Review Category: Reviews

REVENGE

REVENGE / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: CORALIE FARGEAT / STARRING: MATILDA ANNA INGRID LUTZ, KEVIN JANSSENS, VINCENT COLOMBE / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Well, that’s sure one hell of a way to make an impactful debut! Being known for making short films beforehand, French filmmaker Coralie Fargeat crafts an astonishing debut feature film that takes the rape-revenge sub-genre to a whole new level in Revenge, a twisted tale that centres on a young woman who’s left for dead after being sexually assaulted but manages to self-recover through an agonisingly painful and intense procedure. Afterwards, she decides to embark on a payback quest, transforming from a sex kitten mistress to a philandering husband to a vengeful, semiautomatic-wielding machine. Revenge is a balls-to-the-wall action thriller that pulls no punches, and huge plaudits go to Fargeat for managing to accomplish all of that without the film becoming exploitative or full of itself.

Fargeat has stated in many interviews how inspired she was by films like Spielberg’s Duel, Tarantino’s Kill Bill and Miller’s Mad Max to name a few, and you can definitely see those influences peppered throughout the film, but she’s able to inject her own signature style without making it feel clichéd or tired. After the opening 30 minutes of the film, the entire desert villa transforms from a sun-kissed, naturalistic setting into a cranked-up version of reality where the rich, burnt colours of the surroundings become oversaturated and hyper-stylised. Like the central protagonist, the film is going through a transformation of its own, thanks to Fargeat’s expert direction coupled with Robrecht Heyvaert’s gorgeous, dazzling cinematography, as well as the buzzing, pulsating score by Robin “Rob” Coudert.

However, at the centre of this revenge bloodbath is an utterly mesmerising performance from Matilda Anna Ingrid Lutz who completely sells this character and the harrowing, transformative journey she goes on. When we see her early on, she’s the stereotypical, sexy Valley Girl, but it’s only after she goes through this harrowing event that she transforms into a battle-hardened angel of death, rising from the ashes like a phoenix (there’s even some on-the-nose symbolism involved there!). After that event, she doesn’t have any dialogue for the rest of the film, so Lutz deserves an enormous amount of credit for going through the changes the character needed to go through. She is able to convey the innocence, the pain and the rage brilliantly without saying much, and it’s a testament to Lutz for conveying so much emotion through the most subtle of facial expressions for most of the film. Hopefully, this’ll be the start of greater things to come from Lutz, whether that’s in film or TV, plus, if you notice, even her hair colour changes!

Revenge is a film that requires a huge suspension of disbelief; if you take this film incredibly seriously, it’s possible you’ll lose interest easily, but it’s worth noting that audiences should accept this film for what it is: a heightened genre flick. This is an exploitation action thriller film, tapping into the genre’s tropes and developing them in a way that feels unique and creative. Carolie Fargeat has crafted a film that promises great things for her career as a filmmaker, and Matilda Lutz gives a star-making performance that cements her as a rising star with tremendous promise. This is a film where what you see is what you get and, if you can accept that, then you’ll find plenty to like. Bear in mind, though, if you’re squeamish about blood and gore, this is definitely not for the faint hearted!

STAR WARS: DOCTOR APHRA #1

WRITER: ALYSSA WONG / ART: MARIKA CRESTA / PUBLISHER: MARVEL / FORMAT: SINGLE ISSUE / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Doctor Chelli Aphra is the Star Wars answer to Indiana Jones – except female, queer, and more morally dubious. She investigates the archaeological mysteries of the galaxy, always looking to make a credit. Her series now returns with a new creative team and a storyline set between Episodes V and VI.

There’s no Triple-Zero or Beetee-One this time round; the only returning characters are Aphra and Black Krrsantan, so this first issue has a lot of work to do to introduce their new gang. There’s Detta Yao, an enthusiastic student wanting to prove her chops; Eustacia Okka, an old classmate of Aphra’s looking to regain her professor job; and Just Lucky, who, erm, is lucky. Together, they set off the find the mythical Rings of MacGuffin – sorry, Rings of Vaale – but sadistic rich kid Ronen Tagge is on their tail.

