Author: Jim McLennan

Shadow in the Cloud

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★★★
“Nightmare at 20,000 Feet”

In 1943, an Allied supply flight from New Zealand to Samo gets a last-minute addition to the crew, Maude Garrett (Moretz) carrying a top-secret case whose contents must be kept upright. Her presence is initially heavily resented by the male crew, and things get increasingly edgy. The plane begins to suffer unusual mechanical problems, which leave Maude trapped in a gun turret on the belly of the plane. They’re apparently being shadowed by Japanese planes, even though they are supposedly out of the combat zone. Worst of all, both Maude and one of the crew members swear blind they have seen bizarre creatures, like winged rats, scrambling around the air-craft, like the fabled “gremlins” of wartime lore.

The first half of this is really good. It’s gripping, despite (or, perhaps, because of?) being set almost entirely in the gun turret, with a claustrophobic intensity that works, building to a sense things are imminently going to kick off. 

Then, we find out what’s in the case.

Oh. Is that it? Seriously?

I was expecting something which would tie together the various threads of the plot, including the extraordinary Japanese interest in the flight, and the gremlins. Maybe some kind of occult power device – after all, that was a known obsession of the Nazis, e.g. the Spear of Destiny. Sadly, it isn’t. Instead, it’s another strand, which doesn’t connect to any of the others, and indeed, appears to have strayed in from a soap-opera. Rather than uniting everything, the film thereafter continues to have a trio of separate, independent stories, that show up as necessary for the plot.

But I think the moment where all hope of this getting our seal of approval left the building, was when our heroine fell from the plane, only to be blown back into it without injury by the explosion of a Japanese fighter below. I’d seen that in the trailer, and hoped it seemed more plausible in the context of the narrative. I’m afraid it wasn’t. The unwelcome switch in tone continues, until the film ends with Maude chasing down and having a fist-fight with one of the gremlins, which comes out of nowhere in terms of her character.

Now, I wasn’t expecting an authentic period piece. The (rather nifty) throbbing electronic score from Mahuia Bridgman-Cooper is clearly designed to take you out of the nineteen forties. However, initially, it seems grounded, to an almost painful extent, as Maude has to endure banter which more or less starts at unpleasant. Up until the reveal mentioned above, it’s more gritty than fantasy, and works all the better for it.

Perhaps this is related to the rather unpleasant issue during production, when the writer of the original screenplay, Max Landis, was blacklisted after sexual abuse allegations emerged. Director Liang rewrote it, though Landis still gets a screen credit, and it does feel like two different films bolted together at the hip. I far preferred the first half, and the presence of Moretz, who is great as ever, is unable to hold things together. Much like the plane in which her character flies, the movie eventually falls apart and goes down in flames.

Dir:  Roseanne Liang
Star: Chloë Grace Moretz, Taylor John Smith, Beulah Koale, Nick Robinson

The Barista’s Guide To Espionage, by Dave Sinclair

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Literary rating: ★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆☆½

Eva Destruction – and, yes, that is the legal name of the character – is an Australian expat who owns a coffee shop in Central London. But when we first meet her, she is making a hasty exit off a rapidly-exploding tropical island, somewhere in the Pacific. How she gets from point A to B, is the saga which unfolds in flashback over the course of this book, as she tells her history to the disbelieving American navy officers who rescue her off the island.

The key player in that, and Eva’s transformation from barista to secret agent, is her boyfriend Harry. For he actually turns out to be Horatio Lancing, a cross between Elon Musk and Edward Snowden, a hi-tech idealist with unlimited resources and an agenda. Initially, it’s apparently benign: applying pressure to governments around the world to “do the right thing” and act on behalf of the people they supposedly represent. But Eva eventually finds out, his end-game is considerably less altruistic. Due to her connection to Harry, she comes to the attention of the British intelligence services, who recruit and train Eva through unrepentant chauvinist Charles Bishop, in an effort to use their relationship to help stop Harry. And they’re not the only ones out to do so.

