heinous villain who cares little for Pokémon.

Despite this, Ash remains as excited as ever (if not more excited) to pit his Pikachu against the Mirage Aggron, but their battle is interrupted before it can begin when the Mirage System is suddenly hijacked by the malevolent Mirage Master, who turns Dr. Yung’s Mirage Pokémon against the heroes. Unfortunately for the mysterious, masked villain, all of the heroes are able to escape from the Mirage Mansion by running away, leaving only Professor Oak behind, and the Mirage Pokémon are unable to leave the confines of the mansion due to the limitations of the Mirage System. The Mirage Master holds Professor Oak hostage deep within Dr. Yung’s laboratory and demands to know the access password for the professor’s laboratory database so that the masked villain can put Oak’s research towards creating better, and even more powerful Mirage Pokémon that will be super effective against all types of Pokémon. Professor Oak is disgusted at the villain’s disrespect for the strengths, weaknesses, and individuality that comes from natural Pokémon. Determined to rescue Professor Oak, the heroes decide to split up: May and Max watch over the Mirage Mansion, Brock goes to contact Officer Jenny (Peacock) for help, and Ash, Pikachu, and Misty sneak into the Mirage Mansion using their Water-type Pokémon. As if the Mirage Pokémon wasn’t bad enough, Ash and Misty soon bump into regular buffoons and would-be Poké-nappers Jessie (Knotz), James (Billy Beach), and wise-cracking Meowth (ibid) of Team Rocket have followed our heroes to the Mirage Mansion with designs to finally get their hands on Ash’s Pikachu. However, their goals immediately shift to stealing or repurposing Dr. Yung’s technology for their own nefarious ends to create powerful Pokémon for themselves, win the favour of their boss, and become rich either through using or selling the Mirage System. However, Team Rocket are hopelessly outmatched by the Mirage Pokémon and quickly sent packing before they can influence the plot in any meaningful way, and Ash and Misty are separated while battling Mirage Pokémon. Cut off from his friends, Ash is assisted by a Mirage Mew (Satomi Koorogi), a gentle Mirage Pokémon and the victim of constant attacks and ridicule from the Mirage Master, who considers it a “flawed specimen”. Mirage Mew leads Ash to where Professor Oak and Pikachu are being held captive, but he’s too late to stop the Mirage Master from forcibly downloading data of all the Legendary Pokémon Pikachu has encountered from its memories.

Thanks to having access to near-unlimited power, the Mirage Mewtwo proves to be a ruthless foe.

Horrified at Pikachu’s suffering, Oak reluctantly gives over his password, allowing the Mirage Master to hijack every Pokémon database around the world and giving birth to his ultimate Mirage Pokémon: Mirage Mewtwo (Katsuyuki Konishi). Rather than being the same Pokémon Ash encountered before, Mirage Mewtwo is an all-powerful creation of the Mirage System, one incapable of telepathic communication but boasting every Pokémon attack available. Not only is the Mirage Master revealed to be Dr. Yung in disguise and out for revenge after his research was disregarded due to his immoral attitude towards Pokémon, he also extends the Mirage System outside of the Mirage Mansion using a series of missiles and recreates Mirage versions of Entei, Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres. Naturally, the heroes’ Pokémon are no match for the Mirage Legendary Pokémon, much less Mirage Mewtwo; not only can it destroy other Mirage Pokémon in a single attack, it makes short work of even Professor Oak’s Dragonite (Unknown) by unleashing powerful attacks such as Flamethrower and Hyper Beam. Mirage Mew comes to their aid, shielding them from Mirage Mewtwo’s attack, but is ultimately overwhelmed and disintegrated by Mirage Mewtwo’s attack. Dr. Yung then downloads all of the Mirage Pokémon data into his Mirage Mewtwo, causing tumorous lumps to pop up all over its body and a range of powerful attacks to be unleashed all at once. Right as Mirage Mewtwo is poised to finish off the heroes, Mirage Mew remerges from the Mirage System (and within Mirage Mewtwo’s body) and exerts its control over Mirage Mewtwo, holding it in place so that Pikachu can destroy it with a Volt Tackle. Sadly, Mirage Mew is also destroyed along with its malevolent counterpart, and the entire Mirage System; Dr. Yung refuses to surrender, however, and disappears into the flaming rubble and explosions of his Mirage Mansion and is presumed to have perished alongside his research. In the aftermath, Ash and his friends thank the efforts of the Mirage Mew and condemn Dr. Yung’s immoral nature, before resolving to continue on their journeys.

The Nitty-Gritty:
One thing I’ll give The Master of Mirage Pokémon is that it sure doesn’t waste any time; the opening title sequence is painfully short, even shorter than the one in a regular Pokémon episode, and the credits play over the group’s arrival at the Mirage Mansion. There’s also little to no real build-up and no big Pokémon battle sequence to open the special; it simply begins with Ash re-reading Dr. Yung’s letter for the umpteenth time and then boom, they’re at the Mirage Mansion right away. Being that it’s only an hour long, this is necessary to get us to the main plot of the Mirage Pokémon as quickly as possible, but it’s not as if the special is full of non-stop action, returning faces, or Legendary Pokémon from there. In fact, it actually slows down for quite a chunk and more time is spent showcasing the Mirage Aggron than any of the more powerful, popular, and alluring creations Dr. Yung brings forth. It was great seeing Misty make a comeback and briefly revisiting her friendly rivalry with Ash, but you could have easily taken her out of the special and it wouldn’t have made any difference at all. May, Max, and Brock were all notably side-lined as well, acting as mere support characters going through their usual motions rather than actually having an impact on the plot, and as a celebration of the first ten years of Pokémon ends up falling a little flat as it just doesn’t do enough with the potential of its premise.

A fun enough, poignant special that sadly doesn’t realise the full potential of its premise.

There’s a great deal of anticipation surrounding the reveal of Dr. Yung’s ultimate Mirage Pokémon, which of course turns out to by Mirage Mewtwo and ultimately ends up falling very flat because, by the time Mirage Mewtwo finally shows up, the special is almost over and we don’t really get to see much from it. To make matters worse, Dr. Yung is awestruck at the amount of Legendary Pokémon contained within Pikachu’s memory and yet he doesn’t create Mirage versions of Pokémon like Lugia; instead, he limits himself to the Legendary Birds and Entei, who mostly just stand around and overpower the heroes’ Pokémon before they are absorbed into Mirage Mewtwo (something that didn’t really need to happen as Mirage Mewtwo could already utilise all of their attacks and abilities, and more). This means that the one time we get to see Mewtwo and the Legendary Birds onscreen in an actual episode amounts to a whole lot of nothing, and we don’t get to see Lugia, Latias, and Latios flying alongside the Legendary Birds or Ho-Oh or anything. Instead, the focus is all on Mirage Mewtwo being this dominating holographic Pokémon, which is certainly is, but without the morality and personality of the original Mewtwo, it’s little more than just a mindless beast or machine to put the heroes in peril. Things are even more confused by the fact that Mirage Mew inexplicably exhibits an independent personality; there’s an attempt to explain that this is because even Dr. Yung can’t destroy the natural spirit of Pokémon and that Mew is an aberration compared to the other Mirage Pokémon, but this doesn’t really hold up under close scrutiny. Indeed, if any Mirage Pokémon were to break free from Dr. Yung’s control, I’d expect it to be Mewtwo, and I wonder if the story might have been better serviced by Mirage Mewtwo going berserk and Dr. Yung being forced to team up with the heroes and turn the Legendary Mirage Pokémon against it in order to shut it down and realise the error of his ways.

The Summary:
I don’t think that I would agree that The Mastermind of Mirage Pokémon is necessarily the worst Pokémon special I’ve ever seen, or even the worst product to come out of the anime, but it can’t be denied that it is quite disappointing. I am a big fan of Mew, Mewtwo, and the other Legendary Pokémon and I love seeing them crop up in the anime, specials, and movies, but a major gripe I have about their appearances is that they have to count for something. Here, they really don’t count for anything; Dr. Yung observes footage of some of the other Pokémon movies through Pikachu’s memories, reminding us of better times and more accurate representations of these creatures, and makes a big production of showcasing his Mirage Mewtwo and condemning his Mirage Mew, but simply having versions of these creatures appear onscreen doesn’t necessarily equate to them actually being meaningful or interesting. It’s great seeing Mirage Mewtwo busting out all these wacky attacks and overwhelming the heroes, and it was suitably heart-breaking to witness the Mirage Mew sacrifice itself to destroy its ruthless counterpart, but there was so much more potential to be had here. Why not merge the Legendary Birds into one being? Why not team Mirage Mewtwo with a Mirage Lugia? Why not have Mirage Mewtwo break free and go on a rampage and see it battle against Mirage versions of the other Legendary Pokémon? None of that happens, and it results in The Mastermind of Mirage Pokémon playing things very safe and dull, and only saving itself from a one-star rating because of the nostalgia surrounding the tenth anniversary and the Pokémon anime and the fact that I am a sucker for Mewtwo and the Legendary Pokémon, even when they barely do anything remotely interesting or entertaining.

My Rating:

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Could Be Better

What did you think of Pokémon: The Mastermind of Mirage Pokémon? Did you enjoy seeing Mewtwo in action again or did you feel the feature was a missed opportunity to do more with the character? What did you think to Dr. Yung and the concept of Mirage Pokémon? Did you enjoy seeing Misty make a return and the cameos from the other Legendary Pokémon? How are you celebrating Mewtwo’s birthday this year? Whatever you think about Pokémon: The Mastermind of Mirage Pokémon, Mewtwo, and Pokémon in general, sign up to leave your thoughts in the comments below or leave a reply on my social media.

Movie Night [Sci-Fanuary]: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

Dr. K5 Comments

January sees the celebration of two notable dates in science-fiction history, with January 2 christened “National Science Fiction Day” to coincide with the birth date of the world renowned sci-fi writer Isaac Asimov, and HAL 9000, the sophisticated artificial intelligence of Arthur C. Clarke’s seminal 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), being created on 12 January. Accordingly, I’m spending every Sunday of January celebrating sci-fi in all its forms.

Released: 5 May 2017
Director: James Gunn
Distributor: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Budget: $200 million
Stars: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldaña, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Karen Gillan, Kurt Russell, and Michael Rooker

The Plot:
After angering the Sovereign, the Guardians of the Galaxy are saved by Ego (Russell), a Celestial being who takes the form of a sentient planet. Claiming to be Peter Quill/Star-Lord’s (Pratt) true father, Ego promises to open Quill’s mind to the vast power and knowledge of the universe, but Quill’s adopted father-figure, Yondu Udonta (Rooker), reveals a far more sinister motive behind Ego’s seemingly benign nature.

The Background:
Despite being one of Marvel’s more obscure properties, and having undergone many changes over the years, the Guardians of the Galaxy proved to be a massive financial success after making their live-action debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). Since the property was deemed to have strong franchise potential, and to even become as integral to the MCU as the Avengers, it’s perhaps unsurprising that the director and cast of the first film were soon revealed to be returning for a sequel. While determined to expand on the cast and lore of the first film, Gunn was mindful about overloading the sequel with a slew of new characters; Gunn went solo on the film’s story, which he planned to focus on exploring a new version of Star-Lord’s heritage, and was afforded a great deal of creative control regarding the direction of the story and its place in the wider MCU. Gunn also continued to push the importance of practical effects and set wherever possible, especially as the film would make far more liberal use of computer-generated effects to bring Ego (one of the most complex CGI creations ever) to life. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2’s box office gross of over $863 million surpassed that of its predecessor, but reviews were generally more mixed; while the film was praised for being visually impressive and telling a surprisingly touching story, the pace and tone received some criticism. Still, the film cemented the team’s importance to the MCU and its success easily justified not only a third move but also a holiday-themed special.

The Review:
I was pleasantly surprised by Guardians of the Galaxy; despite knowing next to nothing about the team or the concept heading into it when it first came out, the trailers and marketing had won me over and appealed to my love of science-fiction romps and bizarre comedic superhero adventuring. The film was a real breath of fresh air for the MCU at a time when things were just starting to really gear up towards full-on cosmic shenanigans and it remains one of my favourite entries not just in Phase Two, but in the entire franchise. So, to say my anticipation was high for the sequel would be an understatement; once again Marvel had outdone themselves by somehow getting Kurt Russell onboard and just the idea that they would even consider doing a concept like Ego, a literal sentiment planet, really told you all you needed to know about the scope of the MCU going forward: nothing was off limits, not even the most bizarre cosmic element of the source material.