Aphra remains one of the most fun characters of the current Star Wars canon, and Alyssa Wong captures her voice well, but here she’s surrounded by too many additions, none of whom particularly stand out, and the quest for the Rings seems equally generic – both characters and plot missing the dark humour and twisted originality which Kieron Gillen and Si Spurrier previously brought to this title. The plot is rushed, with a fight scene breaking out for little reason and encounters with an AT-AT and some giant robots being so brief as to make zero impact.

Marika Cresta’s efficient art and Rachelle Rosenberg’s bright colours are well suited to the breezy adventure tone of the story, though like with the script, we wish there were more ambition in the character and location designs. Nevertheless, this is early days for the new run, and Aphra’s latest expedition could yet turn up some gold.

MASTERS OF BRITISH COMIC ART

AUTHOR: DAVID ROACH | PUBLISHER: REBELLION | RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

David Roach’s Master of British Comic Art is as much curated as authored, gathering some 200 of its 385 pages of work from artists past and present. In some respects, the book is a long-overdue reply to P.R Garriock’s 1978 Masters of Comic Book Art, a much slimmer volume that opened many fans’ eyes to the diversity of comic book illustration including works by Moebius, Eisner, and Britain’s own Barry Windsor-Smith and Frank Bellamy. It can’t be a coincidence that Roach’s new book reproduces a page from Dan Dare that has a panel that Garrock’s book used for its cover. Windsor-Smith and Bellamy are the only artists to appear in both books.

It is not just the focus on British artists that makes Roach’s work different from its Seventies counterpart. There is an air of nostalgia and loss in Masters of British Comic Art that comes partly from the demise of many of the creators being celebrated but also the terrible loss of comics themselves. It is not surprising that the book contains a great many versions of Judge Dredd as the character represents virtually the only surviving comic title in the UK (although the Commando pocketbook line is still available from good newsagents everywhere – whatever a ‘newsagent’ is these days!).

Roach’s collection obviously reflects available material, rights, and the author’s own interests although the latter are at their most diverse here. Still, the book needed pages more devoted to the humour/cartoon genre and there are notably omissions, especially from the long-running Doctor Who Magazine strip. That said, the book does contain examples of Jon Pertwee’s Doctor from the painterly Gerry Haylock (TV Action) and Harry Lindfield (Countdown).

In many ways, Britain has been a great home for comics. It has benefitted from reprints from the American superhero genre, perennially popular European strips such as Tin Tin and Asterix but also, as Roach demonstrates, an incredibly rich history of indigenous art and comic publishing including the wonderful silliness of Ken Reid and Leo Baxendale in The Beano, Cor! and Wham!, the illustrative realism of boys and girls adventure strips and the painterly tradition found on the covers of Look and Learn, The Sphere, and Once Upon a Time.

Roach’s book is an education in comic illustration. The text pages are incredibly well-researched and take the reader on an informative and entertaining journey to a time when there were comics for everyone from the so-called ‘nursery’ comics (Playhour, Pippin, Teddy Bear) though the comedic silliness of the Dandy, Buster, Sparky et al) to the thrills and spills of adventure strips for boys and girls (such as Lion and Misty) and the ‘grown-up’ world of Britain’s underground including Street Comix and Sin City: Tales of Urban Paranoia.

Back in the day, Masters of Comic Book Art was an important validation of drawing comics as valuable contribution to popular visual culture. It’s to be hoped that Masters of British Comic Art, through its research, archival work and copious examples (often reproduced from original artworks) will further this process although I suspect that Roach is preaching to the converted. Despite this, this is a must-have for anyone who takes pleasure in illustration and cartooning and a valuable souvenir of an industry on the brink of disappearing. Comics! Read ’em or lose ’em; ahh, too late, most have already gone.

