Author: Jim McLennan

Raya and the Last Dragon

  By

★★
“Pretty, but pretty problematic.”

It had been close to five years since I saw my last Disney animated feature (Finding Dory, should you be interested). But the trailer for Raya got me intrigued. This seemed a genuinely kick-ass heroine, something absent from their output since Brave. Sadly, while I have to say the action is impressive and it looks good, these elements aren’t enough to overcome weaknesses, most obviously in the story department. It felt very much like it was written by a committee that had been handed a set of required talking points. And, lo, the end credits reveal the story was by eight different people, with four directors. I’m just glad I did not pay the House of Mouse’s $29.99 fee, or my disappointment would probably turn into annoyance. 

It’s set in the fictional country of Kumandra, a world inspired by various Southeast Asian cultures. [This hasn’t stopped Disney from being the target of PC critics, e.g. for casting voice actors outside that region… yeah, as inhabitants of a fictional country. When you start feeding  the woke monster, never expect its appetite to be satisfied] Aided by dragons, Kumandra had lived in peace until attacked by the Drune, evil spirits that turn their victims to stone. They are eventually defeated, but at the cost of the dragons, and the land fractures into five separate countries. 500 years later, the bickering territories fight for control of the orb containing the dragons’ magic. It’s broken in the struggle and the Drune return. It’s up to orb guardian, Raya (Tran) to reassemble the pieces, with the help of final surviving dragon, Sisu (Awkwafina).

A straightforward quest would have been perfectly fine, the heroine facing an escalating series of exciting challenges as she retrieves each fragment. But the film instead dumps so much extra on top, that this actual core becomes almost irrelevant. In many cases, recovering a fragment is super easy, barely an inconvenience, because the film has to hurry back to all the other things on its to-do list. For example, it’s considerably more interested in promoting a “one world” ethos, in which the countries must be made to unite. There’s no room here for alternative opinions, such as the possibility that, after five centuries of independence, they have their own cultural identities and might not necessarily be best served by forced amalgamation, at the point of a dragon. 

It also has to handle too many supporting characters. Things are fine early on, when it’s just Raya and Sisu. They have a relationship that’s fun to watch, even if it’s derivative of the Mulan/Mushu one. But the film throws in sidekick after sidekick. Boun, their 10-year-old boat captain (guess Disney has no issues with child labour…). Little Noi and her gang of monkeys. Tong, a Warrior from the Spine land. It’s all too much. On the other hand, there’s no real antagonist. Disney has had some great villains in the past, from Cruella de Vil to Scar. But here the Drune don’t work at all, being nothing more than smokelike entities. You might as well try to make COVID-19 your bad guy.

Some may argue a case for Namaari (Chan), a princess from the Fang tribe, whose deceit of Raya leads to the shattering of the orb. However, it seemed painfully obvious. almost from the get-go, that there was eventually going to be a face turn in her future. That became particularly clear after she started questioning her mother (Sandra Oh). However, I think it was fairly apparent, simply by her character design. From the haircut to her clothes, Namaari  could not have been more LGBTQIA+ friendly if they’d given her Birkenstocks and a box-set of The L Word. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but Woke Disney is never going to have a genuine villain who looks so utterly gay.

Positives? As mentioned, there’s a rich visual style, and the animation is incredibly fluid. The action scenes are particularly well-done, not least the battles between Namaari and Raya. Animated fights often lack impact; that certainly isn’t the case here. In particular, the artists take advantage of the ability to make things quicker than humans could possibly be, without it ever seeming like the film has been sped-up. Some of the jokes work well, with Awkwafina’s comic timing particularly good. There were moments when Sisu reminded me of Dory, in her scatterbrained nature, and there are few higher compliments I can offer than that.

