Battlefield V: The End of the Line

Battlefield V is now on the market, and you all know what that means; does it mean the salt will stop and everyone will just come together and play Battlefield V and be happy and friendly? no, of course it doesn't, this is the real world, you faggot, and Battlefield V, even in its darkest hour, has continued to self-immolate and I cannot stop laughing. After keeping up with this disaster from day one and writing three previous posts on the subject, I suppose a eulogy is in order for a game that's been snowballing out of control from the beginning and, surprise surprise, is dead on arrival.

Since it's been a while and this is (hopefully) the final chapter of this sad, sad tale, I reckon a recap is in order. In May, after a bafflingly boring reveal event hosted by Trevor Noah in which DICE claimed that Battlefield V was going to be the most immersive and authentic game they've ever made and that they'd be focusing on the lesser known stories of the War, the world got treated to a reveal trailer that, depending on how optimistic you are, was either very confusing, or the most cancerous example of political pandering and ideological gesturing of the year, or at least that was the case in May, 2018's been a long year. This is because the trailer was a confusing, poorly thrown together mess of visuals with ugly colours, action movie violence, terrible editing, and a disabled woman with a cricket bat dying and then coming back to life and killing Germans, oh, and war paint, blue war paint, oh, and Katanas being wielded by British soldiers, and teddy bears. This confused and angered a great many people, including myself, because DICE had previously stated their intentions to make an authentic World War II game, only to show off a wet fart of a trailer that impressed nobody and gave a lot of people the impression that their definition of authenticity was actually ideological revisionism.

Their claims of authenticity were swiftly dashed followed the inevitable backlash, with DICE affirming that their priority wasn't authenticity but fun, which contradicts their previous claims but might explain all the weird shit like katanas and metal arms as mere cosmetics, because money and microtransactions and money. But the controversy probably would've died there and wouldn't have killed the game were it not for the subsequent actions of EA and DICE, because rather than just leaving it alone, they just had to put their foot in their mouth, and then again, and again, and again, and again. First with DICE dev Alan Kertz claiming that he will be "On the right side of History," and using his daughter to try and emotionally justify his blatant agenda pushing, and then with EA big wig Patrick Soderlund also using his daughter as an emotional excuse for their politicising of the game. That wasn't the only thing Soderlund said however, and I reckon it was the other thing he said that killed Battlefield V, because he also said, "these people who are uneducated," referring to the backlash to the game's historical revisionism, and "either accept it or don't buy the game." Oh yes, he had the balls to call the game's critics stupid and challenge them to not buy the game, a decision that most likely cost him his job as he resigned/got fired a short while later, only a day before news broke that Battlefield V's pre order numbers were disastrously low, two events that happened too close together to not be related.

The pre order numbers being as low as they were could be interpreted in a few ways, but how I and many people saw it was Soderlund's challenge to gamers being accepted; people not buying the game because he told them not to, which would go a long way in explaining his suddenly jumping ship and or being tossed overboard by EA, after getting a handsome bonus, that is. The futility of it though was that, whether he really did resign or whether he was forced to, it doesn't matter in the end because the damage was already done, like the trailer, Soderlund's words tore a massive hole in the game's reputation, a hole that would have been hard enough to fix anyway and especially hard for EA, the most hated company in gaming. Now you'd think, with the situation looking as bleak as it does, that maybe EA would just keep their heads down and try to get Battlefield V out the door with no further trouble, you'd think that, wouldn't you. Battlefield V got delayed by a month, it was originally going to launch in October alongside Call of Duty Trash Ops 4 and Red Dead Redemption 2, but with the ongoing controversy and pathetic pre order numbers, EA decided it'd be best to abandon that release date and move to a more comfortable November release, going up against Fallout 76, which ended up being as big a disaster for Bethesda as Battlefield V was for EA, but for different reasons, reasons that I, not being a huge RPG or Fallout guy, don't care as much about. This was apparently to further polish the game and make it as good as it possibly could be, which was a load of shit considering the state of the game at launch, not that it matters because everyone knew the real reason, it was EA being terrified that the controversy combined with the competition would result in Battlefield V being a complete failure. This was actually a smart move, all things considered, sure, Trash Ops 4 had its controversies, with yours truly even boycotted the game, but Red Dead was always going to be a juggernaut, it was the real threat, and even though they inadvertently revealed their complete lack of confidence in the game, running away from Red Dead was a reasonable idea. But as I put it in a previous post; the Battlefield V batshit train has no brakes, because then the beta happened, and things got weird.