A GIRL MADE OF AIR

A GIRL MADE OF AIR / AUTHOR: NYDIA HETHERINGTON / PUBLISHER: QUERCUS / RELEASE DATE: SEPTEMBER 3RD

Known to the world as ‘the greatest funambulist who ever lived’ and as ‘Mouse’ to her circus mentor and idol Serendipity Wilson, A Girl Made of Air tells a story about stories in rich, lyrical magic realism. It shows how we are forever running both in search of and escape from the adults who made us what we are, but with a tendency to tell more than to show. Heavy reference to reader, journalist and diary sometimes weighs down the story it frames, entirely consistent with the message about the destructive power of the stories we tell ourselves but still clipping the wings of narrative voice.

The combination of circus magic and magic realism provides a resplendent psychological canvas for the physical thrashing out of trauma, dependency and jealousy in elegant and elaborate imagery. Mouse, our otherwise nameless heroine, is both fascinated by Serendipity’s life and jealous of those who get to share the mysterious adult world with her, while Marina, the alcoholic mermaid mother’s own story – and the lack of love it engendered for her daughter – holds deeper mysteries the closer Mouse gets to the story she has most right to call her own.

Our lives being ‘the thread of narrative we travel along like high wire artists’ (the quote from Angela Carter which opens the story) will only hold as true as the apparent danger, drama and consequence of our actions in the world outside our heads. Yet, when Mouse journeys from England to New York to make peace with herself by making good on the damage done by her childhood jealousy, the characters she meets in her new world are abandoned and moved beyond when it suits her, not suggesting a great change from the self-involved choices of her youth. It’s a lesson we’re told by the heroine she has learned but, in the real world as with a performance onstage, the illusion only fully convinces with action: we believe what we feel we’ve been shown. That said, as a diary-based internal-monologue path towards self-forgiveness, the language is elegant and beautiful and an atmospheric success in itself.

TANK GIRL FOREVER – VOL. 2

WRITER: ALAN MARTIN | ARTIST: BRETT PARSON | PUBLISHER: TITAN | FORMAT: TRADE PAPERBACK | RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW (DIGITAL), MAY 20TH (PRINT)

Tank Girl has always been deeply silly, rude and utterly different. It’s had a typically British approach to the concept of canon, by which we mean it’s one of those things that’s quite happy to dump decades of backstory if it reckons it can get a good gag out of it. It’s also been proudly off-the-beaten-path. No one could ever describe the book as mainstream.

Tank Girl Forever finally does the unthinkable by making Tank Girl a super-hero. She has a suit of armour that gives her tank themed powers. Her friends Jet Girl and Sub Girl have similar air and sea-themed kit and together they form a superhero team. Only not really. It’s actually some sort of weird event triggered by some random Deus Ex Machina that Tank Girl and friends have decided to mess with because they’re idiots.

So we get Barney as a goth-style villain, a sesame seed shaped meteor coming to destroy Melbourne and Booga heroically talking gibberish. We also get Tank Girl herself making fun of multiple comic book tropes, while dressed in a variety of silly costumes. Though it doesn’t quite dip into out-right satire, it does come close enough to be fun.

Brett Parson does a fantastic job with the art. The art flexes between the traditionally over-detailed Tank Girl style nonsense to a more familiar ‘super-hero’ approach as the story demands. Parson tackles this admirably, even in the more ridiculous ‘60s-style Marvel moments the characters still remain visibly Tank Girl. Seems you can put a girl in tank-inspired Iron Man armour and keep the same punk style that makes the book so special. Parsons captures the character designs perfectly and doesn’t try to mimic the approach of previous artists. Instead, we get something unique but also fun.

Alas, the story isn’t capable of maintaining a constant stream of silliness. At some point, it goes completely off the rails into dark creepiness. Ironically there’s too much plot and set-up throughout this, and it does feel like we’ve come into the middle of the story throughout the book. This isn’t too uncommon for Tank Girl, but the central gag gets lost in the mix and the whole thing gradually runs out of steam. The art is gorgeous and the jokes are as funny as they were back in the ‘90s, but it’s just a little too dark to be as fun as it should be.