Yet the impact diminished the longer it went on, with every moral lecture and additional character thrown into the mix. The ending is clearly intended to be some kind of stirring emotional climax, yet left me entirely cold, perhaps because there’s no real threat. We’re told at the start that when the Drune were defeated, the people they petrified return to life. So even seeing Raya turn to stone seems, again, barely a temporary inconvenience. Still, at least there were no crappy songs until the end credits. I guess that’s something for which I should be grateful.

Dir: Don Hall, Carlos López Estrada, Paul Briggs, John Ripa 
Star (voice): Kelly Marie Tran, Awkwafina, Gemma Chan, Izaac Wang

Ride Like a Girl

  By

★★½
“Trots, when it should gallop”

This opens and closes with footage and photographs of the real Michelle Payne, who is the subject of the film. Part of me wonders if that documentary approach might have proved a more successful one, rather than the parade of sports drama cliches we get here. Admittedly, quite a lot of them are based in fact. Payne was the first woman to ride to victory in the Melbourne Cup – that’s Australia’s premier horse-race, roughly equivalent in prestige to the Kentucky Derby or Grand National in the US or UK respectively. This alone, is quite an achievement. But she did so as one of ten brothers and sisters, who largely had to bring themselves up after their mother died when Michelle was only six months old. Her father was a horse trainer, and no fewer than eight of his offspring became jockeys, including Michelle of course.

In this version, Palmer plays the heroine, with Neill the ever-tolerant father attempting to steer her career. It’s not easy, with Michelle having to deal with a racing establishment that still doubts women can be as good jockeys as men, before eventually convincing owner Darren Weir (Stapleton) to give her a chance. She also has to come back from an fall that left her with a fractured skull and bruised brain. Then, she almost lost the opportunity to ride her horse, Prince of Penzance, in the big race after being suspended for racing tactics perceived as dangerous, fairly or not. In other words: basically checking off all the obvious impediments, and the film adds little or nothing of note to them, though some of the racing footage is effective enough. [The film, probably wisely, glosses over post-Cup events. Prince of Penzance went lame and had to retire; Weir was charged with cruelty to animals; and Payne got another suspension for amphetamine abuse. Oops]

It works better when it’s remaining grounded, in a way only Australians can be. Neill does a good job of that as the long-suffering father, and it’s a shame he all but vanishes from the second half of proceedings. It does offer amusing moments like watching a posse of nuns (or whatever the collective term is for them!), marching into a bookmakers on Melbourne Cup Day to bet on Payne and her pony. Much credit is also due to the film-makers for letting Payne’s real-life brother, Stevie, who has Down’s Syndrome, play himself in the movie. But it does suffer from what is likely an inevitable problem given the source material: we know how it’s going to end, and how it’s going to get there as well. Given this, taking a few more risks with the approach or the portrayals of the characters might have been warranted. Instead, Griffiths seems intent on taking the safest route she can find between plot-points which are largely obvious. The results are, as you’d expect, little more than feel-good fodder.

Dir: Rachel Griffiths
Star: Teresa Palmer, Sam Neill, Sullivan Stapleton, Stevie Payne

Lethal Dispatch, by Max Tomlinson

  By

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

“There are no heroes”, I said. “Just varying levels of evil.”

Having previously read and thoroughly enjoyed, the same author’s Sendero, picking up this entry, in the same setting and with an overlap of some characters, was a no-brainer. And I’m pleased to report, it was an equally enjoyable read, once again opening a window to a time and place in history, of which I was largely unaware. The heroine this time is Inez, a supporting character from Sendero. She’s a teenage revolutionary, who joined Peru’s Shining Path rebel group, after her father was killed by government soldiers. As we join her here, the now 16-year-old Inez has had enough and wants out. She’s told she can leave, if she completes one final mission: deliver a package to a contact in Argentina’s capital, Buenos Aires.

