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Gareth von Kallenbach (971 KP) rated Climax (2018) in Movies
Jul 2, 2019
If you’re going to see this film, it likely won’t be a huge surprise to you. Those that will buy a ticket already know who Gaspar Noé is and what he’s all about. Films like Irreversible and Enter the Void have defined him as an artist of scandal, evil and the extreme. Climax follows directly in the footsteps of those films, but at this point it does leave us wondering if there’s any room for growth in this writer/director or if we’ll just continue to get more of the same until we’re sufficiently numb to his offerings.
The setting for Noé’s latest tour of human horrors is the final rehearsal of a French dance troupe set to tour internationally. The film begins with the final scene of the movie and the ending credits. Then, just as your confusion has built to appropriate levels, things actually begin with videotaped interviews of all 22 members in an attempt to give you some semblance of character introduction. Shown on an older TV, the screen is surrounded by books and plays focused on ultra-negative philosophical views and subjects such as schizophrenia and suicide. So, despite the rather upbeat and optimistic responses of the prospective dancers, the tone is already being set for the madness that is about to commence.
From there we are taken to the big dance number. A ten-minute single shot involving the entire cast choreographed to 90’s EDM music. While this scene felt a little bit long, it did nearly as much to introduce the characters as the audition tapes shown earlier. Each dancer has a unique style and flair that executes a certain character development. Once the dance is complete it feels like the movie finally begins and the cast starts their post-rehearsal party. The soiree involves dancing (of course), drinking (homemade sangria) and some minor cocaine use. But it mostly consists of quick shots between different cast members taking part in some intergroup gossip. We are treated to one more (non-choreographed) dance scene with each individual showing their talents in a circle of their comrades, then we break again for more conversation. As the party continues on everyone starts to feel a little bit funny. They quickly deduce that the sangria has been spiked with LSD, but cannot determine who drugged them.
And this is where the hour-long journey into hell embarks from. The realization that they have been drugged seems to worry them very little, but does instantly turn them all against each other. The effects of the LSD ramp up rather quickly and as the cast members descend into madness the audience is treated to a myriad of trauma and depravity including: rape, incest, self-mutilation, child electrocution and an attempted abortion via a swift kick to the stomach. None of this should be any surprise to someone familiar with Noé’s work. But if this is your first experience with his particular brand of filmmaking, then be prepared to leave no perverted stone unturned.
One of the most impressive things about this film is how little preparation actually went into it. The entire film was shot in 15 days and edited to completion in only 3 months after that in order to meet the Cannes festival deadline. In addition, it was shot with a mere 5 pages of script. The majority of the film consists of both dancing and psychotic undulations inspired by web videos of people high on crack, ecstasy and acid which were hand-selected by Noé. So, despite the assumed need for structure that comes with extended tracking shots such as these, the whole movie is (surprisingly) mostly ad-libbed. Only the opening dance scene is choreographed with all of the remaining ones being the result of the how the dancers chose to express themselves through dance.
In the end you’ll be left wondering if all of the shock and awe that’s been served to you actually meant something, or if it was simply sensory overload for the sake of itself. And that’s where the movie really falls short. If Noé had meant for any sort of deeper meaning in this film, it was ultimately lost to extreme subtlety. I did my best to find the clever allegory here (French history and culture, biblical stories, etc.) and I admittedly fell short. “Birth is a unique opportunity. Life is an impossible collective. Death is an extraordinary experience,” read three title cards which flash throughout the journey of Climax. Although these sayings are poetic and beautiful, they seem to have little or loose application to the actual storyline.
The strongest feelings in this film are not evoked from any sort of meaning or fable-style lesson. They come from the distress and disgust brought about by the actions of the characters and, more so, the beautifully executed cinematography. Every filming technique meant to cause discomfort is present here including: long tracking shots, inverted imagery, black screen with nonlinear sounds and subliminal images. The application and combination of all of these effects means that much credit for this film should most likely go to Noé’s DP, Benoit Debie.
Fundamentally, the judgement for a Gaspar Noé film exists on a different scale than any other film. And while that concept can be new and exciting when the first shocking film debuts, you quickly realize that subsequent ones have to continue to push the boundaries that were originally broken. Otherwise you run the risk of becoming stale. We may have gotten to that point now with Noé. Climax brings very little new shock to the table for a director who has developed his reputation as a purveyor of wickedness. Those who attend this movie will be looking for him to push their horror to new levels, but will likely end up unfulfilled. Although the lack of a new frontier doesn’t remove all of the value for the film, Noé has made implicit promises through his other work which he has failed to deliver upon with Climax.
The setting for Noé’s latest tour of human horrors is the final rehearsal of a French dance troupe set to tour internationally. The film begins with the final scene of the movie and the ending credits. Then, just as your confusion has built to appropriate levels, things actually begin with videotaped interviews of all 22 members in an attempt to give you some semblance of character introduction. Shown on an older TV, the screen is surrounded by books and plays focused on ultra-negative philosophical views and subjects such as schizophrenia and suicide. So, despite the rather upbeat and optimistic responses of the prospective dancers, the tone is already being set for the madness that is about to commence.
From there we are taken to the big dance number. A ten-minute single shot involving the entire cast choreographed to 90’s EDM music. While this scene felt a little bit long, it did nearly as much to introduce the characters as the audition tapes shown earlier. Each dancer has a unique style and flair that executes a certain character development. Once the dance is complete it feels like the movie finally begins and the cast starts their post-rehearsal party. The soiree involves dancing (of course), drinking (homemade sangria) and some minor cocaine use. But it mostly consists of quick shots between different cast members taking part in some intergroup gossip. We are treated to one more (non-choreographed) dance scene with each individual showing their talents in a circle of their comrades, then we break again for more conversation. As the party continues on everyone starts to feel a little bit funny. They quickly deduce that the sangria has been spiked with LSD, but cannot determine who drugged them.
And this is where the hour-long journey into hell embarks from. The realization that they have been drugged seems to worry them very little, but does instantly turn them all against each other. The effects of the LSD ramp up rather quickly and as the cast members descend into madness the audience is treated to a myriad of trauma and depravity including: rape, incest, self-mutilation, child electrocution and an attempted abortion via a swift kick to the stomach. None of this should be any surprise to someone familiar with Noé’s work. But if this is your first experience with his particular brand of filmmaking, then be prepared to leave no perverted stone unturned.
One of the most impressive things about this film is how little preparation actually went into it. The entire film was shot in 15 days and edited to completion in only 3 months after that in order to meet the Cannes festival deadline. In addition, it was shot with a mere 5 pages of script. The majority of the film consists of both dancing and psychotic undulations inspired by web videos of people high on crack, ecstasy and acid which were hand-selected by Noé. So, despite the assumed need for structure that comes with extended tracking shots such as these, the whole movie is (surprisingly) mostly ad-libbed. Only the opening dance scene is choreographed with all of the remaining ones being the result of the how the dancers chose to express themselves through dance.
In the end you’ll be left wondering if all of the shock and awe that’s been served to you actually meant something, or if it was simply sensory overload for the sake of itself. And that’s where the movie really falls short. If Noé had meant for any sort of deeper meaning in this film, it was ultimately lost to extreme subtlety. I did my best to find the clever allegory here (French history and culture, biblical stories, etc.) and I admittedly fell short. “Birth is a unique opportunity. Life is an impossible collective. Death is an extraordinary experience,” read three title cards which flash throughout the journey of Climax. Although these sayings are poetic and beautiful, they seem to have little or loose application to the actual storyline.
The strongest feelings in this film are not evoked from any sort of meaning or fable-style lesson. They come from the distress and disgust brought about by the actions of the characters and, more so, the beautifully executed cinematography. Every filming technique meant to cause discomfort is present here including: long tracking shots, inverted imagery, black screen with nonlinear sounds and subliminal images. The application and combination of all of these effects means that much credit for this film should most likely go to Noé’s DP, Benoit Debie.
Fundamentally, the judgement for a Gaspar Noé film exists on a different scale than any other film. And while that concept can be new and exciting when the first shocking film debuts, you quickly realize that subsequent ones have to continue to push the boundaries that were originally broken. Otherwise you run the risk of becoming stale. We may have gotten to that point now with Noé. Climax brings very little new shock to the table for a director who has developed his reputation as a purveyor of wickedness. Those who attend this movie will be looking for him to push their horror to new levels, but will likely end up unfulfilled. Although the lack of a new frontier doesn’t remove all of the value for the film, Noé has made implicit promises through his other work which he has failed to deliver upon with Climax.
The Bandersnatch (199 KP) rated The Hunchback of Notre-Dame in Books
Nov 7, 2019
The Hunchback of Notre Dame is set in 1829's Paris, France where the gypsy Esmeralda (Born Agnes) captures the hearts of several men including captain Phoebus and Pierre Gringoire but especially Quasimodo the bell ringer and his guardian the Archdeacon Claude Frollo.
Frollo orders Quasimodo to bring Esmeralda to him and after a lot of chaos where the guards under Phoebus capture Quasimodo, Gringoire is knocked out and only rescued from hanging when Esmeralda saves him with promise of marriage and Quasimodo flogged and placed on a pillory for several hours of public exposure. When Esmeralda is accused of attempted murder Quasimodo helps by giving her space in the cathedral of Notre Dame under law of sanctuary. Frollo finds out that the court of parliament has voted the removal of Esmeralda's right for sanctuary and orders her to be taken and killed. Clopin the head of the gypsies hears this and leads a rescue party to help Esmeralda. During the chaos Quasimodo mistakes who is wanting to help the Gypsy he loves and ends up in aiding in her arrest. Frollo after failing to win her love betrays Esmeralda and sends her to be hung. Frollo laughs as Esmeralda dies and is pushed from the top of the Cathedral by Quasimodo. Quasimodo dies of starvation after joining Esmeralda's body in the cemetery.
Victor Hugo began writing the book in 1829The novels original title was Notre Dame de Paris, it was largely to make his contemporaries more aware of the value of the Gothic architecture, Notre Dame Cathedral had been in disrepair at the time and along with other buildings which were neglected and often destroyed to be replaced by new buildings or defaced by replacement of parts of buildings in a newer style. During the summer of 1830 Gosselin demanded that Hugo complete the book by February 1831, Hugo -starting in September 1830- worked non stop on the book finishing it six months later. Several ballets, comics, TV show, theatre, music, musical theatre and films have been inspired by The Hunchback of Notre Dame most notably has been the 1996 Walt Disney animated movie of the same name.
I think that The Hunchback of Notre Dame is a very prolific book which promotes the fact that it doesn't matter what you look like on the outside, its how you deal with people and what is on the inside that counts. The books portrayal of the romantic era as an extreme through the architecture, passion and religion as well as the exploration of determinism, revolution and social strife adds to the ultimately magical make up of the book. I believe that most people would see themselves in the position of Quasimodo, Esmeralda and Phoebus rather than that of Frollo. I know I certainly wouldn't see myself otherwise.
