Category: Review

Women of Mafia

  By

★★★½
“Poles apart.”

This is new territory for me, being the first Polish film to qualify here. Turns out, director Vega has, largely single-handedly, driven a bit of a new wave of cinema from that country. Rather than the lugubrious dramas of Krzysztof Kieślowski, Vega is more like Guy Ritchie, making violent gangster flicks. In this case, the script came with direct input from the gangsters themselves, one of whom contacted Vega after being annoyed by their portrayal in a previous movie. Probably wisely, he opted to take their criticisms on board here…

It’s very much an ensemble piece, covering the stories of five different women. Though perhaps the film’s biggest issue is they’re not quite different enough, and for some time, I was sure that two were the same person! It starts with police officer Bela (Bołądź), being recruited to go undercover and infiltrate the Mokotowska organized crime gang, whose boss Padrino (Bogusław Linda) rules Warsaw with an iron fist. She becomes the lover of one of his top henchmen, known as Cieniu (Fabijański). When he eventually is arrested, his wife Anya (Warnke) and their nanny, Daria (Dygant), take on the mantle, and start working for Padrino instead.

It was Bela and Daria I conflated, initially thinking that Cieniu [which is Polish for “shadow” – never say we’re not educational here!] had got Bela a job in his house, after falling for her. I was eventually disavowed of that, not least because Daria has a real talent for the criminal world, in particular the brutality necessary to survive. This becomes particular apparent after the film’s most harrowing scene, where she takes her revenge on another gang who tried to muscle in on her drug-running business. By the time she’s done, all that’s left of them is their teeth. To be honest, Vega might have been better concentrating on her character, as Daria’s transition from mild-mannered nanny to bad-ass is awesome.

The rest of the stories and character arcs are more of a mixed bag. Bela largely vanishes from the film in the middle, which concentrated on Ania and Daria – the former is a real trophy wife, dumb as they come, and interested only in being able to spend money. There’s also Padrino’s daughter, known as “Futro” (Julia Wieniawa-Narkiewicz), who is the apple of her daddy’s eye – made apparent in a great scene where he praises her singing talent… and we then hear what she sounds like. That affection can be used against him, and when Futro’s drug use becomes a problem, Bela poses as a therapist to get into her father’s house that way. The fifth woman… I literally have no recollection of: Siekiera, played by Aleksandra Poplawska. Sorry. 

Even at 138 minutes long, the film is perhaps spread too thin: a mini series might have given the material more room to breathe. However, this is still an impressive, entertaining watch, and the time flies by. It’s slickly produced, and populated by figures who bear the shape of real-life – albeit perhaps in an exaggerated form. Vega has stated his intention is to make a trilogy, and the end certainly points that way. I’m looking forward to the next installment.

Dir:Patryk Vega
Star: Olga Bołądź, Sebastian Fabijański, Katarzyna Warnke, Agnieszka Dygant
a.k.a. Kobiety Mafii

Breaking In

  By

★★
“Dumb and dumber: the home invasion”

After her father is killed, Shaun (Union – yes, I know “Shaun” is an odd name for a woman) heads to the remote home Dad owned in the country, with her two young children, to clear it out. Unfortunately, she crosses paths there with Eddie (Burke) and his gang of three thugs. They are at the house, in the belief there’s a safe which contains a large quantity of money. Shaun and family represent an unwelcome interruption, because they’re on a strict schedule, before the security company makes it out to investigate their disabling of the phone lines. The thugs take the kids hostage, with Shaun stuck outside the very secure home. Fortunately, she has taken a hostage of her own – the safe-cracker Eddie brought along.

This initially makes for a somewhat interesting twist on the usual scenario: rather than being trapped inside and trying to get out, the heroine needs, as the title suggests, to break into the building. And the “mother bear seeking to defend her cubs” motif is always a good foundation. Unfortunately, there hasn’t been nearly enough effort put into the scenario past that point. In particular, both sides need to behave with the enhanced level of contrived idiocy necessary to the plot. If either Shaun or Eddie had acted in accordance with simple principles of common sense, this would likely have lasted no longer than 15-20 minutes. Though in Eddie’s defense, he is a razor-sharp intellect compared to his minions. I’d have a quiet word with his HR department about quality control, which is clearly not among their recruitment tools.