As ever, that “one final mission” does not go as planned. Her contact ends up dead, and she’s left with no resources, on the streets. A new friend tips her off to a job as a children’s nanny – though it’s in the family of one of Argentina’s generals, who represents virtually everything Shining Path detests, and who helped carry out mass disappearances when the military junta was in control. When her charge, Joey, is kidnapped, Inez becomes embroiled in the case, both as a suspect and as she seeks to find the perpetrators. Winning the general’s trust, she becomes a key player as the situation unfolds. But is Inez truly a player, or is she being played?

The quote at the top is an accurate summary of the book’s position. Whether neo-communist terrorist or crypto-fascist military, Tomlinson does a great job of depicting everyone as, above all, human. You may not agree with their actions, yet you can see why they took them – even those who kidnapped Joey. The one element I did find a bit hard to believe is the way a young nanny was allowed, at some points, to dictate the path of the investigation. Admittedly, her intelligence and her instincts were often dead-on, more so than the professionals. That’s credible enough, because her terrorist background meant she knows how they think. It’s just that in 80’s South America, where this is set, I doubt the opinions of teenage girls were highly respected.

Otherwise, however, this was another very solid work. It has a well-laid out plot which twisted until the very last page, where you finally find out what Inez’s package contained. Though she is not exactly Atomic Blonde, our heroine has her occasional moments. These are perhaps summed up best in this line, as she heads out to face Joey’s kidnappers: “With twenty minutes to go, I headed out into a beautiful late-summer evening in Buenos Aires, with twenty-five thousand dollars in a plastic shopping bag and a small pistol down my bra.” The matter-of-fact way in which Inez describes this, tells you all you need to know about her ability to handle any situation. If you like a heroine who remains cool under pressure, this is the perfect read.

Author: Max Tomlinson
Publisher: Sendero Press, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
A stand-alone book in the Sendero universe.

Knock Knock

  By

★★★½
“I can only apologize, darling…”

This is the kind of film which makes for very uncomfortable date night viewing, simply because the situation presented is likely to lead to awkward conversations. Happily married architect Evan Webber (Reeves) has the house to himself for the weekend, his wife having gone with their two kids to the seaside, leaving him free to work on a project. A stormy night ensues, until a knock at the door, and he finds two lost young women, Genesis (Izzo) and Bel (de Armas), shivering on the doorstep. He can hardly make them stay there, so lets them in. Almost immediately, something is wrong, though initially this falls into the “Too good to be true” category. For they are nymphomaniac flight attendants, and inevitably – though after a credible struggle – Evan succumbs to their relentless charms.

The next morning, however, the reality proves less pleasant, and it’s all downhill from there. For the pair are avenging angels, honey-trapping married men, then savagely punishing them for their infidelity, and Evan is not their first victim. This development should be no real surprise if you’ve seen Roth’s other films, where bad things almost inevitably tend to result from good. A nice trip to Europe became kidnapping, torture and murder in Hostel. Social activism turned into cannibalistic dismemberment in Green Inferno. So the first half of this was largely an exercise in waiting for things to go wrong, along with strenuously assuring Chris that, in similar circumstances, my assistance would strictly be limited to passing them towels through the letter-box. I highly recommend not deviating from this answer, under any circumstances. For she was firmly convinced, whatever happened to Evan in the second half was well-deserved.

The resulting punishment is certainly not pleasant, with his home-life wrecked, both literally and figuratively. Though there were a couple of ways it could have been improved. Firstly, even with some straggly facial hair, he’s still Keanu Reeves, not exactly your average guy. He likely has to beat off real nymphomaniac flight attendants with a stick, on an everyday basis. It’d have been more effective with a more homely leading man, to whom the audience could relate. And I’d rather have seen Genesis and Bel evaporate like smoke in the night, leaving no evidence of their presence, save their impact on Evan. A little more subtlety, and less scrawling of “DADDY’S LITTLE WHORE” on the family portraits would have gone a long way here, I feel.