Victor Marie Hugo was born on February 26th 1802 in Besançon. eastern Franche-Combe as the third son of Joseph Leopold Sigisbert Hugo (1774-1828) and Sophie Trebuchet (1772-1821). Victor was a French poet, novelist and dramatist of the romantic movement, he's also considered one of the greatest and best known French writers. Victors childhood was a period of national political turmoil with Napoleon being proclaimed Emperor two years after he was born and the Bourbon monarchy was restored before his 13th birthday. His parents held vastly different political and religious views which prompted a brief separation in 1803, during that time Hugo's mother dominated his education and upbringing. Hugos work reflected her devotion to king and faith. However during the events leading up to France's 1848 revolution, Hugos work changed to that of Republicanism and free thought. Hugo went on to married to his childhood sweetheart Adele Foucher in 1822 and they had five children.
Victor Hugo's works hold a vast collection of poetry, novels and music. His first Novel Han D'Islande was published in 1823 and he published five volumes of poetry between 1829 and 1840 which cemented his reputation as a great elagiac and lyric poet. Hugos first mature work of fiction was published in February 1829 by Charles Gosselin without his name attached, this would infuse with his later work Le Dernier Jour d'un Condamne (The last day of a Condemned man) and go on to not only influence other writers including Charles Dickens and Albert Camus, and be a precursor to Hugo's work Les Miserables published in 1862.
After three attempts Hugo was finally elected to Academie francaise in 1841and in 1845 King Louis-Phillipe elevated him to the peerage and in 1848 he was elected to the national assembly of the second republic. When Louis Napoleon the 3rd seized power in 1851 Hugo openly declared him a traitor to France then relocated to Brussels, Jersey (where he was thrown out of for supporting a paper criticising Queen Victoria) and ending up in guernsey where he remained an exile until 1870. after returning to France a hero in 1870 Hugo spent the rest of his life writing and just living and died from pneumonia on may 22nd 1885 at the age of 83. He was given a state funeral by degree of president Jules Grevy, more than two million people joined his funeral procession in Paris which went form the Arc Du Triomphe to the Pantheon where he was consequently buried, he shared a crypt with Alexandre Dumas and Emile Zola. Most French towns and cities have streets named after him.
Victor Hugo in my opinion is one of those naturally born creative souls who had felt compelled to both write and at least try to make the world a better place. He definitely attempted to do so from the positions he accumulated in his life time and despite this the three mistresses he had in his later years definitely shows that his love life left something to be desired.
And there you have it a book for all the ages, its definitely under the banner of AWESOME!!!.
Frollo orders Quasimodo to bring Esmeralda to him and after a lot of chaos where the guards under Phoebus capture Quasimodo, Gringoire is knocked out and only rescued from hanging when Esmeralda saves him with promise of marriage and Quasimodo flogged and placed on a pillory for several hours of public exposure. When Esmeralda is accused of attempted murder Quasimodo helps by giving her space in the cathedral of Notre Dame under law of sanctuary. Frollo finds out that the court of parliament has voted the removal of Esmeralda's right for sanctuary and orders her to be taken and killed. Clopin the head of the gypsies hears this and leads a rescue party to help Esmeralda. During the chaos Quasimodo mistakes who is wanting to help the Gypsy he loves and ends up in aiding in her arrest. Frollo after failing to win her love betrays Esmeralda and sends her to be hung. Frollo laughs as Esmeralda dies and is pushed from the top of the Cathedral by Quasimodo. Quasimodo dies of starvation after joining Esmeralda's body in the cemetery.
Victor Hugo began writing the book in 1829The novels original title was Notre Dame de Paris, it was largely to make his contemporaries more aware of the value of the Gothic architecture, Notre Dame Cathedral had been in disrepair at the time and along with other buildings which were neglected and often destroyed to be replaced by new buildings or defaced by replacement of parts of buildings in a newer style. During the summer of 1830 Gosselin demanded that Hugo complete the book by February 1831, Hugo -starting in September 1830- worked non stop on the book finishing it six months later. Several ballets, comics, TV show, theatre, music, musical theatre and films have been inspired by The Hunchback of Notre Dame most notably has been the 1996 Walt Disney animated movie of the same name.
I think that The Hunchback of Notre Dame is a very prolific book which promotes the fact that it doesn't matter what you look like on the outside, its how you deal with people and what is on the inside that counts. The books portrayal of the romantic era as an extreme through the architecture, passion and religion as well as the exploration of determinism, revolution and social strife adds to the ultimately magical make up of the book. I believe that most people would see themselves in the position of Quasimodo, Esmeralda and Phoebus rather than that of Frollo. I know I certainly wouldn't see myself otherwise.
Victor Marie Hugo was born on February 26th 1802 in Besançon. eastern Franche-Combe as the third son of Joseph Leopold Sigisbert Hugo (1774-1828) and Sophie Trebuchet (1772-1821). Victor was a French poet, novelist and dramatist of the romantic movement, he's also considered one of the greatest and best known French writers. Victors childhood was a period of national political turmoil with Napoleon being proclaimed Emperor two years after he was born and the Bourbon monarchy was restored before his 13th birthday. His parents held vastly different political and religious views which prompted a brief separation in 1803, during that time Hugo's mother dominated his education and upbringing. Hugos work reflected her devotion to king and faith. However during the events leading up to France's 1848 revolution, Hugos work changed to that of Republicanism and free thought. Hugo went on to married to his childhood sweetheart Adele Foucher in 1822 and they had five children.
Victor Hugo's works hold a vast collection of poetry, novels and music. His first Novel Han D'Islande was published in 1823 and he published five volumes of poetry between 1829 and 1840 which cemented his reputation as a great elagiac and lyric poet. Hugos first mature work of fiction was published in February 1829 by Charles Gosselin without his name attached, this would infuse with his later work Le Dernier Jour d'un Condamne (The last day of a Condemned man) and go on to not only influence other writers including Charles Dickens and Albert Camus, and be a precursor to Hugo's work Les Miserables published in 1862.
After three attempts Hugo was finally elected to Academie francaise in 1841and in 1845 King Louis-Phillipe elevated him to the peerage and in 1848 he was elected to the national assembly of the second republic. When Louis Napoleon the 3rd seized power in 1851 Hugo openly declared him a traitor to France then relocated to Brussels, Jersey (where he was thrown out of for supporting a paper criticising Queen Victoria) and ending up in guernsey where he remained an exile until 1870. after returning to France a hero in 1870 Hugo spent the rest of his life writing and just living and died from pneumonia on may 22nd 1885 at the age of 83. He was given a state funeral by degree of president Jules Grevy, more than two million people joined his funeral procession in Paris which went form the Arc Du Triomphe to the Pantheon where he was consequently buried, he shared a crypt with Alexandre Dumas and Emile Zola. Most French towns and cities have streets named after him.
Victor Hugo in my opinion is one of those naturally born creative souls who had felt compelled to both write and at least try to make the world a better place. He definitely attempted to do so from the positions he accumulated in his life time and despite this the three mistresses he had in his later years definitely shows that his love life left something to be desired.
And there you have it a book for all the ages, its definitely under the banner of AWESOME!!!.
Neil Goddard (3 KP) rated Hellboy (2019) in Movies
Feb 27, 2020
It all looked soooo promising
Contains spoilers, click to show
Let me say this upfront; David Harbour looks f---ing boss as Hellboy. The makeup is far superior to that of Ron Perlman, not that there was anything wrong with Ron Perlman’s, but with this new incarnation it’s all in the eyes. Deep red, sunken, pained. Sadly, that is all I can say about this movie that is one hundred percent genuinely positive. There are positives however, but they come with a big ‘however’.
I was initially a little concerned that we were getting a re-boot and not a direct sequel to Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008), especially as it still seemed so recent and was so well made. I know it was over a decade ago but quality is timeless, yeah? Then David Harbour was cast and Neil Marshall announced as director. Great, thought I, an actor I like and a director who’s put out some solid genre material. I saw the first picture of Harbour as Hellboy and I was genuinely excited. I saw the trailer and again, excited. Then I watched the film.
Eurgh, where to start?
Firstly, Ian McShane’s initial voice over is clunky and ill fitting, then they throw in some b@llocks about King Arthur and Excalibur. I had my first wobble here, as some of the effects seemed less than special.
Cue opening titles.
The film starts with a Mexican wrestling match that is purely exposition to let us know Hellboy is a hard drinking and hard fighting anti-hero working for an organisation that deals with the paranormal. The make up for his vampiric opponent is also great (can’t fault the makeup department), but the scene seemed superfluous. We get the nubbin of the story forming now; some horrible witchy wench from way back when was cut into bits and flung around jolly old England to prevent her from spreading a right ‘orrible plague. Turns out a potty-mouthed Liverpudlian pig-monster is collecting said bits in the hope of putting her back together in exchange for his normal appearance. Scouse pig-monster is quite entertaining.
Hellboy goes to England at the request of an upper-class paranormal society to help them kill giants; this goes t1ts up. Again, this seems like unnecessary exposition to introduce Alice, a medium who he rescued as a baby, who now rescues him in a transit van. We also get introduced to M11’s Agent Daimio. There something wrong with him, he keeps injecting himself with a serum to stop something happening. I knew at this point we’d get to see what it was eventually, probably at a juncture where something is needed to rescue someone important. However, at this point I had a feeling it would be bad, I just didn’t know how bad.
There some more fighting, some good effects, some mediocre effects and some terrible effects. There’s some good one-liners, there’s some dull and/or terrible dialogue and then we get the film’s conclusion.
There’s something I’ve been putting off mentioning as I didn’t want the entire review to be about it, and it could have been; the witchy wench at the heart of all this paranormal consternation, Nimue, is played by Milla Jovovich and she is terrible. From when she first opens her mouth to her predictable demise, she is terrible. Terrible. TERRIBLE.
I love some of the Resident Evil films but all she’s required to do is some slow-motion scissor kicks and shoot zombies and zombie-dogs in the face. She is tolerated, rather than enjoyed. Here she is emoting, or at least I think that’s what she was going for, and as a depiction of an evil entity bent of the destruction of all mankind, she is, for want of a better word, cack.
David Harbour and the Hellboy franchise deserve better than this. To be blunt, the franchise has better than this and Mike Mignola should be a bit more f---ing precious with his creation.
Hellboy (2004) was genuinely exciting; it was an origin story that bought that story full circle for its thrilling and apocalyptical conclusion. It has a wonderful nemesis, great support and breath-taking visuals. The re-tread of the origin story in Hellboy (2019) is, again, one more unnecessary diversion from a sketchy plot, which, for all its meagre bones takes a f-ck load of time to tell.
Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008) was equally impressive. It also introduced a fully formed community of creatures and customs hiding alongside mankind. It did so with nonchalant aplomb. Nothing seemed irrelevant or forced. For two films with almost identical running times, Hellboy (2019) tells less of a story with way more waffle.
So, I did mention there were some positives. David Harbour is great. He’s dour, sarcastic, defiant and funny, he just has no engaging story in which to be all those things. Ian McShane is good as the father figure but he is overshadowed by memories of the late, unbelievably great John Hurt. The story of a witch trying to destroy mankind is solid fantasy movie gold and the unleashing of her plague late in the final act is suitably hellish; bizarre demons emerging from city streets and tearing humans limb from limb, it’s bloody wonderful and wonderfully bloody. They all could have come straight out of a Clive Barker fever dream. However, it’s too little too late, by this point in the story we’ve had too many cutaways, too much shoddy CGI, and Agent Daimio stinking up many a scene with his ‘will he won’t he’ turn into something rubbish… he does.