The team may function a lot better now but they’re still a dysfunctional and argumentative bunch.

Some time has passed since the events of the first film, and the Guardians of the Galaxy have become somewhat renowned as a freelance peacekeeping force, of source and are happy to help those in need…for a price. Thanks to having saved the galaxy, they can afford to charge higher rates for their services, but it’s undeniable that they’re a much more well-oiled team than the band of misfits and outcasts we saw in the last film. The family dynamic has been dialled up to eleven, with Quill and Gamora (Saldaña) acting as the parental figures of the group, Drax the Destroyer (Bautista) and Rocket Raccoon (Cooper/Sean Gunn) acting as petulant teenagers, and Baby Groot (Diesel) as the curious and mischievous child. However, while they have clearly grown as a team and a surrogate family, the Guardians remain flawed and troublesome characters: hired by the Sovereign to destroy the inter-dimensional Abilisk, the team struggle to get their shit together and attack the beast between bickering with each other over their priorities and weapon choices and expressing concern for Baby Groot, whom they are all fiercely protective of. Although far from his larger, more capable self from the first film, Baby Groot proves instrumental in helping Rocket escape from the Ravagers, but is primarily here to cute appeal and comic relief; young and childish, he has trouble understanding things sometimes, which leads to a number of amusing instances where he struggles to retrieve items or follow instructions.

Rocket angers the Sovereign and pushes away his friends with his abrasive attitude, something Yondu can relate to.

As before, the one member of the team with the most sense remains Gamora, who is the only one capable and clear-headed enough to deliver the killing blow to the Abilisk. To be fair, Quill was the one who recognised that the creature had a pre-existing wound on its neck for Gamora to exploit, but Drax’s best plan was to foolishly try and attack the beast from the inside. While their methods are often haphazard and lacking in finesse, they get the job done and it’s Quill who takes point in speaking for the team to Ayesha (Elizabeth Debicki), the enigmatic and alluring High Priestess of the Sovereign race. While Quill flirts with Ayesha and attempts to keep relations with the proud race amicable, they incur her wrath when Rocket steals a bag full of their incredible rare and Anulax Batteries; of all the members of the team, it’s Rocket who struggles the most to let go of his selfish and underhanded ways, which brings him into continued conflict with the team and Quill’s leadership. A grouchy and antagonistic character, he actively pushes people away, even those closest to him, to avoid being hurt by them; he finds an unlikely confidante in Yondu Udonta (Rooker), an embittered space pirate who has spent his life doing the same thing and urges Rocket to recognise that he has people who actually care about him and help repair his relationship with Quill and his misfit family.

An ages-old Celestial, Ego wishes to spread his influence across the galaxy to consume all life.

Overwhelmed by the Sovereign fleet, the Guardians are mere moments away from being blown to smithereens thanks to Quill and Rocket wasting time and energy bickering over their piloting skills. Although they are saved by the timely intervention of Ego, the Milano is crippled, but Quill finds something he has long been missing in his life: his father. A sentient planet, Ego reveals himself to be an ages-old Celestial, a being who has known nothing but loneliness for the longest time; his only companion is Mantis (Pom Klementieff), a naïve and sheltered character who strikes up an odd relationship with Drax and uses her empathic powers to help Ego sleep…and to ease his conscience. Thanks to some extremely impressive de-aging effects and a facial double (Aaron Schwartz), the film opens with Kurt Russell appearing in his prime years back in the eighties to woo Meredith Quill (Laura Haddock) and sows the seeds (literally and figuratively) for Ego’s true plot to spread his consciousness across the entire galaxy using seeds planted on distant worlds. To do this, he needed to sire a part-Celestial heir but was continuously met with failure; the bodies of his rejected children are literally piled up and hidden away on his planet, and his joy at finding Quill can harness his cosmic powers soon turns to anger when his son chooses to turn that very power against him to oppose his dreams of galaxy-wide conversion.

The Guardians face threats from all sides as enemies old and new conspire to enact their revenge.

The Sovereign turn Nebula’s semi-cybernetic stepsister, Nebula (Gillan), over to the Guardians. Nebula’s hatred and resentment of Gamora has only grown between films; as children, their adopted father, Thanos (Josh Brolin), had them fight for supremacy over and over, and Gamora won every single time, reaping in Thanos’s praise while Nebula was replaced a piece at a time with mechanical parts. Gamora is happy to return Nebula to Xandar to collect her bounty and rid herself of her brutal stepsister once and for all, but Nebula is driven by rage and bitterness and takes every opportunity she can get to break free and hunt her sister down. This leads her to forming a brief, mutually beneficial alliance with the Sovereign and Taserface (Chris Sullivan), a mutilated member of Yondu’s crew who might be a laughable threat with a ridiculous name but he incites a mutiny and flushes those who stand against him and his followers out into space. This only further complicates matters for Yondu, who raised Quill as a space pirate and thief after learning of Ego’s true nature and intentions for the young Quill, but his part in child trafficking left him and his crew dishonoured and ostracised from the wider Ravager community by prominent Ravager figurehead Stakar Ogord (Sylvester Stallone). Betrayed by many of his crew, Yondu is forced to team up with Rocket to enact a merciless revenge with his fancy tricky arrow and rush to Quill’s aid when Ego’s true intentions are revealed, and an intense and brutal battle between Nebula and Gamora sees the two sisters reaching a mutual understanding and gaining the Guardians an additional unlikely ally for the finale.

The Nitty-Gritty:
As before, music and pop culture play an important part not just in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2’s soundtrack but in defining Quill’s character, especially in relation to his mother. The flashback at the start of the film shows how Ego assumed the form of an irresistible 1980s rogue: he’s got the mullet, the car, and the tunes to go along with it and easily wins over Meredith with his good looks and silver tongue. Ego’s undeniable charisma and ability to manipulate his form are made more explicit when he pours vocal honey into Quill’s ears with stories of his love for Meredith and even assumes the form of his childhood hero, David Hasselhoff (Himself), showing that Ego knows exactly how to manipulate people by playing to (and preying on) their likes, hopes, and dreams. Quill’s love for music stems from his mother, who put together mixtapes for him that he listens to endlessly on his Walkman and onboard the Milano; so great is his love for music that Rocket even prioritises setting up a loud speaker for them to listen to Quill’s tune during their battle with the Abilisk and Quills still firmly drawing his pop culture reference from his childhood and the seventies and eighties. Just as these elements help him to remember and feel closer to his mother (and bond him closer with his newfound family), so too do they help to quickly build up a trust between him and his father when Ego expresses a liking for the same music and pop culture that was so integral to Quill’s childhood.

Space combat and action might be fleeting but are beautifully brought to life with some stunning visuals.

I remember being a little disappointed by Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 when I first saw it as I was expecting the film to be bigger and better than the first but, similar to Avengers: Age of Ultron (Whedon, 2015), it struck me as being just as enjoyable as the original, which actually knocked my rating of it. I have no problem with it telling a story more focused on the tea dynamic and exploring these characters further, I just hadn’t expected it when I first saw it, so I definitely appreciated it more on repeat viewings. However, there is still a decent amount of onscreen action and visual spectacle to keep viewers entertained: the Sovereign are a minor antagonistic force in the film existing mainly to drive the plot forwards and get our heroes to Ego, but they have a unique armada comprised of thousands (maybe even millions) of remote drones that are piloted very much like arcade machines and lead to some frantic space battles and an intense chase through a “quantum asteroid field” that’s like the asteroid chase from Star Wars: Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (Kershner, 1980) on steroids! The hexagonal jump points help to add to the mysterious nature of the galaxy and result in an amusing scene where Rocket and Yondu are warped in bizarre ways by multiple jumps, and Ego pilots a sleek, egg-like ship that is unlike any other in the galaxy, but the true visual spectacle of the film is realised when the characters arrive on Ego’s planet. A lush, verdant alien world home to some bizarre, vegetation and an elaborate palace housing Ego’s memories and plans, Ego’s world is just like him: beautiful and alluring at first glance but hiding a dark secret beneath the surface that comes to fruition when Ego’s very face warps the planet’s crust.

Family is even more pivotal this time around as bonds are reforged or rejected in favour of true family.

The dysfunctional family dynamic between the titular team is a pivotal element of the sequel; although they’re far more trusting and accepting of each other, they still wind each other up and get on each other’s nerves. While much of this is embodied by Rocket, Drax’s blunt and literal perspective doesn’t help matters much and Quill is continuously distracted by his attraction to Gamora. Despite Drax’s assertions that Gamora isn’t interested in him in that way, she’s incredibly supportive of Quill and is touched by his stories of his childhood pining for a father who wasn’t there, which confuses and angers him when she suspects that something isn’t quite right about Ego’s planet and raises questions about what counts as true family, blood or those you are closest to. Naturally, the question of Quill’s parentage is a huge plot point of the film; after being left as a blatant dangling plot thread and piece of sequel bait in the first film, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 goes to great lengths to establish that Quill isn’t fully human, like his comic book counterpart, and is instead part-Celestial thanks to being one of Ego’s many progeny seeded across the galaxy. This afford him many fantastic abilities when present on Ego’s plant form, and potentially opens up the vats secrets of the universe to him, but his human nature and the nurturing of his mother, his oddball family, and his father figure, Yondu, prove to be strong enough influences on Quill’s morals and character and force him to reject Ego. Quill is further driven to this decision when Ego drops the bombshell that it was he who caused Meredith’s fatal brain tumour, thus dooming her and pushing Quill into an enraged defiance that sees him pull out all the stops to oppose Ego’s plan to terraform the worlds he’s seeded.

Ego is destroyed at great cost but an even greater threat looms in the Guardians’ future…

This means not only turning down the ability to construct greater things, and even life, using Ego’s cosmic power but also the virtual immortality offered by Ego’s planet; disappointed by sentient life across the galaxy, Ego realised that his destiny wasn’t to simply walk among men, but to dominate and consume them through “The Expansion”. His façade as a loveable, charismatic figure quickly gives way to a cold-hearted, self-centred parasite befitting of his name and capable of great love (for he truly loved Meredith and was tempted to give up his enterprise for her) but also intense anger. Fully capable of manipulating every element of his planet-form to his will, Ego is a monstrous, nigh-unstoppable God-like being comprised of pure energy but capable of bending matter as he sees fit to protect his brain at the core of his planet. Thanks to being part-Celestial, Quill is also able to manipulate the planet to a degree, leading to a visually impressive sequence where Rocket drills through Ego’s crust using lasers and Quill constructs a massive version of Pac-Man to go head-to-head with his father. With the Sovereign closing in and adding to the melee, Mantis strains her powers to the limit to put Ego to sleep while Rocket cobbles together a bomb to destroy Ego’s core. Although the threat is ended and Gamora and Nebula finally reconcile (and Quill and Gamora finally admit their true feelings to each other), Quill forever loses his immortality and Celestial powers…and also his true father when Yondu sacrifices himself to save Quill from Ego’s destruction and the vacuum of space for a surprisingly emotional and heart-breaking finale. However, Yondu is finally honoured by the Ravagers in death, and Kraglin Obfonteri (Sean Gunn) assumes command of his arrow and his crew; while the Guardians find dealing with a moody adolescent Groot to be a challenge in the post-credits scene, they remain unaware that Ayesha has vowed to destroy them by breeding a perfect instrument of destruction dubbed “Adam”.

The Summary:
It’s definitely true that Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 holds up much better with each subsequent viewing; in many ways, it’s more of the same from the last film, but with a far greater focus on the characterisations of the titular team and the dysfunctional family dynamic they have. While it doesn’t necessarily match or expand upon the space-faring action and excitement of the first film, and may disappoint some viewers in that respect, the grounded, more personal story told here is a poignant and affecting one. Seeing Quill struggle with his heritage, his feelings for Gamora, and to hold the team together is what makes these outlandish characters so surprisingly relatable, and the banter and relationship between each member of the team is some of the most entertaining produced by the MCU. What we have here is a film that peels back the layers of one of the most obscure properties in Marvel, and the MCU, and makes even their most alien members human and vulnerable; expanding on Yondu’s character and showing how complex Rocket is as a character was a surprising highlight, as was the heart-breaking final reconciliation between Yondu and Quill. There’s plenty of amusing elements throughout the film thanks to Drax’s blunt nature and Baby Groot’s childish antics, and Kurt Russell seems to be having the time of his life being part of his big-budget production. The cosmic scope of the MCU was expanded even further with the introduction of the Celestials and laying the groundwork for the future dynamic and troubles coming to the Guardians and, while I don’t rate it as highly as the first film, that’s not to say that there isn’t a great deal to enjoy here and I’d say it’s well worth your time, especially for those who might not have been convinced by the Guardians’ characterisation in the last film and wanted to get to know these characters better.