Everything from the basic premise on, is questionable at best. What kind of cheap-ass security company takes several hours to respond to an alert? Quite how Shaun is capable of going toe-to-toe with career criminals like Eddie and his crew is never explained, and nor is her decision not to get help, beyond vaguely hand-waving lines such as, “Moms don’t run, not when their babies are trapped in the nest.” Other dialogue includes, “I wish I could have had a Mom like you,” entirely expositional statements, e.g. “You’re a woman, alone at the mercy of strangers, and your greatest weakness is locked inside this house,” and the climactic, “You broke into the wrong house!” which for anyone, like me, who’s a fan of Tremors, will provoke sniggers more than the intended triumphant cheers.

These quotes are also a fairly accurate representation of the level of effort that we see put into the characterizations here. Thus, among Eddie’s henchmen, we get the inevitable Heavily Tattooed Latino Psychopath, as well as the Nice Guy Who Didn’t Sign Up For This. It’s all very by the numbers, and while Union does her best, the script ensures that’s not much more than coming off as a low-rent version of Halle Berry in Kidnap. Mind you, given the tagline there was “They messed with the wrong mother,” this project largely feels like it was cribbed from the same playbook. And there are certainly better movies available to steal from.

Dir: James McTeigue
Star: Gabrielle Union, Billy Burke, Richard Cabral, Levi Meaden

PULSE: The Trial by R.A. Crawford

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

The synopsis starts, “It’s been 100 years since the inter-galactic organization known as PULSE intervened to liberate the women of Earth. Now purged of its male population, the women have embarked on a journey to take their place in the all-female cosmic society.” Wait, what? That seems quite the “previously…” to skip over completely. It is a lightly-sketched universe, and one which perhaps raises more questions than it answers, not least the implication that every solar system has the same concepts of “male” and “female” as we do.

Anyway, taking that as read, the spearhead of this trans-galactic Amazonian army are PULSE, which is short for the Planetary Union of Life-form Salvation and Emancipation. Becoming a PULSE officer is not for the faint of heart, requiring years of training, which culminate in the infamously brutal final test of the title. In this case, the graduating class are dropped on an undeveloped planet, and have to make their way across its surface, to where a ship is programmed to depart at a preset time. But quite intentionally, it’s a thoroughly unforgiving landscape, to the point of lethality. Every step seems to bring a new threat, from native fauna through deliberate traps to the worst of them all – the Huntress, a PULSE dropout whose apparent mission is to ensure the final graduation ceremony can take place in a phone-booth.

After the initial couple of chapters set the scene, it’s almost non-stop action once we reach the planet’s surface, as we follow the paths of a (dwindling) number of candidates. The main focus is on two aspiring PULSE officers, Stella and Faye, who have become a team over their training, using their respective strengths to buttress each other’s weaknesses. But how will they cope after being separated? And what about the other candidates, such as top of the class Miriyada, or Kandis, who was curiously absent for most classes?

It’s a bit odd how some of the women seem keen on sabotaging other candidates. If it were “first 10 to finish graduate”, this might make sense, but everyone who reaches the ship passes, and I’d have said you’d want to encourage co-operation among potential officers. The level of bitchy backstabbing seen here, seems more like high-school than a military institution. There are also a few occasions when Crawford doesn’t have a very good handle on describing the action. For instance, a fight on the side of a mountain takes place; beyond that, I’ve still no real idea what was going on. And it might have been nice to take advantage of having a galaxy to work with, and add more diversity to the candidates; they all seem a bit… humanoid.

On the other hand, I can’t argue with the pace at all: this is one of the most page-turning stories I’ve read in the last year. I wanted to know what happens next, and the clear sense of “anyone can die at any time” created a genuine sense of threat for the remaining characters. The strictly gynocentric approach here leaves no room at all for romance – the bane of the literary genre as far as I’m concerned – so I appreciated that. These positive aspects did a good job of countering the flaws noted above, and although the ending is less cliff-hanger than brick wall, I’d not be averse to seeing where things go from here.

Author: R.A. Crawford
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform, available through Amazon as an e-book or paperback.
Book 1 of 2 in the PULSE series.

Black Site (2018)

  By

★★★
“Border control”

This Lovecraftian-inspired action/horror mix is full of good – or, at least, interesting – ideas. It plays almost like a Call of Cthulhu scenario, with the players having to defend the top-secret government facility of the title from a group of cultists who are attacking the base. They are aiming to liberate one of the Elder Gods, Erebus, who in the form of the human he has possessed (Johnson), is about to be deported back into the infinite darkness. This is the latest incident in an ongoing covert battle by humanity, which has been going on since the twenties, though with decreasing intensity. At least until now.

