Tag: 2013

A Certain Scientific Railgun – S

  By

★★★★
“Bigger, stronger, faster, better!”

Have you ever had this experience? There is a series you see and the series is fine, okay, solid. But without you noticing, you connect with these characters subconsciously, on an emotional level. As you watch them regularly, you get accustomed to them (though they are totally fictional) and don’t realize it until something happens, and you suddenly feel how much you have gotten attached to them. It’s not a new experience for me. It happens from time to time, but not often enough I would call it a rule, every time I watch a new TV show. Usually, I just passively experience the respective episodes and don’t waste much thought on it, least of all any kind of emotional investment.

It’s strange – at one point, when you started watching movies and series, you felt a strong emotional connection to everything, but today, it seems mostly gone. This does not only has to do with becoming a grown-up and seeing a lot more, but maybe also filmmakers and storytellers having forgotten the art of getting you emotionally involved in their plots and characters. But I have to say: A Certain Scientific Railgun got me, despite initially thinking I didn’t care much at all for the series. The show had been a satisfying, quite well told combination of “Slice of Life”-episodes, with some action-filled SF-arcs.

While for some. these “SoL” eps were unnecessary annoying filler episodes, I didn’t mind them. They provided additional colour to the big picture. I also was well aware I might not be the target audience: the Index series is the one supposed to be for the boys. Also, I went in without any specific expectations, always an advantage. Principally, I liked what I had seen, so had no problems with paying for another season. While sometimes things were maybe a bit too kawai for me, and the antics of a character like Kuroko Shirai could get on one’s nerves, the series was overall well thought-out, put attention into the details, and I enjoyed the emotional dispositions of the four girls, who all had their own character.

The next season arrived and… was even better?! Sure, it’s a subjective opinion, but I personally think the emotional investment I already had in the show paid off. The new season (from 2013, three years after the first was released) seemed to start like its predecessor: The girls going to school, spending time in their company, Kuroko abusing Mikoto… same old, same old, one might say. If one likes a season of a show, a new season is like meeting some good old friends again after a while. Then, the story starts to develop slowly… First in tiny steps that are hardly remarkable. There is a special art in storytelling when you are able to build up a story-line from small events to a big pay-off, when something finally can come to fruition and blossoms in a big climax.

People like Hitchcock, or some of the best action directors, know how to do that, but today I think it is virtually secret knowledge. I would certainly not have expected to find it in a Japanese anime, where you can be happy if one’s intelligence simply isn’t being insulted too much! It begins relatively harmlessly. Somebody claims to have seen Mikoto Misaka (our title-giving “scientific railgun”, thanks to her coin trick), but Mikoto wasn’t there at all. Then it happens again which leads to the girls talking about having a doppelganger, and eventually to the very interesting question, which forms the premise of this season: “What would you do, if you had a clone?”

Another strange thing occurs. Somebody is leaving envelopes containing money in small, dark side-streets, leading to people going on their own treasure hunt, and Mikoto & Co. try to find out who’s doing that and why. The story constantly builds and you slowly realize that you are paying much more attention to the show then you ever did before.  When Mikoto finally meets her doppleganger, it’s initially almost a shock. It leads to questions: who is the girl, why is she behaving so strangely, and where does she come from? Mikoto indeed has “sisters”. Actually, a lot of them. And these girls are part of an unethical and inhuman experiment.

The series really managed to grab me here totally, and part of it is due to the way the story is constructed, something I mentioned when reviewing the previous season. We grow attached to Misaka over time, and care for what she is going through emotionally. I don’t know what I would do if I met my clone, but I guess I would be quite angry about somebody stealing my identity and misusing my genetic map, which is something Misaka also feels. But there is something unexpected happening. While the Misaka clones appear a bit strange and speak about themselves in the third person, they are instantly likable and cute, it’s shattering to find out what kind of role they have to play in an on-going “experiment”. It was quite a shock, at least for me who came along with no idea of the evil hiding in the shadows (I’m not spoiling that here!).

