"Mortal Kombat 2" - Despite All My Rage I Am Still Just Johnny in a Cage

The realms must do battle to decide their fates, the first to win ten tournaments gains dominion over the other. The evil "Outworld" under brutish emperor Shao Khan (Martyn Ford) have gained dominion over Edenia, and its princess Kitana (Adeline Rudolph); and now seek to bring Earthrealm under their bloody banner. Lightning God Raiden (Tadanobu Asano) has gathered five champions for the tournament: legendary martial artist Liu Kang (Ludi Lin), super-powered soldier Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee), her cyborg colleague and pal Jax Briggs (Mehcad Brooks) and previous champion and zero-to-hero Cole Young (Lewis Tan), but requires a fifth: the Universe has set its sights on fading 90s karate champion and movie star Johnny Cage (Karl Urban), who is reluctantly roped into a tournament to decide the fate of the entire human race...

(Photo credit: Reddit)
An absolutely wonderful time.
The film is a gleefully daft, enjoyable buffet of bloodshed, bollocks, Baraka and bullshit. It embraces the videogame aesthetic (the costumes, finishing moves, structure, arenas including an honest-to-Gibson acid pit and even a camera shot going side on to display the two fighters squaring off) and the ludicrousness of its premise: glowing lights in the sky denote when a character has been defeated, blue for the good guys and red for the villains. It goes full throttle into the blood, guts and mayhem (how it is not an 18 is unclear, maybe because it lacks titties?), yet in a fun, cartoony way: bright colourful costumes to clearly mark each character apart, each one with a different superpower and enough character and charm to them to bring some colour to proceedings even if the crowded ensemble and focus on the spectacle means that characterisation takes second place. Despite that the film manages to keep them from being bland: Jessica McNamee's Sonya Blade returns and is good fun, with a delightful pit fight against banshee Sindel; Princess Kitana (Adeline Rudolph) is a highlight this time around as arguably the conflicted central character, with a delightful lesbian-subplot with her bodyguard Jade (Tati Gabrielle), without either of them being sexualised (the movie even has the sheer brass fucking balls to pass the Bechdel Test); and her arc competently mirrors the larger than life professional loudmouth shithead Cage (Karl Urban on a continued tear with this, "Dredd", "Thor: Ragnarok" and "Star Trek") discovering his heroism in the final act, with some cool edits. Hell, I felt myself getting hyped up despite the stupidity of it all when Kitana made her big choice in the final act and the music swelled: I had embraced the Mortal Kombat way and was relishing in the filth it had baptised me in. Cage gets a supremely fun buddy cop "Mentor/Mentee" arc with Baraka (CJ Bloomfield) I wanted more of; Hiroyuki Sanada returns and is such a class act that with two minutes of screen time manages to make the line "I am Hanzo Hasashi. Hell bends to my will." land with gravitas; the always excellent Tadanobu Asano comes back, and whilst there is less of he and Chin Han than I would have liked, they were still welcome. Star of the show, once again, however was Josh Lawson as Kano: clearly the writers knew that they had struck gold with him in the last film, and write him back in to bully, snarl, swear and be a raging fucking cockbag who is absolutely the best part whenever he is on screen: bullying the villains, spouting solid gold with every line, and even having the audacity to participate in a truly, deliciously ludicrous hell-heist to turn off Cheat Mode in the 3rd act, cementing redemption and rising to become heroes in a film where Sonya Blade spears a banshee's skull on a floor spike and Liu Kang kills a man with a hat (by the way it's worth it for those two fights alone).
Stellar, stupid stuff. Absolutely wonderful in terms of "bang for your buck".

"Exit 8" - Dentist, Escher, Judicial Scrivener, Review

On the underground, an indecisive young man (Kazunari Ninomiya) receives a phone call from his ex girlfriend informing him that he is to be a father. As he reels from this information, he finds himself in a corridor which loops. To escape, he must turn back when he finds an anomaly, and proceed when he does not. A surreal odyssey ensues...