My Rating:

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Pretty Good

What did you think to Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2? Were you disappointed that the film wasn’t as action-packed as the first or did you enjoy the more character-focused story? What did you think to the added emphasis on the team as a dysfunctional family? Which of the new characters introduced was your favourite? What did you think to Ego’s plot and the changes made to his character? Would you have liked to see Quill retain his cosmic powers or did you dislike that he was made part-Celestial? Which members of the team would you like to see included in the MCU later down the line? I’d love to know your opinion on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, so sign up to share them below or leave a comment on my social media, and be sure to check in next Sunday as Sci-Fi Sunday continues!

Movie Night [Friday the 13th]: Friday the 13th Part 3

Dr. K2 Comments

Long considered to be an unlucky day due to superstitions involving the number thirteen and religious connotations, Friday the 13th is perhaps equally as well-known as being the title for a long-running series of slasher movies. As a result, this is clearly the best opportunity to take a look at the Friday the 13th (Various, 1980 to 2009) horror series and to commemorate this unlucky and dreaded date.

Released: 13 August 1982
Director: Steve Miner
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
Budget: $2.2 million
Stars: Dana Kimmell, Paul Kratka, Tracie Savage, Larry Zerner, Gloria Charles, and Richard Brooker

The Plot:
Chris Higgins (Kimmell) and her colourful group of friends travel to her childhood home in Crystal Lake only to raise the ire of a local gang of bikers. This threat is quickly surpassed by the presence of nigh-superhuman killer Jason Voorhees (Brooker), who has taken refuge near the house after being wounded and is eager to continue his killing spree on a new crop of unsuspecting victims.

The Background:
After the release of John Carpenter’s Halloween (Carpenter, 1978), which essentially birthed the “slasher” genre, Friday the 13th (Cunningham, 1980) proved such a box office success (despite its many critics) that a sequel as pushed intro production, albeit without the involvement of producer/director Sean S. Cunningham. Although not as successful as the first film, the sequel’s domestic box office of over $21 million more than justified a third entry in the blood-soaked slasher franchise. Early drafts for the third film saw Ginny Field (Amy Steel) return, now confined to a mental hospital, and Petru Popescu was disappointed when casting for his characters became more about looks than actual talent. With 3D cameras and all the rage at the time, Paramount Pictures decided to capitalise and the experimental new technology meant even simple shots became a long, gruelling process more about hitting the camera than putting in a good performance. The script called for Jason to wear a mask and his now-iconic hockey mask was supplied by 3D effects supervisor Martin Sadoff; a Detroit Red Wings goaltender mask served as the basis for the face-covering, which would go on to become one of the most recognisable elements in all of horror. With a box office gross of over $36 million, Friday the 13th Part 3 managed to out-do its predecessor (while still falling short of matching the first film’s gross) but was met with the same mixed-to-negative critical response; the plot was considered derivative but the 3D effects were seen as an enjoyable inclusion that was sullied by the tiresome clichés. Despite its low critical impact and being planned as the series finale, the Friday the 13th Part 3 ’s box office success meant that a fourth film was pushed into production, one that absolutely, positively spelt the end for the franchise…for a time…

The Review:
Just as the last film began with a recap of the finale of the first film, so too does Friday the 13th Part 3 kick things off by presenting viewers with the final showdown between Ginny and Jason (then-played by Steve Dash) that saw her trick the bag-headed killer into submission by impersonating his deceased mother, Pamela Voorhees (Betsy Palmer), and leave him vulnerable to getting a machete stuck in his shoulder. We continue to get information regarding the events of the last film via a news report, which reveals that Ginny did survive but still leaves the fate of her boyfriend, Paul Holt (John Furey), unanswered. The third film properly begins with Jason pulling out the machete and heading out into the night once more, but now played by a different actor and stalking the nearby woods and area of Crystal Lake with his head exposed (though hidden from view, for the time being). Jason stalks with argumentative store owners Harold Hockett (Steve Susskind) and Edna (Cheri Maugans), an odd couple who receive a great deal of screen time considering they’re just there to get the body count started, throw some terrible 3D effects in our face, and establish how Jason acquires his new duds.

Chris returns to Higgins Haven, where bland ol’ Rick and some bad memories await.

Following this painfully long and pointless sequence (and some extremely funky title music courtesy of series composer Harry Manfredini and Michael Zager), we’re finally introduced to the new crop of twenty-somethings-posing-as-teenagers who will serve as our main characters this time around. Andy (Jeffrey Rogers) and his pregnant lover Debbie (Tracie Savage) are excited to be travelling down to Higgins Haven at Crystal Lake with their friend, Chris, a perky girl troubled by an incident at her family home two years ago but trying to not let the traumatic attack she endured ruin the weekend for her rambunctious friends. When the group get to Crystal Lake and Chris reunites with old flame Rick (Kratka, who seems way too old for her but who am I to judge?), we learn that, somehow, Chris was attacked by Jason (as he appears now) while wandering the woods near Higgins Haven. Horrified, she tried to escape and fight him off, only to black out and be found by her parents, who insisted that she must have imaging the entire thing. However, her memories are so vivid and her fear and disquiet at being back at Crystal Lake are so potent that it could only have been real, though it’s unclear as to why Jason spared her and the sexual implications of the attack are both unsettling and contrary to Jason’s usual characterisation.

Despite being an annoying prankster, Shelly shows some personality and forever impacted the series.

While Andy might be a bit of a generic, forgettable young man, his roommate and best friend, Shelly (Zerner), is memorable to the point of being an annoying pain in the ass. A born prankster and practical joker, Shelly suffers from an extreme lack of confidence in his looks and his body and makes up for it by wearing masks, playing pranks on his friends, and generally being an aggravating little shit. Unsurprisingly, his pranks and tomfoolery do little but annoy the others, who constantly berate his antics, and don’t exactly turn on his blind date, Vera Sanchez (Catherine Parks); however, he proves himself to be surprisingly brave and capable when he and Vera get on the wrong side of Fox (Charles) and her biker gang, and Vera warms towards him after seeing how much he loves his mother. While he might be one of the most divisive characters in the entire franchise (you literally either love him or hate him), he proves to be one of the most important characters as Jason acquires his iconic hockey mask after taking it from Shelly, forever cementing his significance to the series.

While the pot-heads don’t add much, the bikers make a big impression despite their limited screen time.

Chris and her friends are joined by a dope-smoking duo of hippies, Chuck Garth (David Katims) and Chili Jachson (Rachel Howard), who primarily exist just to be off their heads the entire time, added to the body count, and throw a few more screams and disparaging remarks towards Jason and Shelly, respectively, however, while shopping for supplies in town, Vera and Shelly run afoul of a mean gang of bikers: Fox, Ali (Nick Savage), and Loco (Kevin O’Brien), who harass them in the store and then smash up Rick’s car after Shelly accidentally knocks over their bikes. While this leads to a moment of bravery from Shelly after Ali pushes him too far, it comes back to bite the kids when the bikers track them down to Higgins Haven and drain the petrol from their van, thus limiting their escape options for the finale. Still, while they’re only onscreen for a short period of time, and despite being secondary antagonists, the three bikers actually showcase a surprising amount of personality; Fox expresses concern at Ali’s plan to burn down the Higgins barn to settle the score, and Ali actually proves to be a resilient and tenacious character as he somehow survives an attack by Jason to make an unexpected comeback for the finale that sees him getting his hand lopped off for his efforts.

The Nitty-Gritty:
Honestly, Friday the 13th Part 3 may have some of the weakest and most forgettable characters of the entire franchise; Shelly might be memorable for his boy-who-cried-wolf antics and the bikers might make an impression with their ripped denim and leather, but Chris is a disappointingly bland final girl. It doesn’t help much that Dana Kimmell really isn’t convincing as an actress here, but I find Chris’s meek personality makes her little more than a hysterical tart driven to the edge rather than a capable, independent young woman. Both Andy and Rick end up being unremarkable male leads; Shelly might be an annoying asshole, but at least he exhibits some personality and isn’t just a bland nice guy who you don’t even care about. Higgins Haven makes for an interesting change of scenery for the franchise as well; rather than the events taking place at an abandoned camp or the nearby town, much of the film is localised at Chris’s childhood home, which includes a massive barn full of hay and a quaint little house full of oddities and trinkets that allow the setting to be both unique and familiar at the same time. The gang do head into town, however, and we get to see a little more of the surrounding area, which is always nice as I find we rarely ever get a chance to explore the goings-on of Crystal Lake in these films.

The 3D effects are often awkward and blatant but of lead to a couple of awesome kills.

Of course, the big selling point of the movie is its inclusion of 3D effects; sadly, however, these are all egregious and pretty poorly realised and amount to shit like snakes, rats, baseball bats, popcorn, severed eyes, yo-yos, fists, and handles being thrust, waved, or shoved right in front of the camera lens in ; we get such “memorable” moments as a snake charging at the camera on a wire, a rat randomly crawling towards us on a plank of wood, a baseball bat held right in front of the camera lens in gratuitous and blatantly obvious shots designed to showcase the out-dated effect. It does, however, lead to two of the film’s more impressive kills when Jason fires a speargun at Vera and crushes Rick’s head, causing his eye to literally pop out of his skull! These prove to be two of the more over-the-top kills in the film as Friday the13th Part 3 opts for simple, brutal kills for the most part: Harold gets an axe to the chest, Edna a knitting needle through the back of the head, and Jason even scores a two-for-one deal when he recreates one of the most memorable kills of the first film and drives a knife through the pregnant Debbie’s chest. Andy is dispatched rather viciously when he gets skewered through the belly while walking upside down, and Shelly gets this throat slit offscreen, which is odd as even Chuck and Chili get onscreen deaths, with Chuck being tossed into an electrical box and the hysterical Chili being impaled by a hot poker.

Jason is a far more sexual and apathetic character and now imbued with superhuman strength.

Although the injuries he received in the second film don’t seem to have slowed him down or even crop up as a weak point here, Jason is clearly licking his wounds in the Higgins Haven barn; we catch fleeting glimpses of him standing in or near the barn, but no clear shots until he hides his grotesque face behind his signature hockey mask. The finale gets into full swing shortly after, meaning lingering shots of Jason’s hands or torso are replaced with full-body shots of him lumbering around with an almost bored swagger; sporting something of a hump and lacking even the wispy hair we saw in the last film, Jason has lost some of his sprightliness but gained the measured, near-superhuman brutality that has since become so synonymous with the character. We see a very different side of Jason this time around; there’s an odd sexual menace to him through the implication that he raped Chris, or at least messed with her in a way beyond simply physically harming her, and his pursuit of her seems to be both personal and sexually charged in a way we haven’t really seen from him before. He toys with her like all his final prey, but Chris is the only final girl that he willingly unmasks in front of; he even leers at her with a wink, showcasing a vindictive intelligence that was missing in the last film. While he grunts and even yells in pain this time around, Jason is now powerful enough to crush skulls with his bare hands and hoist himself up whilst being hung from the neck. Thanks to the timely intervention (and sacrifice) of Ali, Chris is finally able to get her shit together to actually fight back and defend herself,  burying an axe into Jason’s head and seemingly putting him down for good. However, in another homage to the first film, Chris is randomly attacked by the decomposing body of Pamela Voorhees in a dream sequence, and the entire experience seems to have driven her out of her mind.

The Summary:
It can’t be denied that the Friday the 13th formula was getting more than a little stale but this third entry; if you’ve seen the first two, you’ve basically seen everything this film has to offer with the exception of the largely terrible 3D effects. However, if you took away the blatantly weird camera shots and the wire-powered props, there still wouldn’t really be much new of offer in Friday the 13th Part 3. Ooh, it takes place in a barn, how exciting! It’s still the same thing of horny kids making dumb decisions, acting badly, and being picked off one by one by a relentless killer, and this third entry is honestly one of the weakest in the series for me. there are some good points to be found here: the speargun sequence and Rick’s head-crush are memorable (if ridiculous) kills, Shelly showcases more personality than all of the main characters combined, and the bikers are surprisingly charismatic characters who sadly don’t get enough screen time. If you’re a fan of Jason as a character, this isn’t too bad an entry either as he finally acquires his iconic hockey mask and Richard Brooker’s portrayal of Jason as a lumbering, sadistic, almost lackadaisical killer set the standard for others to follow, particularly during his time as a zombie. Still, funky soundtrack and enjoyable gore aside, Friday the 13th Part 3 remains a painfully unimpressive entry; Jason’s motivations are oddly tinged with a sexual menace, his face has taken a notable downgrade, and the overall quality of the performances has taken such a massive step back that it’s hard to really give a shit about anything that’s happening as the character’s we’re supposed to care about are so bland, hysterical, or poorly realised. This is one best rushed through, or skipped over, if you’re doing a Friday the 13th marathon.