Again, much of the effect of the series lies in its careful combination. On the one hand, you have cute school-girls doing harmless girly stuff: studying, social services, sitting in cafés, mocking each other, searching together (as happens in one episode) for a four-clover-leaf in a green field. Then, suddenly, a hole of darkness opens where very evil people do very evil things, with hardly any remorse or justification for their acts. The contrast makes this story shocking: in another darker show, it would have been your typical, average stuff. Here, I almost got the feeling I’d watched an anime written by the Brothers Grimm! While we have seen much worse, it’s the combination of different elements that makes this work so well.

Unfortunately, our protagonist makes the decision to play Batgirl and solve the problem alone, without her friends, which I found a bit questionable. The climax of the previous season had shown how effective these four girls are when working together, and this can also be seen at the beginning of this season. But I guess as the so-called “sister-story-arc” was also already featured, albeit briefly, in A Certain Magical Index, the writers here were bound to how events played out in that series. It doesn’t look good for our little railgun: She experiences fear, despair, helplessness and pain. It’s quite some time since I saw so many relatable and believable emotions in an animated character.

It’s always nice when a powerful character is “cut down to size”: it adds realism to any story. Fantasy and SF stories should have rules and powers should have limits. And 5-level esper Mikoto, who in the past was not above bragging about her incredible electro-talents, experiences these, physically as well as emotionally. We look differently at our protagonists when they are not the strongest kid on the block anymore. Here, we meet megalomanical, sadistic villain Accelerator, who is more than a match for Mikoto. But then, Misaka is not totally alone; for there is still Touma Kamijou, the protagonist of A Certain Magical Index, the boy who wanted to protect Misaka previously and whom she challenged to a power-fight. Maybe he can help?

There are interesting aspects here. Do super-powers make you susceptible to arrogance, because you start subconsciously to feel superior to everyone else? It’s something the powerless Saten worried about in the first season before meeting Mikoto. The character of Kongou, a level 4-esper is like that (though she becomes more sympathetic this season), as is another level 5-esper introduced at the beginning of this series. You calso remember the many, many times when Mikoto used her powers carelessly in the past. To paraphrase Francis Bacon’s famous sentence: if power corrupts, do then superpowers corrupt…um, superly?

It’s a thought, albeit never directly articulated here, and is definitely evoked when watching this story. We also get a brief look into Accelerator’s past: he has a reason why he does what he does. Once again, the show manages to give us some understanding as to the villains’ motives. It delivers a much more layered approach than just telling us, as so many stories across so many media do: this guy is bad, and has to go! It makes the show more well-rounded, the stories much more satisfying, characters more ambivalent and therefore – if I may use the word – realistic. Also, kudos to the writers of these stories for applying the laws of physics in a logical, and well-considered manner!

After this very well-built, suspenseful story arc, running from episode 2 until episode 16, I can understand why some felt the remainder of this season was a bit of a letdown. While we get another arc, the new one can’t quite compete with what happened before, though is decent on its own merits. For a while, we go back to small stories of the girls getting together and the usual jokes like e. Saten pulling up Uiharu’s skirt to embarrass her. Yes, that’s a thing. It’s alright by me. After you have clashed with the Big Bad, it’s absolutely fine to have another episode where your heroines are in a hurry to bring a cake to a meeting, where they drink tea and say goodbye to a friend who is moving away. It’s the “slice of life” aspect: if you are in for the meal, you have to eat the vegetables, too!

This season is not perfect; nor was the previous one. A possible flaw is it becomes almost a one-girl show with Mikoto on her own and her friends reduced to side characters e.g. Kuroko constantly worrying what is up with Mikoto and where her best friend spends her nights. Fortunately, this is corrected in the second story arc, dealing with Febri, a little girl who is the subject of an experiment herself. Mikoto finally learns she not only has good friends, but to take help when it’s offered. The power of friendship can even deal with very well-equipped forces of the dark and shady “underworld” in Academy City. These little lessons of morality integrated into the show, definitely leave a feel-good-feeling at the end.

Finally, we even learn about the motivations of some of the villains in the background. In a city where all those highly-enabled people are the focus of everyone’s attention, the “normal” people, regardless of how ingenious they may be or how hard they work, have hardly a chance of ever getting their spot in the limelight. Being constantly neglected can make you do very terrible things. But again: not everyone working on the side of the bad guys is necessarily an enemy and Mikoto gets her “Will Graham vs. Hannibal Lecter”-moment, so to speak! Once again the arc is well-built and develops the sensitive, emotional touches which make the show more than the usual action.

