Blood: The Last Vampire – Film Review

Blood: The Last Vampire
Dir. Chris Nahon
Running time: 91 minutes

Saya, a half-human half-vampire, hunts demons on behalf of a covert government agency. When an American airbase suffers a spate of unexplained deaths Saya is sent undercover, but just how many demons are masquerading as pupils?

Adapted from the anime of the same name, Blood: The Last Vampire doesn’t really bring many new ideas to the table. With elements of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Blade, the film struggles to match the same subdued tone of the source material.

That said Blood is a lot of fun. Peppered with flash backs to create the origin story, whilst simultaneously advancing the main story line, Blood manages to be engaging despite some of the worst computer graphics and monster effects at a cinema this year. The fight scenes are well choreographed and will appeal to martial arts fans, but the dialogue is uneven and occasionally terrible.

The anime storyline is expanded upon with the addition of Onigen, a vampire matriarch. This is handled well until the final confrontation, which feels hackneyed and predictable. Wisely, the script writers shy away from any sexualizing a young Japanese girl in a school uniform and focusing on what Saya does best – killing demons.

An ambitious attempt at a live action version of the source material. Unfortunately the low budget and occasional script and dialogue missteps prevent this from being much more than a b movie with especially fine fight choreography.

6 /10

Chris Wooding – Book Review

Retribution Falls
Written by Chris Wooding
Gollancz

Captain Darian Frey isn’t so much a Captain of a crew, as a collector of outcasts and ne’er do wells. He’s not much of a pirate, and is looking for that one big smuggling job that’ll means he can retire, once and for all.

Retribution Falls has the sort of name and cover art that puts you in mind of serious, beard stroking SF. It’s for this reason that it comes as a bit of shock to discover around, say chapter five, that you’re actually reading Steam punks Of The Caribbean.

This is no bad thing.

Retribution Falls is neatly plotted, fast, fun and (whisper it) even a little feel good. It’s also shamelessly begging to be made into a film it’s so cinematic. The prose is straightforward and easily readable, and there aren’t any moments where Wooding beats you into submission with the exposition club.

Wooding also avoids long passages describing the setting. The world building here is minimal, and never steals the limelight from the characters. It’s not as evocative as other works of SF, but this is a character driven story after all.

Perhaps the novel’s main pitfall is the fact that none of the characters are immediately likeable, and with good cause. However, it is essential that characters be sympathetic during the opening stages of any story. Compounding this is the fact that, at first glance, the characters are fairly two dimensional, but the crew of the Ketty Jay are quickly fleshed out and a third of the way in to the book you have forgotten any previous doubts you harboured.

There are some missteps, and tables covered with empty flagons, in a book where airships are the main form of transport feels forced at best. It’s as if Wooding is saying, ‘Look, they’re pirates! Cool, huh?’

An enjoyable romp, full of blazing gun fights, flashing cutlasses and tense air battles. Retribution Falls is an adeptly written novel that will no doubt spawn other tales of the Ketty Jay.

8 /10

Terminator Salvation – Film Review

Terminator Salvation
Dir. McG
Running time 115 minutes

Following the events of the nuclear holocaust known as Judgement Day, John Connor finds himself watching events unfold that have been foretold by his mother. However, something is amiss – the Terminators are developing more quickly. Overshadowing this is the fact that John has yet to find Kyle Reece, the man he will send back in time to rescue his mother from the T-800, and ultimately, become his father.

Terminator Salvation had a lot of problems leading up to its release. Firstly, there was the unusual choice of attaching Mcg to the project as director, a man best known for the Charlie Angels films. Hardly the cache fanboys were expecting.

In addition to this, a leaked on set rant did much to dent the reputation of Christian Bale, who until that point had been rejoicing from his successes on the Batman franchise reboot. Much has been made of the tirade, that verged on farcical.

So what is the film actually like?

The opening credits and accompanying fanfare (from Danny Elfman no less) are rather underwhelming. The opening of the film focuses on Marcus Wright, a convicted killer, and provides a little bit of mystery (assuming you haven’t watched the trailers, which were loaded with one very large spoiler).

Early on in the film, an assault on a Terminator outpost provides some pace and tension. The rousing sight of the choppers landing squads of troops among the skeletons of satellite dishes conveys the war ravaged world and the difficulty mankind faces.

The film continues to build with Bale’s trademark ‘intensity’ shining through to make John Connor a little prickly. Whilst he is certainly sympathetic there remains an edge that makes it difficult for audiences to engage with him. He is far and away outshone by Sam Worthington playing Marcus Wright, which has the effect of re-focusing the movie around a secondary character. Kyle Reece (played by Anton Yelchin), whilst important to the film, is little more than a plot device designed to make Connor break ranks with the Resistance and go looking for his future father.

Terminator Salvation is also somewhat restrained by it’s 12A rating. For a film dealing with the extinction of the human race by ruthless killing machines, it feels subdued. The action is suitably ferocious, but the horror and hopelessness of the post-Judgement Day world feels underplayed.

In spite of this the film still manages to be entertaining, with some superb set pieces (mainly the Moto-terminators chase), and looks gorgeous. Huge amounts of attention have been lavished on the machines themselves, and the scene of the T-800 walking along the gantry is a great homage to Ray Harryhausen’s famous skeletons from Jason and the Argonauts. The much talked about ‘Arnie likeness’ is extremely well done, and is a high point of the movie.

As the film draws onto to it’s epilogue there seems to be a misfire (which I won’t mention here), and the victory against Skynet feels hollow somehow.

A capable, if subdued film that would have been served better by a higher certificate and a softer performance from Bale. The Terminator franchise will continue, but it needs to up its game to compete with other summer blockbusters.