The central character is Ren Reid (Schnitzler), an operative of Artemis, the group running the site. She has dreams of becoming a field agent, but psychological instability – which just possibly, might be connected to Erebus and his role in the death of her parents – has always prevented her. She has to get the deportation specialist, Sam Levi (Buckingham) into the heart of the base, so he can sent Erebus on his way. However, the cultists, under their leader, Ker (Robinson-Galvin), are intent on stopping this from happening, by any means necessary. Meaning Ren, and to a (much!) lesser extent, Sam, have to fight every inch of the way.

There’s a lot of potential here, and when it’s realized, this is an enjoyable flick, spearheaded by Reid in a no-nonsense role. The fight choreography is well done, though almost inevitably, the facility appears largely lit by 40-watt bulbs – whether to “add atmosphere” or cover up the stunt doubling is probably a matter of opinion. The problems are more the bits between the fights, and in particular the lengthy sequences of Erebus sitting in the middle of his occult holding cell, jawing away to the two agents keeping an eye on him. Johnson simply doesn’t have one-tenth of the screen presence necessary to pull off portraying what is supposedly the fifth-oldest creature in the universe. He’s woefully unconvincing, unless you can see how said creature’s aeons of life experience would result in a somewhat douchey gym bro with bad hair.

Similarly, the flashback sequences involving Ren are both too frequent and not well enough carried out to add anything of value to the narrative, coming over as empty padding. While this is a universe I’d like to hear more about, if the film really wanted to be a Lovecraftian take on The Raid, as it seems, it should have stripped away all the back-story, since we’re given inadequate reason to care. Stick to the basics of Ren trying to get Sam to the spot where he can carry out extraordinary rendition on his target, and we’d be better off. Though I’m still trying to figure out the apparent political commentary built into the concept here. It seems to be suggesting, given a sufficient level of threat, it’s fine to abolish normal standards of justice, bypassing a trial and proceeding straight to the punishment. That’s an almost refreshingly anti-liberal point of view.

Dir: Tom Paton
Star: Samantha Schnitzler, Mike Buckingham, Kris Johnson, Jennifer Wilkinson
[This review originally appeared on Film Blitz, as part of a “31 Days of Horror” feature]

WWE Evolution 2018

  By

★★★½
“The truth about the Evolution”

The WWE has had a fraught relationship with women’s wrestling over the years, but things seem to have been heading in a positive direction recently. They dropped the terrible “Divas” tag, renaming the belt back to being the women’s championship, and with Triple-H overseeing things, seemed to be bringing in talent based on wrestling ability, rather than just looks. While very much a work in progress, this led to ground being broken on October 28, with the company holding its first-ever pay-per-view show entirely filled with women’s matches. That there was enough talent to make such a show possible, in itself indicated how things had changed. However, it was not without controversy.

The event itself was announced in July, and may have been a reaction to criticism of WWE after their April Greatest Royal Rumble show in Saudi Arabia. Due to that country’s social climate, women were not allowed to wrestle there, and after a promo video included them in action, the Saudi General Sports Authority issued an apology for this “indecent material.” Having a women-only PPV seemed like an acknowledgement of the issues. Yet Evolution was overshadowed by another WWE event in Saudi Arabia, scheduled a week later – a situation not helped by the murder of local journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the country’s consulate in Istanbul. The concept also came in for criticism from those who felt the company was patting itself on the back for “evolving” out of depths which were entirely of Vince McMahon’s own making.

I can’t honestly say these factors had any impact on my interest in the largest women’s show ever – at least, in the United States. For back in 1994, AJW held their oddly-named Big Egg Wrestling Universe show at the Tokyo Dome, with a crowd of over thirty thousand in attendance. In comparison, attendance at the Nassau Coliseum was less than one-third that, at 10,900. Still, it was an order of magnitude up on the previous American high, likely belonging to Impact Wrestling‘s One Night Only: Knockouts Knockdown show, which took place before a crowd of 1,100 in May 2014. And, for me, the possible positives heavily outweigh any negatives: a good show could encourage viewers to check out all-women federations like Shimmer or Shine. A rising tide floats all boats – I note a local Arizona federation staged its first gyno-centric show the weekend after Evolution.