My Rating:

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Could Be Better

What did you think to Friday the 13th Part 3? How do you feel it holds up against its predecessors and its many sequels? Which of the new characters was your favourite and why, and what did think to Chris as the final girl? What did you think to the 3D effects used in the film and did you find they distracted from the kills? Which of the Friday the 13th movies is your favourite? Perhaps you prefer a different slasher film or franchise; if so, what is it? Do you consider Friday the 13th to be unlucky? Are you watching a Friday the 13th movie today? Whatever your thoughts on Friday the 13th (the movie, franchise, and day), sign up to tell me your thoughts below or leave a comment on my social media, and be sure to check in again for more horror content in the near future!

Movie Night [Sci-Fanuary]: Guardians of the Galaxy

Dr. K17 Comments

January sees the celebration of two notable dates in science-fiction history, with January 2 christened “National Science Fiction Day” to coincide with the birth date of the world renowned sci-fi writer Isaac Asimov, and HAL 9000, the sophisticated artificial intelligence of Arthur C. Clarke’s seminal 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), being created on 12 January. Accordingly, I have decided to spend every Sunday of January celebrating sci-fi in all its forms.

Released: 1 August 2014
Director: James Gunn
Distributor: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Budget: $232.3 million
Stars: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldaña, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Lee Pace, and Michael Rooker

The Plot:
Abducted from Earth as a small child, Peter Quill (Pratt) grows up to become the intergalactic rogue known as “Star-Lord”. However, after stealing a mysterious orb, Quill finds himself relentlessly pursued by the war-hungry Ronan the Accuser (Pace) and forced to team up with a rag-tag group of misfits and criminals in order to oppose the Kree warlord’s plans to devastate a peace-keeping world.

The Background:
While I’m sure that the Guardians of the Galaxy had their fair share of fans before they made their debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), I think it’s fair to say that the intergalactic superhero team were one of Marvel’s more obscure properties, especially compared to heavy-hitters like the Avengers. Writer Arnold Drake and the immortal Stan Lee changed Roy Thomas’s concept of super-guerrillas fighting Russians and Red China into an interplanetary team of misfits, and the team was resurrected and given their much more recognisable line-up over the years, and MCU head honcho Kevin Feige first name-dropped an adaptation of the team in 2010 as part of the MCU’s continued expansion towards more cosmic adventures. Director James Gunn won out to helm the film, which whole-heartedly embraced even the most ridiculous characters and concepts from the team’s history; the film embraced its ensemble line-up and utilised both practical and computer-generated effects to brings its bizarre characters to life. Gunn also emphasised the importance of featuring large, practical sets and bolstered the film’s humour and themes through a referential soundtrack. Guardians of the Galaxy was a phenomenal success, grossing over $772 million at the box office and proving that even Marvel’s most obscure creations could be a box office success. The film was met with an overwhelmingly positive reception; critics praised the banter and comedy, the quirky uniqueness of the film, and for bringing something new to the genre. Others were a little more critical of the film’s pace and comedic elements, but Guardians of the Galaxy’s box office success more than justified subsequent sequels and spin-offs and the Guardians of the Galaxy quickly became a popular and integral part of the larger MCU.

The Review:
My knowledge of the Guardians of the Galaxy was basically non-existent when the film was first announced and released. In all my years of reading Marvel Comics, I had never once encountered the team beyond reading the issue where they encountered Cuchulain the Irish Wolfhound as part of my undergraduate studies and happening to read a story where Doctor Bruce Banner/The Hulk fought an early version of Groot. Thus, when I first heard of the film and saw the trailers, I was a little confused but intrigued by the concept, which reminded me of the kind of space-faring snark and adventure I’d enjoyed in Serenity (Whedon, 2005) and Star Trek (Abrams, 2009), and willing to go along with this risky venture of bringing such an obscure Marvel property to life. Although the film is unquestionably an ensemble piece and introduces many bizarre characters to the MCU, Guardians of the Galaxy is anchored by Peter Quill,  a vain and self-centred space adventurer who, as a boy (Wyatt Oleff), was forced to watch his beloved mother (Laura Haddock) suffer and ultimately succumb to a cancerous tumour. Unable to bare the loss, he ran out of the hospital in his grief and was unexpectedly abducted by Quill Yondu Udonta (Rooker) of the Ravagers on the order of his mysterious father, whom his mother descried in her delirium as an “angel”. Rather than be delivered to his father, Quill was raised by Yondu as a surrogate son and taught the ways of the space pirates, growing up to become a thief and modelling himself after the film stars of his youth, such as Patrick Swayze and Harrison Ford.

Quill wishes to be as notorious as Gamora, a bad-ass warrior known as the daughter of Thanos.

However, Quill is not as notorious throughout the galaxy as he likes to think, despite having a bunch of gadgets and tech at his disposal (such as his blaster, gravity grenades, personal space helmet and rocket boots, and even his own ship, the Milano). While Quill may be a loser with delusions of grandeur, his greatest ability is convincing others to listen to his words and come together against a common goal; even though he doesn’t always have a plan (or even a percentage of a plan), he’s able to talk his newfound allies into setting aside their differences first in the name of survival and profit, and then to defend Xandar from destruction. Gamora (Saldaña) begins the film as a minion of Ronan the Accuser (Pace), on loan to him from her adopted father, the Mad Titan, Thanos (Josh Brolin/Sean Gunn), much like her cybernetic stepsister Nebula (Karen Gillan). There’s a rivalry and animosity between the two that extends beyond simply trying to impress their father; while Gamora is a renowned and notorious warrior, she secretly plots against her father, who destroyed her people and turned her into a living weapon simply for his own amusement. She is a non-nonsense, laser-focused individual who is riled up by Quill’s inane banter and  buffoonery, but comes to find a surrogate family with her oddball team mates; as much as she hates Thanos and desires to kill him, she has a real love and pity for her Nebula, who has become cold and merciless and driven by hatred and resentment since Thanos always favoured Gamora, which inevitably leads to dramatic conflict between the two. Gamora is eventually convinced to trust Quill when he puts himself at risk not only by summoning Yondu for aid but by braving the cold, suffocating vacuum of space to save her, which also goes a long way to proving his selflessness and worthiness as a hero (however unlikely) to his newfound teammates.

Rocket, Groot, and Drax become reluctant allies after being convinced by Quill’s quick-thinking.

Rocket Racoon (Cooper/Sean Gunn) and Groot (Diesel/Krystian Godlewski) are already branded as criminals at the start of the film, but operate as independent bounty hunters who are simply trying to et rich by bringing in marks and run across Quill and Gamora while staking out Xandar for bounties. Though Rocket appears to be the brains of the operation, Groot is far from a mindless creature, despite only ever uttering “I am Groot!”; Groot is insightful, curious, and compassionate and surprisingly gentle for such a lumbering brute, and adds to the film’s humour and heart thanks to his childish nature. Rocket also has a surprising amount of depth to his character; essentially a snarky, embittered raccoon-like creature, he was subjected to horrific experiments and takes a perverse pleasure in sticking it to those in positions of authority. After being arrested by the Nova Corps and locked up in the Kyln, these four are reluctantly forced to work together since all of the other inmates immediately target them because of their association with Gamora and her association with Ronan and Thanos. No other inmate has more of a vendetta against Ronan than Drax the Destroyer (Bautista), a musclebound warrior whose family were slaughtered by Ronan for sport and who longs to kill Gamora as recompense. Drax, who comes from a race of people that take everything literally and cannot understand metaphors, is convinced to spare Gamora by the fast-talking Quill so that they can join forces to lure Ronan out and kill him. Although reluctant to team up, Drax is won over by Quill’s reputation and Rocket’s plucky adaptability, but is so focused on having his revenge against Ronan that he puts his newfound teammates at risk by summoning Ronan to Knowhere, only to be summarily humiliated in single combat with his hated foe.

Despite his potential to be a decent recurring villain, Ronan is a disappointingly forgettable antagonist.

Each of the film’s protagonists has either a personal vendetta against, or comes into conflict with, Ronan, a Kree warrior branded a terrorist as he refuses to abide by the peace treaty between his people and Xandar, home of the Nova Corps. A maniacal zealot who wishes nothing less than the power to strip Xandar of all life, he makes a deal with Thanos, to retrieve the Orb for him in return for Thanos unleashing his might against Xandar, however he’s sadly another largely lacklustre villain; even killing the Other (Alexis Denisof) and making demands of Thanos does little to impress and he’s simply a large, malevolent force for the team to rally against. He does have some notable moments, however, such as delivering a massive beatdown to Drax and laying claiming the Power Stone that lies within the Orb, thus granting him incredible, nigh-unlimited power. Unfortunately, there’s really not much to go on with him; his fanatical vendetta against Xandar make him largely unsympathetic, he does a lot of posturing for someone so feared and revered by other characters, and is easily distracted by Quill’s hilarious dance moves and undone by the titular Guardians sharing the power of the Power Stone between them and atomising him. It’s a shame, really, as I feel like Ronan could have been a decent enough recurring villain, or even a reluctant ally, of the Guardians in subsequent films (or repurposed into one of Thanos’s Black Order), but instead he’s simply built up as this unstoppable bad-ass and then done away with before he can really earn that reputation.

A number of supporting character actors bolster the film’s scope, or steal the show with their antics.

The film is bolstered by a number of supporting characters, with Yondu being the clear standout; Quill’s mentor and, essentially, adopted father, there is an animosity between the two as Yondu believes Quill is ungrateful that he wasn’t eaten by the rest of the Ravagers and Quill believes that Yondu only kept him around because he was small enough to help steal stuff. However, there relationship softens over the course of the film and Yondu goes from placing a bounty on Quill’s head and wanting him dead to helping him push back Ronan’s forces, which is good news for Quill as Yondu can command a specialised arrow with just a few piercing whistles and cut down enemies in the blink of an eye. As home to the peacekeeping Nova Corps, Xandar offers some additional faces to the film’s line up, including the exasperated Nova Prime, Irani Rael (Glenn Close), who is frustrated at Ronan’s continued attacks against her people and the reluctance of the Kree to intervene, and Nova Corpsmen such as Rhomann Dey (John C. Reilly) and Denarian Garthan Saal (Quill Serafinowicz), who are both impressed and judgemental of the titular team’s notoriety and become reluctant allies of theirs for the finale. Another additional highlight of the film is the enigmatic Taneleer Tivan/The Collector (Benicio del Toro), a peculiar gatherer of oddities and knowledge who reveals the Orb’s true nature as housing an Infinity Stone and pushing the Guardians into leaving it in the care of the Nova Corps rather than selling it or allowing Ronan to lay claim to it.

The Nitty-Gritty:
All young Quill had to cope with his mother’s failing health was his music; she would compile mix tapes for him that he would listen to repeatedly to help distract him from reality and, after being kidnapped by Yondu, he was (somehow) able to keep his Walkman and tapes working by retrofitting space technology. Quill is so attached to the Walkman and his music that he delays his escape from the Klyn to retrieve it, much to Drax’s chagrin, and he finds solace in the music of Blue Suede, Redbone, and Marvin Gaye. Obviously attracted to Gamora, Quill briefly begins to win her over by letting her share his music, and he has spent his entire adult life putting off unwrapping his mother’s final gift to him, which turns out to be a new mixtape full of even more classic tracks from the seventies and the eighties.

Guardians massively expanded the scope and intricacies of the MCU’s galaxy.

