Tag: USA

The Viking Women and the Sea Serpent

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★★½
“Corman gonna Corman.”

viking_women_and_sea_serpent_poster_01I can see why, purely for reason of brevity, the title above was preferred to the full one of The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent, even though the latter is more accurate. For the Sea Serpent has a supporting role here, met once on their way in, and again on the way out – it’s much more about what happens in the middle. Three years after their men left, the women of the Stannjold clan leave their shores under the command of Desir (Dalton), trying to find out what happened to them. Encounter #1 with the monster leads them to be shipwrecked on the same shores of the Grimault tribe as their menfolk, whose king, Stark (Devon), has set them to work as slaves in his mines. After initially appearing to welcome the women, it becomes clear that Stark has plans for the new arrivals as well. Viking high-priestess Enger (Cabot) has her own agenda, however: having set her eyes both on Desir’s husband and, for more immediate and pragmatic reasons, Stark, she sabotages Desir’s first attempt to free the men.

Sometimes derided as among the worst movies of all time, it really isn’t that bad – it wasn’t even the worst movie I saw yesterday. Certainly, it’s guilty of biting off far more than it can chew. If the claims on the (quite lovely) poster above, of “fabulous” and “terrifying” are dubious, it’s the “spectacular” one that is widest of the mark, with a budget even the legendary Roger Corman subsequently admitted was woefully short of delivering on the concepts. [It didn’t help the scheduled lead actress demanded more money on the first day of shooting, so was fired, and replaced by Dalton] While Stark, for example, may be king of all he surveys, that appears to encompass about 12 men and a stretch of coastline obviously far more California than Scandinavia. And let’s not even get into rear-projection which dreams of reaching the heights of “utterly unconvincing,” or a sea-serpent which… Sorry, my supply of derogatory epithets falls entirely short of doing it justice, so best I don’t bother.

However, even if they look more like fashion models than Vikings, and act in some ways like giggly high-school girls, it’s still more laudable than, say, Mars Needs Women. The heroines here are actually portrayed as fairly competent – let’s face it, they survived without any men for three years – and brave, being willing to set sail in search of, and then attempt to rescue, their other halves. Both Dalton and Cabot are engaging, with the blonde naturally the good girl, though even the slutty one has an eventual crisis of conscience and is prepared to make a brave sacrifice for the greater good. At 71 minutes, it certainly can’t be accused of outstaying its welcome: while certainly dated, cheap and silly, this is definitely not boring, and its heart is in the right place.

Dir: Roger Corman
Star: Abby Dalton, Susan Cabot, Bradford Jackson, Richard Devon
[a.k.a. The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent]

Naked Avenger

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½
“Setting a new low, in just about every conceivable way.”

nakedavengerStar Jill Kelly is an adult actress. I mention this, because it seems highly likely that most of her 300+ other works – perhaps The Butt Sisters Do Philadelphia or Sodomania: Slop Shots 5 – are likely better scripted, filmed, edited and generally well-made than this dreadful piece of crap. I should have known, given Donald G. Jackson’s involvement – he’s probably the worst film-maker I’ve ever had the misfortune to encounter, and I speak as someone fully familiar with the works of Ed Wood, Andy Milligan, J.P. Simon and Uwe Boll. They are all pretenders beside Jackson, and even though this barely runs an hour, your patience will be sorely tried. And by “tried”, I mean at the level where gnawing a limb off to escape will seems credible.

The threadbare excuse for a plot concerns an international sex trafficking organization. This is apparently run by about three people out of a junkyard in Hicksville, with the women acquired by hanging out in the parking lot of strip-clubs, or picking up conveniently hitch-hiking strippers. The latter is what brings our heroine (Kelly) into the picture, with her driver (LeBreck) opting to pause on the way back to “sample the merchandise”. She breaks free, which leads to the excruciating middle section of the movie. This intercuts the chief pimp (Mizrahi) on the phone, with her wandering through the woods, naked save for a pair of shoes, carrying a gun. Phone-call. Wandering. Phone-call. Wandering. Then, just for variety… Nah, I’m kidding. Another phone-call and more wandering.