CANTO: VOL 1 – IF ONLY I HAD A HEART

WRITER: DAVID BOOHER | ARTIST: DREW ZUCKER | PUBLISHER: IDW | FORMAT: TRADE PAPERBACK | RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

There’s something about clockwork soldiers and high-fantasy settings that seems to evoke a particular sort of heroic tragedy. If a magical world has mechanical servants in it, chances are that’s not a very nice place to be, and it’s very likely that all the adorable tik-tok people are slaves.  The titular Canto is a little tin man who is in love with a little tin girl. They’re adorable little humanoids with heads that look like a knight’s helmet and huge eyes. Canto’s name comes from his beloved; his kind are forbidden names as they are all owned by cruel masters. Though his people are scared of everything, he loves fiercely. Even though his race had long since had their hearts replaced with clocks.  When the love of life’s clockwork heart is damaged beyond repair, Canto goes on an epic quest to find where the hearts are kept so he can save her life. Even though he is very small. Despite the fact that he is very, very afraid. Even though everybody knows that the world is hostile to his kind. He has no rights, no allies; the world sees him as property and not a person. He is very brave.

  It’s a heady mix of Planescape: Torment, Return To Oz, GON and The Waste Land, this book is quite frankly a gorgeous tale, written is beautiful way. David Booher’s writing is precise and will tug at anyone’s heart. (Even those of you who have hearts made of springs and steel!) The pacing is perfect and though the journey or the story is something that’s been told many times before it still feels fresh and original. The familiarity and the hopelessness of Canto’s quest is the appeal here, and Booher gets the tone right every single time.

  Of course, this is a comic book and it’s the pictures that carry the words forward. Luckily Drew Zucker seems to embrace the theme of this tale whole-heartedly. Canto is beautifully brought to life through the art, and the dark tone of his world is a constant companion. Lush, moody and just busy enough to be atmospheric, Zucker hits the balance between ‘cartoon’ and ‘epic fantasy’ throughout the tale. Too dark and we’d lose hope, too bright and it’d detract from the story. Instead we have a perfect pairing and a proper ‘fairy tale’ theme.   Canto – If I Only Had a Heart is a comic book that will appeal to comics fans and non-fans alike. If you love fantasy and want something dark, sweet and a little bitter in your reading pile, then this is for you.

JUDGE DREDD: THE COMPLETE CASE FILES 35

PUBLISHER: 2000 AD | FORMAT: TRADE | RELEASE DATE: MAY 12TH (DIGITAL), OCTOBER 1ST (PRINT)

Judge Dredd takes on Sin City! No, not that one. A floating, judgement-free metropolis of illegal pleasures anchors itself outside Mega City one, to the repressed citizens’ delight. Judge Dredd is sent to keep order, on the tail of a notorious terrorist. As ever, The Complete Case Files holds much more than that, but the Satan’s Island arc will be the main attraction for Dredd fans.

Elsewhere, Dredd takes a trip to Atlantis and a ride down memory lane, back to his old apartment in Rowdy Yates Block. Rookies take a training exercise in the park, and gameshow contestants from Brit-Cit run afoul of Mega City One’s worst impulses. As long time readers will know, The Complete Case Files are only as good as what was running in 2000AD at the time, and this thirty-fifth book in the series finds Dredd in rude health.

Not physically, of course, as Dredd’s advancing age continues to come up again and again, both in ass-whuppings (the book opens with Dredd taking a massive beating from a mystery assailant) and the odd jabs from ‘friends’ and colleagues. Do we sense clone Rico (no, not that one either) as an eventual Dredd replacement somewhere down the line? Hard to say, but his growing presence here certainly suggests as much. Is the big man himself mellowing in his old age? Again, it’s hard to say, but this book finds him in surprisingly good humour – we even learn here that Judge Dredd is partial to the occasional bath!

A solid collection of one-shot stories bookend the excellent Satan’s Island, with reliably excellent artwork from Dredd artists old and new – including definitive Dredd-jockeys Ian Gibson, Cam Kennedy, Ian Gibson and the late, great Carlos Ezquerra. It’s not quite essential Dredd, but it comes close, and the hits far outnumber the misses. This is one of the most fun collections to date, and comes with a great variation in stories and action. We’d say Dredd’s probably earned a nice relaxing bath now.