The resulting adventure globe-trots from London to Iceland and Prague, before ending on Harry’s secret island lair. By the end, Eva proves to be as capable of whipping up improvised munitions as a double-shot latte, even if her prowess with firearms allegedly comes mostly from the somewhat unlikely source of Virtua Cop II. She is, unquestionably, very much an archetypal Aussie girl, with all that implies – both good and bad. She’s brash to a fault, and can curse like a sailor, but is fiercely loyal to her friends. Interestingly, that applies even to Harry, with whom she stays well past the point I think I’d have noped out of there. She also suffers some angst, when Eva realizes she has abandoned all her feminist ideals for a jet-setting lifestyle and a castle, effectively becoming “an exceptionally high-priced hooker.”

It’s all entertaining enough, if thoroughly disposable and largely implausible, with the important people miraculously surviving against all odds. It is the kind of plot which is probably impossible to read with any seriousness, so it’s fortunate that the author and his heroine embrace this. Even if that does make it difficult to care, when it’s all being taken very lightly by everyone involved. Sinclair does have a good way with action, both in a hellacious chase through Prague, and the eventual, very Bond-like climax on the island. At least the relationship between Eva and Harry does go some way to justifying the “Before I kill you, let me tell you my entire plan” trope. I probably won’t be actively seeking out subsequent volumes. But I’ll tell you this: I wouldn’t mind a movie adaptation either.

Author: Dave Sinclair
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
1 of 4 in the Eva Destruction series.

Bit

  By

★★★½
“The Lost Girls”

There are times when I am bracing myself, going into a movie. Here’s the synopsis for this one: “A transgender teenage girl on summer vacation in Los Angeles fights to survive after she falls in with four queer feminist vampires, who try to rid the city’s streets of predatory men.” Given my long-standing aversion to message movies, this seemed like 90 minutes of my worst nightmare. What had I let myself in for? But this proved to be surprisingly accessible – even for those of us who are neither transgender nor queer, and are enrolled in the Camille Paglia school of feminism.

It reminded me of We Are The Night, about a similar group of female “party vampires” who embrace a newcomer to their ranks. Though as the tagline above suggests, I guess both movies owe a large debt to The Lost Boys. To be honest, if I hadn’t read the synopsis, I wouldn’t know the heroine, Laurel (Maines) is intended to be transgender. There is discussion of some previous trauma before she leaves home after graduating, but it’s never her defining characteristic. Her new pals are relentlessly feminist, to the point of misanthropic. According to their leader, Duke (Hopper), the prime directive is: “You never, ever turn a man. Men can’t handle power. They have it already, and look what they’ve done with it.”  Yet her own handling of power is highly questionable: she admits to using it for “indiscriminate” killing, and compares their group to terrorists. By the end, Laurel is openly challenging that unbreakable rule – as she should.

Their two performance are the glue which holds this together, in particular as it depicts the slowly developing conflict between Laurel and Duke. The script also plays a part, revealing the truth about Duke’s origins and powers – and the more we learn, the more questionable the leader becomes. Yet there are also moments of dry humour, which stop this from becoming a grim fairy tale. For instance, Duke telling Laurel, “The first rule of Bite Club…” When this triggers little more than a derisive snort from the new recruit, one of her lieutenants pipes up, dead-panning, “Juggalos was taken.” This kind of thing fits in: I suspect in such a scenario, the vampires would not take themselves entirely seriously.

The flaws tend to be when the film does occasionally topple over into self-importance. The worst offender is probably Vlad, the master of their species. While the film opens with some snarky comments about Twilight, his performance is far more hammy than anything delivered in that franchise. There’s a badly underdeveloped plot about vampire-hunters, which is little more than “Boys are stupid”. I could also have done without a soundtrack which appears to be the writer-director’s iPhone on random, or the gratuitous Death Valley Girls concert [I can only presume they’re pals of his, given some free publicity in the movie]. All told though, this was considerably better than my prejudices would have had me believe going in. The lesson here appears to be, don’t judge a film by its synopsis.