(Source: Heaven of Horror)
I didn't even catch a trailer for this, so had the fortune of going in completely blind, being unaware of the videogame it was based upon (I'm still getting through the ".hack" quartet on the Playstation 2). Honestly that's the best way.
Its escalation felt videogame like, in the traditional sense, and helped with the 90 minute runtime, but holy shit we did it guys: We got a fantastic videogame movie which stands on its own, no caveats!
A clever and unpredictable little mindbender, immaculately edited (made to look like it's done in minimal takes. I particularly liked the looping structure coming full circle at the end, as simple as it was, and the cut to our protagonist's ex girlfriend as he sought an exit. Simple but effective) and committed to wrong-footing the audience whilst retaining a consistent logic, showing you all of the clues and letting you capture background details (fabulously shot too) before the protagonist does. As it settles into its time-loop, "Spot the Difference Puzzle" groove, it keeps finding ways to keep it fresh, with a stirling second act twist which had me grinning ear to ear (HAH!) and a wild swing in the third act which just about connected. If it's not quite as out-and-out terifying as "Undertone", it has surreal imagery and bold, creepy little parts to it, whilst being elevated by a genuinely clever, cerebral little tale of fatherhood, guilt, and choosing the right path by paying attention to the world rather than locking oneself in to the prisons of our own design. It's a better "Silent Hill" movie than most movies... A cracking time.

"Iron Lung" - Review

The stars have gone out. As humanity's fleshy remnants corrode, a convict (Mark Fischbach) is sealed into a metal submarine and set forth onto a mysterious world where the oceans are made of blood, in order to find something, anything which could save them...

(Credit: The Equinox)
A passon project written by, starring and directed by Mark Fischbach (a YouTuber known as "Markiplier", whose work I am unfamiliar with) who funded it himself (refreshingly and unusually: there are no production logos at the start, it's straight into the opening credits after the BBFC logo) and insisted on a cinematic release. Good for him, this is a triumph of the underdog and independent art: it's doing well, and is clearly a passion project for him.
As a directorial debut it's overly long, far too bloated, and Fischbah does not have a great grasp of tension, so the pacing is dog rough and leads to boredom rather than any rising dread. I for one was a sucker for the "Poltergeist" TV shot however. Fischbach is a fair actor, far better than expected for a YouTube content monkey, and acquits himself well enough, but is not strong enough for a premise such as this, though he does a solid enough job with a monologue towards the end. The support are fine (you can tell Troy Baker is in this because he advocates yanking a ladder up) with Caroline Rose Kaplan doing rather well, and the low budget is used impeccably: it's the kind of filmmaking I respect right there, well done. Andrew Hulshult's soundtrack is understated and rather good.
The film's cosmic horror and yo-yoing between genres feels less like unpredictability and more throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks. Funnily enough this creates an inverse problem of most modern horror movies in that the build up is tedious and uninspiring, but the ending blows it out of the park with the kind of madness and horror I would expect and need from a project like this. It does some Gibson-esque world building with a couple of its lines (not quite "They set a slamhound on Turner’s trail in New Delhi, slotted it to his pheromones and the color of his hair." or "flew a Gullfire over the fires of Leningrad" but things about the last tree burning for example are good) and uses the cost-saving lower budget aesthetic to build a world where humanity is on its last legs. However it wants to have its cake and eat it too: a casualty of the overlong runtime. It could strip back the dialogue and leave things to stew and dwell, but also does flashbacks and conversations which aren't as fleshed out as they should be, like trying to split the metaphors of a difference engine.
However.
As a debut project it is certainly ambitious, and more interesting to discuss than most. I always appreciate a swing and a miss more than something playing it safe.
There are enough sparks of interesting ideas here (the details of the submarine and processes of his investigation are highlights: they feel like an adventure game, and show a twinkle of craft) that I would like to see Fischbach (who seems like a lovely bloke, and I am ELATED somebody with as large a platform as he seems to have supporting cinema and art) move forward as a filmmaker. Would I buy it on DVD? Probably not. Would I urge you to support this art which seems to be resonating with a huge fanbase (and honestly if it gets them into any sort of smaller budget bottle movie horror and cosmic ideas or hell, gets somebody to watch the very reminiscent "Event Horizon" then fan-fucking-tastic) and is an earnest expression of a person in their form? Absolutely. This is the kind of art we need. I didn't like it, found it quite weak in fact, but holy hell what a swing. Good for you man!