It ends in a very satisfying finale which sees almost everyone, including second-tier characters, join Mikoto’s final battle against the evil scientists’ group. There’s still a deadly satellite in orbit that could destroy Academy City unless Mikoto and Shirai get up there and blow it up in time. Shouldn’t be a problem for Mikoto, the city’s famous railgun, right? Watching this series felt for me a bit like seeing Kim Possible in an X-Files plot, spiced up with some great action from a Hollywood blockbuster. Though I could have done without the show’s main musical theme playing, once again, over the battle scenes during the finale. Here the producers really should have invested in some action music!

Some questions remain. What exactly will happen to the almost 10,000 “sisters” of Misaka? Are there other powers in the shadows we have not seen yet? Or is Academy City now free of big criminal-scientific organisations? Will Misaka get together with Touma? Probably not, since in his own series he has quite a harem of female followers. And what is with her obsession over that frog? Stay tuned, for J. C. Staff, the studio behind the show, also produced a third season, which came out a good seven years after this one. At least something good that came out of that terrible year! So, let’s continue…

Dir: Tatsuyuki Nagai and others
Star (voice): Rina Satō, Satomi Arai, Aki Toyosaki, Kanae Itō

Taken: The Search for Sophie Parker

  By

★★½
“Taken-ish.”

For a Lifetime Original Movie, this is actually close to the best of its kind I’ve seen., but it is surely docked points for being a thoroughly shameless knock-off of a certain Liam Neeson movie, all the way down to the title. As there, we have an American abroad, searching for a teenage daughter who has been kidnapped by even more foreign sex-traffickers. They will stop at nothing – nothing, I tell ya! – to recover their child, be that personal danger or interference from local corrupt police. The main difference is it’s a heroine, NYPD detective Stevie Parker (Benz), with the location being shifted from Paris to Moscow – though under current circumstances, the location has not aged well.

Certainly, letting your daughter Sophie (Battrick) now go by herself to Russia, even if she is friends with the ambassador’s daughter,  would feel like utterly irresponsible parenting. Even a decade ago when this was made, it seems questionable, and concerns prove justified. Despite the presence of lurking CIA minder Nadia (Bailey), it’s not long before Sophie and her pal have snuck out, gone to a nightclub, been roofied, and are on their way to becoming the playthings for some rich tycoon, courtesy of the Chechen mafia. Mama Parker is not happy. She’s on the first plane to Moscow, where she teams with Nadia and reluctant local cop Mikhail (Byron, who’s English, though his IMDb credits are littered with Eastern Europeans!) to work her way up the chain and rescue the girls.

It’s never less than glaringly obvious, and the first thirty minutes are especially excruciating in this department, not least due to a shoehorned romance for Stevie: it is Lifetime, after all. Once she arrives in Russia – actually, Bulgaria standing in for it – while things don’t get any less predictable, the energy level ramps up several degrees, and this becomes considerably more watchable. Benz has the necessary intensity to be the unstoppable force she needs to be, and pairing her with another woman is an additional wrinkle that works nicely. The action is a bit limited, with the only real sequence of note at the end, when the pair storm the hotel where Sophie is being held before her departure, followed by a chase back to US sovereign territory at the embassy.

There’s no denying a major case of American saviour complex here, with the locals being portrayed as useless or actively evil, and needing the help of the USA in order for any action to be taken. Chris noted the presence of a large Stars and Stripes in the film’s final shot, and it seems entirely deliberate, reminding viewers that they are now back on safe, i.e. American soil. Yet there is surprising darkness, not least in the  uncompromising fate meted out to the corrupt official. After a start where this struggled to hold my attention, by the end I was being just about adequately entertained. Given the source, that’s high praise indeed. 

Dir: Don Michael Paul
Star: Julie Benz, Amy Bailey, Andrew Byron, Naomi Battrick

Scorned

  By

★★★½
“Hell hath no fury, like…”

RIP James Caan. I mention his passing, because by coincidence I watched this the same day, and there are a couple of nods to Misery, one of Caan’s most famous works. There’s a character called Mrs. Wilkes, and we also get an explicitly acknowledged re-enactment of that scene. You know the one. That aside, I’d be hard pushed to call this a good film, yet I can’t deny I largely enjoyed it. It feels like an influence on Knock Knock, and if perhaps not quite coming up to that mark, it’s only marginal below, and I’m still a sucker for a full on, scenery chewing psycho bitch. In Sadie (McCord), we certainly get one.