Being the MCU’s first adventure to be fully set in the deepest depths of space, Guardians of the Galaxy continues to impress with is visual presentation; from the sets, props, and special effects, everything has such depth and variety to it. Xandar is slick and advanced, clean and with the best resources available, while Knowhere is a desolate, lived-in hellhole full of scum and villainy. The Milano is a beat-up mess not a million miles away from the Millennium Falcon (although it doesn’t look like the Falcon), while Ronan’s ship, the Dark Aster, is a dark and ominous vessel carving its way trough the galaxy. The Ravagers are a bunch of degenerates holed up on a huge, filthy ship and made up of a variety of representable races, and the differences between their ship and the advanced forces of the Nova Corps is vast. However, it takes the combined efforts of these unlikely allies to defend Xandar and push back Ronan using a combination of space combat, a massive energy shield that amounts to a suicide run, and breaching the Dark Aster in an unsuccessful attempt to kill Ronan. I really enjoy the visual style of the film, which quickly shows in a very short period of time that the MCU’s galaxy is full of history, technology, and races that we’ve still only begun to scratch the surface of. Knowhere is carved from the severed head of a Celestial, the Collector’s museum is stuffed full of trinkets and captives from across the vastness of space and Marvel lore, and there’s a real sense that we could see another twenty films set in MCU space and still not really understand everything about it.

Family is at the heart of Guardians as its misfits and outcasts find a purpose in the universe.

One of the most prominent themes that separates Guardians of the Galaxy from other films in the MCU is the sense of family; unlike other films in the MCU, Guardians of the Galaxy was given the unenviable task of introducing a whole team of new heroes all in one film and, while many of them are analogous to their Avengers counterparts, they manage to stand out from them thanks to their individual personalities and quirks. Quill is desperate to make a name for himself as notorious outlaw Star-Lord; until now, he’s being trying to do that by stealing shit and being a disreputable rogue, but he finds his true calling as a reluctant space hero and saviour by the film’s end and finally gets his wish when Korath (Djimon Hounsou) uses his codename. Quill is also carrying a tremendous amount of guilt over never getting to say goodbye to his mother and has been running from his past ever since; while he seems to have no wish to return to Earth and find a new family in the Guardians, he clings on to the pop culture of his childhood, and it’s his love for his mother that gives him the strength to endure the Power Stone’s power in the finale. The familial themes continue with Gamora and Nebula, stepsisters who have a bitter rivalry but are reluctant to admit how much they both have in common: bother were used and abused by Thanos and both wish to see him dead, but Nebula is too blinded by her hatred and resentment to consider working alongside her sister. Drax is completely motivated by love for his lost family, whose deaths haunt him and dictate both his vendetta against Ronan and his eventual acceptance of his newfound friends.

Despite heavy losses, Ronan is defeated and the galaxy is left in the capable (?) hands of its new guardians.

This band of misfits, degenerates, and losers finally finds something worth fighting for thanks to their common goals and interests, forced to work together for survival, their interests quickly turn from profit and revenge to putting their lives on the line for a greater good when they pledge to defend Xandar from Ronan and keep the Power Stone out of his grasp. Alongside the Ravagers and the Nova Corps, the newly christened Guardians of the Galaxy fend off the likes of Korath and Ronan’s Necrocraft in a co-ordinated attempt to kill Ronan. Unfortunately, Ronan embeds the Power Stone into his Warhammer, obliterating Saal and many of the Nova Corps and easily shrugging off Rocket’s specially made missile. Outmatched by the empowered Ronan, the Guardians are only granted a reprieve when Rocket punches a whole in the Dark Aster sending it crashing down to Xandar, and they’re only saved by the selfless and poignant sacrifice of Groot, who shields his newfound family using his own body. Thanks to the Power Stone, Ronan also survives the crash, but is so busy making speeches that he probably would have ben undone even without Quill’s distracting him with his dance moves. With Ronan’s Warhammer destroyed, Quill lays claim to the Power Stone, but its sheer destructive power threatens to teat him apart; memories of his mother give him the strength to hold back the damage and link hands with his newfound friends, who share the burden of the Infinity Stone’s power and allow them to triumph over Ronan. For their efforts, Quill makes amends with Yondu (despite again cheating him out of the Orb’s bounty, and Yondu taking with him the truth of Quill’s true parentage). The Nova Corps repair the Milano and wipe away the Guardians’ criminal records, and the head out into the galaxy to cause more mischief.

The Summary:
I am continuously impressed by Guardians of the Galaxy; I was pleasantly surprised the first time I saw it and, even now, it stands out as one of the most unique and entertaining entries in the MCU. Essentially a space adventure, the film has a visual style and humour that really helps it stand out from other films in the MCU. The film does a fantastic job of extending the scope of the MCU beyond Earth and really showing how much variety, lore, and different technology, races, and conflicts exist out in the depths of space. Tying everything together is, of course, the titular team themselves; reminiscent of their Avengers counterparts (a man out of time, a warrior female, a snarky mechanic, a monstrous brute, and an oddball meathead), the Guardians shine trough their unique characteristics and the sense of loss that drives them. Each has a past, with many of them having committed unspeakable crimes prior to the film, and is motivated by a desire to find a sense of belonging, put to rest their demons, and discover their purpose in the wide, dangerous galaxy. Of course, to begin with, none of them would ever really admit to this and they’re more motivated by profit or revenge, but being forced together turns out to be the best thing for this band of misfits and assholes as they’re able to put their egos, pride, and selfish desires to come together for a greater good. It’s not easy debuting an ensemble team in one film, but Guardians of the Galaxy is fantastically paced and gives everyone a chance to shine; even supporting characters like Yondu and Nebula get a decent amount to do and, while Ronan is squandered as a villain, the overall package shines just as brightly now as it did when I first saw it and I remember coming away from Guardians of the Galaxy extremely excited for the future of the MCU, which looked to be near-limitless at the time.

My Rating:

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Fantastic

Are you a fan of Guardians of the Galaxy? Which of the characters was your favourite? Were you disappointed that the film didn’t feature the original version of the team, or a different line-up? What did you think to the MCU expanding its scope deep into space and with such an obscure property? Were you also disappointed with Ronan, or does he rank quite high in your list of MCU villains? What did you think to the hints towards the full scope of the Infinity Stones and the wider MCU peppered throughout the film? Did you enjoy the changes the film made to characters like Drax and the Nova Corps? Which members of the team would you like to see included in the MCU later down the line? I’d love to hear your thoughts on Guardians of the Galaxy, so please sign up to share them down below or leave a comment on my social media, and be sure to check in next Sunday for my review of the sequel as Sci-Fi Sunday continues!

Movie Night [Christmas Day]: Krampus

Dr. K1 Comment

Released: 4 December 2015
Director: Michael Dougherty
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Budget: $15 million
Stars: Adam Scott, Emjay Anthony, Toni Collette, David Koechner, Krista Stadler, and Luke Hawker/Gideon Emery

The Plot:
Young Max Engel (Anthony) finally has enough of his dysfunctional family’s squabbling and loses his festive spirit, which incurs the wrath of Krampus (Hawker/Emery), a fearsome, horned demonic beast who lays siege to the neighbourhood and forces the family to band together to save one another from a monstrous fate.

The Background
Everyone knows about Santa Claus; jolly ol’ Saint Nic has been the good-natured mascot of the season for generations and is celebrated as a figure of generosity and joy for kids the world over. You may be less familiar with Father Christmas’s demonic counterpart, Krampus, however; a monstrous figure whose roots can be traced back to pre-Christian Alpine traditions, the horned demon delivers coal and misfortune to the naughty at Christmas time. After breathing new life into the Halloween season in Trick ‘r Treat (Dougherty, 2007), director Michael Dougherty turned his attention towards crafting a scary Christmas movie and became inspired by the legend of Krampus. Taking his cue from horror-holiday classic Gremlins (Dante, 1984), Dougherty sought to infuse his Christmas horror with both dark comedy and commentary on family troubles and consumerism during the festive times. A worldwide box office gross of over $61 million made Krampus a decent financial success, and reviews were generally quite positive, with the film being praised as a modern horror classic for the season.

The Review:
Krampus kicks off not by establishing a horrific or disturbing atmosphere, but by showing an amusing representation of the many and varied moods that surround the festive season; against the dulcet tones of Perry Como’s “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas”, shoppers rage and fight each other for presents and purchases, spend exorbitant amounts of money, and basically resemble little more than a manic hoard in their rush to fill the void of consumerism. Clerks and employees are largely apathetic and little more than zombies, completely worn out by their mundane profession and the madness of it all, and even the shopping mall Santa Claus is depicted as a lecherous and unsettling figure.

Despite Omi’s best efforts, Max loses his Christmas spirit thanks to his dysfunctional family.

Amidst all of this is young Max, who gets into a fight in the middle of a Christmas recital because an older, bigger kid was bad-mouthing the spirit of Christmas. Although he’s old enough to know that Santa Claus isn’t actually real, he still believes in the season and wants to keep the dream alive for those younger than him who deserve to find out naturally, rather than from some man-spirited kid, and is enthusiastic to watch A Charlie Brown Christmas (Melendez, 1965) as is his family’s tradition. His teenage sister, Beth (Stefania LaVie Owen), is far less passionate about the spirit of Christmas, or anything for that matter; disinterested in playing nice for the season, or the turmoil in her family, she’s far more concerned with texting and seeing her boyfriend, Derek (Leith Towers), though she does try to keep Max from lashing out when his cousins mock his letter to Santa over Christmas dinner. Of all of the family, only Omi Engel (Stadler) shares Max’s appreciation for the spirit of Christmas; dutifully baking cookies and helping to wrap presents, she encourages him to keep the magic alive. Warm and friendly, she spends the majority of the film speaking in German, which is a neat twist, and all of her immediate family understand her despite talking to her in English, which really adds a flavour to her character as a wise and loving patriarch. Rather than add to the stress of the season, Omi is a calm and reliable anchor who also carries the burden of a past experience with the horrific demon who comes knocking mid-way through the film.

Sarah is just barely holding everything together amidst the chaos of her family.

Sarah (Collette) is very much a mother, and a woman, nearing the end of her tether. Like a lot of mothers around this time of year, she’s feeling the stress of having to try and keep her dysfunctional family together and increasingly exasperated by all the little issues that keep cropping up; she just wants a nice, quiet, uneventful family Christmas but Max’s behaviour throws a spanner in the works and Beth’s attitude towards her in-laws coming to stay only adds fuel to the fire. Although her husband, Tom (Scott), is sympathetic and supportive, he’s not exactly an assertive force in the family, meaning that Sarah carries a lot of the burden on her shoulders. Her stress is only exacerbated when her sister, Linda (Allison Tolman), arrives with her massive troupe: abrasive husband Howard (Koechner), sluggish Howie Jr. (Maverick Flack), sporty sisters Stevie (Lolo Owen) and Jordan (Queenie Samuel), and baby Chrissie (Sage Hunefeld). The differences between the two families couldn’t be more apparent: where Tom is pretty easy-going and attentive and content to be more of a number cruncher, Howard is a loud, proud, all-American hunter and avid sports fan; where Max is friendly and chatty, Howie Jr. is a slob-like mute. Though both Sarah and Linda try to cope with their dysfunctional families as best as they can, things are even more strained when Linda brings along grouchy Aunt Dorothy (Conchata Ferrell), a rude crank who isn’t afraid to speak her mind and criticise Sarah’s house, kids, or attempts to try and mix up the usual Christmas menu.

It doesn’t take long for horrific events to descend upon the town, and the family.

Despite Tom and Omi’s best efforts to keep Max’s spirits up, the mockery of his cousins is the last straw and, disillusioned, he rips up his letter to Santa Claus and tosses it into the frigid night air after ranting at his family for ruining Christmas. Almost immediately, bad things begin to happen; first, an ominous dark storm sweeps over the entire town, then the family wakes up on Christmas Eve to find a blizzard has buried them in show and cut off their heat and power. The first signs of something truly creepy come when Max spots a mysterious snowman in their front yard and a massive sack full of Christmas presents is delivered to their house. Already struggling because of the political, financial, and familial attitudes between their two groups, the sudden weather and power outage only further escalates the tensions in the house; this pales in comparison to the fate of poor, cute Beth, however, as she spots a demonic, hooded figure out in the blizzard and is promptly spirited away by the howling creature when she braves the storm to check on Derek.