Still, Roth is not exactly known for his delicate approach to cinema, and as a blunt instrument illustrating in female form the perils of infidelity, this works well enough. It’s also a rare entry in the “home invasion” field where the invaders are entirely women. À l’interieur (Inside) is one of the few predecessors there, and it’s no shame this doesn’t quite reach the same heights of sheer insanity – very few movies do. It’s still a cautionary tale which had me shifting uncomfortably in my seat often enough to justify its existence, as well as casting wary glances over at Chris.

Dir: Eli Roth
Star: Keanu Reeves, Ana de Armas, Lorenza Izzo, Aaron Burns

Run Hide Fight

  By

★★★
“School’s out… forever“

My rule of thumb here is, I generally don’t get into politics, beyond what a film itself does. By which I mean, if a movie consciously injects a political theme or agenda, then that’s fair game. But otherwise, I try to review a movie as a movie, rather than seeing it through the lens of any political belief. However, in this case, I can’t ignore the elephant in the room, with Run Hide Fight having acquired an explicitly political subtext, over and about its content, through distribution by right-wing website, The Daily Wire. Yet, just as The Hunt was not calling for the murder of Trump supporters some suggested, neither is this the relentless pro-gun propaganda, you’d think from a few of the more vitriolic reviews. Once again, reality is more moderate than online opinions would have you believe. Who knew?

Director Rankin said (in an interview that’s thoughtful, and definitely worth the read), he wanted the film “to be so that two friends on opposite sides of the political spectrum could go watch this and both feel like it honored them, and they could go out for coffee or a beer, and talk about it.” I’d say he managed to do so, though I’m not certain such equivocation is the best approach, especially when it comes to such a controversial topis as school shootings. I might have had more respect if the film had taken a stance and gone for it. Though that would have taken more bravery – or stupidity! – given some of the reactions to what is a mild, even-handed take. It doesn’t really get more controversial than daring to suggest that sometimes, to stop a bad guy with a gun you need a good guy teenage girl with a gun.

From a moral point of view, my sole qualm was probably that too much time was spent on the chief perpetrator. It plays down the same line as previous entries in the school shooter genre – spending too much time on the killers rather than their victims, which almost regardless of execution, exacerbates the problem. This is something the script does address towards the end, when the heroine says to the ring-leader, “Isn’t it ironic, that after all your goddamn hard work, people aren’t gonna remember you? They are gonna remember me.” This might ring truer, if I wasn’t fairly sure he gets more lines than she does. I don’t care about your motivation. You’re insane. Now, move on.

Otherwise, it is basically Die Hard in a school, and as such, is no more worthy of complaint than any of the many other Die Hard knock-offs we’ve seen. Certainly, saying that educational facilities should be sacrosanct, inviolate and not used as the location for this kind of thing makes no logical sense. To quote Rankin, “There’s an easy answer to, ‘How could you?’ which is also, ‘How could you not?’ This is a major problem in America, so why not make a movie about it?” I would argue it’s in reality perceived as a major problem, largely due to the media hysteria around it. For in 2019, a grand total of just eight people were killed across the whole country on school grounds or during school-sponsored events. [Or, as Chicago calls it, “a quiet weekend.”] For context: lawnmowers kill more than ten times that number annually.

Anyway, let’s move on and discuss the movie, as a movie – because that’s what matters.

It’s almost the last day of the year, Jennifer Hull (May) is in her school cafeteria bathroom, when Tristan Voy (Brown) and his cohort of Columbine Mafia wannabes crash a van in through the window and take the students hostage. The authorities are slow to react, in part due to diversionary tactics, in part due to bureaucracy and in part… because it’s necessary to the plot, allowing Jennifer to scurry into the air-ducts and discover what being a TV dinner feels like. Having escaped the initial onslaught, her first instinct is to flee the scene, but fortunately for the movie, she decides to go back into the building, alert others to the reality of the situation and, eventually, face down the perpetrators.