Eventually, she makes her way through the woods and there are some horribly constructed gunfire sequences. I wouldn’t even call them “gun battles,” because you never get the sense the participants are in the same zip-code. There’s no logic or continuity here. At one point the heroine is recaptured, wearing a shirt and about to be locked up; the next scene, she’s back, wandering naked and free again, without explanation. There are no real performances to speak of either, because the amount of interaction between the participants is negligible, and as mentioned above, if you want to see Kelly naked, there are many, many places you can do so to a far greater extent. These offer the additional benefit, that you won’t be subjected to the pathetic excuse for film-making present here. Between them, Kelly and the occasionally catchy electro soundtrack give this half a star; these are absolutely the only redeeming features to be found, and utterly pale in comparison to the flaws.

Dir: M.T. Bird + Scott Shaw
Star: Jill Kelly, Robert Mizrahi, Daren LeBreck

The Athena Project, by Brad Thor

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★★
“More illing than thrilling.”

the_athena_projectI first became aware of this novel through an article back in February about MMA champion Ronda Rousey and her move into movies, which said

Ms. Rousey’s supporting parts are a run-up to a planned starring role in “The Athena Project,” a movie about a team of female counterterrorism agents. The film is in the early stages of development with Time Warner Inc.’s Warner Bros. Producers cast her after one sit-down meeting and are working on the script now. That film “is what I would really like to make into my franchise,” Ms. Rousey said. “Like Stallone has his ‘Rambo’ and Schwarzenegger has his ‘Terminator’ and Bruce Willis has his ‘Die Hard.'”

Okay, that sounds intriguing enough, though whether it’ll come to pass is harder to say – the rights were bought back in November 2010, before the novel hit stores, so it clearly isn’t exactly rushing into production. I got a copy of the book and… was distinctly underwhelmed. I don’t generally “do” literature, so this review will probably consist of me flailing around, trying to explain why, but I do understand why this is easily the lowest-rated of all Thor’s books on Amazon. It gets an average of 3.2 stars, with the next lowest with any significant volume of reviews being a 3.9; frankly, the former figure seems generous.

The central plot isn’t bad. The Athena Project are a group of four Delta Force operatives, all women, who carry out missions requiring their special skills. In this case, they’re digging into an arms dealer responsible for provisioning a terrorist attack, but the further they dig, they murkier things get. Eventually, they uncover a scheme to leverage resurrected Nazi technology, and create a new generation of weapons, against which there can be no defense. There’s also an entirely separate side story, involving a cell of the villains honeypotting a guy into smuggling a component into the secret government facility buried under Denver Airport. That’s long been a belief among conspiracy theorists, so is kinda neat. But it’s woefully connected to the rest of the story, and there’s no payoff to this aspect. It feels almost like Thor had two half-novels written, and decided just to intersperse their chapters.

But the main problem are the female characters: Gretchen Casey, Julie Ericsson, Megan Rhodes, and Alex Cooper. I had to look those names up, because as heroines, they are completely forgettable and indistinguishable from each other. Maybe Thor would have been better off concentrating on a single character, as it seems he does in his other works [his main hero there, Scot Harvath, pops up briefly in this novel]. On the other hand, maybe that wouldn’t have helped, given literary gems such as “Considering what these women did for a living, they certainly wouldn’t have described themselves as being dressed to kill, but everyone else would have.” Or “I don’t know about Mr. Right, but he definitely looks like he could be Mr. Right Now.” Is there a world where women talk like that? Maybe, with the right actresses, lines like that might work on the screen; on the printed page, however, they come over as cheesier than a block of aged Cheddar.

What Thor does do well is action, and when he concentrates on that, the results are snappy and effective. Although the villains appear to come from the Imperial Stormtrooper school of accuracy, it’s easy to picture in your mind what’s going on, and it makes for exciting entertainment. That’s why I’m not immediately consigning the movie to the garbage can since, in the right hands, this could still be good. Thor seems convinced, stating after news of Rousey’s association with the picture broke: “We have never seen a chick kick ass like this. This is going to make Tomb Raider look like a Disney movie.” That’s tough talk – I’ll be hoping the film lives up to the concept’s potential, and isn’t such a disappointment, frankly, as large chunks of this poorly-written novel.

Author: Brad Thor
Publisher: Pocket Books, 432pp, $9.99

Blood Widow

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★★
“The eighties called. They want their movie back.”

blood-widow_large_800In the slasher genre of horror, the perpetrators seem almost exclusively male: Michael Myers, Jason Vorhees, Freddy Krueger, etc. Women can play an important role, and we’ve covered some of them here before – but it’s much more often as the “final girl”, than the one wielding the machete. However, it’s often forgotten that, in the original Friday the 13th movie, the killer was not Jason, but his mother, so there is some precedent for the female antagonist. See also Nurse 3D, American Horror Story: Coven or perhaps best of all, SexyKiller, whose heroine manages both to be the killer and the final girl.