EVIL

REVIEWED: SEASON 1 (ALL EPISODES) | WHERE TO WATCH: CBS [US ONLY; UK BROADCASTER TBC]

A cursory glance at Evil’s premise might make you think you’re watching something made by those fundamental Christian groups that America churns out, funding tales of bad people left behind after The Rapture and time-travelling jihadists looking to wipe out Jesus before he ascends to the cross. Evil is the story of David Acosta, a former war correspondent training to be a priest, who is tasked by the Catholic church to investigate possessions, miracles, and other religious-themed cases to judge if they are genuine.

As balance, Acosta – played by Luke Cage’s Mike Colter – enlists Doctor Kristen Bouchard, a forensic psychologist working for the DA’s office, to join tech expert Ben Shakir as they seek to discover whether angels and demons are at play. The show walks a respectful line between belief and scepticism, with the “truth” always just out of reach, and the characters evolve from their binary positions to make a fuzzy, quantum ball of fact and faith that enables the show to play with both them and the audience as to what’s really happening.

If you liked Colter as Cage then David Acosta is more of the same, without being bullet-proof, and he brings a calm centre to a show that is really the story of Bouchard, played by Dutch actress Katja Herbers (Emily in Westworld). The psychologist quickly makes an enemy of rival consultant psychologist Leland Townsend, who may or may not be encouraging his clients to commit unspeakable acts, and who equally may or may not be one of sixty demonic forces present on Earth.

Michael Emerson as Townsend is wonderful, bringing all the creepiness of Benjamin Linus and Harold Finch to the role as he inveigles his way into Kristen’s life, putting her family in danger. Townsend is the threat in the background, but the show provides many more dangers to the welfare, physical and psychological, of its core cast, as well as the people they are seeking to help.

Evil is a weird show, with visions, dreams, and fantasies woven into its fabric so that you are never quite sure just what is real, and it does this without exhausting the viewer, rewarding close attention in a way that many shows and films using the technique make redundant. Genuinely disturbing at times, the visual imagery accompanying the suspected possessions, fever dreams, and demonic (?) manifestations is most definitely not for those of a sensitive disposition, with foul-mouthed incubus George a particular delight every time he appears.

Evil might just be too weird to succeed as a US network television show, and Season 2 has not yet been greenlit by CBS, but it’s a truly unique show, and a worthy addition to creator Rockne S O’Bannon’s oeuvre. Katja Herbers, Mike Colter, and The Daily Show‘s Aasif Mandvi as Ben Shakir, are a likeable core navigating through an unpleasant world, under threat as much by evil men as by demonic forces. At thirteen episodes, Season 1 does not outstay its welcome, and it’s rare to say this in these trying times, but you’ll want more Evil in your lives once it’s done.

LEGENDS OF RUNETERRA

LEGENDS OF RUNETERRA / DEVELOPER: RIOT GAMES / PLATFORM: PC, IOS, ANDROID / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Riot Games’ new digital collectable card game, set in the League of Legends universe, has left beta after three months and – spoiler alert – it’s awesome.

If you’re new to the genre, basically you build a deck and use it to block and attack your opponent. The player vs player game modes consist of ranked, unranked, and expeditions, which involves drafting together a deck over 15 rounds and attempting to win seven matches for big rewards. You can also have matches against the AI as well as do ‘challenges’ that act as the tutorials. These are well designed and make the game easy enough to get started. However, like any good card game, it’ll take a while before you learn the WTF moments of seeing a card you’ve never come across kill you in the blink of an eye and work out strategies.

The cards are split into seven different regions, with each region having 125 different cards. You can use up to two different regions to build your deck of 40 cards. Cards are split into units and spells. Each card has a mana cost and you earn a mana equal to what round it is. The aim of the game is to do 20 damage to opponents Nexus, before they deal it to yours.

The game is very generous for a free to play game. You can, and mostly like will, happily play this game without spending a penny. New cards can be bought with real money, but you also unlock them as you play and learn the game. You’re able to spend money on cosmetics as well, which is likely where it will make most of its money.

The game works beautifully on mobile and you’re able to transition between PC, phone or tablet mid game. The whole package is well presented, with detailed artwork on all the cards, small animations and well-designed menu system making deck building a doddle.