Dir: Brad Michael Elmore
Star: Nicole Maines, Diana Hopper, Zolee Griggs, James Paxton

Getaway

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★★
“Witch, finder, general.”

This was likely not going to qualify for inclusion here, until a twist in the final 15 minutes. Up until that point, it had been a largely irritating saga, that was considerably more horror than action heroine – and not even good horror at that. I’m still significantly unconvinced about the quality, but must grudgingly admit, this was a twist which I did not particularly see coming (though there is a large clue dropped near the beginning). Three gal-pals, Tamara (Betham), Maddy (Taylor-Compton) and Brooke (Allbright) head for a weekend’s lakeside R&R. On the way, Tamara’s car runs out of fuel, and she encounters the local creeps, but eventually arrives, and joins the other two in scamming drinks out of horny guys.

However, the creeps are lurking, and a drugged beverage leads to Tamara waking, tied up in a farm outhouse. Turns out they’re not just creeps, but have a particular religious bent. They kidnap women, rape them, and then kill them so they can go to heaven and have “angel babies”, because… Look, they’re religious nutters, okay? Yet, that might be their fatal weakness, something Tamara can use against them, as she curses them, claiming to have occult powers. For if she is a servant of Satan, she’s hardly going to be capable of having those adorable little cherubs, is she? This is, actually, a potentially interesting aspect. However, it’s discarded in favour of the twist mentioned above, and even though it brought the film more into our wheel-house, I’m inclined to wish they hadn’t bothered.

The bigger problems start with the characterizations. The three girls are thinly-sketched at best: two are lesbians, because… well, presumably for the same reasons there is a pointless African-American sheriff’s deputy with a crush on Tamara. Not sure. None of the women seem very likeable, and indeed, I’d be hard pushed to tell you much about any of the trio as people: Maddy and Brooke barely serve any purpose, and the film might have worked better with Tamara operating as a lone wolf. The villains are equally shallow: the Wyatt Family from WWE exhibited more complexity and personality. And if you are hoping for gore or nudity, you are respectively going to be largely and completely disappointed.

It is one of those films where it reaches the end, and you find yourself wondering where things will go from there. Now that the little secret is out of the bag, any sequel would of necessity have to be completely different in its approach, yet that might prove to be more successful. However, it would have to work considerably harder to retain the viewer’s interest than the effort put in here. There were a number of occasions where I simply found myself no longer paying attention, and had to crank back the film a few minutes, just to be sure in my role as a conscientious film reviewer, that I had not missed anything. I hadn’t, and my suggestion is that you should probably skip the whole thing.

Dir: Lane Toran
Star: Jaclyn Betham, Scout Taylor-Compton, Landry Allbright, Lane Toran

2021 in Action Heroine Films

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Welp. I usually enjoy writing this article, looking forward to what action heroines we might get in the coming year. But after the past 12 months, you’ll understand if I’m a little gun shy – or, more accurately, girls-with-guns shy. Looking back at our 2020 preview, it seems like a document from a different universe. There were three “tentpole” action heroine films scheduled: one (Black Widow) was pushed back by more than a year; another (Mulan) skipped cinemas entirely in North America; while the third (Wonder Woman 1984) received a mere token release. This left Birds of Prey, with a worldwide gross of barely $200 million, as far and away the year’s top title. I did not see that coming.

It wasn’t a great year. The films mentioned above all had their various issues, as did Enola Holmes, The Rhythm Section and Underwater, while Gretel and Hansel failed to qualify here. The Serpent vanished without trace, and Run Hide Fight is MIA. Others followed Black Widow in being held back entirely, and we’ll get to those in due course. [By which I may well mean. “copy-paste their entry from 2020”] All told, the three best films released in North America last year weren’t mentioned in the preview: A Good Woman is Hard to Find, Guns Akimbo and The Hunt. There are still a couple I have yet to see – Monster Hunter and Promising Young Woman – but The Hunt was probably my favourite GWG film of 2020. I did not see that coming either.

