Review Category: DVD/Blu Ray

My Darling Clementine remains the definitive take on the legendary Gunfight at the OK Corral, and is right up there with John Ford’s finest ever Westerns. It’s stature as a classic of the genre is unquestionable, and along with other Ford greats like The Searchers and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, at its core is not only a battle between good and evil, but also the challenges facing towns in the old West as civility slowly caught up with them.

It’s fair to say that Ford’s film bares only a passing resemblance to real life events, of course. He actually met the real Wyatt Earp on a movie set as a young man, but at this stage of his career the director’s focus was more on purveying great idealistic mythology than historical accuracy. An aim he achieves with typical aplomb.

At the film’s outset, Wyatt (Henry Fonda) and his brothers are cattle drivers just passing through the rambunctious town of Tombstone. While visiting the town one evening, Wyatt successfully incapacitates a drunken Indian and runs him out of town. However, despite the mayor’s pleas, he turns down the job of Marshall when it is offered. However, when the siblings return to their herd and find their younger brother James dead, he reassess his decision and opts to stay on until the killers are brought to justice.

Fonda is impeccable as Wyatt Earp, perfectly encapsulating a character that was undeniably tough, but was far from an uncultured brute. Well-mannered and intelligent, he carried an air of respectability and authority as he strode around his town. The central romance with the titular Clementine also provides the film with a tenderness that highlights the type of civil domesticity that Wyatt is trying to make the West safe for. Despite being driven by revenge over his brother’s death, Wyatt still insists on acting within the law, proving himself an unwavering man of honour. Also standing out is Victor Mature as the former doctor turned alcoholic gambler “Doc” Holliday. Suffering from a chronic case of tuberculosis, Doc is the classic flawed Ford hero. There is a darkness inside of him, but at heart he is a good man too. One of the film’s most memorable scenes sees Mature reel off the closing passage of a Shakespeare soliloquy in the middle of a smoky saloon. A scene that again emphasises the elegance and beauty found in the harshest of surroundings.

The climactic shootout is Ford at his very best as the hustle and bustle of the town fades away and the forces of right and wrong do battle. Wyatt and his brothers, along with Doc, stride out to face the no-good Clanton clan with a steadfast purpose. The final burst of action sits in notable contrast to the depictions of quaint town life we have largely seen to this point.

The Blu-ray itself delivers Ford’s picture in all its pristine monochrome glory with those Monument Valley vistas and eye-catching interiors both looking magnificent as ever. A truly special Western that has never looked better.

Special Features: Audio commentary / Two documentaries / Movie Masterclass episode / Two radio plays / Visual essay / Gallery / Trailers / 40-page booklet

MY DARLING CLEMENTINE / CERT: PG / DIRECTOR: JOHN FORD / SCREENPLAY: SAMUEL G. ENGEL, WINSTON MILLER / STARRING: HENRY FONDA, LINDA DARNELL, VICTOR MATURE, CATHY DOWNS / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

 

Well here’s a bit of an oddity from the BFI. Arguably, it’s a long overdue oddity. You might not have heard of Richard Massingham but in the ‘40s and ‘50s he was quite a familiar face to Brit-audiences (even if they didn’t know who he was either). He wrote and directed a load of short and quintessentially British films for training and public information purposes that were whimsical, surreal and, ultimately, pleasingly bonkers. He even appeared in a good few of them himself (hence his anonymous familiarity) as a sort of childlike old duffer who needed a disembodied voice to tell him how to do everything from crossing the road to blowing his own nose. The BFI have assembled nearly three hours’ worth for their latest DVD release, How to be Eccentric: The Essential Richard Massingham.