Since I never had any desire to play or support this game, I naturally didn't play the beta and had no interest in whether or not it was any good, the reason I paid attention was because of the game's chat, which had a very funny habit of censoring words; harmless, random words like 'Spaghetti', more suspect words and phrases like 'lag' and 'dlc', and really suspect words and phrases like 'white man' and 'Nazi'. Yet another incident that this game's reputation simply couldn't afford, the game's chat being completely broken and censoring random words, but with some of those words being very suspect in their censoring, what with the game devs' obvious political biases and agendas, I went into way too much detail about this debacle in my last post on the subject; The Plot Thickens, but to cut a long story short, the progressive left are racist to white people and fetishize non-white people, hence the forced diversity of the game and the chat's censoring of 'white man' because 'white' and 'man' are dirty words to a progressive, something something white privilege something. But maybe it was just a mistake, after all, there's nothing wrong with Spaghetti, it's delicious with meatballs, and if it was censored, maybe the chat really was broken. Sorry, I'm much too cynical to believe that, in fact I'd be more willing to believe they censored a bunch of harmless words intentionally to give themselves plausible deniability, or maybe I just need to have a little more faith in my fellow man, who knows. This is where my dwelling ended until now, even though before launch there was another controversial development, but I figured it wasn't massive enough to be worth the time; it was DICE looking for interns to study Toxic behaviour. Weirdly this still isn't the strangest development about the game, that comes later, but yes, EA and DICE really did put out a job listing for university students to come and study toxic behaviour and dream up solutions for it. The listing was worded like it was written by a busy body, obviously, and mentioned that they want to investigate the types of disruptive behaviour, what causes it and how they can prevent and punish it. Now, to a normie or someone with thin skin, this sounds very reasonable, looking for vague solutions to equally vague and undefined "toxic" and "disruptive" behaviour, but given all we know about the politics of Battlefield V, it isn't hard to work out just what those words are defined as, it's going to be shit talk; it's going to be the armada of edgy bois on there calling each other faggot and nigger, a problem that has existed since the dawn of online gaming, and a problem that will literally never be fixed.




 I tried to find the listing on DICE's website but all I found was a 404, I did however steal this image from Reddit for your convenience

Fallout 76's solution to this little issue was slapping lifetime bans on offenders, which seems a tad unreasonable considering that a lifetime ban from a game you probably already regretted buying is sure to be a real kick in the balls. But this issue of people talking shit to each other has been around for decades, anyone who ever played a Call of Duty game on the Xbox 360 knows that, to that end this will always be more an issue with the people than with the game, with people trying their best to be edgy and spicy and offensive, and their victims; the poor, innocent, thin skinned little mommy's boys who can take a joke about as well as they can take a dick, not very. Short of outright controlling people's behaviour IRL, which the progressive actually want to do, the only solution is in game punishments; suspensions, in game handicaps, bans, but trolls are like the heads of a Hydra, kill one and another appears, and it's as much a problem with them as it is with the people who can't handle being called a faggot by someone they don't know. DICE's solution however seems to be a little more complex, they want to study the trolls, like they're some unknown species or something, they want to understand them and figure out a way to control their behaviour to make them stop their rampage across the online game lobbies of the world. I would say it seems creepy that they want to investigate people's behaviour, but I honestly don't know if the plan would be effective enough to be creepy, there isn't really anything they could learn outside of [people+anonymity+mic=arse] and no solution outside of the usual banning offenders. As power hungry and domineering as the progressive left is, DICE is still just a video game company, it has no power over people's lives outside of the game, much to their disappointment, I'm sure. And the cherry on top of this internship; it's unpaid, that's right, you're not even getting paid to sit there and listen to shitlords talking smack to one another and 'study' their behaviour. It really is just a complete waste of time and effort for everyone involved, so who on Earth thought putting that listing out was a good idea.