The Nitty-Gritty:
Although the families find themselves trapped, freezing, and increasingly at risk, there is room for some much-needed bonding; Sarah and Tom share a quiet moment where they reflect on how stale their marriage has become, Sarah also reconnects with Linda over their shared memories of their deceased mother, and, in a twisted way, Max’s Christmas wish comes true as the families are forced to set aside their petty squabbles and work together to fend off Krampus’s minions. Even Scott and Howard find some common ground, despite one being a pacifist and the other being a gun-toting activist; when Howard is injured while they’re out searching for Beth, he hands his shotgun to Tom and finally offers him his respect as a provider and protector of his family. Although the film is largely bloodless (and there’s a case to be made that none of the main characters actually die) and the horror is offset by dark comedy and a biting wit, this serves to make the relationships between the characters all the more real and relatable. None of them are perfect, and their relationships with each other are severely strained (either explicitly or inexplicitly), but they find common ground in their crisis as they are all bound together by their fear and the need to survive.

Krampus is a scene-stealing, grotesque, nightmarish perversion of jolly ol’ Saint Nic.

Krampus employs a number of horrific minions to do its dirty work, ranging from vicious little gingerbread men, bloodthirsty toys, a demonic jack-in-the-box (Brett Beattie), and even cackling, perverted versions of Santa’s elves. Krampus’s minions may be cute and ridiculous but they’re incredible vicious and cruel, snaking down through the chimney on iron hooks and dragging the family away one-by-one. Krampus brings a number of these to life using digital effects, as is to be expected, but excels in its use of traditional, practical effects for many of its monstrosities, such as the aforementioned jack-in-the-box, which swallows Jordan whole up in the attic. Of course, the clear highlight is the titular creature itself, a cloven-hooved horror that appears as a nightmarish version of Santa Claus, Krampus sports a twisted, screaming face mask, devil-like horns, and long, talon-like hands. A lumbering, monstrous creature, Krampus isn’t onscreen for long, but its presence is felt throughout the film; when it does appear, it’s a heart-stopping and frightening experience as it looms over its prey and regards them silently or emits an animalistic growl. Its backstory is related by Omi, who recounts how she had a similar crisis of faith at Christmas time as a girl and evoked Krampus’s wrath, which left all of her family dragged to Hell and her as the sole survivor. This is related to the viewer as a fantastically gothic and Tim Burton-esque animated segue, and really helps to sell the mythology and horror of Krampus, who punishes the naughty and those who’ve lost hope at Christmas, and it’s pretty clear that Krampus’s minions take a perverse pleasure in tormenting their victims.

Krampus culminates in a surprisingly bleak ending that punishes Max’s loss of Christmas spirit.

While Howard is all gung-ho about fighting back, Tom maintains that the family needs to stay warm and come up with a practical plan to get all of them to safety using a nearby snowplough; this is scuppered, to say the least, then Krampus’s minions attack in full force, driving the survivors to fight back but eventually forcing them out into the blizzard while Omi stays behind to face her nightmare head-on when Krampus arrives in person. Omi’s attempts to appease the beast are met with failure, and Max is soon left all alone when his remaining family members are yanked beneath the snow one by one. While this is quite the abrupt ending for these characters, I’m okay with it as it leads into one of the best scenes of the film; not content with emerging from the chimney like a lumbering devil, Krampus prepares to toss Max’s family into a hellish pit when the boy rejects Krampus’s attempts to leave him behind, as it did Omi all those years ago. Despite Max angrily taking back his wish, and desperately pleading that all he wanted was for his family to be happy at Christmas like they used to be, Krampus simply mocks his tears and, rather than sparing the boy and undoing its evils, drops him into the pit with a vindictive chuckle. Max awakens the next morning to find his family restored, happy and healthy, but any hopes that his ordeal was some horrible nightmare are quickly dashed when he finds a parting gift from Krampus, and the camera pulls back to reveal that Max and his entire family have been trapped within the purgatory of a miscellaneous snow globe in Krampus’s terrifying workshop.

The Summary:
Krampus is a delightfully devilish little Christmas treat. It hits many of the same notes as you’d expect from a Christmas film (consumerism destroying the spirit of Christmas, dysfunctional families struggling to co-exist during the holiday season, and a festive wish gone awry) but puts a haunting twist on it all with some of the most unique monsters brought to life on film. I find the idea of Krampus (a beast I had never heard of until this film) to be incredibly appealing, and the creature’s design and characterisation are worth the price of admission alone. Sadly, it’s not on screen as often as I would like, but the film is littered with some appealing performances by a variety of veteran and character actors; even the kids do a stellar job and, some dodgy CGI aside, the film is really engaging from start to finish. Obviously, one of the things people remember most about Krampus is the incredibly bleak and dark ending, which sees the family presumably forced to relive Christmas morning over and over in a never-ending purgatory, but this, to me, is the perfect way to end the film. Some biting wit and dark comedy ease much of the film’s horror, but it’s still there thanks to some dark and creative shots in the snow-strewn streets and the way Krampus is framed as this monstrous devil, and the downer ending is like the cherry on top of an excellently crafted modern horror classic that’s well worth putting on to add a bit of spice to your Christmas viewing.

My Rating:

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Great Stuff

Are you a fan of Krampus? Where does it rank for you against other horror Christmas movies? Were you familiar with the Krampus figure before this movie and what do you think of there being this dark opposite of Santa Claus? Were you a fan of the film’s special effects and would you have liked to see more of the titular beast? What did you think to the bleak ending? What are your plans for Christmas Day today? Whatever your thoughts, sign up to comment down or leave a reply on my social media and have a great Christmas!

Movie Night [Doomsday]: Sunshine

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Over the years, there have been many theories about when the world will end but one of the more prevalent was the mistaken belief that doomsday would befall us on December 21st 2012 based on the Mayan calendar ending on this day. Of course, not only did this not happen but it wasn’t even based on any actual fact to begin with but, nevertheless, doomsday scenarios have been an enduring genre in fiction so I figured today was a good day to explore this popular concept.

Released: 6 April 2007
Director: Danny Boyle
Distributor: Fox Searchlight Pictures
Budget: $40 million
Stars: Cillian Murphy, Chris Evans, Cliff Curtis, Rose Byrne, Michelle Yeoh, Hiroyuki Sanada, and Mark Strong

The Plot:
In the year 2057, the Sun is dying thanks to a destructive Q-Ball. In a desperate attempt to ignite it, a crew of scientists and astronauts is sent on a last-ditch effort to deliver a nuclear device into the star.

The Background:
By 2007, British director and producer Danny Boyle had made a name for himself, most notably with the critically-acclaimed Trainspotting (ibid, 1996) and the post-apocalyptic zombie horror 28 Days Later (ibid, 2002), when he was presented with the concept for what would become Sunshine. The script, as conceived by writer Alex Garland, was funded partially by Fox Searchlight and numerous outside investors, which afforded Boyle a great deal of creative freedom. Boyle and Garland worked on the script for a year and consulted with one of my favourite scientific personalities, Doctor Brian Cox, regarding the scientific accuracy of the concept, who dismissed criticisms of the film’s science in favour of creative license. Boyle assembled an ensemble cast of international characters to show all of mankind uniting in the face of their destruction, and consulted with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) regarding the technology and presentation of the interior and exterior of the ship. Sadly, Sunshine’s $32 million worldwide gross made it a box office disappointment and the film was met with mixed reviews that mostly focused on the abrupt twist towards slasher movie territory for the ending. Personally, I found Sunshine to be one of the most poignant and underappreciated science-fiction movies ever made and am glad to see that it has developed something of a cult following since its release, and it’s my pleasure to revisit it for this review.

The Review:
Sunshine begins with Doctor Robert Capa (Murphy) outlining the basic premise and some of the history of the film; the Sun is dying due to unknown reasons, pushing mankind to the brink of extinction due to the Earth slowly freezing over. Seven years before the start of the movie, Icarus was sent on a mission to restart the Sun but was mysteriously lost before it could deliver its payload; Capa and the rest of his crew have spent the last sixteen months travelling towards the Sun aboard Icarus II carrying a “stellar bomb” with a mass equivalent to Manhattan Island in a last ditch effort to “create a star within a star”. The eight-person crew is an interesting mixture of personalities, nationalities, faiths, and specialisms, with each member having a specific field and function on the ship, while also operating not in a democracy but based on who is the most qualified and informed to make certain decisions.

Capa and Mace have a tumultuous relationship that leads to disagreements and conflict.

Capa is the genius behind both the stellar bomb and the mission to restart the Sun; a physicist who is something of a quiet outsider, Capa finds his nights haunted by horrifying nightmares of him falling, screaming, towards the surface of the Sun and his days preoccupied with checking and double-checking his calculations and simulations for the stellar bomb. Essentially, Capa is worried that the bomb won’t actually do the job since it’s obviously untested; the simulations are often inconclusive, meaning that he is working somewhat on faith in the scientific accuracy of the bomb’s payload, and thus he agrees that it is only logical for the Icarus II to intercept Icarus I and retrieve its bomb to double their chances. Capa is a humble man just trying to do the best job he can who fills his messages back to his family with reassurances, but comes into frequent conflict with the ship’s engineer, Mace (Evans), a rugged and confrontational individual who isn’t afraid to call others out on their mistakes and often lets his emotions get the better of him. As hot-headed and blunt as he can be, though, Mace is absolutely devoted to the mission, to the point where he is willing to sacrifice his life (and considers all of their lives expendable) in service of completing the mission and saving the world. Still, he is an abrasive and hypocritical character; tensions between him and Capa rise after they get into a fight over the communications system and, while they share an awkward apology over the matter, Mace continues to antagonise Capa, volunteering him for a dangerous mission to repair the ship’s damaged solar panels and then later blaming him for endangering the crew despite all projections suggesting that the risk was worthwhile.

Corazon keeps everyone alive and Cassie is the heart of the crew, but there isn’t much for them to do.

The crew are kept fed and breathing thanks to the efforts of biologist Corazon (Yeoh), who maintains the ship’s “oxygen garden”, and the ship is kept on track thanks to the efforts of pilot Cassie (Byrne). These two are the only female members aboard Icarus II and prove to be two of the more emotionally stable amongst the crewmembers; of the two, though, Corazon is probably the least developed and interesting. Although she’s the first to suggest that they need to trim their numbers in order to maximise their resources and reach the payload destination, Corazon doesn’t really have much of a presence or much to do beyond caring for the plants; she’s thus naturally horrified when the oxygen garden is destroyed, and unceremoniously murdered while trying to salvage some life from the torched garden. Cassie is far more prominent, but not by much; she also suffers from nightmares of the Sun and is very much the heart of the crew and the one who maintains the most humanity throughout the mission. She clearly cares about the entire crew, even an asshole like Mace, and has an obvious affection for Capa (though their relationship stays plutonic and professional throughout the film), and refuses to participate in their vote about killing one of their own to conserve their oxygen supply later in the film. Ultimately, however, Cassie really doesn’t have too much of an impact on the film beyond being a source of emotional support for Capa and a representative of the humanity the crew struggles to maintain out in the void, and push Capa towards seeing the mission through to its conclusion, even at the cost of their lives.

Harvey fails to live up to Kaneda’s example, while Pinbacker lost faith in the mission entirely.

Icarus II is captained by Kaneda (Sanada), a stoic and practical man without ego who is happy to defer to the expertise of the other crew members when it comes to certain decisions. Fully aware of the magnitude and risks of the mission, he appears to be a well-respected authority figure who does a decent job of keeping everyone focused and on track with the mission; when they enter the communications “dead zone” seven days early, he emphasises that it’s not something for them to get worked up about since they were fully prepared for the resulting communications blackout, and when they discover Icarus I he leaves the decision regarding docking with it to Capa, recognising that he’s the most qualified man to make that risk assessment. While maintaining a professionalism at all times, Kaneda grows concerned about their mission the closer they get to the Sun since Icarus I disappeared at around the same point as they find themselves at the start of the movie and he pours over Captain Pinbacker’s (Strong) video logs for some answer to what happened to the ship. Interestingly, when the Icarus II is damaged due to a misalignment of the shields, it’s Kaneda who volunteers to head out on a space walk to repair the damage, which isn’t something I would expect from the ship’s captain. Unfortunately, this proves to be a fatal decision as Kaneda is unable to make it back to safety and is incinerated by the Sun’s rays, which greatly affects the moral of the crew and the stability of their mission. With Kaneda gone, the chain of command falls to the far less respected and far more ineffectual Harvey (Troy Garity), a communications officer whose job is made completely redundant when the ship loses its communications antenna. Harvey struggles to make competent decisions and to be a rallying force; he also ends up suffering a horrific fate during a dangerous space jump between the two ships, which sees him floating off into the empty void and choking/freezing to death in the vacuum.

Just as Trey is consumed by guilt, Searle and Pinbacker are obsessed with the allure of the Sun.