The worst part of all this is I don’t know if they can come back from this. The film may have sunk the franchise at least for the next few years.
I do however, look forward to a re-boot in a decade or so, if we haven’t all been assimilated by aliens, overrun by AI robots or decimated by a supernatural plague bought on by some witchy wench with an axe to grind.
THREE WORD SUMMATION: Big Red Turd.
I was initially a little concerned that we were getting a re-boot and not a direct sequel to Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008), especially as it still seemed so recent and was so well made. I know it was over a decade ago but quality is timeless, yeah? Then David Harbour was cast and Neil Marshall announced as director. Great, thought I, an actor I like and a director who’s put out some solid genre material. I saw the first picture of Harbour as Hellboy and I was genuinely excited. I saw the trailer and again, excited. Then I watched the film.
Eurgh, where to start?
Firstly, Ian McShane’s initial voice over is clunky and ill fitting, then they throw in some b@llocks about King Arthur and Excalibur. I had my first wobble here, as some of the effects seemed less than special.
Cue opening titles.
The film starts with a Mexican wrestling match that is purely exposition to let us know Hellboy is a hard drinking and hard fighting anti-hero working for an organisation that deals with the paranormal. The make up for his vampiric opponent is also great (can’t fault the makeup department), but the scene seemed superfluous. We get the nubbin of the story forming now; some horrible witchy wench from way back when was cut into bits and flung around jolly old England to prevent her from spreading a right ‘orrible plague. Turns out a potty-mouthed Liverpudlian pig-monster is collecting said bits in the hope of putting her back together in exchange for his normal appearance. Scouse pig-monster is quite entertaining.
Hellboy goes to England at the request of an upper-class paranormal society to help them kill giants; this goes t1ts up. Again, this seems like unnecessary exposition to introduce Alice, a medium who he rescued as a baby, who now rescues him in a transit van. We also get introduced to M11’s Agent Daimio. There something wrong with him, he keeps injecting himself with a serum to stop something happening. I knew at this point we’d get to see what it was eventually, probably at a juncture where something is needed to rescue someone important. However, at this point I had a feeling it would be bad, I just didn’t know how bad.
There some more fighting, some good effects, some mediocre effects and some terrible effects. There’s some good one-liners, there’s some dull and/or terrible dialogue and then we get the film’s conclusion.
There’s something I’ve been putting off mentioning as I didn’t want the entire review to be about it, and it could have been; the witchy wench at the heart of all this paranormal consternation, Nimue, is played by Milla Jovovich and she is terrible. From when she first opens her mouth to her predictable demise, she is terrible. Terrible. TERRIBLE.
I love some of the Resident Evil films but all she’s required to do is some slow-motion scissor kicks and shoot zombies and zombie-dogs in the face. She is tolerated, rather than enjoyed. Here she is emoting, or at least I think that’s what she was going for, and as a depiction of an evil entity bent of the destruction of all mankind, she is, for want of a better word, cack.
David Harbour and the Hellboy franchise deserve better than this. To be blunt, the franchise has better than this and Mike Mignola should be a bit more f---ing precious with his creation.
Hellboy (2004) was genuinely exciting; it was an origin story that bought that story full circle for its thrilling and apocalyptical conclusion. It has a wonderful nemesis, great support and breath-taking visuals. The re-tread of the origin story in Hellboy (2019) is, again, one more unnecessary diversion from a sketchy plot, which, for all its meagre bones takes a f-ck load of time to tell.
Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008) was equally impressive. It also introduced a fully formed community of creatures and customs hiding alongside mankind. It did so with nonchalant aplomb. Nothing seemed irrelevant or forced. For two films with almost identical running times, Hellboy (2019) tells less of a story with way more waffle.
So, I did mention there were some positives. David Harbour is great. He’s dour, sarcastic, defiant and funny, he just has no engaging story in which to be all those things. Ian McShane is good as the father figure but he is overshadowed by memories of the late, unbelievably great John Hurt. The story of a witch trying to destroy mankind is solid fantasy movie gold and the unleashing of her plague late in the final act is suitably hellish; bizarre demons emerging from city streets and tearing humans limb from limb, it’s bloody wonderful and wonderfully bloody. They all could have come straight out of a Clive Barker fever dream. However, it’s too little too late, by this point in the story we’ve had too many cutaways, too much shoddy CGI, and Agent Daimio stinking up many a scene with his ‘will he won’t he’ turn into something rubbish… he does.
The worst part of all this is I don’t know if they can come back from this. The film may have sunk the franchise at least for the next few years.
I do however, look forward to a re-boot in a decade or so, if we haven’t all been assimilated by aliens, overrun by AI robots or decimated by a supernatural plague bought on by some witchy wench with an axe to grind.
THREE WORD SUMMATION: Big Red Turd.
Bob Mann (459 KP) rated Bad Boys for Life (2020) in Movies
Mar 9, 2020
Welcome to Miami - again!
Will Smith seems to have been having a lacklustre period in his career. His genie from "Aladdin" got a rather lukewarm reception. And his last movie - "Gemini Man" - billed as a big summer blockbuster - failed to impress. True it wasn't a commercial disaster (raking in at the time of writing about 150% of budget), but it's still a film on a plane for me that, even if I'm bored, I'll say "nah" to.
Perhaps it's for this reason that Smith reached for an old and reliable property to dust off for another outing.
And, do you know, it's not half bad.
I only recently saw this one, right at the end of its UK cinema run, because frankly it appealed to me like being hit round the head with a cold fish. Martin Lawrence is an actor who just grates on me enormously. I'm sure he's a lovely chap; kind to animals; donates to charity; etc - but I generally just don't find him funny. (Here though he has a killer line about condom use that made me chuckle.) It feels to me like he is on implausible ground here re-treading the role of aging detective Marcus Burnett. One look at Burnett lumbering along and you would think "well, he'd never pass the medical" for the on-street role he's portrayed doing. His buddy is detective Mike Lowrey (Will Smith), who has a sordid past that is set to catch up on him.
Since we start the story in Colombia, where Isabel Aretas (Kate Del Castillo), the witchy wife of a notorious deceased drug baron, is sprung from prison by her son Armando (Jacob Scipio) in what I admit is a clever and novel way. The Aretas family is bent on revenge - - and a key target in their sites is Lowrey.
Burnett is newly a grandparent and hell-bent on retirement. But with Lowrey and his associates with a target on their backs, will there be one last chance to "Ride Together, Die Together"?
Not seen the first two movies? Not to worry! There are movies, like LOTR, where if you've missed the first two movies in the series you will be left in serious "WTF" territory in trying to watch the third. This is not one of those movies. The story is entirely self-contained, and refers to events never seen prior to the first film in the series.
But whether the movie is for you will depend on your tolerance for loud and brash visuals and music with the knob turned up to 12. Directors Adil and Bilall (Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah - Belgian film school buddies best known for the critically acclaimed 2015 feature "Black") - don't do anything by halves.
There is a scene in "Lost Series 3" in which Sawyer, Kate, and Alex have to bust young Karl out of the mysterious room 23 where he is being tortured by having his eyes kept open while watching a collage of images continually smashed into his eyeballs. This movie feels a little like that after a while.
This is not by any means a criticism that it's poorly done. There is some truly stunning cinematography of the Miami skyline by Belgian cinematographer Robrecht Heyvaert, including a 'pull-back' drone shot from a conversation on the top of a building that is quite AWESOME! And there are more than enough "fast action - then slo-mo - then fast again" shots to keep music-video junkies happy!
The music score by Lorne Balfe is also pumping, adding a dynamism to the frantic action scenes that keeps you entertained.
The screenplay by Chris Bremner, Peter Craig and Joe Carnahan is assuredly familiar: it's not going to win any prizes for originality. We've seen the cartel/revenge plotline played out in multiple movies over the years. And we've also seen the "buddy cops with aging partner taking retirement" angle from the "Lethal Weapon" series. This just sticks them together.
Will Smith and Martin Lawrence wise-crack their way through the comedy well-enough, though for me it never reaches the heights of the pairing of Smith and Tommy Lee Jones from MiB (or indeed Mel Gibson and Danny Glover from Lethal Weapon). Elsewhere we have Vanessa Hudgens as a cute cop, still trying to break through from "Disneyfication" into mainstream flicks. For one horrible moment, when I saw her name on the cast, I thought she might be the love interest to Smith. But no. That honour goes to Mexican beauty Paola Nuñez who, with only a 10 year age gap, becomes a less gag-worthy pairing. She plays a female leadership role (every 20's film now needs one) as the head of a new crime division.
Also good value is Joe Pantoliano reprising his role as Captain Howard - Lowrie's exasperated boss. Playing it by the numbers, every film like this has to have one!
Where the plot does add some interest is in a surprising scene mid-film and a twist that I didn't see coming. But this twist felt - in the context of the release date or the film - like a mistake (a "Spoiler Section" in my review on the One Mann's Movies web site discusses this).
All of this happens of course against a backdrop of a body count of bad guys being killed in ever more graphic and gory ways, while the good guys generally dodge every bullet, grenade and crashing helicopter heading their way.
It's that time of year when films are released to die. Where studios drop their movies that are never going to trouble the Academy and are not deemed worthy of summer or even late spring release. But they should have had more faith in this one, for it's not half bad. True, you may need a couple of paracetamols afterwards, but if your corneas and ear-drums can stand the pace, its not short on entertainment value.
(For the full graphical review, check out the One Mann's Movies link here - https://bob-the-movie-man.com/2020/03/08/one-manns-movies-film-review-bad-boys-for-life-2020/ ).
Perhaps it's for this reason that Smith reached for an old and reliable property to dust off for another outing.
And, do you know, it's not half bad.
I only recently saw this one, right at the end of its UK cinema run, because frankly it appealed to me like being hit round the head with a cold fish. Martin Lawrence is an actor who just grates on me enormously. I'm sure he's a lovely chap; kind to animals; donates to charity; etc - but I generally just don't find him funny. (Here though he has a killer line about condom use that made me chuckle.) It feels to me like he is on implausible ground here re-treading the role of aging detective Marcus Burnett. One look at Burnett lumbering along and you would think "well, he'd never pass the medical" for the on-street role he's portrayed doing. His buddy is detective Mike Lowrey (Will Smith), who has a sordid past that is set to catch up on him.
Since we start the story in Colombia, where Isabel Aretas (Kate Del Castillo), the witchy wife of a notorious deceased drug baron, is sprung from prison by her son Armando (Jacob Scipio) in what I admit is a clever and novel way. The Aretas family is bent on revenge - - and a key target in their sites is Lowrey.
Burnett is newly a grandparent and hell-bent on retirement. But with Lowrey and his associates with a target on their backs, will there be one last chance to "Ride Together, Die Together"?
Not seen the first two movies? Not to worry! There are movies, like LOTR, where if you've missed the first two movies in the series you will be left in serious "WTF" territory in trying to watch the third. This is not one of those movies. The story is entirely self-contained, and refers to events never seen prior to the first film in the series.