Anyway, this train-wreck of a year has, obviously, derailed film production for a large part, and that simply means there are not as many entries available to preview. Quite what this will mean for 2021, remains to be seen, but I’m just glad I’ve got a backlog of reviews (we’re currently scheduling into June), as there may be a shortage of relevant product. That said, I’ve gone through the upcoming schedule of films listed in the IMDb as having a 2021 release date and which may end up getting reviewed here. As usual, everything is subject to change. Particularly if another global pandemic sweeps out of the wet markets in the Far East…

The Asset (23 April)

I found two rather conflicting synopses. #1: ” A hacker and her partners in crime accidentally steal millions from a crime boss, forced into hiding to train for their inevitable confrontation.” #2: “Two of the world’s best assassins, Rembrandt and Anna, must form an unlikely alliance when Anna’s mentor is murdered. They travel to Vietnam to find the killer.” Your choice. :) Given that Maggie Q is Anna (Michael Keaton is Rembrandt), and it’s directed by Martin Campbell, of Goldeneye, I am interested.

Black Widow (7 May)

Pushed back more than a year from its original release date, this is still likely to be the largest action-heroine film of the year – providing there are any cinemas left in which to show it. Obviously, any momentum for the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been halted; it’ll be close to two years since the last entry was released, Spider-Man: Far From Home. Having also been underwhelmed by this year’s “tent-poles”, my enthusiasm is probably toned down, to the point I may not bother seeing this in the cinema. This is, to an extent, because I’m simply out of the habit.

Gunpowder Milkshake (TBA)

Certainly possessing the best action-heroine cast of 2020 2021. Karen Gillan, Carla Gugino, Michelle Yeoh, Lena Headey and Angela Bassett? Okay, you have my attention. A year has passed, and still not much more is known about this one. It got a distributor in February, but ten months later, we still don’t even have a trailer, even though the film’s entire worldwide rights have been sold. We do, at least have a synopsis: Sam (Gillan) was raised by crime syndicate The Firm, but eventually has to go against them, with the help of her mother (Headey), and friends known as The Librarians (Bassett, Yeoh and Gugino, pictured top).

Jolt (TBA)

I’ll just leave this synopsis here. “A bouncer with a slightly murderous anger-management problem that she controls with the help of an electrode-lined vest she uses to shock herself back to normalcy whenever she gets homicidal. After the first guy she’s ever fallen for is murdered, she goes on a revenge-fueled rampage to find the killer while the cops pursue her as their chief suspect.” Okay… Seems like Crank with a heroine, but since the heroine is Kate Beckinsale, I’m down.

The Matrix 4 (22 December)

Amazing to think it’s seventeen years ago we wrote Wholly Trinity, about the role of Trinity in The Matrix trilogy. Since then? Well, Keanu Reeves is now John Wick, Carrie-Anne Moss is 53, and the Wachowski brothers… aren’t. To be honest, the Wachowski’s post-Matrix work has been lacklustre; Speed Racer, for example, is flat-out unwatchable. I suspect Lana Wachowski (Lilly is not involved) will need to be as innovative as the original movie was, if this is to succeed. We’ll see if that’s the case, though since this is currently scheduled to be released on HBO Max.

Mayday (TBA)

A borderline candidate, which IMDb currently has filed under “Drama”. However, the synopsis makes it seem potentially of interest. “After a short circuit at her workplace mysteriously transports her to an alternate world, Ana meets a crew of female soldiers caught in an endless war. Along a strange and rugged coastline, men face the stark truth lurking behind damsels who appear to be in distress. Under the leadership of Marsha, Ana trains as a sharpshooter and discovers a newfound freedom in this uninhibited sisterhood. She soon senses she may not be the ruthless killer they expect, though, and time is running out for her to find a path home..”