She and boyfriend Kevin (Zane) are starting a romantic getaway in a remote cabin. Well, that’s his plan. Sadie’s is rather different, having found incriminating text messages on his phone – worse still, to her best friend, Jennifer (Bianca). Not helping matter: Sadie recently discovered she was pregnant, and out of concern for her unborn child, stopped taking her lithium and anti-psychotic meds. Kevin wakes to find himself tied to a chair, with some very awkward explaining to do, and Jennifer is being lured to the cabin with a not-so-genuine text message saying Kevin had split up from Sadie. Adding to the mix, a scary looking convict (Drucker) has just escaped from the prison just down the road, and is headed in their direction.

There’s one scene where I fell… well, I won’t say in love with the movie, but I’d not mind a one-night stand with it. It’s when Sadie has Jennifer and Kevin tied to the bed. She drags a microwave in there too, slaps Sadie’s pet in there and demands Kevin go down on his other woman, “or I will start this microwave, and her little doggie will cook from the inside out.” No, seriously. It’s clear that this film is not to be taken seriously, and the three performances at the core are perfect for that, with Zane and Bianca dead-panning their way through the carnage, playing the straight man and woman to good effect, in contrast to McCord’s over the top, dramatic excesses. For she is going to make Kevin and Jennifer pay for their betrayal. PAY, I tell ya!

Turns out she was brought up in a mental facility and given electroshock therapy, after an incident when she was 12. She is, in essence, the poster child for “Don’t stick your dick in crazy.” Which makes it all more fun to watch her tormenting the errant couple for their sin. It all builds, inevitably, to a climax which is just as gloriously silly. I mean, who keeps a loaded spear-gun on their sideboard? Kevin, meanwhile, is moving with the agility of a gazelle, considering what happened to his ankle previously. All that said, I genuinely didn’t know who would survive at the end. I’ll say it again: I enjoyed this considerably more than I would necessarily recommend it, and the rating above reflects the former.

Dir: Mark Jones
Star: AnnaLynne McCord, Billy Zane, Viva Bianca, Doug Drucker 

Injun

  By

★½
“I Spit on Your Movie.”

I never thought I’d find a film which would leave me yearning for the subtle and understated pleasures of the original I Spit on Your Grave, but here we are. 35 years on, and this cringeworthy copy was made, transplanting events to the old West. A further decade later: with a couple of re-titlings which jostle each other for inappropriateness, it’s out on a number of free movie streaming platforms. I’m here to tell you, not to bother. Even in the low-rent neighbourhood which is rape-revenge movies, you could close your eyes, pick a random entry, and be almost guaranteed to find something with a better script and general execution.

It begins on a bizarrely integrated farm, I’m guessing at some point after the end of the Civil War. Comanche adopted white girl Ana (Sawyer) lives there with her native American husband and their son, plus a Hispanic woman, a black guy and a geezer in glasses. Their names are not important. For onto the ranch ride six escaped convicts, led by former Confederate officer Jeb (Herrick). After some ominous banter with geezer in glasses, they kill everyone – told you their names weren’t important – except for Ana who is merely gang-raped, staked out and left for dead. Fortunately for her, she’s rescued by a conveniently passing man called Barfly (Neff). Nursed back to health over what must be a period of several hours, she sets out for revenge against the six escapees, who inexplicably decided to hang around the ranch.

You know me: I’m not exactly one to complain about questionable stereotypes. But even I had to wince on a number of occasions. It might have been Jeb’s Mexican sidekick, Chico (Venture), who sports an F-sized sombrero and droopy mustache. It might have been Ana’s squaw cosplay and whooping war-dance. It might have been the original title, with its even more dubious poster and tagline: “Payback’s an Indian bitch!” I’m all in favour of political incorrectness in order to make a point, or even simply to trigger certain folk. I get the feeling though, that everything here was done out of sheer ignorance. As such, this is no fun at all.