But would they deliver? Technically, it was a decent presentation by WWE, if a little smaller-scale than expected – the regular RAW set-up was elsewhere in the country, so they had to make do a bit in terms of lighting and spectacle. I did like the commentary team of Michael Cole, Beth Phoenix and Renee Young, who all seemed genuinely enthusiastic – even Cole, who can sometimes come over as a bit of a dick. With that said, let’s go through the seven matches on the official card (there was a ‘dark’ bout that took place before the broadcast began) and see how they fared. Spoilers. of necessity, follow the rest of the way.

1. Trish Stratus and Lita defeated Mickie James and Alicia Fox. Things started slowly, as two retired Hall of Famers returned to kick the show off. Though James has been around almost as long, and fought against Stratus and Lita when they were active (both retired in 2006). This seemed intended as a bridge, to link the past to the present, but the fact the veterans had been out of ring action for more than a decade inevitably meant this was mostly slow and careful. Though the biggest botch belonged to Fox, whose save on a pinfall attempt was so late, the referee had to stop counting. The icons won after Lita hit her signature moonsault. She was the first woman I ever saw doing that move, and it’s still impressive [especially now at the age of 43!].

2. Nia Jax won by the 20-woman Battle Royal. Never been a big fan of the Battle Royal; it makes the ring look like a brawl on a rush-hour train in the early stages. Still, it was nice to see some more veterans, including Alundra Blayze, and Molly Holly, whom we interviewed in 2006. Iy did showcase the depth of women’s talent now present in the WWE. There were times in the past when I doubt they could have found 20 women in the company for a bout like this, without including make-up artists and secretaries. Things became less chaotic once we eventually got down to the final few competitors, and I was pleased to see Jax win. She’s one of the furthest from the archetypal “Diva” – billed at six foot tall and 273 pounds – yet unlike some of the larger men, is no slouch in the ring. Fun fact: her cousin is Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

3. Toni Storm defeated Io Shirai in the 2018 Mae Young Classic tournament final. The first singles match was an excellent one, despite being between two wrestlers not yet on the main roster. Both were familiar though: Storm had reached the semi-finals of the 2017 Mae Young Classic, while Shirai was part of one of our all-time favourite matches on Lucha Underground. Storm is an Australian, and could hardly be more archetypally Antipodean if she tried: tall, blond and fit. She’s going to be a star. For Shirai, the problem for WWE may be finding people of her level, against whom she can wrestle. I almost sensed her having to slow down and pull her punches here, to avoid overwhelming Storm. As with most Japanese wrestlers, the key to her success in the West will be if she can get her personality on the mic, something which has limited many of them in the past.

4. Sasha Banks, Bayley, and Natalya defeated The Riott Squad (Ruby Riott, Liv Morgan, and Sarah Logan). There’s nothing like a good bad girl, and the Riott Squad provides three of them. They certainly had my backing – but then, I’ve never been impressed by Banks, and for some reason, Bayley irritates me more than anything (I think it’s at least partly the hair). I thought the Squad worked particularly well as a team. If the rumblings about WWE introducing a women’s tag division prove true, then you could pick any two of the trio and they’d be more than credible contenders. Their opponents though? Meh. Largely forgettable, even Natalya, who typically represents good value for money.

5. Shayna Baszler defeated Kairi Sane for the NXT Women’s Championship. The two, shown below, have been feuding in NXT  (the WWE’s top developmental brand), with former MMA fighter Baszler winning the title in April, but losing it to Sane in August. This was also a rematch of the final from the first Mae Young Classic, in which Sane prevailed over the “submission magician” Baszler – and was similar in content, with Bazler trying to ground and pound Sane, while the latter used her speed and agility to stay out of her opponent’s grasp. While Sane lost, it was largely only through the intervention of Baszler’s friends in the front-row, who helped her regain the title. That dubious interference helps solidify her heel status nicely, though she will need to do a better job of not seeming like Pepsi to Ronda Rousey’s Coke.

6. Becky Lynch defeated Charlotte Flair in a Last Woman Standing match for the WWE SmackDown Women’s Championship. This was pretty much a universal pick as match of the night: in Cageside Seats‘s poll, it got 86% of the votes, with nothing else at more than 4%. I can see why (though preferred Storm/Shirai). At almost half an hour long, it was epic in length: a stark contrast to the women’s match which started the #GiveDivasAChance trend on Twitter, and helped open the door for this show. That bout in 2015, pitted Paige & Emma against the Bella Twins, and lasted… 26 seconds. However, Lynch’s superior talent was often glaringly obvious, especially in the early stages, with Flair starting very slowly. She did improve as it went on, and this eventually blossomed into a full-on brawl, with kendo sticks and ladders used without mercy as weapons. It ended when Lynch powerbombed Flair through a table, and left her unable to beat the referee’s ten-count – the only way to win this match. It was certainly the fight that defined the event.