Raya and the Last Dragon (5 March)

An animated film by Disney, here’s the plot: “Long ago, in the fantasy world of Kumandra, humans and dragons lived together in harmony. But when an evil force threatened the land, the dragons sacrificed themselves to save humanity. Now, 500 years later, that same evil has returned and it’s up to a lone warrior, Raya, to track down the legendary last dragon to restore the fractured land and its divided people.” Kelly Marie Tran, who played Rose Tico in the Star Wars franchise, voices Raya. The trailer makes it look kinda fun; weirdly, it gives me an Aeon Flux vibe!

Resident Evil (TBA)

A reboot of the iconic franchise starring Milla Jovovich, there’s no details of the plot, but I suspect it will probably hew closer to the video games. The changes made i.e. Alice wasn’t a game character, was the most common complaint about the earlier movies by fans. But even without Milla, I still expect there to be plenty of female bad-assery here, with Kaya Scodelario as Claire Redfield, and Hannah John-Kamen playing Jill Valentine. We’ll see where the balance landed between between them and male characters like Chris Redfield and Leon Kennedy.

Run Hide Fight (TBA)

“17-year-old Zoe Hull uses her wits, survival skills, and compassion to fight for her life, and those of her fellow classmates, against a group of live-streaming school shooters.” Was screened in September at the Venice International Film Festival, and reviews were… not kind, though appeared largely informed by the viewer’s personal politics, reaching their nadir in this hysterically triggered entity. Teens killing teens has been a problematic topic for movie since Battle Royale, and it clearly doesn’t appear that has changed. Someone will release it, I’ve no doubt, but I suspect it won’t be theatrical.

Shadow in the Cloud (1 January)

I hadn’t even heard of this one until Dieter mentioned it to me. It stars Chloe Grace Moretz as a female WWII pilot, who is travelling with top secret documents on a B-17 Flying Fortress, when she discovers that the “gremlins” mentioned in propaganda films are thoroughly real. The trailer’s below, and it looks… Well, check out the scene where she falls out of the plane and then gets blown back into it by an explosion. I’m not sure whether to snort derisively, or be in awe at the maker’s sheer audacity. Either way, it certainly seems to be starting 2021 with a bang!

Till Death (TBA)

Megan Fox seems to be leaning towards the action genre of late – we recently wrote about her playing a mercenary in Rogue. This is perhaps a bit more plausible, but going by the blood-spattered Megan still, maybe not much less violent! She plays a woman who is “left handcuffed to her dead husband as part of a sick revenge plot. Unable to unshackle, she has to survive as two killers arrive to finish her off.” There would certainly seem to be plenty of potential for carnage here.

Zombinatrix (TBA)

From the potentially sublime to the utterly ridiculous (hopefully, deliberately). The synopsis, as submitted to the IMDB by lead actress and co-writer Bianca Allaine: “A Dominatrix is brutally murdered by thugs. Returning from the grave as Zombinatrix, she takes great pleasure in incorporating her sadistic S&M kinks into killing anyone crossing her path. After all, she is into whips and BRAINS.” If it isn’t getting Oscar consideration this time next year, I say we storm Hollywood. :)

She Wolf

  By

★★½
“The black-and-white widow.”

Turns out, interesting is not the same as good or entertaining. Who knew? If you watch this unaware, as I did, you are certainly going to be very, very confused initially. What’s important for you to know, is that the lead character is played by three completely different women (Lairana, Docampo and Ariza). This wasn’t because the first two died or anything: it’s a deliberate artistic choice, with the trio representing different aspects of her personality. It’s quite a trip, because they swap in and out between scenes as appropriate, or sometimes even during the same shot. There’s Lobo, the violent one; Rubia, the nymphomaniac; and Joven, who is shy and as close to normal as you’ll find here. You’ll understand why it took me a while to figure out what was going on.