If you’re going to knock off I Spit on Your Grave so blatantly (down to there being a mentally-challenged member among the rapists), then you really need to put more effort into it. The rape here is a scoop of vanilla ice-cream compared to the intensity of the original. The revenge has almost no impact either, with third-rate special effects: the “scalping” is particularly unimpressive. Oh, hey: rather than cutting someone’s genitals off, she sets fire to them. That’s what passes for imagination and innovation here. The performances just about pass muster: indeed, there’s likely too much of them, especially with the gang sitting around the farmhouse and jawing, as their numbers steadily shrink. Your interest and attention will likely suffer a similar fate.

Dir: Bob Cook
Star: Amanda Elizabeth Sawyer, Robert Herrick, Tony Venture, Greg Neff
a.k.a. Scalped! or I Spit on Your Tombstone

Omega1

  By

★½
“Motion without emotion. “

It probably didn’t help that I watched this the same day as I finished off the slick, well-animated and occasionally downright beautiful Arcane. This is… not any of those. Well, that’s a bit unfair. The artwork in this “motion comic” is actually not bad (the cover, right, is certainly striking, if not exactly representative!). But being taken off the printed page diminishes the impact considerably, especially when combined with some genuinely terrible voice acting. The setting here is… let’s be honest, it’s Johnny Mnemonic, a good cyberpunk novel by William Gibson that became a not-so-good Keanu Reeves movie. In both worlds, data is now transferred in the heads of human couriers, this being deemed safer than online methods which are vulnerable to hackers. Megan is one such courier, capable of defending her cargo with extreme prejudice.

Except, it turns out there’s considerably more to her past than even she knows, as becomes clear after a client tries to assassinate her. Thereafter, things get increasingly complex, with a host of friends, enemies, enemies pretending to be friends, and a slew of Alphas, which are clones based on the DNA of Meg, a.k.a. Omega. It’s all a) rather confusing, and b) not very interesting. Though it’s a bit of a vicious cycle. b) triggers an attention deficit, which acts as a force multiplier on a), then this feeds back into b). I actually did give up about two-thirds of the way through. But much like Battered, the short running time (53 mins here) was its saving grace. Realizing there were barely 15 mins left, I put it back on. Though I will not be taking questions on plot developments in that final section. 

The structure here is also off-putting, with the story separated into episodes, no longer than five minutes, which interrupts the flow in an annoying and pointless fashion. Just tell the damn story. But my biggest gripe was the voices, though Andrei as Omega isn’t the problem. It’s a supporting cast who could, almost universally, be replaced by a speech-to-text program, with positive results. And that’s not even mentioning the bad, fake foreign accents, e.g. Russian (or maybe it was French. Hard to tell) and Spanish. Considering there’s not even lip-synching to consider, in this unanimated format, it’s a poor effort indeed.

Maybe it’s just me. Perhaps I need to watch one of these every few years, to be reminded of how crappy the motion comic concept is. For on the basis of this, it seems to combine the worst elements of both comic books and animation. However, it may not be fair to judge the whole medium, on the basis of what seems a badly executed example. There were a couple of moments where the conversion process was reasonabe, and the effect of the comic panels came through as adequately realized. But overall, this was a poor excuse for entertainment. The “To be continued” caption at the end, seemed more like a threat than a promise. 

Dir: Mark Edward Lewis
Star (voice): Alina Andrei, Mark Edward Lewis, Jan Shiva, Teresa Noreen

Wentworth

  By

★★★★
“Sheilas behind bars.”

Back in the eighties, there was an Australian women-in-prison soap opera called Prisoner Cell Block H. [It was called Prisoner on its home turf, but was renamed in the UK and US, to avoid confusion with The Prisoner] It ran for eight seasons, totalling 692 (!) episodes, and achieved a fair bit of cult status, mostly through late-night screenings on TV. Much of its reputation was based on “so bad it’s good” elements, such as the wobbly sets; a review calls it, “one of the most bizarre, violent, lesbian-fetishy-heart-warming dramas ever created.” The show concluded its run in 1986, but was never forgotten.