You can largely pencil in the obvious plot points as they unfold, and the script offers very little in the way of surprises. Probably the biggest is that, as a Die Hard copy, it’s very restrained, with Jennifer responsible for the demise of only two (2) of the attackers. To put it into oughties video-game terms, it’s considerably more Metal Gear Solid than Goldeneye, with stealth being the order of the day, rather than rushing in with all guns blazing. It helps her that the attackers are streaming their act live on the Internet, which allows her to keep an eye on where they are. There are also some nice  moments where she make use of the school environment to assist her; I’d like to have seen more of that.

What the film does best is likely the set-up of Jennifer’s character. We first see her deer-hunting with her father (Jane), demonstrating a familiarity with and respect for firearms. It’s also established early that she’s still grieving after the loss of her mother, giving her some darkness. But generally, Jennifer is very much a normal girl, somewhat on the fringes of school life, but by no means an outsider. Mom’s ghost pops up now and again during events, a narrative conceit which I didn’t mind, yet can’t say I felt particularly enhanced things either. Still, she’s a heroine for whom I found it very easy to root.

It does feel like the script doesn’t quite know what to do with her after her first hand-to-hand fight, a messily close-combat affair. She turns her hand to a variety of different things, such as alerting other classes to the fact that leaving the premises is the best option, which feels like a diversion from the main plot. Eventually, of course, Tristan realizes there’s a fly in the ointment, and we get the face-off we’ve been expecting, which harks back to the early deer-hunting. It’s a good job too, as the penultimate climax had felt like a cop-out, with Jennifer teetering perilously close to damsel in distress mode. Fortunately, the real finale proved a good deal more satisfactory.

Much as with the political posturing, the film’s quality lies in the middle. It’s neither a new classic, nor the appalling piece of hackwork – both opinions I’ve seen put forward. It is considerably tamer than I expected, certainly not the outrage to common decency some have suggested (not that I’d have necessarily minded!). It is entirely competent and does a reasonable, rather than exceptional, job both as entertainment and in provoking thought. Not worth the hype, to be sure – yet certainly not worth the vitriol either.

Dir: Kyle Rankin
Star: Isabel May, Eli Brown, Thomas Jane, Thomas Jane

Me, You, Madness

  By

★★
“American Psychette.”

I wanted to like this considerably more than I actually did.  The idea of a supremely self-aware female serial killer – not just comfortable in her psychoses, someone who actively revels in them? Colour me intrigued. Throw in any amount of eighties tunes, super-lush production design and photography, and this should have been right up my neon-lit alley. Yet, it very much runs out of steam. When perhaps the most memorable joke is an argument over the difference between a couch and a sofa… Yeah, there are some significant structural problems which need to have been addressed. 

The “heroine” (quotes used ironically) is hedge fund manager Catherine Black (Linton, also the writer), who has risen to the top with ferocious aggression. She has embraced her psychopathy, and in her beautifully appointed mansion, has multiple freezers full of dismembered bodies. Her next intended victim is Tyler Jones (Westwick), a con-man who is posing as an intended house-sitter. However, for the first time, Catherine finds herself unable to go through with her habitual slaughter, instead making an unexpected connection to the thief. Even after he absconds with one of her cars and a slew of her jewellery, part of her is still willing to forgive Tyler his trespasses, and brings him back by threatening to expose his previous crimes to the authorities. Yet will these new feelings of humanity and kindness be enough to overcome Catherine’s deep-seated and long-standing urges towards murder and cannibalism?

It appears this is Linton’s debut as both writer and director, and seems she bit off a bit more than she can chew. I think, in particular, it’s the script which is the issue. Crammed full of breaking the fourth wall and other advanced techniques, there’s no denying its ambition; unfortunately, Linton as writer doesn’t appear up to the task. Instead, she tries to run before she can walk, never managing to establish Catherine as a complex character. Indeed, it never puts enough effort into establishing her even as a murderous psychopath, until well after the point at which she has fallen for Tyler. That’s another problem, because the film doesn’t provide sufficient justification for thus: there’s precious little given to the audience that make us think, “I get what she sees in him,” rendering all that follows contrived and unconvincing.