Say goodbye to your free time as this sets a new standard for online trading card games and will consume you. Whether you’re a veteran or new to genre, don’t sleep on it.

UPLOAD

REVIEW: SEASON 1 (ALL EPISODES) | WHERE TO VIEW: AMAZON PRIME VIDEO

Fans still mourning the recent passing of NBC’s extraordinary The Good Place might find some solace for a while in Amazon Prime’s Upload. This new ten-episode comedy/drama may first appear to be astonishingly derivative of Michael Shur’s thoughtful, mind-bending sitcom in that it deals with the concept of ‘the afterlife’ and how those who find their way to it deal with their new surroundings and the ramifications of an eternal existence beyond the grave. But in fairness, Upload, created by Greg Daniels whose own comedy CV is no slouch (he’s worked on the likes of Seinfeld, Parks and Recreation, and even The Simpsons) has been ‘in development’ for several years so any resemblance to The Good Place, although unfortunate, certainly isn’t intentional, and it quickly becomes apparent that although both shows seem to share the same creative DNA they are really quite different beasts.

Robbie Amell (best-known from his roles in CW shows like the short-lived Tomorrow People reboot and Arrow) plays Nathan Brown, an unfeasibly hunky computer programmer whose life is brought to an untimely end when his driverless car smashes into the back of a stationary vehicle. But death is no longer the end and Nathan’s extravagant girlfriend Ingrid (Allegra Edwards) arranges for his consciousness to be uploaded into a digital afterlife environment known as Lake View, a paradise of luxury living and wide-open spaces. Nathan’s progress is monitored in the ‘real world’ by his ‘angel’ (technical supervisor) Nora (Andy Allo) who helps him adjust to his new circumstances by occasionally joining him in Lake View via a VR headset. But Nathan is troubled by missing memories and he struggles to come to terms with his own death even as he tries to cope with the constant presence of Ingrid in his afterlife and the nagging suspicion that his death wasn’t a complete accident.

Upload plays with vaguely similar concepts to The Good Place but as it develops it becomes a very different show. Its humour is a little more measured and generally less relentless and outrageous than Shur’s series and its themes tend to be more romantic and conspiratorial rather than the often-whimsical, provocative and existential material The Good Place handled so deftly. The concept of a ‘digital afterlife’ is fairly well-established in Upload’s near-future even if it brings with it many of the prejudices and inequalities we might have hoped to leave behind in the real world. Early episodes play nicely with the ‘fish out of water’ trope as Nathan explores his new world but the show spends as much time back in the ‘real’ world as Ingrid refuses to give up on her relationship with Nathan even as his ‘angel’ Nora, a frustrated singleton, finds herself increasingly drawn to a man who isn’t really alive. Some of the comedy is broad-brush stuff but there are some inspired and startling visuals in Nathan’s constantly-surprising new environment and supporting characters like his new ‘best friend’ Luke (Kevin Bigley) and Dylan (Rhys Slack), dead for seven years but still trapped in an eleven-year-old body and desperate to be allowed to ‘grow up’ provide the bulk of the belly-laughs. The weak link here, unfortunately, is Amell as Nathan. He’s largely the straight man, reactive rather than proactive and his attempts at comedy are a little awkward and self-conscious and he’s usually the least interesting character in any scene which tends to undermine the show when he’s supposed to be the one supporting and powering the storyline.

By the time we reach episode nine Upload has started to dial down the broader comedy as it focuses on the budding Nathan/Nora romance and the gradual uncovering of the truth behind the former’s death. A cliffhanger ending leaves the story unresolved and Nathan joined in the afterlife by the one person he probably doesn’t want at his side. Upload is pleasant, often charming stuff and its ten episodes – apart from the 45-minute pilot they all run to around 25 minutes – are easily-digestible and they never outstay their welcome. But The Good Place casts a long shadow and even though the two shows are ultimately markedly different, the unavoidable similarities can’t prevent Upload feeling like the less mannered, starchier and less enthusiastic relation. As afterlife comedies go, Upload will kill some time but nothing much more.