More than 25 years later, the concept was rebooted in 2013 as Wentworth, and enjoyed a renaissance. While also running for eight seasons, rather than trash (not that there’s anything wrong with that, mind you!), this version proved to be remarkably well made. It likely helped that the remake’s production schedule here was rather less frantic, ending at exactly 100 episodes last October. The show is currently ranked by the IMDb in the top 250 TV series of all time, and was sold to over 90 countries, achieving a worldwide audience, thanks in part to its distribution on streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime.

It spawned local remakes in a number of countries. The Dutch was the most successful, running for four seasons, but Belgium, Germany and Turkey also took the show and recreated it. [Here is as good a place as any to mention that back in 1982, there was a male spin-off of the original show called Punishment. Though it lasted only one season, the cast included some guy called Mel Gibson…] Indeed, the Turkish one, known on Netflix as The Yard, was reviewed here in August 2020. That review began, “I really must get round to reviewing Wentworth.” And eighteen months later, here we are…

It’s a show I’ve thought about covering on a number of occasions over its run, but now that it’s finished, I feel I can finally do it justice. I definitely can’t argue with the acclaim it has received. For Wentworth features a slew of extremely strong female characters, including one of the most memorable villainesses in TV history, and maintained a high degree of dramatic quality from beginning to end. That’s rare for a series; even classics like Buffy dropped off after a certain point, with commercial motivations typically surpassing artistic ones. Not so here, with the eighth series virtually as strong as the first.

One element, which it does share with its predecessor, is that the setting is the “star”, rather than any performer. I think this certainly helped contribute to its longevity, and sustained the show’s freshness. If one of the actresses began to feel jaded, and wanted out, their character could be replaced by another. The prison scenario meant there were always new arrivals potentially coming in, and scope for departures too, without excessively disrupting the overall structure. If you look at many of the ultra-long running shows, e.g. Dr Who or the many incarnations of Law and Order, they have a similar ability to rotate their cast seamlessly.

Not to say there weren’t main characters – many of them with the names and/or backgrounds as their “ancestors” in Cell Block H. But they tended to have arcs across three or four years; few lasted the full eight, mostly on the guard side. This timeframes was long enough to allow for fulfilling development, without getting stale. The first such was Bea Smith (Cormack), who arrives at Wentworth after attempting to murder her husband, following years of abuse. She becomes involved in the struggle for “Top Dog” status – the role of the most powerful prisoner – between two existing inmates, only to end up becoming Top Dog herself. However, it’s a lonely position, where you always have to watch your back, and allies can suddenly become enemies.

One such was the character mentioned above: Joan Ferguson (Rabe), known as ‘The Freak’ (left). She joined the show as the new governor of Wentworth in season 2, and was, to be blunt, a clinical psychopath, devoid of empathy and incredibly manipulative. She was also very smart, a lethal combination. However, it’s not enough to save her from ending up a prisoner in the jail herself. The first episode of season 5, where Ferguson is released into the general population was, for me, peak Wentworth, and one of the best 45 minutes of television I’ve seen, in any genre.

Remarkably, she didn’t just survive this reversal of fortune, but thrived. She took over as Top Dog. until an escape plan misfired, ending in her being buried alive by long-serving prison officer Will Jackson (Robbie Magasiva)). But you can’t keep a good villainess down, though it appeared the trauma led to amnesia, with Ferguson subsequently using a different name and with a completely different personality. Was this genuine, or another of her ruses? I couldn’t possibly reveal that. What I will do though, is laud a glorious performance by Rabe, who at six feet tall, has a remarkable physical presence, backed up by ferocious intensity. She’s Cersei Lannister on steroids. And without the incest.

In general, it’s perhaps less exploitative than you might expect, with nudity only when genuinely necessary to the plot, rather than for titillation purposes. On the other hand, the show does not soft-pedal the brutality of prison life, with violence and death a common occurrence. Inmates tend to handle their own infractions internally, the Top Dog having the ability to impose punishments for theft, deceit or, perhaps the worst offense of all, “lagging” i.e. talking to prison authorities. It would definitely be rated a hard R, purely for its authentically no-holds barred language. Boy, do the Aussies love themselves a good c-bomb – even more than us Scots!