7/ 10

Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen – Film Review

Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen.
Dir. Michael Bay.
Running time 147 minutes.

Following the confrontation between the heroic Autobots and the tyrannical Decepticons in mission city, Sam Witwicky prepares to go to college. Meanwhile Optimus Prime and the other Autobots hunt down rogue Decepticons, assisted by a task force of human soldiers.

Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen (TF 2) is a big dumb blockbuster, and whilst it would be easy to pick it apart for its failings it does do one thing – entertain.

TF 2 benefits from some hindsight of the first film and there aren’t nearly as many misfires. Sure, this is a film that veers into some fairly lewd comedy (at one point a small Decepticon starts dry humping Mikaela Banes’ leg), and includes some baffling moments, such as Sam’s mother getting accidentally stoned on hash cakes, but for the most part this is a chunky, robust, action film.

Shia LaBeouf is on form as the running, jumping, occasionally shrieking everyman, and Megan Fox’s role is relegated to eye candy. Plus, you get all the standard Michael Bay clichés – 360-degree shots, a sunrise/ sunset, lovingly long shots of military hardware and enough explosions to give Guy Fawkes performance anxiety. You also start to wonder if Linkin Park is to Michael Bay what Danny Elfman is to Tim Burton.

The main problem with TF 2 is that it is over long, considering this is, after all, a family film. Furthermore, after being subjected to Michael Bays frenetic, ADHD-based editing for 147 minutes it’s difficult to think about anything coherently. Which brings me to the script.

TF 1 was full of sub plots and characters that went nowhere or existed for no reason. TF 2 has excised these, but is still in quandary about whether it is a chase movie or a quest movie. Add the mandatory family comedy slapstick and you have a very schizophrenic film. Which is entirely the point – ¬this script has been made to appeal to as wide an audience as possible.

The fight scenes have wisely ditched the shaky camera work that enraged fan boys, and we have some well-choreographed fights between the warring robots. The scene where Optimus Prime takes on Megatron, Starscream and Grindor is particularly impressive, but be sure to keep an eye Bumblebee’s martial arts moves too.

Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen is a big fun, summer spectacle that requires nothing more from its audience than the ability to chew popcorn. The effects are nothing short of amazing and the set pieces are ferocious in their intensity.

8/ 10

Feelin’ Kinda Spleenal

Much too long ago, I spotted that fellow blogger Spleenal had made small figures of his comic characters. Being a comic type person I was smitten and asked if there were any spare. There was. Just one.

And so I procrastinated for ages, not sure how to decorate this blank little piece of plastic. Finally, I took the wee man to task (not that wee man), and coloured him with Sharpie pens and my Uni-ball pens that I love so much.

So here he is, Little Kid With A Beard, via Spleenal.

Enjoy.

Where The Hell Have You Been?

Apologies all for the lack of posts of late. I had the very good fortune to be offered the use of an apartment in Nice, France. And so I headed down there with the Dame. As much as I love the Internet, it was good to go ‘off the grid’ for the best part of a week.

As such, I’ve not been scouring the corners of geek and nonsense to bring you more stunning discourse (ahem!). However, I did get the chance to proof read my embryonic novella whilst on holiday. I added in a bunch of corrections and amendments. Dare I say, I quite enjoyed it, but that’s probably just my raging ego swanning about in it’s own Narcissistic glow. I’m currently working on Chapter 10.

I also managed to finish reading Chris Wooding’s Retribution Falls, which I couldn’t get to grips with at all for the first six chapters. A more detailed review of this to follow soon. Suffice to say it is a good steampunky romp, and kept me good company on the beaches of Le Sud de la France.

I also took time to re-read Ben Templesmith’s Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse. Vol. 1-3. The Dame it enjoyed it muchly also. Kudos Mr. Templesmith.

And now? Now I am back dans Angleterre. Back to find the RMT up to its usual nonsense (that means Tube strikes), and Nick Griffin smirking his way into the European Parliament. And that, my friends, is an oxymoron.

For those of you outside of the UK, Nick Griffin is leader of the British Nationalist Party. They take great pains to distance themselves the Nazis.
They just don’t like non-white people.
Or mixed race marriages.
And they like to ‘re-settle’ all non-white British residents.
They also have some disturbing ideas about gun control.

Nearly 90,000 Londoners voted BNP. It seems Recession and idiocy are linked.

Can I go back to France now?

And The Winner Is...

Well, didn’t you write some nice things? Kind of. Mostly.

Jay kicked off proceedings with a Mighty Boosh quote. If you’ve not seen the episode where Howard and Vince Goth up I can’t recommend it enough. Ridiculous. However, I still don’t want Jay doing a poo on me. Thanks.

Anne delivered a very nice comment, high praise indeed from the Pornokitsch camp.

Another quote from Big In Japan, this time Wayne’s World.
I admit; I am a bit mental.

Gubnutz describes me as better than a kick in the man baubles with a sportswear attired foot. Ouch, and indeed, urgh!

Jared delivers a salvo of high praise, and ends on a furry joke. However, I know he has a signed copy of the book, so I can’t, in all conscience, give the prize to him.

Mig, who entered right before the closing date, compares me to scorpion and rabbit soup. I can only presume it’s like sweet and sour soup with, er, more chance of death.

Fellow blogger and cartoonist Spleenal appealed to my vanity by praising my cinema reviews. He wins the unspecified mystery prize. Worrying because now I need to find something…

However, the winner, for his cunning use of the Ghostbusters Twinkie metaphor has to be Mr. S L Gallant. Well-done Sir! Well played.

Thank you to everyone who entered. If you like You Look Like A Little Kid With A Beard tell your friends, if you don’t like it, tell me why!