"Sonic the Hedgehog 3" - Review

Living happily in Green Hills, Sonic the Hedgehog (Ben Schwarz) has found a family in local human doofus Tom (James Marsden), his wife Maddie (Tika Sumpter), fellow Earth exile and flying-fox inventor Tails (Colleen O'Shaughnessey) and warrior echidna Knuckles (Idris Elba). He rushes into action however, when the government of Earth call him out to an incident in Tokyo involving the escape of dangerous alien "Shadow" (Keanu Reeves), and matters are further complicated with the news that mad genius Ivo Robotnik (Jim Carrey) may be involved as well...

I've not watched the first 2 films and I'm not a fan of "Sonic the Herzog" games (I played the first one and simply didn't enjoy it as a platformer. Though I have had much fun watching "Game Grumps" play "Sonic Adventure"), so this film was essentially a test to see if it stands on its own merits. It had mixed results.
It's engaging enough and I never really found myself bored: it has this pinball, rapid fire energy to it which I imagine is fitting for a Sonic the Hedgehog movie, and just about manages to avoid the sugar-rush annoyance of these kind of movies. There are a lot of plates being spun, a lot of characters requiring arcs and lines, and the juggling of both previous characters and new villains to introduce. What lands lands well - Shadow the Hedgehog in particular has a weirdly dark backstory here which I appreciated, and they didn't really chicken out on it either. Shadow the Hedgehog also gets the funniest joke of the movie (about a Mexican telenovella of all things) and weirdly is played rather earnestly by Keanu Reeves. It's not the intensity of something like Robert Patrick in "Peacemaker", but it's played straight and helps balance the tone. In between the wacky antics of Sonic the Hedgehog (an equally earnest, having-the-time-of-his-life Ben Schwarz, who just seems delighted to be able to play Sonic) we don't get too many pop cultural jokes, and we have fairly well sketched arc about not letting trauma define us, not allowing grief to control us (on that note: WATCH "DOCTOR SLEEP!"). The scramble for screen time means certain things get pushed aside (Tails the Fox has maybe 8 lines? I forgot James Marsden and Tika Sumpter were in this until they came back for the final act. And an old guy turns up for one scene, gives some exposition, then dies and we are supposed to find it sad: I assume he is a character from the previous movie) but what is here feels like it is made with love and affection for the source material without wallowing in it. Also the makers appear to be massive nerds: I've been re-reading "Akira" recently and there are multiple shots ripped straight from that manga, not just the bike slide (I appreciated the glass tank and the shots of the tower); oh and there are multiple straight up "Dragon Ball Z" references and riffs. Brandon Trost (cinematographer of "The FP", "American Pickle", "Ghost Rider 2", "Crank 2" and multiple Seth Rogen comedies) plays with colours quite nicely, putting more effort than one normally sees with the brightly, flatly lit fare we get from kids' movies (which seem to be by-word for "low effort"); and the soundtrack is full of things like a cover of "99 Red Balloons" and "Firestarter".
I like it. It's nicely done.
Oddly there is a touching arc about Robotnik (who is among the best and consistently funny parts of the film) and his assistant, tying nicely into the found-family aspect, much like Shadow's angle. It just about works.
I imagine Sonic the Hedgehog fans will enjoy this, and it will appeal to children too without being too insufferable for adults. I'm not sure how much more it can cram in and juggle henceforth, but I didn't hate it. Kudos.

"Borderlands" - Review

In the distant future, a gruff bounty hunter named Lilith (Cate Blanchett) must return to her run down home planet of Pandora in order to rescue Tina (Ariana Greenblatt), the daughter of corporate magnate Atlas (Edgar Ramirez), who has been kidnapped by rogue soldier Roland (Kevin Hart) and hulking madman Krieg (Florian Munteanu).