It was in the hopes of getting something novel along those lines that I went into this, only to be severely disappointed by a product which is very little more than a standard slasher. A group of photogenic, but vacuous and tremendously uninteresting, teens head out to a remote house to par-tay, only to break into the spooky dwelling on the next door property, engage in petty vandalism, drug-taking and other anti-social behaviour, for which they naturally pay a heavy price. About the only difference is, the mad, masked killer dispatching them with extreme prejudice is a woman, a former resident of the boarding school next door, who was tormented into psychosis. It’s an idea not without potential: the look of the maniac-ette is very stylish (even if the mask seems a Halloween knock-off), and the actress portraying her (Henry) does a good job, particularly considering her face is rarely if ever seen, coming over as menacing in just about every one of her scenes.

But beyond that, none of the potential is utilized, In fact, the gender of the killer is entirely irrelevant to proceedings, and the final scene seems more appropriate for a male psycho – it left me wondering if perhaps that was the original plan. Really, for a first-time feature, as this is for the director, I’d have tried to push the envelope much more, instead of apparently being content to tread the same ground as we’ve seen a million times before. Maybe this would have passed muster thirty years ago? Now, not so much, with viewers far more cynically self-aware, and wanting more than an uninteresting rehash of its predecessors. Save the gender of the assailant, there’s nothing new or of note here; it isn’t enough, when it’s little more than an afterthought, and everything else we get, has been done a lot better elsewhere.

Dir: Jeremiah Buckhalt
Star: Danielle Lilley, Brandon Kyle Peters, Christopher de Padua, Gabrielle Ann Henry

Cleaners: season two

  By

★★★½
“Holidays in the Sun: Sex and Pistols.”

cleaners-season-2-posterWhile twice as long as the first series, at 12 episodes rather than six, I can’t say it’s actually any better. Indeed, I think the dilution of the main element which was so much fun the first time round – the relationship between the two, disparate hitwomen, Roxie (Osment) and Veronica (Chriqui) – leaves this season less entertaining. Yes, it’s bigger and more exotic: but it feels spread thinner, to the detriment of the core aspects. The story takes up shortly after the events of the first series, with V+R in the Caribbean, waiting to get their share of the money from Eileen (Missi Pyle) and Mother (Gershon). But instead, an assassination squad is sent to get them, kicking off a reunion with Veronica’s “parents”, a deranged killer who thinks Roxie is his dead wife, a rogue CIA operative who sends Frank Barnes (Arquette) after Mother, and so on. It builds to a climax where Veronica, previously injected with a lethal nanobot virus that’s about to go off, takes part in an underground death match at a cockfighting arena, to prove her love for the deranged killer. I shit you not.

It’s nice everyone from the first season apparently wanted to come back. But it wasn’t necessarily in the show’s best interests, especially with all the other angles being thrown in. Eileen, in particular, is entirely superfluous, adding nothing to the plot but occupying an inordinate amount of screen-time, which could have been better used, say, on better developing the thread of Veronica’s background. Much the same goes for Barnes, who is shoe-horned back into the plot, through frankly implausible circumstances because… I dunno, because Arquette fancied a vacation in Puerto Rico? It’s a shame, because some of the other stuff is potentially interesting. Discovering Veronica was brought up, almost from birth, to be a trained killer (perhaps inspired by Naked Weapon), was an intriguing concept, and I’d like to have seen more of that, rather than Eileen’s party girl antics. The most interesting new character of note is Mathilda, the last pupil at Veronica’s alma mater, who looks not unlike Uma Thurman, though the name would appear a nod to Leon. She provides a quiet, but no less-lethal, counterpoint to Roxie’s mania, and allows for a few Charlie’s Angels-esque riffs.

The action remains plentiful, as Roxie and Veronica are tasked with bringing down a local drug-lord, as well as dealing with the killer on their trail, and it’s a show that’s easy to binge watch [you can do so at Crackle.com, and it’s probably better there than through a device like Apple TV, which inflicts unskippable commercials, that get very old the tenth time you see them]. I’m sure everyone had a fabulous time making this; however, for me, it didn’t capture overall the same spirit, of not giving a damn, that made the first such an enjoyable surprise. It probably comes over as more self-indulgent than anything else – but still kicks ass harder than just about any other action heroine show this year.