Our “heroine” [or “heroines”?] is a serial killer, whose territory covers the streets and, in particular, the subway of Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina. She preys on men, going back to their place and indulging in their sexual fantasies, before offing them with poison. [As the tag-line above suggests, I’d have said this was more the behaviour of a black widow than a she-wolf, though this is going off what I’ve seen on the Discovery Channel] But one of her targets – who almost gets her before she can get him – turns out to be a cop. Garcia He is hunting the serial killer – yet, not necessarily for justice, as there’s something creepily personal about his search. There’s also a young guy called Leo, living in her apartment building, for whom at least one of her personas begins to have feelings. And by that, I mean ones which do not involve his death.

This is certainly for mature audiences, with the sex scenes pulling almost no punches – some of the dialogue is perhaps more graphic than the images. However, it just goes to prove that sex is not intrinsically interesting (well, if you’re not taking part!), even when artfully photographed in moody black and white, as is almost exclusively the case here. Another issue is the lack of development. Until the final twenty minutes or so, once you’ve wrapped your mind around the basic ideas, not much more happens. Things perk up somewhat towards the end, with the three personalities starting to show up simultaneously, as they seem to battle for domination. Will Joven prove capable of retaining her innocence, or will she succumb to the dark desires of her other facets?

I must confess, I wasn’t particularly enthralled to find out. That’s probably a good thing, since the ending here is as inconclusive and ambivalent as everything which had preceded it. This would likely have made an amazing short film, with a very good idea at its core. Stretching the material out to feature length, however, leaves it perilously thin. It’s just not enough, with 80% or more feeling like empty padding.

Dir: Tamae Garateguy
Star: Mónica Lairana, Guadalupe Docampo, Luján Ariza, Edgardo Castro
a.k.a. Mujer Lobo

Wonder Woman 1984

  By

★★
“Left feeling quite Cheetah’d…”

Before COVID-19 hit, this was scheduled to be the year’s biggest action heroine movie. Originally slated for a June release, it was the sequel to a film which earned a well-deserved $800+ million worldwide, and a similar return seemed within reach. But its opening was first delayed, and then it was announced the movie would only get a limited release, coming out in North America on HBO’s streaming service, HBO Max. Difficult times. But the sad fact is, this feels more like a contractual cash-grab. Even with the same star and director, it seems sadly lacking in genuine, emotional heart.

There are quite a few other problems. Firstly, this is set in 1984, because… Well, there’s no real reason. At least Captain Marvel gave us a fight in a Blockbuster Video store. Here, the period flavour seems limited to one Frankie Goes to Hollywood song, randomly dropped in at a party. Otherwise, it could easily be set now. Another issue is the sheer length. This is 151 minutes: that’s only 10 minutes longer than its predecessor, but it feels a lot more. Part of this may be because after the opening, you then have to wait for over an hour, before there is any further significant action. While I’ve not pulled out a stopwatch, the ratio of that to talk overall just seems considerably worse.

Then we have the plot, which centres on a magic hunk of rock, the Dreamstone, that grants one wish to anyone who touches it. Diana Prince (Gadot) naturally wishes for the return of dead lover, Steve Trevor (Pine). Mousy work colleague Barbara Ann Minerva (Wiig) wishes to be like Prince, a process which ends up turning her into supervillainess Cheetah. And eventually gives her a tail, making her look like a refugee from Cats. At least dodgy oil-baron Maxwell Lord (Pascal, who amusingly also appeared in the much-derided 2011 Wonder Woman television pilot) reads the fine print, and uses the Dreamstone to try and take over the world. Of course, the old saying, “Be careful what you wish for” comes into play. You just KNOW Diana’s wish will have to be revoked, parting her from Steve once again. Which would be okay, if it hadn’t seemed like a cheat all along, robbing their separation of any emotional impact.

As is, Steve seems almost entirely superfluous here. His main contribution is a poorly-considered scene where this resurrected 1917 aviator is able to fly a modern jet with no trouble or instruction. This seems about as plausible as a 1917 accountant being able to sit down at a desk and immediately use QuickBooks, and that’s ignoring completely the fact that the Smithsonian would exhibit a plane that’s fully fuelled-up and ready for take-off Hey, he does somehow have a hand in teaching Wonder Woman to fly. Elsewhere, it doesn’t help that every time I saw Lord, I kept expecting Baby Yoda to show up, and Wiig is hardly convincing as a plain Jane. Maybe one day, Hollywood will realize that it takes more than just slapping a pair of glasses on an actress.