If you are at all familiar with Massingham then in all likelihood the one you’ve seen is the aforementioned (and near-legendary) Handkerchief Drill (1949) in which he gets pepper and allsorts thrown at him in order to get the hang of that tricky snot-rag. That’s because it’s one of those things the BBC used to like to wheel out when showing us just how mad the past was. You see, not only are these films pretty amusing, they’re fascinating cultural history. While we might chuckle at the lack of hygiene in the brilliant Another Case of Food Poisoning (1949), it’s also intriguing to see just how filthy our grandparents were. Down at the Local (1945) might be fairly mirth-free but there is a genuine thrill to exploring British boozers through the eyes of a couple of drinkers during the closing years of the War. And to be honest, we didn’t even understand what Elopement in France (1944) was about until we discovered that this tale of a Canadian soldier’s romantic travails was actually an advert for Rinso washing powder.

The filmmaking techniques themselves are also worth looking out for: Massingham was something of an auteur in this field and it’s not that surprising that Henri Langlois described him as “the greatest technician and the greatest poet of British cinema”, even if his tongue was in his cheek and he was actually expressing a Gallic-distain for the rest of our cinematic efforts. And see if you can spot some well-known faces in their youth. We had a confirmed sighting of a young Dick Emery in 30 Miles an Hour (1949) and we could swear that’s Kenneth Connor as the tailor in In Which We Live: Being the Story of a Suit Told by Itself (1944) but we can’t actually prove it. Yes, the suit really is the lead actor in that.

All in all this is as essential as the title suggests if you’re in the slightest bit interested in Massingham’s unique work or British cultural history. The addition of a documentary on the disc would have been nice but ultimately the things-aren’t-so-bad What a Life (1948) and water-saving with The Five-Inch Bather (1942) make it worth the price of admission.

Special Features: 32-page booklet

HOW TO BE ECCENTRIC: THE ESSENTIAL RICHARD MASSINGHAM / DIRECTORS: VARIOUS BUT MAINLY RICHARD MASSINGHAM / SCREENPLAY: VARIOUS BUT MAINLY RICHARD MASSINGHAM / STARRING RICHARD MASSINGHAM AND OTHERS / RELEASED: AUGUST 24TH

 

Collection 21 starts on the second curve of the twelfth series, the first three episodes of which are recap filler from way back when, where Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura were still under Kakashi’s tutelage. The offending episodes are ten years old by this point, and carry no weight in the Shippiden context. When it first aired, a few duds were expected, but when it comes to paying almost twenty quid for twelve episodes – three being only recap – it starts to get steep. Couple that with region code issue on the second disc and it’s a sizable investment.

As if often the case with shows of this size and longevity, the animation quality is prone to fluctuate, and looking for any visual consistency is folly. That said, there are some moments of wonder and style in amongst the mediocrity. Episode 261, following the recap episodes, offers a stark reminder of how far the series has come in terms of popularity and production values. Sure, there’s still wonky animation, but the increased use of CG cell-shading provides greater scope and more dynamic fight sequences.

261 also sees the start of the Fourth Shinobi World War: Confrontation arc, with the rumblings of warfare in motion, and the battle against the Impure World Reincarnation. Dead shinobi have been brought back to the land of the living by a forbidden resurrection jitsu, to do their caster’s bidding. Among the comebacks are old fan favourites Haku and Zabuza, two of the principal adversaries from the original Naruto series. After the duo’s emotional send-off the first time around, this re-entry isn’t quite up to snuff. The only way of stopping them is by releasing their souls, like the adage about ghosts left behind because of some unfinished business in life. It might not be the most original concept, especially when it comes to anime, but the resurrection trope does make for some interesting scenarios and springboard new faces.

Naruto, meanwhile, continues his training with Killer B (who, in the English dub, sounds like Starsky and Hutch’s Huggy Bear). There’s plenty of laughs and light relief, but it’s got nothing on his training with toady Jiraiya.

The crippling region code issues and filler episodes prevent Collection 21 being anything other than superfluous. Distributor Manga Entertainment UK is resolving the issue, but twelve episode chunks aren’t nearly enough to fully enjoy and appreciate all that the series has to offer. Without the bookending arcs, it feels a bit touristy.