Searle (Curtis) acts as the ship’s doctor and psychologist; a clinical and pragmatic man, he helps to maintain crew moral and mental health aboard the ship, which grows increasingly strained due to the seriousness of the mission and the isolation of being so far away from loved ones. These issues are primarily embodied by Mace, who exhibits violent and aggressive behaviour towards Capa on a number of occasions, but also by Trey (Benedict Wong), the ship’s navigator, who falls into a suicidal depression after endangering the mission due to a miscalculation. Searle attempts to maintain order on the ship through counselling but, as rational as he is, he has grown obsessed with the power, magnitude, and beauty of the Sun; he regularly sits in the observation room to view the Sun without protective filters and it’s here that we get the first hints towards the Sun as this overwhelming, almost God-like force that has a significant impact on each member of the crew. Both Capa and Cassie admit to having recurring nightmares about the surface of the Sun, and we later find that Pinbacker has taken Searle’s fascination with the Sun’s astounding force to dangerous and destructive levels. Forced to board Icarus I when the oxygen garden is destroyed by Trey’s mishap, the crew find a dead and lifeless ship; the remains of the crew sit immolated in the observation room and the payload has been sabotaged, but the ship hides an even more destructive secret. Pinbacker, a scarred and burned mess of a man, has managed to survive in orbit around the Sun over the last seven years; driven to insanity by the Sun, which he believes “speaks” to him and which he worships as a God, Pinbacker stows aboard Icarus II and sets about sabotaging the ship and murdering the crew since he believes that humanity is destined to meet their extinction at the hands of his God.

The Nitty-Gritty:
One thing I’ve always enjoyed about Sunshine is the bleak atmosphere of the film; like many doomsday scenarios, this is a story where, on paper, everything should have gone exactly as planned but, thanks to a minor miscalculation and an unforeseen element of danger, the entire mission is put into jeopardy and all of the crew become fatally endangered. It’s something about these films that I’ve always found incredibly appealing on an emotional level; Icarus II is literally the last chance for humanity as the last remnants of the Earth’s resources have been put into constructing the ship and its payload, so they cannot afford to fail, and the crew largely accept the very real possibility that they might not make it back from their mission or even succeed since the stellar bomb’s success is entirely theoretical. This bleak tone is perfectly reflected in the film’s presentation and the presence (or absence) of sound; exterior sound is notably more muted than in many sci-fi films, which is very much appreciated, and much of the events are punctuated by light, ambient sounds and a building score courtesy of Underworld and John Murphy. This culminates in the film’s most emotional and impactful orchestral number, “Sunshine (Adagio in D Minor)”, a poignant and stirring tune that has since been used in many other films and trailers and never fails to get an emotional response from me; most notably, it definitely makes Kaneda’s death, and the dramatic finale of the film, all the more impactful.

All of Sunshine‘s technology and equipment is very practical and grounded in reality.

Sunshine was easily Danny Boyle’s most ambitious and effects-heavy film to date, and something of a dramatic departure for him, and yet does a wonderful job of keeping things grounded in a scientific basis thanks to utilising practical effects wherever possible to bolster the CGI shots. Both Icarus and Icarus II are extremely functional in their design; essentially long, cylindrical missiles, the ships are designed to be as narrow and efficient as humanly possible. Every part of the interior has a purpose and the ships are protected from the Sun’s intense heat and deadly radiation by a massive set of solar panels that act as both shields and a power source for the ship. Naturally, being a science-fiction film, some creative liberties have been taken place regarding the ships’ realism; computer panels and monitors have pretty futuristic touchscreens and sport very sci-fi graphics on them but they’re probably not a million miles away from where technology would be at this point, the interiors are far larger and more accommodating than real-life space stations and shuttles, and feature a number of creature comforts for the crew. This includes the viewing room, where crewmen such as Searle and Pinbacker can view the Sun at varying degrees of intensity, a beautiful oxygen garden, where Corazon monitors the plants and natural habitat that sustains Icarus II’s oxygen and life support systems, and a “holodeck”, of sorts, where crewmen are advised to spend their downtime in order to stave off the mental toll of being adrift in the vast emptiness of space. Unlike a lot of sci-fi films, Sunshine’s space suits choose to be bulky and practical rather than sleek and sexy; comprised of a startling golden material and featuring bulbous helmets to reflect and filter out the harsh sunlight, the suits appear cumbersome but also realistic, and the frustration Capa feels when trying to manoeuvre in the suit towards the finale is one of the most relatable and agonising moments of the film thanks to how perfectly Murphy captures the character’s frustration at simply getting up after a trip.

The void of space holds many dangers, none more threatening than the looming and destructive Sun.

I find it disappointing that some regard Sunshine unfavourably; the film is a bleak, atmospheric mediation on humanity’s last, desperate attempt at saving themselves from extinction and a visually impressive piece of cinema. I love the depiction of the Sun as this all-encompassing, awe-inspiring entity; the power of its mere presence has a profound effect on every character and it constantly looms in the background of the endless void as this necessary, but destructive, force (the Sun even appears to “roar” when seen in full view or overwhelming its victims). The crew’s mission is one that requires them to journey closer to Sol than anyone has ever been before and jump start it back to life with the largest nuclear payload ever devised but, while the Sun is dying and is the key to humanity’s survival, it is also extremely harmful to the ship and her crew. The slightest shift, the smallest miscalculation, is all it takes for the ship to be damaged and the oxygen garden to be destroyed, jeopardising the crew, the mission, and our entire world and, in their dying moments, many characters choose to have the Sun envelop them, as if sacrificing themselves to Pinbacker’s God. I’ve heard that many were put off by the suddenly tonal shift at the end of the film, and I guess I can understand that to a degree; Sunshine starts out as something of a run-of-the-mill, space-based drama that focuses on character interactions and conflicts, but escalates when the crew stumble upon Icarus I and Icarus II is damaged trying to intercept it.

Although Pinbacker causes many deaths, Capa is able to complete the mission at the cost of his life.

Upon boarding Icarus I, the film takes a sharp turn towards a surreal, horrifying slasher, which appears to have put a lot of people off but I think actually adds to the tension and appeal of the film’s final act. At first, it seems as though the Icarus II computer itself (Chipo Chung) is sabotaging the mission; it constantly overrides Cassie’s manual control, leading to the destruction of the oxygen garden and Kaneda’s death, and then reports that they have too many crew members aboard the ship. However, Mace discovers that Pinbacker and his crew chose to abandon their mission due to the futility to challenging “God”, and Capa is horrified to find that Pinbacker is their mysterious extra crew member. A broken, fanatical man, Pinbacker is covered in severe burns and driven by murderous intent; constantly filmed using an unsettling and disturbing “shaky cam” style that makes him appear as little more than a monstrous entity (or an embodiment of the Sun itself), Pinbacker stalks Icarus II with an electric knife, directly killing Corazon and indirectly causing Mace to slowly and painfully freeze to death in an unsuccessful attempt to undo his sabotage. With no choice left, Capa is forced to disengage the stellar bomb from Icarus II and manually operate the device to complete the mission; he manages to fend off Pinbacker, despite suffering a deep cut, by ripping the scarred tissue from the former captain’s arm in a sickening scene and enjoys one moment of blissful serenity as he is caught between the blast of the bomb and the surface of the Sun before the star finally flares back to life and promises salvation for the remainder of humanity.

The Summary:
Sunshine may be one of the most intense and bleak science-fiction events I’ve ever experienced. I find myself continuously fascinated by the film’s visuals, soundtrack, and atmosphere; there’s just something about it that leaves an indelible impression upon me and I always find myself getting drawn into its grim depiction of humanity’s last chance at survival. While some characters are more one-dimensional and noticeably less memorable than others, I was impressed by all of the performances in the film, though Cillian Murphy and Chris Evans are the obvious standouts. Their differing personalities make for much of the dramatic conflicts between the characters, but it’s fascinating seeing the other characters be influenced by the increasingly dire nature of their mission, to say nothing of the Sun. The idea of the Sun slowly dying out and freezing the Earth is pretty terrifying, as is the nigh-impossibility of mounting a mission to restart it; it’s inspirational seeing a diverse collection of scientific minds and skills coming together to fulfil this mission, and their willingness to sacrifice themselves is as tragic as their many moments of conflict and the mistakes that threaten disaster for the mission. The late introduction of a murderous fanatic completely changes the tone and direction of the finale, but I think delivers some of the film’s most startling message: in the face of extinction, every person reacts differently, and Pinbacker completely gives himself over to the inevitability of humanity’s destruction and is as devoted to ensuring this as the Icarus II crew is to preventing it. An insane, homicidal maniac, Pinbacker is horrifically presented as being a monstrous force, as though the Sun itself (or whatever is eating it up) has taken physical form to destroy our last chance of survival, and ensures that the finale takes a dramatic and heart-wrenching turn as the crew is whittled down one by one and Capa is left to make the ultimate sacrifice. Overall, I find Sunshine to be as powerful and influential an experience as the Sun is presented in the film; I’m obviously no scientist but I see it as one of the most realistic and scientifically accurate depictions of a doomsday scenario and I never fail to be left an emotional wreck by the tragedy that befalls the characters. It’s maybe not for everyone, and possibly a little too slow and tonally confused at times, but I’ll never get sick of singing its praises and think that it’s definitely well worth your time if you’re in the mood for an intelligent and poignant sci-fi tale that’s laced with a little horror and a lot of introspective discussion on how much we take our most inexhaustible power source for granted.

My Rating:

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Fantastic

Are you a fan of Sunshine? How do you feel it compares to other disaster films? Were you a fan of the concept or did you find the idea of the Sun dying a little unbelievable? Which of the characters was your favourite and what did you think to Cillian Murphy and Chris Evans’s performances? Did you like that Danny Boyle imbued the Sun with a form of malevolence and what did you think to the tonal shift towards a slasher horror for the final act? How important is scientific accuracy and realism to you in disaster films like this? How are you celebrating the end of the world today? Whatever you think about Sunshine, disaster films, and overblown predictions of the end of the world, sign up to drop your thoughts down below or leave a comment on my social media.

Movie Night [Christmas Countdown]: Gremlins

Dr. K2 Comments

Released: 8 June 1984
Director: Joe Dante
Distributor: 20th Century Fox
Budget: $11 million
Stars: Zach Galligan, Phoebe Cates, Howie Mandel, and Hoyt Axton

The Plot:
Struggling inventor Randall “Rand” Peltzer (Axton) purchases a mysterious, cute little creature known as a “Mogwai” as a Christmas present for his son, Billy (Galligan). The creature, nicknamed “Gizmo” (Mandel) comes with a strict set of rules that see it react in pain to bright light, multiply when exposed to water, and its mischievous progeny metamorphose into mean-spirited, destructive, aggressive little monsters that wreak havoc on Billy’s hometown on Christmas Eve.

The Background:
Produced at a time when blending horror and comedy was quickly becoming a popular trend in media and fiction, Gremlins was the brainchild of Chris Columbus, who was inspired to write a spec script after being creeped out by the sounds of mice in his attic. The concept has its roots in both Chinese mythology and Second World War propaganda warning of potentially faulty or sabotaged machinery, and the script was never intended to be a film but was pushed into production after Steven Spielberg became excited enough by the concept to buy the script. Joe Dante was brought in to direct and worked closely with Spielberg to design the look of Gizmo and the Gremlins, who were brought to life using puppets and animatronics designed by Chris Walas. The script was initially much darker, and Spielberg nixed the idea that Gizmo would transform into a villainous Gremlin, though the final film remained violent and disturbing enough to help forever change the way that films were rated. While the more violent aspects upset many parents, Gremlins was a massive hit; it made over $212 million at the box office and has been widely praised for its biting dark comedy and special effects. The film was succeeded by a great deal of merchandise, videogames, and a much more light-hearted sequel, as well as kicking off a trend towards vicious little creatures in horror cinema. Another of the formative films of my youth, Gremlins has long been a favourite of mine; it’s a staple of every Christmas, and I’m keen to see how the long-awaited third entry turns out.