While I certainly appreciated the nostalgic soundtrack, it does seem an odd choice given the contemporary setting – Linton was aged two when Blue Monday was originally released. Perhaps an older actress, such as a Naomi Watts or Catherine Zeta-Jones, would have been a better fit? But I guess, when you have decided you are going to be an actress, director and writer, and can find financing for it, then it’s full steam ahead. If much credit is due to her for seizing the opportunity, and there’s enough here to suggest a vision, it’s definitely too unpolished. She would likely be better off focusing on one area, rather than attempting to become a Jill of all trades.

Dir: Louise Linton 
Star: Louise Linton, Ed Westwick, Shuya Chang, Tyler Barnes

Monster Hunter

  By

★★★
“Incoming annoyed video-game geeks in 3…”

To be 100% clear, I have never played the video-game on which this movie is based. I honestly could not tell you anything about it. I suspect – and I am going out on a limb here – that it probably involves hunting monsters. That’s all I’ve got. This is probably both a benefit and a detriment to my appreciation of this film. I have absolutely nothing against which to compare it, and so went in with no expectations of how this “should” look or behave. On the other hand, I was left feeling as if some prior knowledge might have helped me get a better idea of what’s going on. Because beyond the broadest of broad strokes, I couldn’t tell you. Fortunately, I do not feel this significantly impacted the entertainment value it provided.

Basically, we have Captain Natalie Artemis (Jovovich) and the rest of her UN patrol, out in the middle of the desert, looking for a previously lost platoon. A massive sandstorm engulfs them, spitting them out into another world, populated largely by large, extremely carnivorous critters. Before you can say “No time to mourn,” Artemis is the sole survivor, and is rescued by Hunter (Jaa), who has managed to survive in the inhospitable terrain, since falling off a ship or something. Despite a lack of common language, the pair team up with the aim being to get Artemis back to the gateway through which she entered this parallel universe. The Admiral (Perlman), leader of a group of other hunters, also shows up, because….

Yeah, I suspect I am supposed to know who there people, monsters and things are – if you don’t, do not expect the script to provide much help. That said, this is absolutely the kind of film I can see myself clicking into whenever it’s on cable, on the basis of there being something cool and/or spectacular happening every five minutes, like clockwork. The sheer scale is where this is at its most effective, with the camera pulled back a really long way, showing the audience just how gigantic the monsters here are, and with the humans reduced to tiny specks – typically high-tailing it in the opposite direction. As a glorious rush of spectacle, it’s very impressive.

As a vehicle for Mrs. Anderson, it’s a bit less successful, simply because she is too often reduced to the edge of the frame. [She does, however, fare a bit better than Jaa, whom you would not know is one of the world’s best cinematic martial artists, between the editing and the staging.] As in the Resident Evil films, her character was created wholesale for the movie, and I imagine that will no doubt trigger the gamers. For obvious reasons, I’m entirely unconcerned, and an quite happy to continue endorsing the Anderson family’s efforts. Please continue to make big, dumb SF/horror flicks in which the missus gets to run around and beat things up, while becoming increasingly smudged.

Dir: Paul W. S. Anderson
Star: Milla Jovovich, Tony Jaa, Ron Perlman, Tip Harris

Braid

  By

★★½
“Uncomfortably numb”

For most films. I’ve usually got a fairly good idea of what is likely to be the final review grade, inside about 30 minutes. It may drift half a star up or down, but it’s relatively rare for there to be more variation than that. This would be one such case, which started off as underwhelming, went through a brief surge of “Oh, yeah – I get it!” in the middle, before returning to the mediocrity from whence it came. At various points, this could have been anywhere between ★½ and (although briefly) ★★★★. Well done, I guess?