NARUTO SHIPPUDEN COLLECTION 21 / CERT: 12 / DIRECTOR: HAYATO DATE / SCREENPLAY: JUNKI TAKEGAMI / STARRING: CHIE NAKAMURA, JUNKO TAKEUCHI, NORIAKI SUGIYAMA / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

 

It’s not often that you see a Belgian horror film doing the rounds, and so the release of Cub (previously known as Welp) was a welcome one, particularly as the film itself is one filled with so much promise.

The plot of Jonas Govaerts’ movie centres on a group of Boy Scouts who go out into the wild for a camping trip, only they end up with more than they bargained for. We find ourselves drawn to Sam (Maurice Luitjen), a young boy with a mysterious and troubled past who is maybe a little bit of a square peg in the round hole that is the group. As Akela (Titus De Voogdt) and Baloo (Stef Aerts), along with cook Jasmijn (Evelien Bosmans), do their best to keep the kids entertained and in line, it soon becomes apparent that one of the urban legends that’s being spouted to the boys may not be quite as fictional as once believed. For you see, out there, lurking in the woods, is an apparent savage and feral child dubbed Kai, who has his sights on slicing and dicing his way through the group.

Cub in and of itself is a good idea, striving to steer clear of some of the more familiar tropes of similar such films. The score is atmospheric, almost Carpenter-esque at times, and the tension surrounding the mystery of the unknown is admirable and often well crafted. Unfortunately though, what lets Cub down in part is some of its actual reveals. By this, we mean that the build-up and tease of the ‘monster in the woods’ is far more impressive than what we get when we actually see the supposed creature that’s tormenting our campers, particularly hindered by the faux animalistic noises let out at certain times.

It’s a shame that Cub ultimately ends up dropping the ball as it comes to a conclusion. There’s some nice establishing tricks used throughout the early part of the film, and there are even some genuinely dark and eerie moments, not to mention decent gore when it comes, dotted in amongst the 84-minute running time here, but the end result just feels a little lacking.

There’s no doubting that Govaerts has some talent, with some clever and delicate storytelling at the core of Cub, all helped by some strong performances from the principal cast (itself particularly impressive given the young age of the majority of them), but this just feels like a movie where the a few missteps were made as a slightly obvious twist unravels to the surprise of likely nobody. Still, whilst many will see where Cub is going, it’s a relatively enjoyable film nonetheless.

CUB / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR: JONAS GOVAERTS / SCREENPLAY: JONAS GOVAERTS, ROEL MONDELAERS / STARRING: MAURICE LUITJEN, EVELIEN BOSMANS, TITUS DE VOOGDT, STEF AERTS / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

We’re going to start with a minor spoiler. There are rules to black & white monster-movies and one of the most unbreakable (rule #3b, to be precise) is that if the leading lady puts on a nightie within 15 minutes of the end, she will be carried off by the monster so she can be rescued from its monstrous/misunderstood (delete where applicable) clutches at the climax. But here in The Creature Walks Among Us (1956), Leigh Snowden (the only woman in the cast) dutifully dons her night attire at the 5-minutes-to-go mark, only to be completely ignored by the Creature when he turns up in mid-climatic-rampage. What? Are they deliberately subverting audience expectation? Or did they just leave it too late to bother? Just what are we to make of this third instalment in the Gill Man trilogy that started so memorable with Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)?