But whether the movie is for you will depend on your tolerance for loud and brash visuals and music with the knob turned up to 12. Directors Adil and Bilall (Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah - Belgian film school buddies best known for the critically acclaimed 2015 feature "Black") - don't do anything by halves.
There is a scene in "Lost Series 3" in which Sawyer, Kate, and Alex have to bust young Karl out of the mysterious room 23 where he is being tortured by having his eyes kept open while watching a collage of images continually smashed into his eyeballs. This movie feels a little like that after a while.
This is not by any means a criticism that it's poorly done. There is some truly stunning cinematography of the Miami skyline by Belgian cinematographer Robrecht Heyvaert, including a 'pull-back' drone shot from a conversation on the top of a building that is quite AWESOME! And there are more than enough "fast action - then slo-mo - then fast again" shots to keep music-video junkies happy!
The music score by Lorne Balfe is also pumping, adding a dynamism to the frantic action scenes that keeps you entertained.
The screenplay by Chris Bremner, Peter Craig and Joe Carnahan is assuredly familiar: it's not going to win any prizes for originality. We've seen the cartel/revenge plotline played out in multiple movies over the years. And we've also seen the "buddy cops with aging partner taking retirement" angle from the "Lethal Weapon" series. This just sticks them together.
Will Smith and Martin Lawrence wise-crack their way through the comedy well-enough, though for me it never reaches the heights of the pairing of Smith and Tommy Lee Jones from MiB (or indeed Mel Gibson and Danny Glover from Lethal Weapon). Elsewhere we have Vanessa Hudgens as a cute cop, still trying to break through from "Disneyfication" into mainstream flicks. For one horrible moment, when I saw her name on the cast, I thought she might be the love interest to Smith. But no. That honour goes to Mexican beauty Paola Nuñez who, with only a 10 year age gap, becomes a less gag-worthy pairing. She plays a female leadership role (every 20's film now needs one) as the head of a new crime division.
Also good value is Joe Pantoliano reprising his role as Captain Howard - Lowrie's exasperated boss. Playing it by the numbers, every film like this has to have one!
Where the plot does add some interest is in a surprising scene mid-film and a twist that I didn't see coming. But this twist felt - in the context of the release date or the film - like a mistake (a "Spoiler Section" in my review on the One Mann's Movies web site discusses this).
All of this happens of course against a backdrop of a body count of bad guys being killed in ever more graphic and gory ways, while the good guys generally dodge every bullet, grenade and crashing helicopter heading their way.
It's that time of year when films are released to die. Where studios drop their movies that are never going to trouble the Academy and are not deemed worthy of summer or even late spring release. But they should have had more faith in this one, for it's not half bad. True, you may need a couple of paracetamols afterwards, but if your corneas and ear-drums can stand the pace, its not short on entertainment value.
(For the full graphical review, check out the One Mann's Movies link here - https://bob-the-movie-man.com/2020/03/08/one-manns-movies-film-review-bad-boys-for-life-2020/ ).
Purple Phoenix Games (2266 KP) rated Pocket Pixel Artist in Tabletop Games
Feb 5, 2021
Ahh good ol’ NES. How I miss thee. My very first video game console, and still I remember it fondly. Somewhat recently a revival of 8-bit art has flown around various mediums and board games were also infused with this love of the pixelated art style. But how well can YOU create 8-bit art? Do you think you are able to create a masterpiece with pixel cubes in, say, 60 seconds? Let’s find out.
Pocket Pixel Artist is a cube-artistry game for teams of any number of players. In it players will be assuming the roles of the next great 8-bit artist and creating magnum opuses of block art for the enjoyment of all.
DISCLAIMER: We were provided a prototype copy of this game for the purposes of this review. These are preview copy components, and I do not know for sure if the final components will be any different from these shown. Also, it is not my intention to detail every rule in the game. You are invited to download the rulebook, back the game through the Kickstarter campaign launching March 9, 2021, or through any retailers stocking it after fulfillment. -T
To setup separate the players into teams of at least two players. Shuffle the deck of prompt cards and keep the colored cubes handy for the artists. The game will last four rounds and the winning team will be they who finishes with the most Victory Points from correctly guessing assembled art pieces. Choose a team to create first and the game may begin!
On a turn one player from the active team will draw a card from the stack, choose one of the eight words on the card, and be ready to begin building the word once a 60 second timer begins. The goal of each round is to have the current artist’s team guess the word being built for a VP, but each round has slightly different rules to follow.
In the first round, “Head to Head,” each team will nominate an artist to begin. Each artist will then draw a card, choose a word to create, and then begin building their words simultaneously against the other artists. The team that guesses the word correctly first will receive more VP than the teams that follow.
The second round, “Pixel Boogaloo,” has artists choosing a word and building their art in secret. Once the 60 second timer is up the artist will then uncover their creation. The artist’s teammate(s) then have 30 seconds to guess the word. If they cannot, the next team in table order will have 30 seconds to earn a VP with a successful guess. This round is played until all players have had a chance to be both artist and guesser.
The third round, “Palette Crash,” the team to the left of the active artist’s team will choose a color from green, yellow, blue, and red to shout to the active artist. The artist will then be forced to choose one of the words on the card matching that color as well as being limited to using only cubes of the matching color (players can agree to use black and white cubes as well for an easier challenge). This word building is also done in secret and then revealed after the 60 second timer for their teammates to guess within 30 seconds. Should the teammates guess correctly the team will be awarded with 2 VP. If they fail to guess correctly, the next team in table order automatically receives 1 VP. This round is played until all players have had a chance to be both artist and guesser.
The final round, “Final Render,” the artist will draw a card, choose a word, and begin building in full view of all players. For each correct guess the guessing team will earn 1 VP toward their total. Once all players have had a chance to build in this round the game ends and VPs are tallied.
Components. This is another mint tin game of cards and colored cubes. The cards are all fine and the cubes as well. There is some art on the cards, and it is also fine 8-bit renders. I have no complaints other than the rulesheet does not fit in the tin along with the components – the tin will not shut.
Gameplay is easy for some and not so easy for others (like me). As you can see in the image above, that is my lame attempt at a rainbow. When you only have 60 seconds to create something that actually looks like what is on the card, the stress and lack of actual art talent can certainly play tricks on you (me). But that is also part of the fun. In my head I can see exactly what I want to build, but getting all the cubes in the right order and correct colors causes my hand-eye coordination to fly out the window. Others must have been better at putting the square peg in the square hole when they were babies because I just can’t do it very well as an adult.
Now, again, I am in the minority of people who just aren’t that great at this game. At least in my experience. Having the game follow different rules each round is a refreshing spin on the Pictionary style of creating something for others to guess. I do enjoy fiddling with the cubes and at least attempting to make something recognizable. I enjoy seeing many different choices on each card and not being limited to just one word on a turn. Obviously these do nothing for my artistry, but they are appreciated.
Should you be in need of a small game that gives the feel of Pictionary without being pen and paper, I urge you to check out Pocket Pixel Artist. I can see it working in many scenarios, just like its cousin from the same publisher Swearmints. At the end of the game players typically did not seem to care much about which team won, but always had a great time playing and remembering the ridiculous monstrosities that were constructed.
Pocket Pixel Artist is a cube-artistry game for teams of any number of players. In it players will be assuming the roles of the next great 8-bit artist and creating magnum opuses of block art for the enjoyment of all.
DISCLAIMER: We were provided a prototype copy of this game for the purposes of this review. These are preview copy components, and I do not know for sure if the final components will be any different from these shown. Also, it is not my intention to detail every rule in the game. You are invited to download the rulebook, back the game through the Kickstarter campaign launching March 9, 2021, or through any retailers stocking it after fulfillment. -T
To setup separate the players into teams of at least two players. Shuffle the deck of prompt cards and keep the colored cubes handy for the artists. The game will last four rounds and the winning team will be they who finishes with the most Victory Points from correctly guessing assembled art pieces. Choose a team to create first and the game may begin!
On a turn one player from the active team will draw a card from the stack, choose one of the eight words on the card, and be ready to begin building the word once a 60 second timer begins. The goal of each round is to have the current artist’s team guess the word being built for a VP, but each round has slightly different rules to follow.
In the first round, “Head to Head,” each team will nominate an artist to begin. Each artist will then draw a card, choose a word to create, and then begin building their words simultaneously against the other artists. The team that guesses the word correctly first will receive more VP than the teams that follow.
The second round, “Pixel Boogaloo,” has artists choosing a word and building their art in secret. Once the 60 second timer is up the artist will then uncover their creation. The artist’s teammate(s) then have 30 seconds to guess the word. If they cannot, the next team in table order will have 30 seconds to earn a VP with a successful guess. This round is played until all players have had a chance to be both artist and guesser.
The third round, “Palette Crash,” the team to the left of the active artist’s team will choose a color from green, yellow, blue, and red to shout to the active artist. The artist will then be forced to choose one of the words on the card matching that color as well as being limited to using only cubes of the matching color (players can agree to use black and white cubes as well for an easier challenge). This word building is also done in secret and then revealed after the 60 second timer for their teammates to guess within 30 seconds. Should the teammates guess correctly the team will be awarded with 2 VP. If they fail to guess correctly, the next team in table order automatically receives 1 VP. This round is played until all players have had a chance to be both artist and guesser.
The final round, “Final Render,” the artist will draw a card, choose a word, and begin building in full view of all players. For each correct guess the guessing team will earn 1 VP toward their total. Once all players have had a chance to build in this round the game ends and VPs are tallied.
Components. This is another mint tin game of cards and colored cubes. The cards are all fine and the cubes as well. There is some art on the cards, and it is also fine 8-bit renders. I have no complaints other than the rulesheet does not fit in the tin along with the components – the tin will not shut.
Gameplay is easy for some and not so easy for others (like me). As you can see in the image above, that is my lame attempt at a rainbow. When you only have 60 seconds to create something that actually looks like what is on the card, the stress and lack of actual art talent can certainly play tricks on you (me). But that is also part of the fun. In my head I can see exactly what I want to build, but getting all the cubes in the right order and correct colors causes my hand-eye coordination to fly out the window. Others must have been better at putting the square peg in the square hole when they were babies because I just can’t do it very well as an adult.
Now, again, I am in the minority of people who just aren’t that great at this game. At least in my experience. Having the game follow different rules each round is a refreshing spin on the Pictionary style of creating something for others to guess. I do enjoy fiddling with the cubes and at least attempting to make something recognizable. I enjoy seeing many different choices on each card and not being limited to just one word on a turn. Obviously these do nothing for my artistry, but they are appreciated.
Should you be in need of a small game that gives the feel of Pictionary without being pen and paper, I urge you to check out Pocket Pixel Artist. I can see it working in many scenarios, just like its cousin from the same publisher Swearmints. At the end of the game players typically did not seem to care much about which team won, but always had a great time playing and remembering the ridiculous monstrosities that were constructed.