Weirdly, Battlefield V had its title of most controversial game of 2018 snatched by another game not that long ago, with Fallout 76 being thoroughly loathed by most people, and with Bethesda doing their utmost to seem even more incompetent and out of touch than EA. And all this mess about buggy games, false advertising, duffle bags and people's personal information being leaked really has stolen the thunder from Battlefield V, but at least it wasn't at risk of stealing sales, because Fallout 76 sold terribly, so maybe this will work out in Battlefield V's favour, right? Not very long after launch, news articles started coming out about how in my jolly little nanny state of Great Britain, physical sales of Battlefield V were down by as much as 60% on Battlefield 1, more than half. A very bad sign, though these numbers are just in Britain, maybe it's doing better in America, as much as I doubt it, but surely it doesn't matter so much as people are turning to digital distribution nowadays, yet that doesn't explain such a massive drop in such a short span of time, especially since Battlefield 1 was such a juggernaut, even against Infinite Warfare. Also take into consideration the amount of hype surrounding Battlefield 1 before it launched, remember how insane people went over that reveal trailer, and that includes me because Battlefield 1 looked awesome. This is reflected in the game's sales because it managed to put up a fight against Call of Duty. Now lets look at that in contrast to Battlefield V's hype or lack thereof, with people being turned away by poor marketing and the people behind it being complete and utter cunts, and consider how this might reflect in sales, consider how if EA tells people not to buy the game, people might actually not buy the game. But those numbers still aren't reliable enough to say for certain as, again, they're only for Britain, so how about this, the game is on sale and the discounts are massive; just a week after it came out, I saw it on sale at my local Game where it was discounted by £20, a quick look on Target's website as of me writing this shows a discount of $20, same on Walmart, this for a game that's only been out a few weeks and retailed at full price on launch, while Red Dead 2, the sales juggernaut, is still full price and has been out a month longer, that does not suggest good sales to me, in fact that suggests a desperate need to ship more copies because they aren't shipping enough.

The game isn't even being received that well by the few that actually did buy it; a quick look at Metacritic shows an admirable critic score of 81, but the game has also been the victim of some pretty hardcore review bombing with and audience score of 3.0, with many people saying similar things like the lack of content, the lack of recognisable World War 2 elements, and technical issues like time-to-kill and bugs, as well as many talking about the controversy; the politicisation of the game and the disrespect of doing so, as well as the disrespect EA and DICE have shown to their fans. What's weird is the amount of critic reviews talking about the lack of content as well, while still giving the game 80's and 70's and 90's, a mystery that becomes a bit clearer when you find some of them sucking the single player mode's dick, the same single player that implies that the French literally edited black people out of historical records and wrote men out of a real life story and replaced them with a Waman, suddenly those high scores don't seem so weird, it's almost like the game purposefully misrepresents and distorts history in such a way that it validates the progressive worldview. I suppose it's here that the anti-SJW entertainment side of Youtube's favourite catchphrase becomes relevant; "Get Woke Go Broke," a phenomenon which is observable everywhere in entertainment that social Justice rears its head; Ghostbusters, Doctor Who, Star Wars, Marvel, DC, Star Trek, and now, Battlefield 5, because outside of the isolationist pockets of progressively minded people, the ideas said progressives hold and love to share vociferously are actually really unpopular. Clearly the issue as it relates to Battlefield V is the devs idealising the War through a Progressive lens, which, as I've said many times, is disrespectful to history and a dangerous lie to tell in our modern world where no one gives a shit about history, not to mention where Progressives actively try to poison our view of history based on their own sensibilities, their own progressive sensibilities. Is it really any wonder that people aren't interested in Battlefield V when you consider everything that was wrong with it before it launched; the terrible trailer, getting woke, Soderlund calling people stupid and telling them not to buy the game, the chat censoring suspect words, what a surprise that such a cluster fuck would end up failing. Battlefield V is not just a game at this point, the endless controversy is as much a part of the game's identity as the game itself, and all that trouble, all those chains have, to no one's surprise, resulted in a flop, a complete failure to launch, and a game that even Battlefield fanboy and social justice apologist Angry Joe isn't willing to defend.