The Review:
Gremlins begins framed as a story told to us by Rand, though his narration simply bookends the film to add to its whimsical nature as a kind of suburban legend, or campfire story, told to caution the viewer of the dangers of meddling with the unknown. Rand is an inventory, specialising in all kinds of wacky household doohickeys that are targeted at making life easier for the lazy and the dim-witted. A running gag in the film is the unreliability of his inventions, such as an orange juicer maker that explodes in Billy’s face, a remote phone (what a crazy idea!), and the Peltzer Smokeless Ashtray that produces a great deal of smoke! His pride and joy is the Bathroom Buddy, an all-in-one bathroom assistant that actually is pretty neat, but constantly malfunctions, usually right when he’s trying to sell it. Rand means well, and his heart’s definitely in the right place, and his passion and enthusiasm for science and inventions is certainly admirable but, sadly, he really hasn’t seen much in the way of success with his patents and is therefore heavily motivated to make up for his failures as a salesman and a businessman by getting his son a gift to truly make his Christmas.

As his father’s inventions are unreliable, Billy is forced to set aside his dreams to support his family.

After trawling the streets with no luck, Rand finds himself on the imposing streets of Chinatown, where a young boy (John Louie) leads him to the dingy, treasure trove of his grandfather, Mister Wing (Keye Luke). Mr. Wing’s shop is full of curios and antiques, and Rand is taken by the old man’s offerings, but is immediately besotted by a curious, singing creature unlike anything he’s ever seen before. Despite Rand slapping down $200 for the Mogwai, Mr. Wing refuses to part with the critter since it “requires much responsibility”. His grandson, however, slips Rand the Mogwai behind his grandfather’s back, desperate for the money to help the struggling shop, and emphasises the importance of following three rules to care for the creature: Don’t get him wet, keep him out of the sunlight, and never feed him after midnight. Off screen, Rand dubs the chirpy critter Gizmo and triumphantly returns home as a boisterous and much-loved figure to his wife, Lynn (Frances Lee McCain), and son Billy. While Lynn is a stay-at-home-mum and fills her days either struggling with Rand’s inventions or cooking, Billy is a hard-working lad in his early twenties (maybe?) A gifted artist, Billy works a full-time job as a bank clerk and is practically supporting his entire family with his meagre income; while the likes of Gerald Hopkins (Judge Reinhold) are far more successful and dynamic and local elderly miser Mrs. Ruby Deagle (Polly Holliday) constantly cause him headaches, Billy longs for more but is incredibly loyal to his family and willing to sacrifice his own dreams in order to support them.

Both Murray and Kate have their quirks, but at least Kate is quite the cutie.

It’s not all bad, though; Billy has a rambunctious dog, Barney (Mushroom), a loving family an supportive friends, such as local boy Pete Fountaine (Corey Feldman), who shares Billy’s love of comic books and is equally overworked as a Christmas tree delivery boy, and his neighbour, Murray Futterman (Dick Miller). A former World War Two veteran and fierce patriot, Murray likes a bit of a drink and tends to go off on rants about the unreliability of “Goddamn foreign cars” and other items produced outside of the United States, but also tells Bully a harrowing story about how “Gremlins” sabotaged bombers and other vehicles during the war. Billy largely ignores Murray’s ramblings, and many of his other issues, to instead focus on pining after Kate Beringer (Cates), his beautiful co-worker who also works a double shift at a local bar. Although Gerald arrogantly tries to win Kate over with his wealth and higher class of lifestyle, she is far from impressed with his bravado and is as smitten with Billy as he is with her. Kate also campaigns against Mrs. Deagle’s attempts to strip their sleepy little own of its most sentimental landmarks, and is hiding a bizarre childhood trauma that keeps her from celebrating Christmas.

The Mogwai may look cute but they’re mischievous little critters, except for the adorable Gizmo.

All of these character’s lives are forever changed when Billy excitedly opens his father’s present and is met by the cute little Gizmo. A strange little creature, Gizmo is inquisitive and adorable and surprisingly intelligent; he sings a little tune and purrs when he’s happy, plays with toys and musical instruments, and can even read comics and play videogames. Gizmo develops a fascination with television, and becomes particularly inspired by the racing classic To Please a Lady (Brown, 1950) and its depiction of fast cars and romance, and can even communicate using simple, childish words. Billy and Gizmo form an immediate bond and Gizmo delights in experiencing the delights of the modern world, but is mindful and responsible enough to be fully aware of the rules he must abide by to stay safe. When Billy enters a room that’s fully lit, Gizmo squeals “Bright light! Bright light”, he dutifully sleeps by Billy and Barney’s side rather than eating after midnight, and stays far away from water at all times because the last thing he wants is to get hurt or die…or worse. As capable as Gizmo is, however, he’s subject to the mishaps of the ignorant and, when Pete accidentally spills water on him, the Mogwai reacts in a violent and disturbing way that Billy certainly wasn’t expecting: a handful of smaller, equally cute but far more mischievous and ill-tempered Mogwai pop out from Gizmo’s back and, all of a sudden, Billy’s new pet becomes a litter of ill-behaved critters.

Cruel and vicious, Stripe desires only to lead his fellow Gremlins on a merry jaunt to cause chaos.

While Rand sees a potential business opportunity in marketing the Mogwai as a hot new family pet, Billy takes one of the batch to Pete’s science teacher, Roy Hanson (Glynn Turman), who immediately experiments on it and produces even more of the Mogwai and is far less mindful of the rules. Unlike Gizmo, the other Mogwai are loud and demanding and mean-spirited, hogging all the toys and being disruptive; they’re led by “Stripe” (Frank Welker), a cruel and vindictive little critter who easily manipulates events to ensure that he and his fellow Mogwai are fed after midnight. The result is Billy waking to find them all encased in disgusting cocoons, and Gizmo distraught at how quickly things have gone south, things go from bad to worse for him, and the entire town, when the cocoons hatch and aggressive, vicious little demons emerge. These Gremlins, led by Stripe, quickly spread across town and cause all manner of havoc from shorting out traffic lights, causing fires and explosions, and even resulting in some violent deaths as they send Mrs. Deagle flying out of a window! Stripe delights not just in causing mayhem but in torturing poor Gizmo, and leads the Gremlins on a merry jaunt to find more havoc, food, and water to increase their numbers and keep the party going.

The Nitty-Gritty:
Gremlins starts off as a quirky little family movie about a struggling family in a nice little town where the wealthy oppress the working class and the character’s main concerns are trying to provide for their loved ones and mustering the courage to ask out the pretty girl. Even when Gizmo arrives in Billy’s life, things don’t really change all that much right away; he treats the Mogwai as a friend and a pet but life carries on as normal and it’s only when Gizmo is exposed to water that things take a dramatic turn sideways. The Gremlins really shake up the film and turn it more into a dark comedy as the vicious little creatures turn the town into an absolute disaster area; the once quiet and peaceful streets are soon strewn with debris, burned out cars, exploded shop windows, and people fleeing in panic and terror as the Gremlins spread anarchy in their search for food, entertainment, and procreation.

The Gremlins cause havoc across town, attacking and even killing people simply for fun!

The Gremlins are impish, wicked little monsters who delight in causing trouble, pain, and destruction all over town. Although mischievous as Mogwai, they completely lose all their inhibitions as Gremlins and become obsessed with playing cruel pranks, gorging themselves, and reproducing at every opportunity. They’re also incredibly dangerous; Mrs. Deagle might have been a miserly old bat who deserved some comeuppance but they send her blasting out of a window at high speed to a cruelly amusing death, they string up Barney and leave him to freeze in the cold before Billy rescues him, and there’s a particularly harrowing scene where Lynn is attacked by a Gremlin hiding in the Christmas tree! Stripe is the clear alpha, directing the others in cutting the power to Billy’s clock so they can metamorphose and fleeing to the local swimming pool at the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), where he savagely attacks Billy by clawing his chest before jumping in the pool and birthing a veritable army of Gremlins! While he delights in causing misery, Stripe is much more composed and sadistic than his brothers, best seen when they take over Kate’s bar and they’re all causing trouble, but he’s sat playing poker and executes a fellow Gremlin for daring to beat him. The Gremlins’ greatest strengths are their nimble size, sheer numbers, and vicious nature, but they’re quite fragile and easily bested if caught unawares; Lynn takes advantage of this to mince, stab, and explode the little monsters when they wreck her kitchen.

Extremely expressive puppets and animatronics bring the film’s unique creatures to life.

The Mogwai and Gremlins are brought to life through the finest puppetry and animatronics of yesteryear; incredibly expressive and capable of a range of motion (and emotion), the puppets do a fantastic job of showcasing a great deal of personality. With his wide eyes, expressive ears, and adorable little paws and chubby, fluffy body, Gizmo is easily one of cinema’s cutest and iconic little critters ever. His fellow Mogwai all look very similar to him, but are notably distinctive; they not only act very different but have different markings, with Stripe being the obvious standout. Two Mogwai at Mr. Hanson’s lab are particularly adorable as the knock on the walls of a box and they’re all just the cutest as they play with toys and games (even when Stripe is spitting orange goo at Gizmo). Gizmo obviously has the most personality and cuteness appeal; he looks absolutely terrified when the Gremlins are torturing him, which is almost as heart-breaking as his blubbering after he cuts his head and needs a bandage and his dismay at having given birth to his mischievous progeny. Although just a short little critter, Gizmo is determined to put an end to the Gremlins’ reign of terror and helps lead Billy to where Stripe and the others are hiding out. This culminates in him getting behind the wheel of a Barbie car and racing to save Billy before Stripe and shoot him and ultimately delivering the coup de grâce to his tormentor even while putting himself at risk.

With the town in disarray, Billy and Gizmo defeat Stripe and bid a tearful farewell to each other…

The Gremlins swarm across the town, leaving it in ruins, before settling down at the cinema to watch Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Hand, et al, 1937) . Even as Gremlins, their needs are incredibly juvenile; they like to dress up and cause disruption, attacking Santa Claus’s and even ploughing through Murray’s house in his beloved Kentucky Harvester, but are equally as happy to sit with a load of snacks and watch movies. Billy takes advantage of this weakness, however, to break open a gas pipe and essentially set a bomb that blows all of the Gremlins to kingdom come…with the exception of Stripe, who was out gathering snacks. Billy, Kate, and Gizmo pursue him to a local toy shop, where Stripe arms himself with a crossbow, a chainsaw(!), and even a gun to find Billy off. Thanks to Kate breaking into the security office and flicking on the lights, and the timely intervention of Gizmo, Billy is saved and Stripe is reduced to a quivering, disgusting mess of goo right in the middle of trying to spawn a new batch of Gremlins. In the aftermath, the Peltzer’s nurse their wounds and the town tries to recover from their long, dark night, something Mr. Wing is far from impressed by. He chastises Rand’s foolishness and arrogance and reclaims Gizmo, but notes that Billy has the potential to be a suitable guardian in time, and heads back to his little shop after allowing Gizmo a heart-breaking goodbye to his newfound friend.  

The Summary:
Gremlins is not only another of those movies that shaped my childhood, and my love of quirky horror stories, but it’s also essential viewing at Christmas time for me. It might be an odd, violent little dark comedy by the end, but my God is it an absolute Christmas, and cinematic, classic. The practical effects are superb and still hold up to this day thanks to being timeless and irreplaceable puppets and animatronics. Gizmo remains one of the cutest little critters to grace our screens, and the Gremlins are some of the cruellest little mischief-makers ever seen and it’s not hard to see why so many other films tried to emulate the viciousness and comedy of these demonic little buggers. One of the things I love the most about Gremlins is the mystery surrounding the titular creatures; we never really know or ever find out where the Mogwai come from, why they are this way, and I’ve always enjoyed how everyday, suburban life was completely disrupted by this mysterious creature from an unknown oriental background. I loved how Gizmo was fully aware of the danger he poses to others, but still delighted in enjoying himself and playing and befriending Billy, and all of the performances are really strong throughout. Rand and Billy and the others hear the rules but don’t really understand them; they respect them enough to actually follow them, though, and it’s only through a mishap that Gizmo is exposed to water. Once the Gremlins emerge, we’re treated to one of the most unique Christmas movies ever made as these vicious monsters ransack the town, spoiling the holiday cheer more than Mrs. Deagle ever could and leaving a lasting impact as some of cinema’s most wicked critters.  

My Rating:

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Fantastic

What do you think to Gremlins? Is it a Christmas tradition of yours or do you prefer another Christmas movie; if so, what is it? What did you think to the puppets and animatronics? Did you find Kate’s Christmas story an odd inclusion? Would you have liked to see Gizmo turn into a Gremlin as originally intended? Which of the Gremlins knock-offs was your favourite? Whatever your thoughts on Gremlins, sign up to leave a comment below or drop a reply on my social media, and be sure to check in next Sunday for another Christmas movie review!