I'm so happy Eli Roth has brought back the 2000s videogame adaptation.
Well, that's a little unfair: this is not an Eli Roth film. Suffering from a, shall we say "troubled" production", this has been going on and off for a while now, and finally staggering into cinemas this year. I'll confess that I was never a "Borderlands" fan - I found it repetitive, grating and boring, and am also hesitant to ever give money to Grease Baron Randy Pithcofrd. I have always had a troubled relationship with Roth's art: he loves the kind of trashy movies I do, but has always struggled with making them fun and likable. Only "Thanksgiving" (which he dropped out of "Borderlands" to make) really turned me back around to liking him, and his kids' movie "The House With a Clock in its Walls" is easily his best work. On paper, Roth is the best kind of person to make a high energy, blood fuelled adaptation of "Borderlands".
Too bad it's an Ari Arad movie.
Yes folks, it is that refreshing kind of shittiness where the stench of production interference is lingering over it: much like that last terrible "Hellboy" reboot (they even use "Supermassive Blackhole" here too), where the movie is sliced to ribbons and all traces of Eli Roth are sanded away. Therer are moments when it should be an Eli Roth bloodbath: Lilith uses a sniper rifle to take out a man with a headshot, but there is no blood; and the gang turning an acid pipe on approaching goons, only for us to see nothing as they just fall over. A bloodless "Borderlands" is the least of its worries (it's still based on "Borderlands") but it is an enormous strike against the project, sucking and draining all life from it. I'll just say that it was bold of them to have a trailer for "Kneecap" before this. The editing and fight scenes are reminiscent of "Suicide Squad" - lots of cutting and jarring nonsense which makes it hard to realise where anybody is in relation to anything else. It's all just, fucking amateur hour, and a clear sign of the tinkering and dicing behind the scenes.

But okay, fine, the movie has poor fight scenes (all of them, to a T, are a character shooting a gun off screen and then cutting to a new scene of a character being shot, bloodlessly, and usually from a different angle to where the bullet should come from. Fucking shocking.), Civvie11 in his "Max Payne" video effortlessly broke down one of them better than I could, if you want to give it a whirl. Honestly Civvie11 is fun anyway...
But fine, poor fight scenes? As long as we can giggle at some jokes and-
NO.
Ooooooh boy.
Wow.
Okay.
So.

I'd like to thank the makers of the film for getting one thing right: they've actually made a film which accurately captures the writing of "Borderlands". This is the most obnoxious, tiring, dreadful scripting I've seen: all of the humour is characters yattering at a million miles an hour, repeating the obvious things on screen. "Time to make it rain! ... With your body parts!" Yeesh.
I don't fault the actors, nobody could make this dialogue enjoyable or interesting, and we know this because they cast Jack Black and he was honestly the worst one. My partner was writhing in her seat and begging for his character to die every scene, that bad was his writing, and it gave me some form of enjoyment in proceedings.

But writing obnoxious characters is Eli Roth's bread and butter, right? Well, no, as we've established: this is an Ari Arad movie.
The characters are annoying in a new, fresh way uniquely different to Roth's brand of terrible: and by the time we're expected to believe that they're friends in a cut price "Guardians of the Galaxy" moment - I genuinely had to ask why. They've done no bonding or chatting, it's all been them hurling quips, and one scene of Cate Blanchett talking to Ariana Greenblatt. Poor Ariana Greenblatt, by the way: she seems to have been placed in an arms race with Jack Black for who can be more annoying on screen, but I'll give her a slight pass as she's a child, and a Gearbox approximation of "quirky and funny". Though, judging by what Randall Greasy Pitchford keeps with his company documents, maybe we should ask around about the thought process behind that character... I imagine that the scripting was thus:

And then there's the colour and design angle: some of it looks good and delightful:there are bright poppy colours to lure the attention and distract you from the dialogue on screen, a close attempt to that cel-shading we've had in the games. And Gina Gershon shows up for 6 minutes as Mad Moxi in Jessica Nigri cosplay, and it's cute. But then, in between rough and raw greenscreen, we get the market: which looks like an aisle from a convention warehouse, honestly it's rough. But by that point I was bored and checked out, I spent about 6 minutes going "Wait, is that Jessica Nigri behind Gina Gershon?!" And it turns out that she was in this too! A cute cameo, I'll give them that.