Purple Phoenix Games (2266 KP) rated Bob Ross: Art of Chill Game in Tabletop Games
Jun 30, 2021
Bob Ross is a household name in the United States and has been for quite a while. The man is a legend and part of the Trinity of Mankind (which also includes Mister Rogers and Steve Irwin). Anyone who has watched this man paint instantly recognizes a beautiful human being with extreme talent and the ability to lull audiences into a state of euphoria as he paints mountains, creeks, cabins, and trees. And of course, every one should have a friend. His wholesomeness goes to 11! So what do I find one day whilst perusing the strange board game wares in my local Target one day three years ago but a Bob Ross game. I wasn’t expecting much, but had to have it for nostalgic reasons. Was my money wasted or is there something in this box worth actually playing?
Bob Ross: Art of Chill is a set collection, hand management, card drafting game that has its players attempting to complete masterful paintings before the master does in order to collect bonus “chill points” to win the game. Whomever manages to reach ultimate chill status will be victorious and can return to feeding Peapod, their rascally pocket squirrel.
To setup, place the easel and one of the shuffled painting panels upon it. Place the other panels (paintings) nearby. Place the main scoreboard nearby as well and place the shuffled Chill Cards on its space upon the board. The Technique Cards deck and the Art Supplies Card decks will be shuffled separately and placed below the board with four cards from each deck revealed as an offer. Place the Bob Mover (Bobeeple) on the easel in the first location printed on the panel. Each player will receive a palette, the scoring cube of their color to be placed on the scoreboard, the three Feature Markers, and three random Art Supplies Cards. The game may now begin!
On a turn players will be rolling the Bob die and carrying out its action. These actions are playing a paint card from hand onto their palette, drawing one Art Supplies Card from the deck to their hand, performing one free Action prior to the Action phase, or resolving the Bob die face. The Bob die face requires players to reveal a new Chill Card and resolve its immediate effects, or effects that will remain in play until a new Chill Card is revealed. Secondly, the Bobeeple will move to the next printed stopping point on the panel.
Once the die has been rolled and resolved, the active player will be able to take any three actions available in any order: Draw an Art Supplies Card (from the deck or from the offer), Sweep the Art Supplies Card (discard all face-up cards and reveal four new ones), Apply Paint to Your Palette (by placing it on your palette from your hand of cards), Wash Your Palette (by discarding cards from one of the palette areas to clear it), Earn a Technique Card (by discarding two like-cards from the hand of cards in order to score more VP for painting features in the future), or Paint a Feature (by discarding the required brush from the player’s hand of cards and the correct matching paints already applied to their palette).
Once complete, the next player will take their turn of rolling the die and completing three actions. Should players paint a feature on the panel before Bob moves to that spot on the panel the player(s) will gain extra bonus Chill points. Players may still paint features for points if Bob already has as well, they just will not receive the bonus Bob points. Turns will continue in this fashion until the moment one player has reached ultimate Chill and won the game.
Components. This game has a fair amount of components and I am happy to say they are all great! The cardboard components (palettes, score board) are good. The cards are all lovely linen-finished. The other player components are fine as well. The painting panels are excellent and feature actual Bob Ross masterpieces, and there are 15 double-sided panels in the box! The coolest component is certainly the easel though. It seems to be a somewhat real and functional easel (not that you would really want to paint on it) and it amps up the table appeal when setup and in play. I love the components and I am so glad that Big G Creative made a Bob Ross game with beautiful components. Anything less would be sacrilege.
It probably comes as no surprise that I love this game. I have always loved watching Bob Ross from when I was a child even up through my adulthood and I am relieved to be able to still watch him in action via Netflix. The game, though, is rather surprising. I certainly wasn’t expecting to like this as much as I do and was quite shocked to find out that there was actual substance in a Bob Ross game. Especially when it was stationed next to “games” like Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, Throw Throw Burrito, and the like. I enjoy the nostalgia in seeing my favorite colors in my hands like Phthalo Blue, Cadmium Orange, and Sap Green.
I don’t know if I would really consider this a gateway game, though I believe it really depends on the gamers with whom you are playing. There will be many times when you are concentrating on collecting the colors needed to finish a feature before Bob only to frustratingly never see that color on offer nor in the cards you draw and then the painting has to be refreshed because people can’t seem to stop rolling Bob on the die. However, if you play with people who can literally chill when things don’t go their way, this is a gem. Purple Phoenix Games gives Bob Ross: Art of Chill a 21 / 24. The only thing missing here is a way to, “beat the devil out of it,” and it would make my heart sing.
Bob Ross: Art of Chill is a set collection, hand management, card drafting game that has its players attempting to complete masterful paintings before the master does in order to collect bonus “chill points” to win the game. Whomever manages to reach ultimate chill status will be victorious and can return to feeding Peapod, their rascally pocket squirrel.
To setup, place the easel and one of the shuffled painting panels upon it. Place the other panels (paintings) nearby. Place the main scoreboard nearby as well and place the shuffled Chill Cards on its space upon the board. The Technique Cards deck and the Art Supplies Card decks will be shuffled separately and placed below the board with four cards from each deck revealed as an offer. Place the Bob Mover (Bobeeple) on the easel in the first location printed on the panel. Each player will receive a palette, the scoring cube of their color to be placed on the scoreboard, the three Feature Markers, and three random Art Supplies Cards. The game may now begin!
On a turn players will be rolling the Bob die and carrying out its action. These actions are playing a paint card from hand onto their palette, drawing one Art Supplies Card from the deck to their hand, performing one free Action prior to the Action phase, or resolving the Bob die face. The Bob die face requires players to reveal a new Chill Card and resolve its immediate effects, or effects that will remain in play until a new Chill Card is revealed. Secondly, the Bobeeple will move to the next printed stopping point on the panel.
Once the die has been rolled and resolved, the active player will be able to take any three actions available in any order: Draw an Art Supplies Card (from the deck or from the offer), Sweep the Art Supplies Card (discard all face-up cards and reveal four new ones), Apply Paint to Your Palette (by placing it on your palette from your hand of cards), Wash Your Palette (by discarding cards from one of the palette areas to clear it), Earn a Technique Card (by discarding two like-cards from the hand of cards in order to score more VP for painting features in the future), or Paint a Feature (by discarding the required brush from the player’s hand of cards and the correct matching paints already applied to their palette).
Once complete, the next player will take their turn of rolling the die and completing three actions. Should players paint a feature on the panel before Bob moves to that spot on the panel the player(s) will gain extra bonus Chill points. Players may still paint features for points if Bob already has as well, they just will not receive the bonus Bob points. Turns will continue in this fashion until the moment one player has reached ultimate Chill and won the game.
Components. This game has a fair amount of components and I am happy to say they are all great! The cardboard components (palettes, score board) are good. The cards are all lovely linen-finished. The other player components are fine as well. The painting panels are excellent and feature actual Bob Ross masterpieces, and there are 15 double-sided panels in the box! The coolest component is certainly the easel though. It seems to be a somewhat real and functional easel (not that you would really want to paint on it) and it amps up the table appeal when setup and in play. I love the components and I am so glad that Big G Creative made a Bob Ross game with beautiful components. Anything less would be sacrilege.
It probably comes as no surprise that I love this game. I have always loved watching Bob Ross from when I was a child even up through my adulthood and I am relieved to be able to still watch him in action via Netflix. The game, though, is rather surprising. I certainly wasn’t expecting to like this as much as I do and was quite shocked to find out that there was actual substance in a Bob Ross game. Especially when it was stationed next to “games” like Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, Throw Throw Burrito, and the like. I enjoy the nostalgia in seeing my favorite colors in my hands like Phthalo Blue, Cadmium Orange, and Sap Green.
I don’t know if I would really consider this a gateway game, though I believe it really depends on the gamers with whom you are playing. There will be many times when you are concentrating on collecting the colors needed to finish a feature before Bob only to frustratingly never see that color on offer nor in the cards you draw and then the painting has to be refreshed because people can’t seem to stop rolling Bob on the die. However, if you play with people who can literally chill when things don’t go their way, this is a gem. Purple Phoenix Games gives Bob Ross: Art of Chill a 21 / 24. The only thing missing here is a way to, “beat the devil out of it,” and it would make my heart sing.
Purple Phoenix Games (2266 KP) rated Top Pop in Tabletop Games
Jul 22, 2021
THANK YOU, TALON STRIKES STUDIOS! I recently moved from Illinois to Tennessee (where things are mostly “Coke”) and I have always grown up calling soft drinks “pop,” so when I saw a group was creating a game using the proper terminology, I jumped at the chance. Stackable bottlecaps AND a bidding mechanic? I’m so in. This may not be everyone’s jam, but it’s working for me!
Top Pop is a 2-5 player (well, I would say 3-5) card game of market penetration and territory influence. In it, players are representatives of rival pop manufacturers bent on skyrocketing their company’s popularity in various major cities across the country. The winning rep is they who can diversify their influence and hit influential cities hard and often.
DISCLAIMER: We were provided a prototype copy of this game for the purposes of this review. These are preview copy components, and I do not know for sure if the final components will be any different from these shown. Also, it is not my intention to detail every rule in the game, as there are just too many. You are invited to download the rulebook, back the game through the Kickstarter campaign, or through any retailers stocking it after fulfillment. -T
To setup a game of Top Pop, refer to the rulebook to determine the starting resources per number of players. Each game is setup differently depending on how many players are involved. Shuffle the deck of city cards, and if using the optional City Power or Scenario variants, place these cards on the table for all to access as well. Each player chooses a color, receives the appropriate starting resources and the game is ready to begin!
On the active player’s turn, they will complete the following steps: Collect City Cards, Play a City Card, Take Caps, Place Stacks, and then Draw a Card. The first turn of the game Collect City Cards is skipped, but after that, each card the active player owns the largest stack of tops on they will collect. Caps that were stacked on the card are redistributed depending on where the card was placed (in front of the active player or a rival player). Next, the player will Play a City Card from their hand either in front of themselves or in front of a rival player. This is an important step to consider because once a card has been claimed then caps are distributed according to card placement, as referenced in the first step. Also noteworthy here is that if a card is placed in front of a rival, the active player takes one of said rival’s caps (Take Caps) from the bank of caps in the middle of table as well as a cap of the active player’s choice.
Now that the active player presumably has some caps with which to play, they Place Stacks on any City Card(s) they wish. The stacks of caps need to be the tallest stack on the card, must include a cap of the same color of the player who currently owns the highest stack, and must also be topped with a cap of the active player’s color. Any amount of caps may be added to a City Card in order to achieve these requirements, and the active player may place stacks on any number of City Cards in play. Once the active player has placed all caps they wish, they must then Draw a Card and prepare for their next turn.
As City Cards are played, caps placed out in stacks, and players winning bids on cards, players are jockeying for endgame points. The game ends after a player collects their sixth City Card and every other player has a chance to spend their remaining caps to claim cards. At the end of the game, points are awarded for having simple majority in each city as well as points for collecting a more diversified set of City Cards. The player with the most points scored at the end of the game wins!
Components. Again, this is a prototype copy of the game, so components are in no way final. Most notably, the final copies of Top Pop will include nice plastic stackable bottlecaps that look way better than the painted wooden discs (which for a prototype, are actually quite nice). The City Cards look and feel complete to me, and are pretty impressive. I like the art quite a bit and the game’s style is spot on. I am very excited to see how this one ends up, and I think gamers will love handling the finished bottlecaps.