There were, admittedly, times where the story-lines seemed to get away from the creators. A few threads did appear to be ended, rather than properly resolved. But considering the 70+ hours of television the show represented, such misfires proved remarkably few. The writers definitely had a talent for juggling multiple plot threads and keeping them all moving forward simultaneously. In the end though, it was the actresses (and actors) who made this show what it was, and which kept us coming back for the best part of a decade. If not our favourite show ever on Netflix, it’s definitely up there with the very best.

Creators: Lara Radulovich and David Hannam
Star: Danielle Cormack, Pamela Rabe, Kate Atkinson, Katrina Milosevic 

The Super Femmes

  By

★★
“Hardly super, thanks for asking…”

Running a crisp 58 minutes in its omnibus edition, this is a bit like Kung Fu Femmes. Both were originally web series, but have now made their way on to Amazon Prime, which is where I stumbled across them. This is rather less grounded, taking place in a world where superheroes and supervillains exist, doing battle in the usual manner. While not technically based on a comic-book, it might as well be – the poster makes that abundantly clear. The IMDb description calls it “filled with satire.” I’m not so sure, and think we probably need to have a talk about what “satire” actually is. Creator Garris seems largely to believe that simply repeating the cliches of the genre passes the bar. He’s wrong. There needs to be exaggeration of these tropes, and that’s largely missing here. Its absence leaves this mostly a bad comic-book, rather than being a parody of one. For example, adding visual effects like “POW!” to punches is hardly inventive, and certainly not satire.

The heroine is Cat Nips (Vanelle), who is investigating the mysterious disappearance of another superheroine, Smash Mistress (Caruana). She has been kidnapped by malevolent genius Mad Mort (Gordon), who has a machine which can absorb her powers, and inject them into his short-lived clones of Smash Mistress, which do his evil bidding. Not helping matters, the local superheroes group, led by The Smoking Cape (Paris), have gone on strike, to protest budget cuts proposed by the city’s mayor – who is actually their leader, in his daytime identity. What’s up with that? There’s also a guild of supervillains, though not everyone in it is happy at Mad Mort’s plans to take things over.

Occasionally, it does work, mostly when Garris pushes the boat out beyond the cliches into more imaginative territory. There’s the Golden Goddess, a retired superheroine now reduced to selling “magical” headbands on line. And some of the villains are entertainingly crap, such as Pasta Fingers and White Rapper Kid – not exactly useful powers. Things get thrown for a loop at the end with the unexpected arrival of a superheroine from the future, who states, “I’ve come from season three.” That’s the kind of self-referential nonsense which the series needs more of. It’s on considerably less solid ground when trying to take right-on jabs at, for example, the portrayal of women. Considering the costumes of the ones here, this comes off as empty cant.

The production here is low-end, but solid enough in most regards. That also applies to the performances, few of which are memorable in either direction. And that might be part of the problem: it’s all rather too low-key. If you think of comic-book movies, the characters which stand out e.g. the Joker (whether played by Jack Nicholson or Joaquin Phoenix, tend to be those that are over-the-top. But the delivery here skews more toward the prosaic, and character names like – and I wrote this down – “Sharon MaBooty” don’t go far enough towards making up the difference.

Dir: Dean Garris
Star: Vanelle, Leah Caruana, Roger Paris, Robert Gordon

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

Barracuda

  By

★★
“Nice car. Shame about the film.”

Struggling artist Summer (Oldham) takes on a temporary job as a phone-sex operator to make ends meet. It gives her a very jaundiced view of men, having had to plunge into the worst and most sordid depths of their fantasies. After realizing that some pose a more direct threat, and funded by hush money from one of her customers, she buys the car of the title. and takes their information, along with the tapes she has recorded of them, on a little road-trip across the South and West of America. She’s heading towards her sister (Hinchley), bringing the perverts to justice as she goes, and seeking closure for her own past.

Technically, this is actually pretty good. It looks crisp, and even as someone whose interest in cars is limited to viewings of The Grand Tour, the Barracuda is an awesome vehicle. [I guess the movie’s budget didn’t stretch to licensing the Heart song. It would have been appropriate, with lyrics such as: “If the real thing don’t do the trick/You better make up something quick/You gonna burn, burn, burn, burn, burn to the wick/Oooo, Barracuda,”] However, the script and overall attitude is an endless series of misfires and jarring shifts in tone. Overall, it’s less empowering than self-indulgent and man-hating wish-fulfillment.