But it's still not the end, Battlefield V's self-immolation is somehow not yet complete as even in the shadow of its own failure, the batshit train refuses to stop. Not long after the launch, there was a launch party held by EA and DICE where they proceeded, seemingly, to triple down on everything they've done to kill Battlefield V, and it all happened with a single image, one that probably wasn't meant to be seen by the outside world, and that image was #everyonesBattlefield. The caption was shown on a massive screen surrounded by quotes openly critical of the game, things like "Genderfield V," "What the fuck was the developers thinking," and my favourite, "Feminazies are trying to rewrite history," because of how blatantly true it is in the very nature of Battlefield 5. Given the very harsh and critical nature of these comments, overlaid in contrast to the single caption of #everyonesBattlefield, looks like self-justification to me; like the devs are trying to use the words of the trolls and misogynists to justify their own position and to position themselves as the good guys, saying that their game is for everyone, everyone being all the oppressed, underrepresented and marginalised groups of the world. This would also suggest that "everyone" doesn't include people who said those quotes, which to me confirms that Soderlund's sickening position of gamers having to "except it or don't by the game," is a far more widespread one than just one dickhead. It all comes across as the devs saying; Our game is for everyone, unless you disagree with our politics, then you can fuck off. This is not a good look, but it is the look that Battlefield 5 has rocked since its announcement, so if this was indeed EA mocking their critics, which there's a slim chance it wasn't, I wouldn't be even the least bit surprised, its par for the course from a company whose former CDO openly showed contempt for the customer. This, in light of the game's disastrous launch, is a stunning lack of awareness; one that was made inevitable not by online misogynists, but by EA and DICE themselves, as I and many others have said over and over and over again, they dug this grave for themselves, they got woke, and now they've gone broke, Very broke in fact, as EA's stock value has seen a massive, massive drop, putting the company in the worst state it's been in for years, and while the downward trend is noticeable across the gaming world, the sharpness of EA's drop is particularly interesting, and I bet you that the complete failure of Battlefield V is a primary culprit.


The End of the Line
It's unlikely that EA and DICE will learn anything from this disaster; EA's still going to dream up ways of squeezing money out of people and Progressives, being the self-righteous, virtuous and infallible cunts that so many of them are, simply refuse to learn from their mistakes because it's never them that's wrong, it's always everyone else.  But to normies and anti-Progressives alike, this is just one more casualty in the war against progressivism, a war that has claimed the lives of many a beloved franchise, but more pressingly looms large over our IRL lives through their absolute grip on corporate and political power. I suppose there are a few morals to this story, firstly being that going woke is a bad business move. But more optimistically, it shows yet again that people will not stand for Progressives encroaching on their entertainment, which gives me hope that when they come even harder for our very lives, the normies will rise and resist the progressives, be it in the ballots, in the streets, or for now, in the sales charts and online lobbies. There is hope for the future after all, and as bleak as our world seems to be, and as bleak as it will inevitably become, things will get better, and I know this simply because people have a habit of not tolerating bullshit, sooner or later the pot will boil over, and in the case of EA, it very much has. This story has been a lot of fun to keep up with, but this story does, finally, appear to be at an end, so thank you Battlefield V, thank you for giving me a dead horse to beat these past few months, it really has been fun, but I've got to let you go, bigger, scarier foes loom and I must face them. But don't think I'll forget about you, you best keep your head down because there are actually people out there who like you and you can't afford to lose them, and if you decide you can, I won't be far away, my productivity notwithstanding.