A representation of Nigri and Gershon on set.

I'll give the movie 2 other positives: Jamie Lee Curtis is such a talented actor that when given the part of Dr Tanis (a nothing character), she chose to play it in the least obvious way, and I like that. It's still not good (it's "Borderlands" dialogue) but kudos to her.
And Florian Munteanu got the one legitimate laugh from me.

"Warcraft" Review - From the Vaults

 So as a man whose experience of the games is having the plot once explained to me at 2 in the morning whilst I was quite drunk: Here is what I thought of "Warcraft" as well as my attempt at a review.

So there's this kingdom, ruled by Dominic Cooper and his douche-bag best friend "Lothar" (one of three characters whose names I know because it was repeated ad verbatim) who, along with "Black Guy" "His Son" and "Beard Guy" (Beard Guy was my favourite, more on him later) protect the kingdom from nothing as there has been peace under the History Boy's gentle hand.

Then some intergalactic CGI giant people under their evil king Gordon go through a Stargate and land there. Amongst them is Toby Kebbell Orc, his best friend "Hammer Wielding Bro-Orc" (my favourite after Beard Guy), half-green tusk woman played by Paula Patton, and Clancy Brown. Because of course Clancy Brown is in this. However, despite the man having one of the most distinctive voices in Hollywood, I didn't know that it was him because he barely has any screen time and his voice is put through a weird filter. I had to wait until the credits to find out which of the CGI orcs he played.

They start wrecking shit because Gordon is a moron and Toby Kebbell doesn't really like this, but he and Bro-Orc go along with it because Gordon's wielding some green mist stuff and can also just send Clancy Brown to kick his ass. Also, "honour" and shit.

Lothar and his chums find some magic man whose accent kept slipping between English and American and they didn't like, presumably because he shot raves out of his hands. Magic Man told them that these mo-fos were bad news, so they should call Ben Foster.

Ben Foster was weird in this. He's one of those actors (like Dougray Scott or Stephen Dorff) who, because of the length of his CV, the number of Blockbusters on it and his recognition, should be kind of famous, but isn't. And like Dougray Scott and Stephen Dorff, he is weird casting whenever he is in something. Either would also belong here.

So Foster plays this "Guardian" guy, who lives in a library with his own pool and the guy from "Due South" and he also thinks it's bad news, mostly because he is clearly evil. That's not a quirk of the part, or a spoiler, it's how he is written and how Ben Foster looks. Nicolas Cage would have made this part something. Heck, Dougray Scott would have gotten the "we all know I'm evil" part out of the way and had fun with it.

Thus begins what should be a dual buddy-cop adventure (Lothar and Rave-Man and Toby Kebbell and Bro-Orc) but takes a weirdly long time to come together, because the pace is so weird. They keep saying people's names or dropping stuff which I presume is there to make fans leap for joy, then Paula Patton sides with Lothar (by virtue of them having Dominic Cooper and Beard Guy on their side, thus not being total raging cock-wombles) and tells them about this portal thing, as well as how she was repeatedly raped (which is a weird change of tone in this movie) and Toby Kebbell and Bro-Orc have a falling out over siding with Gordon, only not really, only really, and then Clancy Brown's all like "yeah man! Fuck this Gordon guy!" but then they all follow Gordon anyway after he murders the ever-loving-buggery out of Toby Kebbell with his Arc of the Covenant powers.

Then Lothar's son gets his shit wrecked by Ben Foster, and they decide finally that the man communicating with the dead and wearing a cloak of raven's feathers and played by Ben Foster MIGHT be evil, but Dominic Cooper puts Lothar in jail for being stupid enough to start a fist-fight with a wizard, and then Rave Man meets Glenn Close on a spirit quest in the sky-city from "Chrono Trigger", who tells him that Ben Foster is evil.