Oldham – who co-wrote and co-directed this, as well as starring in it – appears to be working through some issues. May I suggest therapy, rather than film-making? Because this kind of half-baked nonsense seems unlikely to help anyone. The script has holes you could drive the Barracuda through. Apparently, phone-sex lines require customers to provide their real names and home addresses to the operators; while the cops stand poised, ready to sweep immediately into action on receipt of an anonymous cassette. I could probably have got past most of this, if the film had fully embraced its inner darkness. Instead, we get abysmal efforts at “humour” – quotes used advisedly – such as someone smashing a cake into their own face. To quote the master of sarcasm, Edmund Blackadder: “I thank God I wore my corset, because I think my sides have split.”

The relentless parade of male caricatures quickly gets old, too, and don’t get me started on the feeble efforts at political commentary, or the surprisingly (for a film so proudly “woke”) casual racism. Of course, I stand diametrically opposed to the basic concept here. I fully endorse fantasy of any kind, however dark or sordid they may seem. Acting on them is entirely another thing, of course. But that’s not something which is an issue for the vast majority of men. Instead, they offer a safe escape-valve, and are something which should be encouraged rather than, as here, meriting punishment. That’s basically thoughtcrime – though I guess that’s par for the course these days. Rarely have I been so irritated by a film. Fortunately, it’s not one capable of leaving any permanent impression.

Dir: Christy Oldham, Shane Woodson
Star: Christy Oldham, Pippa Hinchley, Kaden Grave

The Heat

  By

★★★
“Warm, rather than hot.”

McCarthy appears to be Feig’s muse, having starred in his last four movies, from Bridesmaids through this, and then on to Spy and the Ghostbusters reboot. The results here, also fall somewhere in the middle: while decently amusing, this mis-matched cop comedy falls short of the unexpected glory which was Spy. Straight-laced FBI agent Sarah Ashburn (Bullock) is great at her job, but disliked by her peers for her officious attitude. In order to try and win a promotion, she accepts a case in Boston to locate an elusive and unknown drug lord, Simon Larkin. There, she immediately encounters and antagonizes a local cop, Shannon Mullins (McCarthy); Mullins is also a good law-enforcement agent, but the polar opposite of Ashburn, being loud- and foul-mouthed, and no respecter of authority. Inevitably, the two have to work together, and eventually develop respect and affection for each other, etc. as they solve the case. You know the drill.

The story here is incredibly hackneyed, and making the protagonists a pair of women is about the laziest twist imaginable by writer Katie Dippold. Mind you, she co-wrote the Ghostbusters reboot as well, so part of me wonders if her elevator pitches all consist of “(insert film name), but with women!” [Though for the record, she was not involved with the upcoming Ocean’s Eight] What salvages the film are the lead actresses, with both Bullock and McCarthy in equally fine form. The latter has that hyper-acidic persona down to a T, from the moment we first see Mullins, and she tells her boss, “I’ll be there sharply at go-fuck-yourself o’clock, if there’s no traffic.” Ashburn is at the other extreme, prissily tightly-wound, yet so inept personally, she has to kidnap a neighbour’s cat for affection since hers ran off. They’re a perfect match: Mullins doesn’t give a damn, because Ashburn gives them all.

It is at these two extremes when the movie is at its most entertaining, and that’s in the early going. As the film progresses, both of the characters drift towards the middle from the edges. They generally become less interesting as a result, though there’s still amusement to be had from Ashburn’s spectacularly incompetent attempts to be a bit sweary. There’s also a gloriously gory sequence, as she attempts to carry out a tracheotomy, having seen one on television. However, not all of the comedy works, and there’s absolutely no reason why this needs a running time of more than two hours. For example, the scene where they fight each other to go through a door first, goes on about three times as long as is either necessary or funny, and the scenes involving Mullins’s dysfunctional family left me entirely cold. They’d have been better off abandoning all efforts at the drug lord plot, and just given us 90 minutes of the central pair, at the Odd Couple counterpoints of their characters, and the resulting, delightful bickering.

Dir: Paul Feig
Star: Sandra Bullock, Melissa McCarthy, Demián Bichir, Marlon Wayans