Long Live The King

Godzilla: King of the Monsters had a bit of a marketing kick a few weeks ago, culminating in a trailer just like last time, and just like last time, I want to talk about it, because this film is continuing to look absolutely amazing, and I'm continuing to be the happiest little creature on Earth that the movie I've wanted to see most of all in my life is actually getting made and is just six excruciatingly long months away, and that trailer, oh we'll get to that, but as before, we have to round up all the shit that's lead to this point, so let's begin another round of worshiping.

Since my last post about this film, I've been keeping up mostly with other stuff, mainly Battlefield V and Doctor Who, all the while playing Red Dead Redemption and going back on a Transformers kick ahead of Bumblebee, which I've since watched four times and am currently madly, obsessively in love with. But I did buy the last currently available NECA Godzilla figure that I didn't have; the burning Godzilla from Godzilla Vs. Destoroyah, and I got a Netflix account in that time as well, and naturally watched the Polygon Pictures produced Godzilla anime on there. I did review of those films on the blog after watching them, but if you haven't read them, I thought both of them were shit; both of them had things I liked, but both of them wasted all of their potential, both of them were incredibly boring to watch, and had the most uninteresting and dull interpretation of Godzilla I've ever seen, giving Shin Godzilla, a film I've gradually come to dislike also, a run for its money. That, however, has very little bearing on my thoughts towards King of the Monsters, a film coming not from Toho but from Legendary, the studio that's already given us one belter of a Godzilla film and one kind of decent Kong film, not to mention Pacific Rim, sequel notwithstanding. While it also saddened me that Gareth Edwards wouldn't return to direct the sequel, that sadness melted away upon the release of the first trailer, which was a visual feast that teased some awesome monster goodness. Edwards' approach to Godzilla was something I personally really dug but that opinion is not unanimous; the film was also hated by a lot of people for reasons I understand to some extent. But the first trailer for King of the Monsters seemed to be doing away with that approach and taking a more old school one instead, which I both like and dislike; dislike because that means the subtlety of the first film will be lost, and like in the sense that Fuck Yeah giant monster smackdown, Ghidorah and Godzilla kicking the piss out of each other for two hours. Like most men, I never really grew up, I'm still a big dumb excited kid that loves those old monster movies, just now I'm bigger and more cynical, with a pinch of bitterness. So despite Toho really dropping the ball with their last three, probably four shots at Godzilla in my eyes, I'm still very much looking forward to Godzilla being back on the big screen.

It all began with Tokyo Comic Con, an event which Godzilla: King of the Monsters was going to be present at, obviously, and rumours were plentiful as one would expect; there was going to be a trailer, Godzilla toys were going to be unveiled, and the classic monsters were finally going to be shown to the world for the first time in their modern, Hollywoodised glory. Just like before, a still was released ahead of the show that depicted Godzilla looking like he was ready to break things, which naturally lead to anticipation that the next trailer wasn't far behind. Some of those things ended up happening, no trailer sadly, but there was a teaser and they played a clip of Bear McCreary's score for the film, a rendition of the classic Godzilla March by Akira Ifukube. A crappy audio recording of the song leaked online and when I heard it, it reminded me a bit of what they did with the soundtrack of the 2017 Ghost in the Shell film; different but instantly recognisable. There was also a toy reveal, with a giant statue of the new Godzilla shown off alongside the S.H. Monsterarts figures of the four classic monsters; Godzilla, Ghidorah, Mothra and Rodan, and three of them looked exactly how I'd expected them to. Godzilla is still the same, minus the subtle changes like the more Showa inspired new spines, and Rodan hasn't really been Hollywoodised at all apart from his smaller head, and while Ghidorah is much leaner now than he was in the Japanese films, he's still unmistakably Ghidorah, which is amazing. These three redesigns are all amazing in my opinion, and while the S.H. Monsterarts figures look amazing, they're a bit out of my price range, so I'll have to settle with NECA's toys, which have yet to be revealed. But S.H. Monsterarts unveiled four toys, yet I've only talked about three, so what did they do to Mothra? What indeed, because Mothra's redesign is the most substantial by far, with a vastly smaller body and head than in the Toho films, a much less pronounced face and longer, meaner looking legs, with the front pair looking more like claws. This is a little surprising, what with how little the other three monsters were changed in their journey Stateside, but it does stay in line with the design philosophy of those other three, making them look more natural and animalistic, while also making them look meaner and more deadly, Mothra is simply that philosophy pushed to the extreme. She's been redesigned to look more like an insect, she looks less like Mothra but more like a real world moth, which don't have the massive bodies and tiny legs that Mothra had in the Toho films. The pictures released of the toy fail to do the design justice in my opinion, since I've watched the trailer and now know what she looks like in the film.