Millionaire Doctor Barton (Morrow) is in pursuit of the Creature up some lagoon or another as he reckons that the fact that the it’s at the evolutionary crossover-point between water-dwelling and living-on-land will be dead useful when mankind moves into space (okaaay…).  To this end, he has brought the Vagabondia III, a significantly Bigger Boat than The Rita in original Creature, and a team of scientists and guides to ensure the correct level of trunk-wearing manly-rivalry so peculiar to the series. He also brings his wife (Snowden) on swimsuit-duties and to provide a bit of sexual tension to the testosterone. They capture the Creature but accidentally set fire to him, like you do. But it turns out that his skin underneath is human-like (but still monsterish) and his gills don’t work anymore. He even has to wear clothes to protect his skin. He’s become one of us! Or has he?  Who are the real monsters? The Gill Man or the humans and their trunk-wearing rivalries? Golly. Perhaps they were subverting audience expectations after all…

In a sense, there’s much to recommend Walks Among Us. There’s the usual underwater photography (which was a reasonably big deal in the ‘50s even if they weren’t 3D this time out) and the addition of sonar to the scientists’ arsenal gives rise to some brilliant proto-Dallas-in-the-ventilator-shafts moments. You even have to admire the whole who-are-the-monsters? angle. But there are problems. The new “more human” Gill Man rubber outfit just doesn’t have the iconic quality of the original and the addition of clothes in-no-way fools us that it’s because the budget didn’t run to a full body-suit. In fact, it reminds us of Tor Johnson for some reason.  But to be honest, it just isn’t as much fun as the others. Revenge of the Creature (1955) was saved by scenes like Gilly trashing a jazz gig at a waterside bar (one of our favourite moments in the genre) but there’s no particularly outstanding “moment” this time out. Jeff Morrow and Rex Reason (real name, we think), reprising their This Island Earth (1955) partnership,  are good value as ever but this still the weakest of the trilogy despite the lofty intentions of the story.

But despite our criticisms it is still fairly enjoyable. Probably down to the Bigger Boat and the swimwear.

Special Features: Trailer / Lobby card gallery / Poster gallery / Stills gallery

THE CREATURE WALKS AMONG US (1956) / CERT: 12 / DIRECTOR: JOHN SHERWOOD / SCREENPLAY: ARTHUR A. ROSS / STARRING: JEFF MORROW, REX REASON. LEIGH SNOWDEN, GREGG PALMER / RELEASED: AUGUST 24TH

Classic French-Italian artsy-horror in glorious Blu-ray? Don’t mind if we do, actually. This’ll be a doddle to review.

A woman dumps a body in a river and the police are surprised to discover her face has been removed. Then up pops Dr. Génessier (Pierre Brasseur) to identify the body as his daughter who was disfigured years earlier in a car accident caused by the doctor himself. Obviously suicide or some such, but how come there’s another man claiming it might be his missing daughter? Of course, the doctor’s daughter, Christiane (Edith Scob), is still alive and the guilt-ridden Génessier has got his loyal secretary (Alida Valli) combing the streets for likely candidates for a bit of involuntary face-removal so that he can restore his daughter to her former glory. The body in the river was one of the unfortunate donors. Inevitably, what with tissue rejection and so on, these face transplants never go quite according to plan and it looks like Génessier’s quest is going to take a few more attempts. Now the police are investigating those missing girls and you just know this isn’t going to end well.

Eyes Without a Face is still a visual stunner and it’s easy to see what a ground-breaker it was at the time. Horror over here was in the Hammer-style and this is certainly no Hammer even if there is a hint of the gothic about it. It has to be said that the sight of Christiane floating around in her white mask is probably one of the creepiest things committed to celluloid, and the near-legendary face-removal scene is still fairly wince-inducing even if it has lost some of its power to shock over the last half a century. There’s a dream-like quality to it all that evokes the stuff of nightmares, which is why the film is rightly regarded as a classic.

So there you go, end of review: it’s perfect.