Dir: Paul Leyden
Star: Emmanuelle Chriqui, Emily Osment, David Arquette, Gina Gershon

cleaners2b

Janie

  By

★★★
“Janie hasn’t got a gun. But that won’t stop her…”

janie ad matThis grindhouse obscurity manages to rise above the limitations of its budget, and proves an effectively nasty piece of work. The titular teenage “heroine” (Carpenter) is on the way to see her older lover, but embarks as well on a killing spree that first includes a classmate and the guy who picks them up, then a householder (Michael Findlay) whose swimming pool Janie hijacks, before moving onto a predatory lesbian and finally her lover’s girlfriend (Roberta Findlay), whom she strangles with a belt. This is all told in flashback as she tells the story to her disbelieving bedmate – though the corpse he discovers in the bath-tub rapidly changes his mind. Oh, and did I forget to mention, for extra sleaze points, he is also Janie’s daddy? Damn. All of her exploits are accompanied by narration from what could be seen as an ancestor of Dexter’s “dark passenger”, exhorting Janie to further murderous acts, in a placid and matter-of-fact tone that is actually all the more chilling for its calmness.

While credited to Bravman, there was definite creative input from the husband-and-wife partnership of the Findlays, both in front of and behind the camera. Bravman says Michael “helped” direct a number of scenes, though insists he was in charge overall. And as well as her on-screen role, Roberta also provided the narration and shot the film under her pseudonym, Anna Riva. The Findlays would go on to achieve worldwide notoriety for their 1976 film, the purportedly real Snuff, before Michael was killed in a rooftop helicopter accident the next year. The film appears to be Carpenter’s only movie, though reports indicate she was the director’s girlfriend, whose real name was Linda, and she was not a natural blonde, as depicted here – the early, failed efforts involving wigs account for some of the woeful continuity present here. She’s not a bad actress, though isn’t asked to do much more here than alternate between psychotic and cute; it’s the narration and overall sleazy feel that are mostly responsible for making this flesh-crawlingly effective.

Make no mistake: this is cheaply-made, with all the killings save the last (because you don’t need much to fake a strangulation) thoroughly unconvincing and lacking in impact. And for a grindhouse film of the era, it’s actually kinda tame, with less nudity than you’d see in a typical Game of Thrones episode [this runs 65 mins, so isn’t much longer either!]. Still, this is such a nastily twisted piece of work, it can only be admired as such, and is a fine example of how low-budget and independent film-making can go places mainstream cinema would never dare venture.

Dir: Jack Bravman
Star: Mary Jane Carpenter, Roberta Findlay, Peer St. Jean, Michael Findlay

Prehistoric Bimbos in Armageddon City

  By

★★
“Video sleeve not relevant to movie inside”

prehistoricIt’s hard to be critical of a film for being cheap, when the movie is not only aware of its own cheapness, but wears this on its sleeve like a badge of honour. “So what if I’m made entirely by amateurs with their pocket-money,” it seems to be saying. “We didn’t care, so why the hell should you?” I could list all the flaws here – crappy sound, low-quality video, acting your local amateur dramatic group would reject, awful use of stock classical music that would make Gustav Holst spin in his grave – but its response would simply be “…and your point is?” In the interests of space, let’s largely take those aspects as thoroughly read, and get on with the rest of our review. The setting is Chicago, and far from Armageddon having hit, it looks pretty much like the city we know – trains run in the background, for example. There is some introductory guff, which is hardly convincing, and nor is there anything particular “Prehistoric” about the leading ladies here, beyond a bit of fur trim.

You’d certainly be forgiven if confusion set in through a first ten minutes that can only be described as incoherent. There is a pretty good reason for this, however, in that it’s actually a quick rehash of Sheets’ previous film, Bimbos B.C., which leads into the story here. It’s relevant, as the predecessor was (apparently) mostly concerned with the search through Armageddon City by our heroines for an antidote so one of their number can be cured after being nibbled by one of the local monsters. This brought them into conflict with Salacious Thatch (Bernier), whom they defeated and apparently killed. Whoa, not quite so fast, ladies. He actually survived, being outfitted with a cyborg arm by Nemesis (Vollrath), and kidnaps the bimbos from a foraging mission under temporary leader, Gabrielle (Starr), enslaving them in his mine [Quite what they are digging for in Chicago, I’m not sure. Deep-pan pizza, possibly] But there’s trouble up above, as Thatch is seeking a return to power, now held by Nemesis…

As noted above, it’s practically critic-proof in many aspects, because it just doesn’t care. I will note my disappointment that during the second half in particular, it focuses far more on Thatch + Nemesis than our heroines. In particular, there’s a long chase which starts out in cars, downgrades to pedal bikes, and ends up on skateboards. It’s not as amusing as Sheets thinks. But I have to say, the “home made” robots are quite lovely, truly evoking the B-movie spirit apparently being aimed for. Without a strong tolerance for micro-budget cinema, this is quite probably unwatchable. Even with such, this feels like it overstays its welcome, even at less than 70 minutes.