Then there's an epic battle of sorts where I felt it was all going to be the same old generic stuff, but they tried going Shakespeare or "Dune" and making it epic, which I kind of liked in a weird way because this movie looked like a selection of cutscenes to a game (intentionally, I hope) and was about all of the things I have just described: Clancy Brown got himself a terminal case of sword to the sternum, Bro-Orc fucked off and vowed to avenge Toby Kebbell, Toby Kebbell's son was put in a basket like Moses (and given a name I thought was probably important to fans of the series) and then Dominic Cooper told Paula Patton to shiv him in the neck, so he could escape this movie and also to bring peace to the two kingdoms, or honour or some shit. Then Black Guy died. Then Ben Foster got his arse handed to him in a mini-rave by Lothar, Rave Man and a giant statue after he murdered the guy from Due South and was all "I'm Evil!", so Gordon couldn't open his Stargate and bring more weird CGI actors into this.Then Paula Patton and Gordon just chilled because she murdered King Dominic Cooper, which made her cool in his book, whilst Lothar flew on a giant eagle with Dominic Cooper's body and united the kingdoms against Paula Patton and Gordon, because he really wanted to bang Paula Patton because she was the only other woman in the movie not his sister and thus he was disappointed that she stabbed his boyfriend in the neck before he could stab him in the bum with his penis. There is going to be a sequel, likely two.

Beard Guy he abandoned to be a prisoner of the orcs.

Fuck Lothar.

5/10

"Mortal Kombat" Review - From the Vaults

 "Mortal Kombat"

Cole Young (Lewis Tan, the sexy redeeming highlight of that piece of shit "Iron Fist") is a cage fighter who keeps losing, but still supports his wife and daughter. When Major Jackson Briggs (Mehcad Brooks) informs him that his dragon birthmark is the sigil marking him as one of Earthrealm's champions against the forces of Netherrealm, he is forced into an adventure to save existence itself, alongside a ragtag group of misfits.

This movie is a poorly plotted, exposition-laden "excuse plot" with thinly sketched characters, ludicrous gore, violence for the sake of it, concepts straight out of nowhere, and lunacy we are forced to be on board with.

And it's the perfect "Mortal Kombat" movie.

The makers know that the games are trash. The actors know that the games are trash. The writers know that the games are trash. They know that the audience wants recognisable characters (such as they are in these games) committing carnage on screen in excellent fight scenes.

So.

We get fireballs

Racist Australian laser eyes.

A man rides a vampire into a hat-saw.

Sub Zero stabbing a man with his own blood.

Why the fuck are you reading this?! 20 seconds after this shot, a man is stabbed to death with his own blood!

And Hiroyuki Motherfucking Sanada manages to sell the line "I came back from the depths of hell to take your life."

Characters look directly at the camera after performing acts of extermination and state "FATALITY" or "FLAWLESS VICTORY" practically winking all the while.

Mehcad Brooks is just one line away from being "Shaft" with superpowers. Josh Lawson is the scene-stealer as racist, quipping psychopathic Australian turbo-dick Kano; but Hiroyuki Sanada is Hiroyuki Fucking Sanada; Jessica McNamee is excellent as Sonya Blade; we get to see Hiroyuki Sanada fight Joe Taslim from "The Raid" (here playing Sub-Zero); the always great Chin Han and Tadanobu Asano are given little to do as Shang Tsung and Raiden, but have great fun anyway.

Our lead is a bland character, which is fine because Lewis Tan has enough charisma and fight skill to remain engaging, and he is there to introduce us to the fucking weird world around him.

It's a bloody, fun, stupid, EXCELLENT time and I highly recommend it.

On a serious note: I appreciate how they didn't force Tadanobu Asano, Joe Taslim and Hiroyuki Sanada to speak English, and allowed them to speak Japanese and Chinese.