Ah, you’re still here? OK, fair enough. We’ll say it then. While you won’t read a bad word said about EWaF anywhere else, we’re brave enough to tell you that it plods like no-one’s business. Georges Franju might be one of the great visual directors but even he reckoned he wasn’t the greatest storyteller, and the direction here is a teensy-bit on the leaden side. Some might call it lyrical, but if you’re not in the mood then you’ll find the 84-minute running time seems a lot longer. The problem is that while there’s a lot going on, there doesn’t seem to be much driving it and it gets a tad repetitive. Christiane cries a lot and her father looks so continuously dour that the movie can’t sell you the idea that an apparently successful operation is going to end in anything but another disaster. Tension is replaced by glumness. Horror isn’t supposed to work like that and you can’t help thinking it isn’t quite the sum of its parts.

But having just dissed the undissable, that’s not to say we wouldn’t recommend what is, ultimately, a classic. Just make sure you’re in the right mood for a bit of unsettling visual poetry rather than something that’ll grab you by the throat with its compelling narrative.

Actually, that wasn’t a doddle at all…

Special Features: Commentary by Tim Lucas / Two documentaries / Interview with Edith Scob / Collector’s booklet

EYES WITHOUT A FACE (1950) / DIRECTOR: GEORGES FRANJU / SCREENPLAY: GEORGES FRANJU, JEAN REDON / STARRING: PIERRE BRASSEUR, EDITH SCOB, ALIDA VALLI, JULIETTE MAYNIEL / RELEASE DATE: AUGUST 24TH

 

The real events that this film concerns itself with are several unsolved murders and attacks that took place in the small Arkansas town of Texarkana that became known as The Moonlight Murders. As the local force struggles to gain a foothold in the investigation and with any leads drying up, a revered Texas Ranger is called in to assist. With the names of those involved changed, and actual case details clearly scarce, writer Earl E. Smith and director Charles B. Pierce had plenty of scope for narrative indulgence; to build tension and develop the characters. Sadly, what they created is wearily formulaic, full of characters comparable in incompetence to Sheriff J.W. Pepper and worst of all, is just rather dull.

If you are a fan of close-up shots of sinister, booted feet or of police cars screeching repetitively around country roads then Sundown may well be your kind of film. Any mystery is dispensed with early on due to the knowledge that the killer is never caught, and apart from some blunt wordplay which vaguely implies a suspect there is little thought given by the filmmakers to a part of the story you would think important. What remains is a disjointed number of set pieces as the police incompetently hunt their masked prey and succeed only in distancing the audience.

Pierce attempts to weave his stop/start narrative together with an off camera voiceover designed to give the film a real-life documentary style. While this exposition does assist the viewer with the timeline and who’s who, it adds nothing to the plot and gives the film an amateurish quality that may actually be intentional, but likely isn’t. Sundown does appear cheap throughout from the pop-up, cardboard-like sets to the random variations in lighting as night becomes day, then becomes night again in no time at all. Everything has the impression of either being rushed or not thought through, and as such the film never fully engages the viewer.

There is a certain nostalgia to The Town That Dreaded Sundown, but this isn’t enough in itself to warrant more than a passing interest. That it developed a cult status in the ‘80s is likely down to a lack of availability leading to people’s heightened, rose-tinted memories and a subsequent false demand rather than anything within the film itself. A production that is as confused and confusing as the mystery it tries to document.

THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN (1976) / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR: CHARLES B. PIERCE / SCREENPLAY: EARL E. SMITH / STARRING: BEN JOHNSON, ANDREW PRINE, DAWN WELLS, JIMMY CLEM / RELEASE DATE: AUGUST 24TH

 

Fans of American “big bug” science-fiction films from the 1950s generally cite Them! (huge ants) and Tarantula (far-too-big spider) as classics of a movie subgenre which saw assorted everyday creepy-crawlies mutated to enormous proportions, usually by atomic bomb radiation. Few, however, will wave the flag for The Deadly Mantis, a 1957 effort in which a giant-sized praying mantis is awoken from millions of years of slumber following an earthquake in the Arctic and proceeds to swoop about causing chaos and carnage across North America. This isn’t just because praying mantises are ugly-looking buggers but not especially terrifying, but also because The Deadly Mantis isn’t really very good…