It’s the story of two young women who are drug dealers: Petula (Waterhouse) and Tilda (Hay), though the former’s name is pronounced as “PET-chu-la” rather than “Pe-CHU-la. Which irritated me, for some reason. Anyway, a police raid leaves them eighty grand in the hole to their supplier. To fix this little issue, they resolve to visit and rob a strange little friend from their childhood, Daphne (Brewer). After the death of her parents, this thoroughly weird girl lives in a decrepit old mansion where there is, apparently, a safe full of cash, hidden somewhere on the property. Finding it will require Tilda and Petula to play along with Daphne’s very strange games of “Let’s pretend”. These are carried forward from their childhood days together, and the dealers will have to become Daphne’s child and a visiting doctor respectively.

As things progress, we gradually discover more about the trio’s earlier relationship. During that time, Daphne fell from a tree-house, perhaps a factor in her current idiosyncrasies, shall we say. But it also slowly becomes apparent that her guests may not be entirely stable either, especially after a cop (Cohen) comes calling at the house in search of them. The question of who is using who becomes increasingly blurred, and Daphne’s unbreakable house rules also start to look very ominous:  everyone must play, no outsiders are allowed, and nobody leaves. This is a world in which everything is uncertain, both for the characters and the viewer, and the dilapidated nature of the property reflects its owner’s grip on sanity.

At its worst, this is self-indulgent nonsense, in near-perpetual danger of vanishing up its own tree-house. At its best – probably the sequence backed by “Largo al factotum” from The Barber of Seville – it showcases some gorgeous cinematography and captures a glimpse into what experiencing being insane might feel like. The balance, unfortunately, is tilted toward the former, and it doesn’t help that there’s hardly a sympathetic angle to be found for any of the characters. I get the feeling there’s some deep symbolism intended here, such as each of the women being intended to represent aspects of a single personality, i.e. id, ego and superego. There may in reality be three girls, one or even none: perhaps the entire world in a fabrication of Daphne’s young mind after her accident. I don’t know. But, guess what? I find it kinda hard to care either.

Dir: Mitzi Peirone
Star: Madeline Brewer,  Imogen Waterhouse, Sarah Hay, Scott Cohen

Valhalla Online by Kevin McLaughlin

  By

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

I could have sworn this isn’t the first entry in the LitRPG genre I’d reviewed, but I’m damned if I can find the previous one. So, just to be safe, I’m going to explain what LitRPG is: apologies if this is unnecessary! Basically, it takes the structure of role-playing games (RPGs) – things like character levels, ability scores, etc – and applies them onto a story structure. Obviously, the overlap between RPGs and books has been a long one: Dungeons & Dragons is heavily influenced by the work of Tolkein. But it has been mostly one-way traffic. The LitRPG genre sends things back the other way, producing novels that adopt the practices of the games.

Quite how this is managed, is up to the author. Here, the heroine is Samantha, a military police officer who wakes to find herself part of Valhalla Online. This is a fantasy-based online RPG, which was intended to act as a virtual repository for the personalities of the deceased, granting them eternal life. Which comes as a shock to Sam, because she never signed up for this very expensive process. However, for good reason, the “virtual dead” are extremely limited in their ability to communicate with the outside world. Only those who complete the entire game are allowed to do so. This means Sam will first have to figure out how to rack up a high score, in order to begin finding out how she got here and what’s going on. Her army training might help. But even West Point didn’t prepare her for dealing with magic spells and storming castles.

It’s a quick and light read, one which contains few surprises at all. We don’t learn much about Sam’s life before Valhalla Online, and I’m not even sure we even discover what she looked like in the real world. All we’re told is that in-game, “Her hair seemed to be about the same color. Her skin tone looked familiar to her.” The cover tells you more than the entire novel. It would probably help to be loosely familiar with at least the concept of RPGs, though McLaughlin does a decent job of explaining the game mechanics, without getting bogged down in it.