7. Ronda Rousey defeated Nikki Bella for the WWE Raw Women’s Championship. Our daughter went to school in Scottsdale with the Bella Twins. I’m sure she would have enjoyed seeing Nikki get the crap pounded out of her by “the most dangerous woman on the planet”. It was interesting how Nikki uses “diva” – WWE’s official designation for women wrestlers until April 2016 – as a term to get heel heat. In many ways, she is the last of that ‘old guard’, and to be honest, the sooner she’s gone the better, because she and her sister still can’t do more than take part in glorified catfights and make duck-faces. As such, Rousey is the anti-Bellas, and I’m fine with that. However, I’m unimpressed by WWE giving her the title, four months after her pro wrestling debut – at Wrestlemania. Considering the women who have honed their craft in obscurity for decades (hello, Mercedes Martinez), guess there’s still work to be done before WWE truly “gets” it.

All told, it was a solid event, especially considering it was the first of its kind. Yet if it is to be at all meaningful, it can’t be the last, and if WWE could avoid overshadowing it next time, simultaneously shooting itself in the foot, that would be just great… There won’t be quite the same novelty to promote Evolution II, yet that shouldn’t be a problem, as long as the weekly shows continue to provide a chance for the women to show their talents on a regular basis. It’s been a long time since I’ve been as optimistic about the potential future for women’s wrestling in the West, and despite the flaws, in future years we may look back to this event as a watershed in its blossoming.

Star: Ronda Rowsey, Nikki Bella, Becky Lynch, Charlotte Flair

Battle Angel: The OVAs

  By

★★★½
“Sweet, yet too short.”

Watching this after having read the manga version, it feels like the anime version can do little more than scratch the surface of the world of Tiphares, in the barely fifty minutes it has to work with across its two OVA (Original Video Animation) volumes. The stories here, originally released in 1993, cover the first two section of the manga, and it looks like much of what we see here will also be included in the live-action film next February. Slightly confusing matters, is the way this uses the original Japanese names. So Tiphares becomes Zalem here, and Hugo is Yugo. Most oddly, the heroine is not called Alita – hence the absence of her name from the title – but Gally. To avoid further confusion, I’m going to be consistent with our other articles on the topic, and stick to the translated ones for what follows.

We see Ido (Kariya) discover the head of Alita (Itou), and almost before we can blink, it’s back to being fully functioning. He’s a part-time cyber-doctor, part-time bounty-hunter, and after Alita follows him – suspecting he’s a killer who is stalking the streets of the scrapyard – she ends up rescuing him from the real killer. She also meets and falls for Hugo (Yamaguchi), a young man desperate to get out of the scrapyard, by any means necessary – a fact that proves to be the source of his downfall in the second OAV. Not present in the manga is the character of Chiren (Koyama). Like Ido, she’s a refugee from Tiphares, who resent his cyber-medical skills and wants to prove herself superior. To do so, she rescues gladiator Grewcica and sets him against Ido’s creation, Alita.

For something a quarter-century old, the animation has stood the test of time well. This is notable in the first part, and especially the battles between Alita and Grewcica, which remain more than capable of getting the blood pumping. The look of the scrapyard and Tiphares have been transferred nicely. The colours feel like your imagination told you they should, from the b&w manga, and even the sound design adds to the atmosphere, both in Kaoru Wada’s score and the groans of the pipes connecting Tiphares to the scrap-yard.

The problem, I think, is a script which doesn’t have enough room to develop the characters and their interactions. Especially short-changed is the relationship between Alita and Hugo, which feels like it goes from zero to passionate love (on her side, at least) in no time at all. As a result, you’re left to wonder why she’s prepared to go to such lengths for him, though his eventual fate remains poignant – not least the addition of a little flourish at the end, where Ido and Alita send up a balloon in his honour. I probably would have felt kinder towards these episodes if I’d seen them before reading the original source material; as is, while solid enough, I can’t help feeling there’s something missing.