Directed with what can best be described as workmanlike efficiency by Nathan Juran (who in 1957 also helmed the classic 20 Million Miles To Earth and later the original 1962 Jack The Giant Killer as well as many episodes of Irwin Allen’s outlandish 1960s sci-fi TV adventures) The Deadly Mantis, unlike its titular airborne mantodea, never really manages to take flight. Even by the slightly clunky standards of many of these cheap 1950s monsterfests, The Deadly Mantis just seems to be going through the motions. The script (co-written by Martin Berkeley whose previous credits include 1955’s better-regarded Tarantula) is flat and largely unengaging and the characters, the usual motley collection of starchy scientists, random soldiers and stiffly-suited civilians are utterly unmemorable. Token female Margo Blaine (Pat Conway) is clumsily manoeuvred into the role of romantic foil (to Craig Stevens’ Colonel Joe Parkman) as an afterthought, as if someone realised that none of these characters were remotely interesting or relatable – but the scenes where Parkman practically forces his attentions on Margo just seem creepy, inappropriate and crowbarred into the narrative just to add a bit of humanity to bland and forgettable characters.

Sadly even the Deadly Mantis itself isn’t able to make up for the inadequacies of the human cast. In flight it looks like an illustration cut out of a magazine, and whilst there are one or two decent model shots we’re not exactly in Ray Harryhausen territory, and more often or not the thing just sits there waving its mandibles about and failing miserably to appear even remotely threatening. After a brief tussle with the Washington Monument and a spectacularly unthrilling dogfight with some USAF aircraft, the injured Mantis takes refuge in a tunnel in Manhattan where it’s routinely dispatched by the brave Colonel Parkman and a handful of crack troops armed with  a cluster of handy chemical bombs.

There’s always something rather charming about the naive simplicity of these 1950s ‘giant monster’ movies and there’s a reason why some of them are more fondly-remembered than others. The Deadly Mantis is clearly a cheap and derivative rush job which is rarely able to raise much more than a flicker of interest on the excitement meter. This is one Mantis which is more Deadly Dull than Deadly.

Special Features: Trailer / Galleries

THE DEADLY MANTIS / CERT: PG / DIRECTOR: NATHAN H. JURAN / SCREENPLAY: WILLIAM ALLAND, MARTIN BERKELEY / STARRING: CRAIG STEVENS, WILLIAM HOPPER, ALIX TALTON, PAT CONWAY/ RELEASE DATE: AUGUST 24TH

 

Over the years, movies have tried to capture the online experience. The problem is that a bunch of people sitting in front of a computer screen rarely makes for interesting viewing. Which is a pity, as the entire premise of Unfriended revolves around someone browsing Skype, Facebook, Google and YouTube. The entire movie takes place on a single laptop screen; the lead characters talk to each other on Skype, all the flashbacks are framed as YouTube videos, and so on. It’s an interesting variant on found footage and one that’s likely to impress the casual viewer.

The plot may be a little bit too familiar to fans of ultra-low budget movies. A bunch of friends ganged up on the school bully and their over enthusiastic shenanigans ended in that person’s death. The movie is set exactly a year after all this has happened and opens with us seeing someone looking at the unfortunate incident on YouTube. As the story progresses, the rest of the cast Skype in, then a mysterious extra person joins in on the chat. One that claims to be a vengeful ghost.

Though the ‘online chat’ gimmick is nice, it quickly becomes obvious that this is a cost-saving device rather than anything to do with storytelling. If this was an alternate reality game or a web series then this would be charming, but because the movie isn’t natively digital the whole thing feels forced and false.

The acting is at the same level of quality that you would expect from the likes of Ouija or Paranormal Activity, and a lot of the energy of the piece comes from the cast screaming. You do get the feeling that if only someone stopped and had a cup of tea everything would turn out all right. Alas, much of the horror comes from jump scares and yelling. After a while this becomes a little predictable. Unfriended is a great idea poorly executed, but if you’re still hungry for found footage features then you should check it out.