Dir: Todd Sheets
Star: Holly Starr, Robert Vollrath, Deric Bernier, Veronica Orr

Lust for Freedom

  By

★½
“Lust Highway”

lustforfreedomUndercover cop Gillian Kaites (Coll) needs a break from the force after an operation goes wrong, with her boyfriend and fellow cop being gunned down in front of her. She goes on a road-trip, but has the misfortune to go through a town where the local cops are in league with the prison to arrest fetching young ladies on fabricated charges. They can then be shipped off to jail and… Well, the script is kinda vague on the specific purpose behind this, clearly quite significant, operation involving a large number of people and no small effort. Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt, and presume the ends, whatever they may be, justify the means. Gillian ends up framed for drug possession, and has to survive against brutal guards, brutal fellow prisoners and matron Mrs. Puskar (Trevor) – in the interests of sustaining suspense, I will avoid revealing whether or not she is brutal. Eventually, the brutality on display becomes too much, and she leads the inmates in a revolt against their cruel captors. In other words: women in prison plot 3A.

It’s not a genre which naturally is at home here: whether it qualifies, depends on the approach taken with the heroine as much as anything. How pro-active and action-oriented is she? It’s really a judgment call, but in this case, Coll is physical enough to qualify, and there are a couple of other elements that just about push this into the fringes of our territory. Most obviously, is the lengthy pro-style wrestling match between two inmates, at the behest of Puskar. It’s notable, because one of the participants is actual pro wrestler Dee ‘Queen Kong’ Booher, who was part of the GLOW franchiseas ‘Matilda the Hun’ (a name shamelessly stolen from Death Race 2000), and at 6’4″, certainly deserves the name. Kaites also professes to possess some close-combat abilities, befitting her role as a cop – which she, curiously, never mentions during her incarceration – and uses these to defend herself.

The downside is, this isn’t very good in most aspects, ranging from the overuse of voice-over, clearly as a penny-pinching tactic to avoid the rigours of sync sound recording, through a godawful soundtrack consisting largely of two songs by eighties hair-metal band Grim Reaper (in the film’s defense, it actually was the eighties), to the performance of the lead. This is Coll’s only credit ever, according to the IMDB, and you can understand why. Compared to, say, the Female Convict Scorpion films which were my last dip into the field, it’s positively chaste, outside of a lesbian scene between scream queen Michelle Bauer and porn starlet Summer Breeze. So you have something which is neither tongue in cheek, nor excessive, nor well-acted or filmed. Kinda hard to work out what the point actually is. Great poster though…

Dir: Eric Louzil
Star: Melanie Coll, William J. Kulzer, Judi Trevor, Elizabeth Carlisle

Raven Hawk

  By

★★★
“But is it Raven Hawk or Ravenhawk? “

ravenhawkThe sleeve and the IMDB seem to differ. Either way… In 1979, young Native American Rhyia Shadowfeather is forced to watch as her parents, opposed to the building of an industrial plant on native land, are killed in front of her. Rhyia, sent catatonic by the shock, is framed for the murders and sent to an asylum. 12 years later, the van transferring her to another facility crashes, and the adult Rhyia (McLish) is presumed killed. Except, of course, she’s still alive, and seizes the chance to extract vengeance on those responsible, who have profited from the plant, which was constructed after the opposition was disposed of, and is now belching pollution into the environment. Top of the food chain there is Philip Thorne (Atherton), but on Rhyia’s trail is federal marshal Del Wilkes (Enos), who may be on thin ice, investigating on the reservation.