There is a lot going on here that is hard to put into words. I played this solely three-player and included the City Powers with a few Scenarios (Kickstarter exclusives, I understand). I found the base game to be very good, but adding in those optional rules really makes it pop for me (I know you saw what I did there). Every player is constantly engaged throughout, and the tactical play always has me considering tons of options. I would not necessarily want to play this with extremely AP-prone players, but it is quick enough to include them as well from time to time.
What I like most about Top Pop, in addition to the overall aesthetic (even in the prototype), is the tactics in watching what other players are collecting, where the cards are placed, and cross-referencing all that with your personal bottlecap economy. There are just so many things to consider on each turn that makes me hungry for more and more plays. I say this a lot, but when I think about a game and ways I would attack it differently outside of the game session, that is a mark of a great game to me. And this one is a great game to me.
If you are looking for a uniquely-themed bidding card game with (promised) excellent components, I urge you to check out the Kickstarter campaign, which ends August 7, 2021. And on a personal note, I’m so excited to have both Chicago and New Orleans in this game. Two of my favorite cities in the world!
Top Pop is a 2-5 player (well, I would say 3-5) card game of market penetration and territory influence. In it, players are representatives of rival pop manufacturers bent on skyrocketing their company’s popularity in various major cities across the country. The winning rep is they who can diversify their influence and hit influential cities hard and often.
DISCLAIMER: We were provided a prototype copy of this game for the purposes of this review. These are preview copy components, and I do not know for sure if the final components will be any different from these shown. Also, it is not my intention to detail every rule in the game, as there are just too many. You are invited to download the rulebook, back the game through the Kickstarter campaign, or through any retailers stocking it after fulfillment. -T
To setup a game of Top Pop, refer to the rulebook to determine the starting resources per number of players. Each game is setup differently depending on how many players are involved. Shuffle the deck of city cards, and if using the optional City Power or Scenario variants, place these cards on the table for all to access as well. Each player chooses a color, receives the appropriate starting resources and the game is ready to begin!
On the active player’s turn, they will complete the following steps: Collect City Cards, Play a City Card, Take Caps, Place Stacks, and then Draw a Card. The first turn of the game Collect City Cards is skipped, but after that, each card the active player owns the largest stack of tops on they will collect. Caps that were stacked on the card are redistributed depending on where the card was placed (in front of the active player or a rival player). Next, the player will Play a City Card from their hand either in front of themselves or in front of a rival player. This is an important step to consider because once a card has been claimed then caps are distributed according to card placement, as referenced in the first step. Also noteworthy here is that if a card is placed in front of a rival, the active player takes one of said rival’s caps (Take Caps) from the bank of caps in the middle of table as well as a cap of the active player’s choice.
Now that the active player presumably has some caps with which to play, they Place Stacks on any City Card(s) they wish. The stacks of caps need to be the tallest stack on the card, must include a cap of the same color of the player who currently owns the highest stack, and must also be topped with a cap of the active player’s color. Any amount of caps may be added to a City Card in order to achieve these requirements, and the active player may place stacks on any number of City Cards in play. Once the active player has placed all caps they wish, they must then Draw a Card and prepare for their next turn.
As City Cards are played, caps placed out in stacks, and players winning bids on cards, players are jockeying for endgame points. The game ends after a player collects their sixth City Card and every other player has a chance to spend their remaining caps to claim cards. At the end of the game, points are awarded for having simple majority in each city as well as points for collecting a more diversified set of City Cards. The player with the most points scored at the end of the game wins!
Components. Again, this is a prototype copy of the game, so components are in no way final. Most notably, the final copies of Top Pop will include nice plastic stackable bottlecaps that look way better than the painted wooden discs (which for a prototype, are actually quite nice). The City Cards look and feel complete to me, and are pretty impressive. I like the art quite a bit and the game’s style is spot on. I am very excited to see how this one ends up, and I think gamers will love handling the finished bottlecaps.
There is a lot going on here that is hard to put into words. I played this solely three-player and included the City Powers with a few Scenarios (Kickstarter exclusives, I understand). I found the base game to be very good, but adding in those optional rules really makes it pop for me (I know you saw what I did there). Every player is constantly engaged throughout, and the tactical play always has me considering tons of options. I would not necessarily want to play this with extremely AP-prone players, but it is quick enough to include them as well from time to time.
What I like most about Top Pop, in addition to the overall aesthetic (even in the prototype), is the tactics in watching what other players are collecting, where the cards are placed, and cross-referencing all that with your personal bottlecap economy. There are just so many things to consider on each turn that makes me hungry for more and more plays. I say this a lot, but when I think about a game and ways I would attack it differently outside of the game session, that is a mark of a great game to me. And this one is a great game to me.
If you are looking for a uniquely-themed bidding card game with (promised) excellent components, I urge you to check out the Kickstarter campaign, which ends August 7, 2021. And on a personal note, I’m so excited to have both Chicago and New Orleans in this game. Two of my favorite cities in the world!
Bob Mann (459 KP) rated Avengers: Endgame (2019) in Movies
Sep 28, 2021
The final curtain.
So… thanks again to work and family commitments, I’ve spent 7 days dodging social media to arrive at my showing of “Endgame” spoiler free… and was successful in doing so! It is of course impossible to write just about anything on this film without dropping spoilers. So I will keep this first part of the review short, but add some footnotes (indexed with <#> symbols) to a “spoiler section” below the trailer video. Proceed at your peril if you haven’t yet seen it!
The Plot
The MCU has delivered an impressively well-connected movie series. In the case of Thanos, this is a story-arc that started in the mid-credit “monkey” at the end of 2012’s “The Avengers” and, at the conclusion of “Avengers: Infinity War”, saw half the universe’s population drift away – Voldemort-style – into grey ash. This, of course, also wiped out half of our heroes (good trivia question for future years: who was the first we saw drift away? Answer below* ). This included Spider-Man (Tom Holland); Dr Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch); Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman); Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson); half of the remaining Guardians; The Wasp (Evangeline Lilly) and Dr Pym (Michael Douglas). Oblivious to all of this is Ant Man (Paul Rudd), still stranded in the ‘quantum realm’ following the demise of his colleagues, and with no one to flick the ‘return’ switch.
After some early action, Endgame’s story revolves around a desperate attempt by the remaining Avengers, led by Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and a ‘retired’ Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jnr) to undo the undoable. Can they succeed against all the odds? (With a new Spider-Man film due out in the summer, I’ll give you a guess!). Of more relevance perhaps is whether the team can stay unscathed from their encounter with the scheming and massively powerful Thanos (Josh Brolin)?
Thoughtful
The film will not be to every fan’s taste. After the virtually non-stop rip-roaring action of “Infinity War”, “Endgame” takes a far more contemplative approach to its first hour.
The film starts with a devastating prologue, and a great lesson in statistics: that you need a decent sized population to guarantee getting a 50:50 split! There is also a very surprising twist in the first 15 minutes or so that I didn’t see coming AT ALL.
But then things settle down into a far more sombre section of the film: short on action; long on character development. The world is grieving for its loss, unable to move on past the non-stop counselling sessions that everyone is getting. This first hour was, for me, by far, my favourite part of the film. Seeing how the characters we know and love have been impacted – some for better rather than for worse – was terrific. Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk (with a rather glib plot-point) takes on an hilarious new aspect; and Chris Hemsworth adds hugely comedic value as Thor, setting up in Scotland a “New Asgard” settlement in uncharacteristically laid-back fashion.
Cast
As an ensemble cast, everyone plays their parts extremely well. But it is just the breadth of the cast that astounds in this film: just about everyone who is anyone in the Marvel Universe – at least, those who are still alive (alive!) and not dead (dead!) – pop up for an appearance! This is great fun with, in one particular case, the opportunity to try some more rejuvenation of an old timer as previously done with Samuel L. Jackson in “Captain Marvel”.
Inevitably, some of these appearances are overly brief, and characters that I wanted to see developed more in this film (particularly Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel) get very little screen time. Drax (Dave Bautista) and Mantis (Pom Klementieff) barely get a single line each. So it will depend on where your loyalties lie as to whether you are satisfied with the coverage or not. (I personally find Chris Evans‘ Captain America a bit of a po-faced bore, so I wasn’t keen on the amount of screen time he had).
Stan Lee again gets another cameo in the bag before his demise: will this actually be his last live one?
Overall view
I enjoyed this movie. It could obviously NEVER live up to the over-hyped expectations of the fan base. But as a cinematic spectacle, for me, it delivered on its billing as a blockbuster finale, but one filled with a degree of nuance I was not expecting. The problem with the way that the plot have been structured (no spoilers – <#>) is that it is easy to pick holes in the storyline. Indeed, some dramatic options (that to me seemed obvious ones to ‘mine’) were left ‘unmined’ <##>; others were left inexplicably hanging <###>.
I suspect the reason for some of this is that the initial cut of this film probably ran to 5 hours rather than the – still bladder-testing – 3 hours as released. There were probably a bunch of scenes left on the cutting room floor that might allow things to make more sense in the extended BluRay release.
It’s at times slow, but for me never dull. It does suffer from one significant flaw though: the “Return of the King” disease. It doesn’t know when to quit. There was a natural MCU arc to follow and a perfect time at which to end it: but the directors (the Russo Brothers, Anthony Russo and Joe Russo) kept adding additional scenes that detracted from the natural ending <####>.
Above all, unlike I think all but one film in MCU history, there is NO “MONKEY” in the end credits: either mid-credit or end-credit! So, after the long title crawl (and some rather odd choices for end-title music by Alan Silvestri), if you are not to look bloody stupid as the lights come up, and face a storm of derision from your partner, then leave after the dramatic roll-call sequence of the film’s stars!
(*BTW, the answer to the trivia question is, I believe, Bucky.)
So… thanks again to work and family commitments, I’ve spent 7 days dodging social media to arrive at my showing of “Endgame” spoiler free… and was successful in doing so! It is of course impossible to write just about anything on this film without dropping spoilers. So I will keep this first part of the review short, but add some footnotes (indexed with <#> symbols) to a “spoiler section” below the trailer video. Proceed at your peril if you haven’t yet seen it!
The Plot
The MCU has delivered an impressively well-connected movie series. In the case of Thanos, this is a story-arc that started in the mid-credit “monkey” at the end of 2012’s “The Avengers” and, at the conclusion of “Avengers: Infinity War”, saw half the universe’s population drift away – Voldemort-style – into grey ash. This, of course, also wiped out half of our heroes (good trivia question for future years: who was the first we saw drift away? Answer below* ). This included Spider-Man (Tom Holland); Dr Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch); Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman); Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson); half of the remaining Guardians; The Wasp (Evangeline Lilly) and Dr Pym (Michael Douglas). Oblivious to all of this is Ant Man (Paul Rudd), still stranded in the ‘quantum realm’ following the demise of his colleagues, and with no one to flick the ‘return’ switch.
After some early action, Endgame’s story revolves around a desperate attempt by the remaining Avengers, led by Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and a ‘retired’ Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jnr) to undo the undoable. Can they succeed against all the odds? (With a new Spider-Man film due out in the summer, I’ll give you a guess!). Of more relevance perhaps is whether the team can stay unscathed from their encounter with the scheming and massively powerful Thanos (Josh Brolin)?