UNFRIENDED / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: LEVAN GABRIADZE / SCREENPLAY: NELSON GRAVES / STARRING: HEATHER SOSSAMAN, SHELLEY HENNIG, WILL PELTZ, MATTHEW BOHRER, COURTNEY HALVERSON / RELEASE DATE: AUGUST 24TH (DIGITAL), SEPTEMBER 7TH (DVD, BLU-RAY)

 

The dichotomy of tradition, religion and warfare is at the heart of Muv-Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse, playing out in a Japan caught in the struggle of an alien invasion – the BETA. Despite the threat, there’s still the same attention to ritual, to history and to preserving everyday life. But it’s a militarised nation, conjuring the American occupation where the country’s culture was drastically transformed. The same is true of the alien presence. From the contextual opening, which plays like archive footage from a distanced future, we learn of the BETA invasion which started in the late sixties.

The opening two part episode introduces us to 1997, where schools have taken the place of recruitment, and students are groomed for combat. Their endgame is to pilot the Tactical Surface Fighter (TSF) where the user’s average lifespan is only 8 minutes. Yui Takamura and her friends act like any other youngsters, and there’s the usual high school revelries and stereotypes that gives us the false sense that we’ve seen this all before. When they swap their school uniforms for skin suits – skin tight and vacuum-fitted – the series gets to the nitty gritty. Once the students first face the sordid BETA hordes, we think that the power of friendship and belief will save them like in untold other series. In actuality, it’s a gruelling visual experience with Elfin Lied levels of gore and grimness, counterpointed only by an atypical style and plot. The score is full of Wagnerian depth in amongst the Jpop, which is as good a way as any to describe Muv-Luv.

The third episode is set years after the scorched earth that destroyed Kyoto to fend off the overwhelming BETA force. Imperial Japan is developing the next-gen TSFs to defend the front lines of the Far East. In response, the UN has backed a joint development programme between Japan and the US. The result is the Prominence project. Yui is now Development Chief, making up one part of the crack international team of pilots. Kudos for diversity (there’s nothing like a global catastrophe to bring us together) but stereotypes a diverse cast doesn’t make. The Swedish and Italian characters in particular seem inspired by ABBA and American cartoons respectively. And the English dub boasts some grating accents which make Mario seem politically correct.

The episodes following the time skip are at odds with the opening, and besides the same mechas, it feels like an altogether different show. It follows the personality clash of Yui and arrogant American pilot Yuya Bridges and the unavoidable will-they-won’t-they scenarios. It’s an unpredictable hodgepodge of tone and style, with each episode a further dilution of its initial statement of intent. It’s not that it needs to be all grim and gore, but consistency at least would have kept enough of a through line to keep viewers interested. Given the multi-media, ten year plus franchise it’s no wonder that the anime is strained, pulling in so many opposing directions.

For all its floundering and garish jiggling fanservice, Muv-Luv does have a great sense of style. Combat is dynamic, swapping between guns and sword play. The character design is particularly nice, with some subtle stylistic touches. The mechas have a tangible aviation inspired design, which gives the grimmer parts a speculative quality. At its best, Muv-Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse is a clever show that riffs on a nuclear subtext. It’s overseen by Masaomi Ando in the war movie tradition, where style, timing and plotting reveal the reality of war. Come for the gore and stay for the mechas, just avoid everything else.

Special Features: Clean opening and closing animation / Trailers

MUV-LUV ALTERNATIVE: TOTAL ECLIPSE PART 1 / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: MASAOMI ANDO / SCREENPLAY: TAKAUKI INAGAKI / STARRING: KRYSTAL LAPORTE, COREY HARTZOG, MOLLY SEARCY, KATELYN BARR, MEG MCDONALD / RELEASE DATE: AUGUST 24TH