McLish is a former bodybuilder, who was a two-time Ms. Olympia, and was featured in Pumping Iron II: The Women. Pyun seems to have something of a “thing” for those – see also Sue Price in Nemesis 4, but at least McLish doesn’t the same neo-alien look to her. Chiseled out of stone, certainly, but cinematographer George Mooradian does a good job of simply making her look fit. Indeed, credit Mooradian for a film that looks an awful lot better than most TV movies, taking full advantage of the spectacular landscapes and scenery (both physical and biological!). Some of it was shot here in Arizona, in and around Page, most notably the Glen Canyon Dam Bridge from which one of her targets topples; it’s a long way down, since the bridge was the highest arch bridge in the world when it was completed in the late fifties.

Probably wisely, the script doesn’t give McLish many lines, leaving the chat to the rest of the cast, a solid bunch of character actors, including Mitch Pileggi (The X Files). The story generally works well, the villains growing steadily more and more disturbed as the body count grows, Shadowfeather apparently able to vanish like a ghost. It is a little heavy on the “tormented and put-upon Indians” angle – yeah, I get it, give them a casino or something and let’s all move on. Disappointingly, Shadowfeather is also robbed of her ultimate vengeance, a strange scripting decision that significantly devalues everything which has gone before. However, it remains generally solid, and you’re left with a vague sense of disappointment that McLish didn’t keep on with the action flicks. She’s certainly no worse here than a certain other body-builder was, in his early genre efforts.

Dir: Albert Pyun
Star: Rachel McLish, John Enos III, Ed Lauter, William Atherton

Hullabaloo: Animated steampunk action heroine seeking your support

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hullabaloo2Currently running on IndieGogo is this campaign to assist in the funding of an animated feature, Hullabaloo, which hopes to resurrect the virtually dead art of traditional, 2-D, hand-drawn animation. Even Studio Ghibli, the home of animation deity Hayao Miyazaki, seems to be heading that way, and it’s easy to understand why: it’s an astonishingly intensive process. The president of Ghibli once estimated that all his company’s resources, going full bore, could produce five minutes of feature-quality animation a month. No wonder the trend is increasingly toward CGI. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing: the best works of Pixar show that story and characterization are more important than medium. But the loss of cel animation takes a tool away from the storytellers, and I personally find CGI still falls short when it comes to depicting human emotions accurately.

Hullabaloo was created by James Lopez, with animation by Bruce Smith, both long-time veterans of the industry, who worked on some of Disney’s classics, including The Lion King, Tarzan and The Emperor’s New Groove. Now, they’ve gone independent, and are looking to raise money for this project – it has really taken off, with the campaign already having raised more than three times its initial goal, with almost three weeks still left. But why is it of interest here? Well, if the pic on the right hasn’t given that away, because it promises to kick the arse of most Disney – or, indeed, most animated – films, in terms of its strong heroine. Here’s the synopsis, which sounds more than slightly like Adele Blanc-Sec, in terms of atmosphere and settings:

Hullabaloo is the story of Veronica Daring, a brilliant young scientist who returns home from an elite finishing school to find her father–the eccentric inventor Jonathan Daring–missing without a trace! The only clue left behind points Veronica toward Daring Adventures, an abandoned amusement park used by her father to test his fantastical steam-powered inventions. There she discovers a strange girl named Jules, a fellow inventor who agrees to help Veronica in locating her missing father and discovering the secrets of his work.

Together, Veronica and Jules learn that Jonathan Daring has been kidnapped by a mysterious group of influential persons, who seek to use his latest invention for nefarious purposes. These villains are wealthy and influential and neither Veronica nor Jules can stop them openly. But determined to save her father and holding true to the family creed that technology should be used for the good of all, not the greed of some, Veronica assumes the secret identity of “Hullabaloo”, a goggled crusader who uses wits and science to combat evil and oppose the nefarious conspiracy that has taken her father.

Got to love a story which also appears to be pro-science, as well as intent on providing a strong female role model for kids, something which isn’t as common as it should be [and even when it appears, can end up going off the rails – see Brave for example, which started an awful lot stronger than it finished]. Yeah, latching on to the steampunk trend does perhaps seem a little too bandwagon-jumping. But if you’re going to use an “antique” style like cel animation, then it does perhaps make more sense to put it into a period setting. And, it has to be said, there hasn’t been a “true” steampunk feature released for a while: there have been some with steampunk elements e.g. Sherlock Holmes, or even the version of The Three Musketeers made by Paul W.S. Anderson. But this seems a good deal more full-on, and can only be applauded as such. Of course, there’s a long way to go from where they are now, with the quarter of a million raised a drop in the bucket compared to the cost of the full feature. Hopefully, it’ll end up both getting made, and looking as cool as it has the potential to be.
hullabaloo