Thoughtful
The film will not be to every fan’s taste. After the virtually non-stop rip-roaring action of “Infinity War”, “Endgame” takes a far more contemplative approach to its first hour.
The film starts with a devastating prologue, and a great lesson in statistics: that you need a decent sized population to guarantee getting a 50:50 split! There is also a very surprising twist in the first 15 minutes or so that I didn’t see coming AT ALL.
But then things settle down into a far more sombre section of the film: short on action; long on character development. The world is grieving for its loss, unable to move on past the non-stop counselling sessions that everyone is getting. This first hour was, for me, by far, my favourite part of the film. Seeing how the characters we know and love have been impacted – some for better rather than for worse – was terrific. Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk (with a rather glib plot-point) takes on an hilarious new aspect; and Chris Hemsworth adds hugely comedic value as Thor, setting up in Scotland a “New Asgard” settlement in uncharacteristically laid-back fashion.
Cast
As an ensemble cast, everyone plays their parts extremely well. But it is just the breadth of the cast that astounds in this film: just about everyone who is anyone in the Marvel Universe – at least, those who are still alive (alive!) and not dead (dead!) – pop up for an appearance! This is great fun with, in one particular case, the opportunity to try some more rejuvenation of an old timer as previously done with Samuel L. Jackson in “Captain Marvel”.
Inevitably, some of these appearances are overly brief, and characters that I wanted to see developed more in this film (particularly Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel) get very little screen time. Drax (Dave Bautista) and Mantis (Pom Klementieff) barely get a single line each. So it will depend on where your loyalties lie as to whether you are satisfied with the coverage or not. (I personally find Chris Evans‘ Captain America a bit of a po-faced bore, so I wasn’t keen on the amount of screen time he had).
Stan Lee again gets another cameo in the bag before his demise: will this actually be his last live one?
Overall view
I enjoyed this movie. It could obviously NEVER live up to the over-hyped expectations of the fan base. But as a cinematic spectacle, for me, it delivered on its billing as a blockbuster finale, but one filled with a degree of nuance I was not expecting. The problem with the way that the plot have been structured (no spoilers – <#>) is that it is easy to pick holes in the storyline. Indeed, some dramatic options (that to me seemed obvious ones to ‘mine’) were left ‘unmined’ <##>; others were left inexplicably hanging <###>.
I suspect the reason for some of this is that the initial cut of this film probably ran to 5 hours rather than the – still bladder-testing – 3 hours as released. There were probably a bunch of scenes left on the cutting room floor that might allow things to make more sense in the extended BluRay release.
It’s at times slow, but for me never dull. It does suffer from one significant flaw though: the “Return of the King” disease. It doesn’t know when to quit. There was a natural MCU arc to follow and a perfect time at which to end it: but the directors (the Russo Brothers, Anthony Russo and Joe Russo) kept adding additional scenes that detracted from the natural ending <####>.
Above all, unlike I think all but one film in MCU history, there is NO “MONKEY” in the end credits: either mid-credit or end-credit! So, after the long title crawl (and some rather odd choices for end-title music by Alan Silvestri), if you are not to look bloody stupid as the lights come up, and face a storm of derision from your partner, then leave after the dramatic roll-call sequence of the film’s stars!
(*BTW, the answer to the trivia question is, I believe, Bucky.)
Bob Mann (459 KP) rated Mary Poppins Returns (2018) in Movies
Sep 28, 2021
A valiant attempt to recreate a masterpiece.
How do you repaint a masterpiece: the Mona Lisa of children’s fantasy cinema? Some would say “You shouldn’t try”.
As I’ve said before, Mary Poppins was the first film I saw when it came out (or soon afterwards) at a very impressionable age…. I was said to have bawled my eyes out with “THE MAGIC NANNY IS GOING AWAY!!” as Julie Andrews floated off! So as my last cinema trip of 2018 I went to see this sequel, 54 years after the original, with a sense of dread. I’m relieved to say that although the film has its flaws it’s by no means the disaster I envisaged.
The plot
It’s a fairly lightweight story. Now all grown up, young Michael from the original film (Ben Whishaw) has his own family. His troubles though come not singly but in battalions since not only is he grieving a recent loss but he is also about to be evicted from 17 Cherry Tree Lane. Help is at hand in that his father, George Banks, had shares with the Fidelity Fiduciary Bank. But despite their best efforts neither he, his sister Jane (Emily Mortimer) nor their chirpy “strike a light” lamplighter friend Jack (Lin-Manuel Miranda) can find the all-important share certificates. With the deadline from bank manager Wilkins (Colin Firth) approaching, it’s fortuitous that Mary Poppins (Emily Blunt) drops in to look after the Banks children – John (Nathanael Saleh), Anabel (Pixie Davies) and Georgie (Joel Dawson) – in her own inimitable fashion.
Songs that are more Meh-ry Poppins
I know musical taste is very personal. My biggest problem with the film though was that the songs by Marc Shaiman were, to me, on the lacklustre side. Only one jumped out and struck me: the jaunty vaudeville number “A Cover is not the Book”. Elsewhere they were – to me – unmemorable and nowhere near as catchy as those of “The Greatest Showman“. (What amplified this for me was having some of the classic Sherman-brothers themes woven into the soundtrack that just made me realise what I was missing!) Richard M Sherman – now 90 – was credited with “Music Consultant” but I wonder how much input he actually had?
The other flaws
Another issue I had with the film was that it just tried WAAYYY too hard to tick off the key attributes of the original:
‘Mary in the mirror’ – check
‘Bottomless carpet bag’ – check
‘Initial fun in the nursery’ – check
‘Quirky trip to a cartoon land’ – check
‘Dance on the ceiling with a quirky relative’ – check
‘Chirpy chimney sweeps’ – check (“Er… Mr Marshall… we couldn’t get chimney sweeps… will lamplighters do?” “Yeah, good enough”)
Another thing that struck me about the film – particularly as a film aimed at kids – is just how long it is. At 2 hours and 10 minutes it’s a bladder-testing experience for adults let alone younger children. (It’s worth noting that this is still 9 minutes shorter than the original, but back in the 60’s we had FAR fewer options to be stimulated by entertainment and our attention spans were – I think – much longer as a result!)
What it does get right
But with this whinging aside, the film does get a number of things spit-spot on.
Emily Blunt is near perfection as Poppins. (In the interests of balance my wife found her bizarrely clipped accent very grating, but I suspect P.L. Travers would have approved!). Broadway star Lin-Manuel Miranda also does a good job as Jack, although you wonder whether the ‘society of cockney actors’ must again be in a big grump about the casting! I found Emily Mortimer just delightful as the grown-up Jane, although Ben Whishaw‘s Michael didn’t particularly connect with me.
Almost unrecognisable was David Warner as the now wheelchair-bound Admiral Boom. His first mate is none other than Jim Norton of “Father Ted” Bishop Brennan fame (thanks to my daughter Jenn for pointing that one out)!
Also watch out (I’d largely missed it before I realised!) for a nice pavement cameo by Karen Dotrice, the original Jane, asking directions to number 19 Cherry Tree Lane.
What the film also gets right is to implement the old-school animation of the “Jolly Holidays” segment of the original. That’s a really smart move. Filmed at Shepperton Studios in London, this is once again a great advert for Britain’s film technicians. The London sets and the costumes (by the great Sandy Powell) are just superb.
Some cameo cherries on the cake
Finally, the aces in the hole are the two cameos near the end of the film. And they would have been lovely surprises as well since neither name appears in the opening credits. It’s therefore a CRYING SHAME that they chose to let the cat out of the bag in the trailer (BLOODY MARKETING EXECS!). In case you haven’t seen the trailer, I won’t spoil it for you here. But as a magical movie experience the first of those cameos moved me close to tears. He also delivers a hum-dinger of a plot twist that is a genuinely welcome crossover from the first film.
Final Thoughts
Rob Marshall directs, and with a pretty impossible task he delivers an end-product that, while it didn’t completely thrill me, did well not to trash my delicate hopes and dreams either. Having just listened to Kermode and Mayo’s review (and it seems that Mark Kermode places Poppins on a similar pedestal to me) the songs (and therefore the “Place Where Lost Things Go” song) just didn’t resonate with me in the same way, and so, unlike Kermode, I mentally never bridged the gap to safely enjoying it.
But what we all think is secondary. Because if some three or four year old out there gets a similarly lifelong love of the cinema by watching this, then that’s all that matters.
As I’ve said before, Mary Poppins was the first film I saw when it came out (or soon afterwards) at a very impressionable age…. I was said to have bawled my eyes out with “THE MAGIC NANNY IS GOING AWAY!!” as Julie Andrews floated off! So as my last cinema trip of 2018 I went to see this sequel, 54 years after the original, with a sense of dread. I’m relieved to say that although the film has its flaws it’s by no means the disaster I envisaged.
The plot
It’s a fairly lightweight story. Now all grown up, young Michael from the original film (Ben Whishaw) has his own family. His troubles though come not singly but in battalions since not only is he grieving a recent loss but he is also about to be evicted from 17 Cherry Tree Lane. Help is at hand in that his father, George Banks, had shares with the Fidelity Fiduciary Bank. But despite their best efforts neither he, his sister Jane (Emily Mortimer) nor their chirpy “strike a light” lamplighter friend Jack (Lin-Manuel Miranda) can find the all-important share certificates. With the deadline from bank manager Wilkins (Colin Firth) approaching, it’s fortuitous that Mary Poppins (Emily Blunt) drops in to look after the Banks children – John (Nathanael Saleh), Anabel (Pixie Davies) and Georgie (Joel Dawson) – in her own inimitable fashion.
Songs that are more Meh-ry Poppins
I know musical taste is very personal. My biggest problem with the film though was that the songs by Marc Shaiman were, to me, on the lacklustre side. Only one jumped out and struck me: the jaunty vaudeville number “A Cover is not the Book”. Elsewhere they were – to me – unmemorable and nowhere near as catchy as those of “The Greatest Showman“. (What amplified this for me was having some of the classic Sherman-brothers themes woven into the soundtrack that just made me realise what I was missing!) Richard M Sherman – now 90 – was credited with “Music Consultant” but I wonder how much input he actually had?
The other flaws
Another issue I had with the film was that it just tried WAAYYY too hard to tick off the key attributes of the original:
‘Mary in the mirror’ – check
‘Bottomless carpet bag’ – check
‘Initial fun in the nursery’ – check
‘Quirky trip to a cartoon land’ – check
‘Dance on the ceiling with a quirky relative’ – check
‘Chirpy chimney sweeps’ – check (“Er… Mr Marshall… we couldn’t get chimney sweeps… will lamplighters do?” “Yeah, good enough”)
Another thing that struck me about the film – particularly as a film aimed at kids – is just how long it is. At 2 hours and 10 minutes it’s a bladder-testing experience for adults let alone younger children. (It’s worth noting that this is still 9 minutes shorter than the original, but back in the 60’s we had FAR fewer options to be stimulated by entertainment and our attention spans were – I think – much longer as a result!)
What it does get right
But with this whinging aside, the film does get a number of things spit-spot on.