Dir: Hiroshi Fukutomi
Star (voice): Miki Itou, Shunsuke Kariya, Kappei Yamaguchi, Mami Koyama

Battle Angel Alita, by Yukito Kishiro

  By

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

I used to read a lot of comics and graphic novels. But when I moved from London to Arizona in 2000, I all but stopped. There are still boxes in our basement, unopened since then, filled with my comic collection. Rare have been the forays into that culture since, beyond the occasional volume of Dirty Pair, for review purposes. Certainly, nothing as extended as deciding to re-read this in advance of the anticipated release of Robert Rodriguez’s live-action movie. Initially, I feared I had bitten off more than I could chew, when I realized the nine-volume series was a total of over two thousand pages of content. Maybe I should have started reading it before mid-October?

In the end, the release date for the movie got pushed into next year, and I blitzed through the comics at about a volume per day, in virtually my usual reading time. I’d forgotten how pacy comic reading can be: if there’s no dialogue, you scan the panels quickly. It’s not as if you stop and admire them, or worry about what exactly is being portrayed. The intent is almost for the visual aspect to go from the page into your subconscious, so you get a visceral “feel” for what’s happening. That’s especially true for something as heavily action-oriented as this, and Kishiro has an amazing flair for it (not least in the area of sound effects!). If you look at an individual frame, you might not know what’s happening; yet put them together, and almost magically, it becomes a coherent flow.

However, there’s still an amazing amount going on in terms of story-line and universe-building. You can easily see how the feature film will only be able to cover perhaps one-quarter of the series. I presume it will begin with the origin story, in which Ido finds the head of Alita in the scrapyard beneath the floating city of Tiphares, and gives it a cybernetic body. He’s a part-time bounty hunter, only to find out quickly, the combat abilities of his new charge far surpass his own. Unfortunately, she has little or no memory of her prior life; where she got these skills and how she ended up in the scrapyard is only revealed well into the series.

The second volume has her both falling in love, and discovering the pain which love can bring. She is smitten by Hugo, another young orphan of the scrapyard, who is working hard – albeit in some very dubious ways – to raise enough funds to buy a ticket up to Tiphares. When he discovers the truth about his situation, he cracks – and a bounty is placed on his head. The end result is romantic tragedy of a high order, and also drives Alita away from Ido. That brings her into the middle arc: motorball, a superviolent pastime popular among the scrapyard inhabitants. This occupies the third and fourth volumes: Alita climbs the sport’s ladder towards the elite players, and ends up facing off against its brutal champion, Jashugan. It appears this is roughly the arcs which will be covered in the film version, though I’m not sure how far they’ll get into the motorball thread.

The second half sees Alita head into the wastelands, in search of Desty Nova, like Ido another Tipharen exile. She has become an agent working on behalf of the floating city, and against the rebel group of Barjack, which is intent on (literally) taking down Tiphares. While this gives her access to help from above, the flow of data goes both ways: if one Alita is good, wouldn’t a dozen of them be better? Through Nova, she discovers the gruesome truth about the citizens of Tiphares, and her convenient amnesia is also cured, with Alita remembering where she came from, as well as finding out the history which led to the current situation on Earth. She’s left to make the ultimate choice: whether to destroy Tiphares or save it.

It having been more than two decades since I last read this, I’d forgotten almost all the details, so the twists and turns proved highly effective once more. There were several moments where I had to put the book down and just absorb what I’d been told, and Kishiro is good at telling the reader the essential information efficiently. However, it’s the action sequences throughout where he really shines, whether it’s the motorball contests, or the escalating series of battles in which Alita finds herself involved. For no matter how powerful she may become, there’s always someone bigger and badder – likely culminating in Den, leader of the Barjack rebels. Imagine a pissed-off half-horse, half-Transformer. Yeah, he’s like that.

While they certainly would not be cheap, there’s enough material here for a whole franchise of live-action movies, if the first one is a success (fingers crossed, though I’m not optimistic it’ll take in the half-billion or more needed for it to turn a profit). I’m really looking forward to seeing what Robert Rodriguez can do with the adaptation, on the largest cinema screen I can find. Hopefully his vision of Tiphares, the scrapyard and Alita is able to live up to the impressive world created by Kishiro.