Gadot is still very good, but there just isn’t anything close to the sense of passion which she brought to the character in Wonder Woman. Here, saving the world seems like a day job, rather than something done out of a fierce, unbreakable conviction. The action sequences are merely alright. There’s some surprisingly poor CGI (even on a non-cinema screen), and they often seem short on physicality, with a couple of exceptions. A battle between WW and Cheetah in the White House is well-assembled, and there’s an opening sequence depicting a young Diana taking part in the Amazon Games. If it were a series, I’d be watching every week – my money would be on American Ninja Warrior star, Jessie Graff, who plays one of the competitors. That was nice.

However, even this falls short, both in emotional and technical aspects, of the iconic “No Man’s Land” sequence. And thus we reach the crux of the issue: in just about every way, it’s not as good as the previous movie. That was a genuinely groundbreaking effort, in which everyone involved seemed fully invested, and which deserves to rank among the best of the new wave of comic adaptations, be they Marvel or DC. This tastes more like heavily generic comic-book fare, with a story too heavily reliant on convenient happenstance, supporting characters that distract rather than support, and a resolution that is not much more than a 21st-century version of Wonder Woman demanding, “Clap your hands if you believe in fairies.”

Philosophically, I was intrigued by her explicitly stating at one point, “I hate guns.” I recently finished The Boys, with its slew of malevolent superheroes. In that world, firearms were one of the few things that could level the playing field and give “normal” humans a chance. Guns are, simply, a great equalizer, and hearing the super-powerful express blanket disdain for them is… interesting. Similarly, we were expected to believe Barbara Ann is simultaneously so plain nobody sees her, yet can barely take two steps without getting creeped on. Look, I expect Wonder Woman to be pro-feminist. But a degree of consistency is apparently too much. For when given a wish for anything, the two lead women want a) to be hot, and b) their boyfriend back? I am woman, hear me… whine?

There are some positives. If not exactly period appropriate, Hans Zimmer’s score is effective and elevates a number of scenes. And the film does, at least, leave the audience on a positive note with a really lovely mid-credit sequence. However, it’s also telling that those 60 seconds are likely more impactful – and, certainly, more emotional engaging – than the other 150 minutes combined. It has been a long time since I’ve seen a sequel, with the same director and star, that has fallen so far short. Maybe The Matrix: Reloaded? All told, you would be better off just watching the trailer. It certainly provides a greater jolt of eighties energy than the movie has any apparent interest in delivering.

Dir: Patty Jenkins
Star: Gail Gadot, Pedro Pascal, Kristen Wiig, Chris Pine

Rearview

  By

★★
“With hindsight, I shouldn’t have bothered.”

I must confess, I was perversely intrigued when I read a review on the IMDb, apparently from one of the directors, disowning this film: “Terrible, and despite it having my name on it, I had no say in the final cut.” While it is true to say that the synopsis – “Based on true events, a girl fights for her life on the Road – Tears Of Souls – chased by a gang of slave traffickers” – is almost entirely inaccurate, it’s not that dreadful. Oh, it’s… not good, to be sure. But I’ve seen worse (hello, Agent Jade Black): it’s not annoyingly dreadful, thanks mostly to a decent central performance by Thomas.

She plays Nicky, who is driving through the English countryside when her car stalls out, beginning an escalating series of misadventures. For this particular area is apparently ground zero for a series of mysterious disappearances of women, who subsequently turn up dead in what the police call suicide. Of course, that’s far from the case, with what appears to be a loose-knit collaboration between a pair of psychos (Sives and Simpson), predating the highways and byways out of a truck-stop, and certain elements of the authorities. Quite where the “slave traffickers” mentioned by the synopsis come in, escapes me entirely. To be honest, on reading that bit, I was expecting this to unfold in the middle East, rather than middle England.

