MOVIE REVIEW: SPIDERMAN INTO THE SPIDERVERSE (2018)

Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse is a Spiderman movie that seems to be set outside the main Marvel cinematic universe. It is an animated movie that follows a new Spiderman, one Miles Morales, as he gets bitten by a special spider.

The movie is very good. The animation is slick and the storyline is great. It has a couple of twists and turns, particularly towards the beginning, that shake up the normal superhero movie formula. It also has allot of quips and banter during fighting.

Despite the quips and twists, it doesn't actually lose sight of what it is setting out to do. Despite how fast paced the action and plot beats feel, it isn't afraid to slow down or have quieter moments. And despite how predictable some things feel, the excellent build up work means that when the big heroic moments happen, it still makes you feel like cheering.

It goes without saying that the sound and visuals are also very slick. The match and reinforce the story that they are trying to tell. The whole package just comes together very smoothly. Overall, this is one of the best superhero movies that has come out, and is heartily recommended.

5 out of 5 universal waffles. 

MOVIE REVIEW: GHOST IN THE SHELL (2017)

Ghost in the Shell (2017) is a live-action adaption of an anime starring Scarlett Johansson. Based in the future, Killian (played by Johansson) is a cyborg that is part of an anti-terrorism squad. However, things aren't quite what they seem.

As a visual adaption of the anime, the movie is a resounding success. The visuals are great, with everything feeling familiar and yet having a futuristic twist. Holographic billboards and robot assistants mix with super-high-density buildings and slum-like areas. It is great to see the visuals represent the anime so well.

Unfortunately, the story doesn't make the transition nearly as smoothly. While it attempts to tell a story of twists and turns, most the story is quite predictable and generic. It also unfortunately seems to force its story into a weird juxtaposition between trying to ask existential questions and action cliches.

Neither of these really work smoothly. The big existential questions grind the pace of the movie, and are often presented as exposition (in a classic tell don't show way). And the action scenes often don't take advantage of the unique visuals and opportunities of the premise, instead having Killian and Co. as gun-slinging superheroes rather than something similar to Dredd or Raid.

In the end, it is a shame. The visuals are great and things look great, but the story and skeleton holding everything together is quite flimsy. It unfortunately makes it hard to recommend Ghost in the Shell, although there is still some enjoyment to be had from it.

2 out of 5 ghostly waffles. 

SERIES REVIEW: DISENCHANTMENT (SEASON 1)

Disenchantment is a Netflix series created by Matt Groening (creator of the Simpsons). The story follows a princess, a demon, and an elf, through fantasy-times. Similar to Futurama, it seems to be aiming to be a very irreverent look at the normal tropes of fantasy cartoons.

For example, Princess Bean is a drinking, brawling princess. The elf leaves his land of singing that is taken to the extreme. The demon keeps encouraging them to keep making wrong decisions. The king is an oaf, etc. And that is the setup. Combine this with a bunch of semi-meta jokes, it seems to be a set-up for success.

And it mainly succeeds in what it sets out to do. It has wise-cracking and absurd situations where the main characters get through them in comedic fashion. It plays around with the tropes of the genre and also carves its own identity to an extent.

My only criticism is that it doesn't go far enough. Similar to Bart in the Simpsons, you can predict the moments where the irreverent nature of the show will stop and the heart-warming end sequence will begin. This is a shame, as it means that it gets dragged back into the generic territory, where it constantly plays it safe. 

There are no shortage of irreverent animated comedies available these days. The show is still good to watch, but it doesn't quite do enough to stand out. It keeps getting dragged back into familiar territory, which is a shame considering the humour hits more often than it misses.

3.5 out of 5 elf blood waffles.

INITIAL IMPRESSIONS: AGE OF SIGMAR

Age of Sigmar is what happened when Games Workshop decided to end their Warhammer Fantasy Battle line of rank-and-file troop engagements and effectively make  a version of Warhammer 40k ported into the Warhammer universe. I have currently played a handful of games using my Freeguild (old Empire) and some Stormcast Eternals. 

My initial impressions are quite positive. It is no doubt 40k ported over into Fantasy, but they have made enough small changes to make it feel quite a bit different. Of course, there are also things that are direct copies, just like there always was, and some misfires in some of the changes they made.

The big thing is how easy it is to choose a matched point army. This is a good and a bad thing. For one, now you just choose squads in multiples of a unit, choose a weapon option, and done. No longer are you paying for command or weapon upgrades. Of course, on the flip side, it means that points are quite fixed and customisation options are very limited. All weapon upgrades have to be equal or offer something, meaning some of the nuance is lost (particularly if a weapon is just better than the alternative). 

The other thing I really like is the theme. This is like a weird-steampunk/fantasy type setting. There is a mixture of weird fantasy factions and also more traditional factions. Steampunk airship-riding dwarfs and lightning-forge space marine clones march besides elf infantry. Unfortunately, this desire to split up armies into different factions (and Games Workshop desire to copyright names) meant that some armies have been split and don't really work as a stand-alone force. 

My hope for the future is that the power creep stops a bit. There has definitely been a bit of a power creep, particularly around summoning armies and huge stacking buffs. The other hope is that they flesh out some of the factions a bit more to make them a more coherent force. But overall, I am very much enjoying my plays of this.

MOVIE REVIEW: MISS PEREGINE’S SCHOOL FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN (2016)

2016 really outdid itself with bad movies. But while Suicide Squad and Batman V Superman were bad, somehow this movie (while slightly more competently put together) feels worse. Tim Burton’s latest offering to the world of cinema feels like a pandering mess.

The movie follows a boy (probably 17 years old or something) who is the grandson of someone else. The grandfather tells the son stories of kids with powers who he knows.  As the boy believes these to be true when he is too old to believe in this, thus leading to social isolation and bullying. He is also a social outcast with no friends.

However, this all changes when he goes into a time loop, meets these people with powers, and has to save the day. Because, shock of shocks, he has the most special ability of all: the ability to see invisible monsters who hunt these people. This makes him one of the most special of special people, just like his grandfather.

Samuel L. Jackson plays the villain leading the monsters. Eva Green plays the headmistress. And the movie degenerates into a pandering mess. I can’t be bothered to finish explaining the plot because it is dumb. The social outcast find his place, falls in love with a hot girl his age just waiting around for him, and generally being the most awesome person in the world. And all this is generally a kids movie.

However, the bad guys also graphically eat body parts and the invisible monsters are body horror. This is a painful juxtaposition. At least movies like Eragon didn’t have horror in amongst them as it went about its wish fulfilment. Here, we have some adult themes (i.e. isolationism) with very adult horror in a movie to appeal to kids.

This doesn’t even mention things like the horrors (capable of killing whole schools) being killed by one crossbow bolt. Or how all the love developments just happen without any sort of character development. Or how the hero suddenly becomes a confident tactician and warrior despite being useless and with no training. At least Green Lantern had that short training montage.

So definitely a movie to miss. I can’t believe I am doing this, but I would recommend Batman V Superman over this. At least it doesn’t try to pander to the stereotypical outcast nerd who is suddenly awesome as it goes about being awful.

0 out of 5 peculiar waffles.