The main issue is that death literally has no sting here. If Sam suffers a mortal wound, she just gets sent back to a set location. She may lose some of her equipment, and suffer a bit of psychic shock, but that’s about it, despite the author’s efforts to put over some mental trauma. It’s accurate enough as a computer game goes, but shows that what works there doesn’t necessarily transfer to other media. This lacking of a sense of mortality may partly be why Roger Ebert said in 2010 that computer games can never be art. But that aside, this keeps moving forward at a brisk pace, and for obvious reasons, the reader learns about Valhalla alongside Sam, which makes for a smoothly entertaining experience. It’s more or less standard hack and slash, though towards the end, she subverts things nicely by recruiting a pack of enemy kobolds (think: mini-orcs) to her side. Pretty sure that wasn’t in the tutorial…

The ending is little more than a save point, though it does come after a neat bit of loot sniping. Again, the lack of mortality applies as much to Sam’s enemies as to her; there’s little sense of triumph when the villain will simply re-spawn tomorrow. I finished the first volume having been pleasantly entertained, just not much more. I feel I probably don’t need to buy the remaining entries, because I suspect I can largely figure out how things are going to progress in them. There’s just not enough replay value to be found here.

Author: Kevin McLaughlin
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
1 of 4 in the Valhalla Online series.

Crazy Mama

  By

★★½
“What’s the good of being an outlaw if you look like an in-law?”

This upper-tier B-movie, produced by Julie Corman, is notable for a handful of reasons. It includes not one but two Oscar winners. Director Demme would go on to receive one for Silence of the Lambs, and star Leachman had already won for her performance in The Last Picture Show. There’s also a small role here for Sally Kirkland, who’d be nominated for an Academy Award down the road. And perhaps most trivia-worthy are the presences in uncredited roles, of Bill Paxton and Dennis Quaid – both making their screen debuts.

It begins in the Great Depression, with mother and young daughter Shelba and Melba Stokes losing their man and the Arkansas farm. They head out West to California in search of their fortune. Fast-forward to 1957, according to the poster. Although it would appear to be a somewhat loose version, as far as historical accuracy goes, given the presence of Vertigo on a cinema marquee (not released until May 1958), or the repeated presence on the soundtrack of Money (That’s What I Want) – a song which came out in August 1959! Shelba (Sothern) and Melba (Leachman) now run a hair-salon, but they’re evicted from that too, after not keeping up on the rent. Shelba leads the family, now including Melba’s daugter Cheryl (Purl), on a cross-country road trip and crime spree, to raise the funds to buy the farm back. They progress from gas station hold-up to bank robbery and fake kidnapping.

Along the way, the gang expands to include various odd-ball characters, including a biker (played by Leachman’s real life son), a Texas mayor and an octogenarian biddy, and the law takes an increasing interest in their exploits. It’s almost relentlessly light in tone, though does take a darker tone towards the end, when one member dies in a fiery attempt to break through a police road-block. It ends in Shelba getting her wish, to confront the man who foreclosed on their farm a quarter-century previously, with the property now a country club. Though the results hardly seems worth the effort, and I was expecting a better resolution overall – the film basically ends as it began.

If a slight cinematic confection, it’s one whose period atmosphere had likely been enhanced by the passage of time. At the point of its release in the mid-seventies, the setting would be relatively recent, less than a generation in the past. Now, it all seems like another world – one curiously devoid of black people… Still, on the positive side, seeing things like fifties Las Vegas or the Wigwam Motel chain (a couple of branches of which still operate) is certainly a kick, and the soundtrack provides a cool selection of tracks from that time. There’s just not much on which to hang your hat, in the way of character or story development. Outside of one tasselled Vegas dancer and the road-block mentioned above, it’s not even pleasantly exploitative in the fields of sex and violence.

Dir: Jonathan Demme
Star: Cloris Leachman, Ann Sothern, Linda Purl, Jim Backus