Nicky is likeable enough and does, at least, appear slightly smarter than the average victim in these things. Or, at least, is not required to behave with the idiocy which is par for the course. However, the downside is that the sensible thing – staying locked in her car – is far from thrilling cinema. There is way too much sitting by the side of the road for this to work, even if you take into account the whole “being menaced by a pair of psychos” thing. Eventually, even they get bored with standing around, passing comment, and smash the side window, forcing Nicky out of her relatively safe-space and into the surrounding woods. From where there’s much running around, until we eventually circle back to the opening, in which she covers herself in fuel at an all-night petrol station, and threatens to set herself on fire after the cashier refuses to let her in.

There is only one scene which genuinely sticks in my mind, which sees Nicky strangle one of the people after her. It’s notable largely for the length, being an apparently endless exercise with the victim thrashing around in increasing desperation, trying to escape. The scene is nasty, brutal and tough to watch, which is exactly the way violence like this should be depicted. It also stands in sharp contrast to the pedestrian direction in the rest of the film, which contains little that is memorable or interesting. Maybe we Brits are just too gosh darned polite to do this kind of thing well?

Dir: Avril E. Russell, Orson Nava
Star: Antonia Thomas, Jamie Sives, Jay Simpson. James Floyd

The Golden Lady

  By

★★½
“The Gun With the Golden Girl”

This British film occupies an odd middle ground between Ian Fleming and Jackie Collins – with a garnish of… The Village People? Yeah, there were points where I genuinely wondered what I’d strayed into. The titular female is Julia Hemingway (Skriver, under the rather laughable screen name of “Christina World”, which seems more like a dubious theme-park), who is a corporate espionage specialist. She accepts a commission to infiltrate the bidding for oil rights in a Middle Eastern country, on behalf of one of the four participants.

With the auction about to take place in London, Hemingway brings in three agents (Danielle, Chadwick and Pavel), and tasks each with working on one of the other candidates – not least with their sexual wiles. However, as an increasing number of dead bodies start to show up, it becomes clear that this is not straightforward business. More than one government intelligence agency is highly interested in the outcome, and is prepared to stop at nothing to get the right outcome.

Director Larraz is best known for the cult horror movie Vampyres, and certainly seems out of his element here. There is probably a decent spy thriller in here – there’s a reason Desmond Llewellyn, the long-term Q in the Bond films, shows up in a minor role. Hemingway and her “angels” are all perfectly smart and capable too. Except, just when some momentum builds up, it keeps going off the rails, in a variety of directions. Some of those aren’t so bad: Ava Cadell, later to be a sexy radio host for Andy Sidaris, plays a modestly-priced hooker.

But then there’s the terrible soundtrack, book-ended with songs by The Three Degrees and (gack!) Charles Aznavour. And don’t get me started on the entirely gratuitous nightclub performances by Blonde On Blonde (a pop combo made up of two Page 3 models) and Hot Gossip, a “naughty” dance troupe, who at one point included future Mrs. Andrew Lloyd-Webber, Sarah Breitman, in their ranks. The kindest thing about them I can say is, there may be an alternate universe where these sequences made sense.

The action quotient is about as limited as you’d expect from a seventies British film, even if the ladies occasionally do get to engage in some brief fisticuffs of the limited kind. The best sequence is probably towards the end, when Dahlia (Danielle) is in a low-flying helicopter, blasting away at her target on the ground as they swoop back and forth; it looks rather risky, not least because it appears to be the actress herself present in the cockpit. I was also at least somewhat amused by the use of technology here. I imagine it was quite advanced for the late seventies, though they may want to recalibrate their database. Given the context of their work, I’m not certain that “nymphomanic” really deserves to be classified as a weakness for an agent. But generally, it’s boring stuff.

Dir: José Ramón Larraz
Star: Ina Skriver, Suzanne Danielle, June Chadwick, Anika Pavel