Emily Blunt is near perfection as Poppins. (In the interests of balance my wife found her bizarrely clipped accent very grating, but I suspect P.L. Travers would have approved!). Broadway star Lin-Manuel Miranda also does a good job as Jack, although you wonder whether the ‘society of cockney actors’ must again be in a big grump about the casting! I found Emily Mortimer just delightful as the grown-up Jane, although Ben Whishaw‘s Michael didn’t particularly connect with me.
Almost unrecognisable was David Warner as the now wheelchair-bound Admiral Boom. His first mate is none other than Jim Norton of “Father Ted” Bishop Brennan fame (thanks to my daughter Jenn for pointing that one out)!
Also watch out (I’d largely missed it before I realised!) for a nice pavement cameo by Karen Dotrice, the original Jane, asking directions to number 19 Cherry Tree Lane.
What the film also gets right is to implement the old-school animation of the “Jolly Holidays” segment of the original. That’s a really smart move. Filmed at Shepperton Studios in London, this is once again a great advert for Britain’s film technicians. The London sets and the costumes (by the great Sandy Powell) are just superb.
Some cameo cherries on the cake
Finally, the aces in the hole are the two cameos near the end of the film. And they would have been lovely surprises as well since neither name appears in the opening credits. It’s therefore a CRYING SHAME that they chose to let the cat out of the bag in the trailer (BLOODY MARKETING EXECS!). In case you haven’t seen the trailer, I won’t spoil it for you here. But as a magical movie experience the first of those cameos moved me close to tears. He also delivers a hum-dinger of a plot twist that is a genuinely welcome crossover from the first film.
Final Thoughts
Rob Marshall directs, and with a pretty impossible task he delivers an end-product that, while it didn’t completely thrill me, did well not to trash my delicate hopes and dreams either. Having just listened to Kermode and Mayo’s review (and it seems that Mark Kermode places Poppins on a similar pedestal to me) the songs (and therefore the “Place Where Lost Things Go” song) just didn’t resonate with me in the same way, and so, unlike Kermode, I mentally never bridged the gap to safely enjoying it.
But what we all think is secondary. Because if some three or four year old out there gets a similarly lifelong love of the cinema by watching this, then that’s all that matters.
Daniel Boyd (1066 KP) rated Hitman in Video Games
Oct 19, 2017 (Updated Oct 19, 2017)
Solid mechanics. (1 more)
Allows for player experimentation.
Story is garbage. (1 more)
Lack of cohesion.
Episodic Bloodshed
Before diving in, I feel like I should preface this review by pointing out that although this Hitman game was released episodically over the course of eight months, I bought the entire season digitally and played through all 6 levels consecutively. The main reason being; I am a big fan of the Hitman series, but wasn’t onboard with the stunted release schedule trend that this game was adhering to.
You can look at this game in two different ways. If you accept it as an adaption of the Hitman games that have preceded it, presented in a new format type for a new audience, then it’s great and it totally achieves what it set out to do. If like me, you were hoping for something more like the PS2 era games in the series, you will most likely be disappointed. Whether you love or loathe this new way that Hitman is being presented to us, I think it’s fair to say that it is certainly different to what we are used to.
At this point, after playing through the entire game over the last month or so, I have learned to accept it for what it is and came to the conclusion that it’s not the Hitman I remember from my preteen days and that’s okay. It is a different take on the series’ traditional underlying themes and mechanics, updated for a modern audience and even as a die hard, old school fan of the franchise, I can appreciate that.
My favourite thing about this game is that it allows you, as the player, to decide on the level of respect the game treats you with. What I mean by that is, if you have never touched a Hitman game, or even a stealth game before, this is a fantastic starting point. If you are looking for a my-first-premeditated-murder-simulator experience, this is the best recommendation I can think of. Just buy the entire season, boot up the game, play through each stage in order and on normal difficulty and follow the step by step prompts to take down each target. If you play this way, the game ends up functioning as a Wiki-how for any of the past games in the series and can even be used to train you to be better at stealth games in general. However, if you consider yourself a more of a hardcore, matter-of-fact assassin and want the most immersive and unencumbered version of the experience, you can totally have that also.
I know that it isn’t a popular opinion, but I enjoyed my time with Absolution, (the previous entry in the franchise,) however I agree with the overall belief that that game didn’t know what it wanted to be. This latest Hitman game knows exactly what it wants to be and executes what it sets out to do beautifully. Even if you aren’t a fan of the new way this game plays out, it is irrefutable to say that it doesn’t confidently accomplish its intention.
In addition, the technical elements of the game are fairly solid also. The gameplay is precise but fun, the gameplay graphics are pretty nice to look at and the cut-scene graphics are almost photorealistic. The level design functions well to compliment the tasks that you are assigned meaning, the use of lighting and strategic placement of weapons and items etc doesn’t seem too out of place. I experienced some cosmetic glitches and clipping during my time with the game, but never anything game-breaking. The only technical issue that severely hindered my experience was the online connectivity, or lack thereof. I can recall multiple times where I was in the middle of choosing my custom loadout before endeavouring on my next mission, only to be kicked out of the menu halfway through and told that connectivity to the server had been lost. This grew tedious after around the tenth time it happened and more than once caused me to put the controller down and stop playing for the night as multiple attempts to re-establish a connection were in vain.
Lastly, the story is unfortunately unremarkable; it is just a heartless, tacked on excuse for you to move from one setting to the next, but it functions as a justification for 47 to travel to the various locations where the missions take place. The only other downside to this experience was the feel of the game. This criticism is hard to put into words, but in the six missions; the process going in and out of each location as smoothly as possible, coupled with the focus on gameplay mechanics and the lack of cohesiveness to the story makes for a disjointed experience that I don’t think will stay with me over a significant amount of time other than thinking back and saying, “that stealth game had some really well implemented mechanics.” I don’t think that I will ever feel any real nostalgia for this game, nor will it stand out in my mind for anything other than its technical elements. Although the locations are vast and the opportunities the player can take advantage of are numerous, the game feels brief and somewhat unfinished once you complete it. You really get the feeling of this being part of an ongoing series, rather than a solid standalone game. The lack of any definitive beginning, middle and end sections to the game makes it feel rather unsatisfying once you reach the climax and causes the game overall to be more of a mesh of various missions clumsily thrown together, rather than a progressive chapter it 47’s career. The game I played immediately before Hitman, was Nier: Automata and that game managed to have both solid mechanics and some heart within it too. I know that 47 is supposed to be a cold, calculated, heartless killer, but that doesn’t mean that the games he stars in have to be heartless as well.
Overall, this is a solid stealth game and there is a lot of fun to be had here. Just know going in, if you are a long time Hitman fan, some things are going to be different. That doesn’t mean they will necessarily be bad, but you will certainly see a new spin being put on the tried and tested mechanics of past game in the franchise. If this is your first stealth game, then I would say that there is no better introduction into the genre, especially if you use the Opportunities menu. Unfortunately though, it does seem more like a variation of well made parts, rather than a solid, cohesive whole.
You can look at this game in two different ways. If you accept it as an adaption of the Hitman games that have preceded it, presented in a new format type for a new audience, then it’s great and it totally achieves what it set out to do. If like me, you were hoping for something more like the PS2 era games in the series, you will most likely be disappointed. Whether you love or loathe this new way that Hitman is being presented to us, I think it’s fair to say that it is certainly different to what we are used to.
At this point, after playing through the entire game over the last month or so, I have learned to accept it for what it is and came to the conclusion that it’s not the Hitman I remember from my preteen days and that’s okay. It is a different take on the series’ traditional underlying themes and mechanics, updated for a modern audience and even as a die hard, old school fan of the franchise, I can appreciate that.
My favourite thing about this game is that it allows you, as the player, to decide on the level of respect the game treats you with. What I mean by that is, if you have never touched a Hitman game, or even a stealth game before, this is a fantastic starting point. If you are looking for a my-first-premeditated-murder-simulator experience, this is the best recommendation I can think of. Just buy the entire season, boot up the game, play through each stage in order and on normal difficulty and follow the step by step prompts to take down each target. If you play this way, the game ends up functioning as a Wiki-how for any of the past games in the series and can even be used to train you to be better at stealth games in general. However, if you consider yourself a more of a hardcore, matter-of-fact assassin and want the most immersive and unencumbered version of the experience, you can totally have that also.
I know that it isn’t a popular opinion, but I enjoyed my time with Absolution, (the previous entry in the franchise,) however I agree with the overall belief that that game didn’t know what it wanted to be. This latest Hitman game knows exactly what it wants to be and executes what it sets out to do beautifully. Even if you aren’t a fan of the new way this game plays out, it is irrefutable to say that it doesn’t confidently accomplish its intention.
In addition, the technical elements of the game are fairly solid also. The gameplay is precise but fun, the gameplay graphics are pretty nice to look at and the cut-scene graphics are almost photorealistic. The level design functions well to compliment the tasks that you are assigned meaning, the use of lighting and strategic placement of weapons and items etc doesn’t seem too out of place. I experienced some cosmetic glitches and clipping during my time with the game, but never anything game-breaking. The only technical issue that severely hindered my experience was the online connectivity, or lack thereof. I can recall multiple times where I was in the middle of choosing my custom loadout before endeavouring on my next mission, only to be kicked out of the menu halfway through and told that connectivity to the server had been lost. This grew tedious after around the tenth time it happened and more than once caused me to put the controller down and stop playing for the night as multiple attempts to re-establish a connection were in vain.
Lastly, the story is unfortunately unremarkable; it is just a heartless, tacked on excuse for you to move from one setting to the next, but it functions as a justification for 47 to travel to the various locations where the missions take place. The only other downside to this experience was the feel of the game. This criticism is hard to put into words, but in the six missions; the process going in and out of each location as smoothly as possible, coupled with the focus on gameplay mechanics and the lack of cohesiveness to the story makes for a disjointed experience that I don’t think will stay with me over a significant amount of time other than thinking back and saying, “that stealth game had some really well implemented mechanics.” I don’t think that I will ever feel any real nostalgia for this game, nor will it stand out in my mind for anything other than its technical elements. Although the locations are vast and the opportunities the player can take advantage of are numerous, the game feels brief and somewhat unfinished once you complete it. You really get the feeling of this being part of an ongoing series, rather than a solid standalone game. The lack of any definitive beginning, middle and end sections to the game makes it feel rather unsatisfying once you reach the climax and causes the game overall to be more of a mesh of various missions clumsily thrown together, rather than a progressive chapter it 47’s career. The game I played immediately before Hitman, was Nier: Automata and that game managed to have both solid mechanics and some heart within it too. I know that 47 is supposed to be a cold, calculated, heartless killer, but that doesn’t mean that the games he stars in have to be heartless as well.
Overall, this is a solid stealth game and there is a lot of fun to be had here. Just know going in, if you are a long time Hitman fan, some things are going to be different. That doesn’t mean they will necessarily be bad, but you will certainly see a new spin being put on the tried and tested mechanics of past game in the franchise. If this is your first stealth game, then I would say that there is no better introduction into the genre, especially if you use the Opportunities menu. Unfortunately though, it does seem more like a variation of well made parts, rather than a solid, cohesive whole.