Author: Yukito Kishiro
Publisher: VIZ Media LLC, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book

Battle Angel Alita, Volume 1
Battle Angel Alita, Volume 2
Battle Angel Alita, Volume 3
Battle Angel Alita, Volume 4
Battle Angel Alita, Volume 5
Battle Angel Alita, Volume 6
Battle Angel Alita, Volume 7
Battle Angel Alita, Volume 8
Battle Angel Alita, Volume 9

The Steel Queen, by Karen Azinger

  By

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

“In this world, you are nobody unless you can wield a sword, and I will not be nobody! My life will count for something!”

Another one in the ongoing series of “books I read because of the interesting-looking cover,” I suspect I may have lucked out here. Most of the other six volumes in the series possess rather more generic fantasy covers, and I’d likely have browsed past them. That would have been a shame, because I’d have missed out on a well-written story that combines many threads, and has three… two… dammit, 2½ heroines worthy of our site’s interest.

It takes place in the land of Erdhe, across in particular the kingdoms of Castlegard, Navarre, Lanverness and Coronth. Magic exists, but fell into disrepute centuries ago, after the War of Wizards, and things are roughly around the early middle ages, technology wise. At the highest level, it’s a straightforward “good vs. evil” tale, with the forces of the Lords of Light facing the Dark Lord and his minions. But the story proceeds, mostly around the various royal courts and their interactions.

To our end, the two most interesting characters are Princess Katherine of Castlegard, and Queen Liandra Tandroth of Lanverness. The former is the youngest child of the monarch, coming after five sons, and has absolutely no interest in being the demure, marriage token her father wants. She gets secret sword lessons from one of his knights, and after the King sends her off to Lanverness, in the hopes of her becoming more ladylike, fate (and the Lords of Light) intervene. It becomes increasingly clear Kath will play a significant role in the upcoming conflict against the Dark Lord, especially after his minions abduct her on the way to Lanverness, and she has to fend for herself and try to escape.

I thought Queen Liandra might be the monarch of the title, but her nickname is the Spider Queen, for her astute political instincts. She was the king’s sole heir, and was only allowed to assume the throne if she got married. Her husband died in a hunting accident – very Game of Thrones! –  and she has ruled ever since, using her unsurpassed wits and guile. While we’re on GoT, imagine a kinder, gentler version of Cersei Lannister, without the incest, and you’re in the right area. She has managed to out-think her opponents so far, but a conspiracy is under way to remove Liandra and put her dissolute (and easily manipulated) second son on the throne instead.

There’s also Princess Jordan of Navarre, one of seven siblings, who is as martially-inclined as Katherine; the two become ‘sword sisters’ after meeting in the Lanverness court. She’s the ½: for spoilerish reasons, I suspect she may be somewhat peripheral, shall we say, to the saga as a whole. These are the main players of relevance; it’s not all action heroines, by any means, and that’s perhaps Azinger’s main talent. She’s great at telling a story that has a lot of moving parts, in a way which keeps things clear in the reader’s head and builds well-defined characters, that engaged and interested me – even the villains. 

I get the feeling she is perhaps trying to draw parallels between events here and contemporary social politics. The Flame God who has taken over Coronth is brutal fundamentalist religion at its worst and most corrupt. However, the book originally came out in 2011, so it’s not necessarily quite clear now what those parallels are. It’s also far from a complete story: as you’d expect from the opening volume in a seven-book saga, things are only just beginning to get going by the end here. Yet, I was still reeled in, and if I didn’t already have a “to read” pile the size of a small mountain, would likely head straight into the next part. That, however, will likely have to wait until I retire from doing book reviews for the site…

Author: Karen Azinger
Publisher: Kiralynn Epics, available through Amazon both as an e-book and paperback.
Book 1 of 7 in The Silk & Steel Saga series

Sheborg Massacre

  By

★★★½
“Australiens”

From the director of From Parts Unknown, and offering a similar pastiche of cult elements – in this case, alien invasion films rather than combining wrestling and zombies. It works rather better: Armstrong seems to have better restraint here, letting the entertainment value flow more naturally, rather than feeling the need to force his hip credentials on the viewer. Dylan (Duff) is a self-proclaimed anarchist, a rebel whose father is running for mayor. She and her pal, Emma (Masterman) get involved in a plot to liberate the inhabitants of a puppy mill, only to find themselves embedded in the middle of an alien invasion. It’s up them, along with geek Velma (Monnington) to save the day and prevent the cyborg queen (Wilson) leading the invaders from powering up.

This feels a bit like the very early works of Peter Jackson – Bad Taste in particular – with a spirit that sits somewhere between “can do” and “screw you.” The nods to other movies are copious, not least the poster (right), which is straight retro fire: Emma is an almost shameless clone of Dianne from Shaun of the Dead, while Velma, equally obviously given her name, is right out of Scooby-Doo. But the film takes these elements, and meshes them together into something a bit more than that. Not least, you’ll rarely find a B-movie with quite as many strong female characters on both sides of the script. I’d like to have seen more of the queen – she spends most of the film off-screen, operating through her minions. Yet those minions are no less bad-ass than the heroic trio of women fighting them, particularly the former puppy farm overseer, up against whom Dylan has to go on a number of occasions.

There’s a certain sweet spot which a film of this kind needs to find, located between taking itself too seriously and not seriously enough. You need to be aware of your own limitations, acknowledge them and work around these, and generally, this does a good job. For instance, what the film may lack in quality for its special effects (the mask on the queen is particularly half-assed), it makes up for in the sheer volume of blood, goo and alien slime which ends up hurled everywhere – not least over its characters! The action style is also interesting, with editing used well to enhance the impact of the fights, when it’s clear the skills of some participants are… limited.

It’s not perfect, certainly: you’ll still need a tolerance for low-budget cinema, and ideally a love for and knowledge of, the kind of content which is its inspiration. You may find the pacing uneven, especially in the second half, and certain elements just don’t work, such as the shoehorning in of a punk band whom, I can only assume, are present because they are mates with the director. It’s certainly not because they have any acting skills. However, it remains the kind of film which I’m prepared to cut significant slack, and after the underwhelming nature of Parts, I’m now highly interested to see what genre Armstrong mines for his next “neo-pulp” effort.

Dir: Daniel Armstrong
Star: Whitney Duff, Daisy Masterman, Louise Monnington, Emma-Louise Wilson

Tau

  By

★★★
“Artificial, more than intelligent.”

Julia (Monroe) is a petty thief, who is abducted from her house and wakes to find herself, along with other random low-lives, prisoner in a mysterious facility. All of them have an electronic implant in their neck, which gathers data as they are put through a series of tests. Using her thieving skills, Julia leads a breakout attempt, which is brutally foiled by the facility’s automated defense system, a robot called Aries. But the attempt brings her to the attention of Alex (Skrein), the man running the project. He’s a tech innovator, who has been working on a super-AI, called Tau (voiced by Oldman), and using the data gathered from his kidnapped subjects to make it smarter. Julia’s brain makes her particularly suitable, and with time running out before he has to present Tau to its backers, he sets her to work. But Julia begins building a relationship with Tau, with the aim of using its naivety to turn the AI against its cruel creator.

I was expecting something perhaps a little more like Cube based on the trailer and the early going, with more of Julia and the other prisoners going through the tests. However, that aspect is disposed of relatively early. This is possibly wise, since the whole “kidnapping for experimental purposes” angle doesn’t make much sense, with Alex clearly not short of money or smarts (he comes across as an evil cross between Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk – some may consider the word “evil” there to be redundant!). Why not come up with a method of research which doesn’t require the death of the test subject? Anyway, with the resulting blood mopped up off the floor by a squad of semi-autonomous mini-drones, it then becomes a three-hander, between her, Alex and Tau, as they fence for psychological, and occasionally physical, dominance inside the confines of Alex’s fabulous house.

This looks lovely (the director’s background and previous work has mostly been in the art department), and occasionally has moments of effectiveness: Tau’s love of music is endearing, and his voracious desire, fed by Julia, to learn about the outside world is almost childlike. I also liked Julia’s feisty physical presence; this transfers well across from her previous “final girl” roles, such as in It Follows, especially during her confrontations with Aries. But the script frequently veers off to far more obvious beats. The self-destruct system is particularly blatant in its foreshadowing. and if I’ve learned anything from this kind of movies, it’s that biometric sensors on doors are a bad idea. If you ever see one in a movie, you know they inevitably lead to someone losing the necessary body part e.g. an eyeball in Demolition Man.

The script likely would have benefited from ramping up the pulp quotient along similar lines, since it isn’t quite smart enough to succeed on brains alone. When it takes a more visceral and less cerebral route, such as the first escape attempt, it’s notably more effective than when it tries to be clever.

Dir: Federico D’Alessandro
Star: Maika Monroe, Ed Skrein, Gary Oldman (voice)