Oh yeah, the trailer, that happened. I was surprised that it wasn't released at Tokyo Comic Con, it instead premiered at the Brazil Comic Con before going public a day later, with the Monarch twitter page releasing three little three seconds teasers in the build up to its release. When I checked my YouTube subscriptions after finishing work and saw the trailer in my notifications, I might have done a little excited dance in the car park in front of my co-workers. I'd wanted to wait until I got home before watching the trailer, but I instead watched on my phone on the walk home, and then I watched it again, then again, then I got it up on my TV when I got home, then I watched it again. All in all, I've probably watched the trailer about forty times by now, and that's the honest truth, but why would I not watch it a million times, it's an awesome trailer. I had expectations going into the trailer, chief among them being that the trailer wouldn't show much, that like the first, there'd only be brief glimpses at the monsters, but holy shit was I wrong, because this trailer holds nothing back. The first leg of the trailer shows us stuff we've mostly seen before; the Monarch teaser with Millie Bobbie Brown and the cameraman, only now without the cameraman and with other shots of death and mayhem spliced throughout, Rodan flying over that town from the first trailer, a load of dead fish, and the shot of a decimated Washington from the first trailer, now from the view of a cockpit and with Ghidorah's shadow ominously visible in the storm clouds. Then we get a Doom teleporter sound, which is exactly what that sounds like, and the trailer instantly shifts gears. The very next thing we see is a jaw dropping shot of Rodan climbing out of a volcano, which kind of sets the tone for the rest of the trailer, lots of Jaw dropping visuals and lots and lots monsters. And can we just dwell for a second on how fucking cool that shot is, Rodan's awakening is a scene I can't wait to see because this trailer and the last trailer make it look like one of the coolest scenes in the film. The trailer sets up a very clear dichotomy, one that establishes our heroes and villains, before giving us an incredibly creepy and incredibly awesome reveal of Ghidorah, something that looks like a splice of the finale of the film and his awakening in the Antarctic, another scene I'm desperate to see. Something about the way this trailer sounds is just ace as well, with ominous, rumbling music and a sound that I can only assume is some kind of roar, and once the trailer really kicks into high gear, the thunderous drumbeat of the music combined with the sheer epicness of the visuals is just something special.

It's also in this last leg of the trailer that we get our best looks at Ghidorah and Mothra. Mothra looks much better on screen than she did as a toy, a visual heightened by her roar, which doesn't sound very Toho, but does sound amazing, as does Ghidorah's roar, which also doesn't sound very Toho. And there's a close-up of Ghidorah firing his Gravity beam, oh yes. The standoff shot with Godzilla and Ghidorah looks like a painting, perfectly displaying the sheer size of the two monsters, with a flash of lightning to emphasise the force of the two monsters, it's beautiful. Seeing Rodan doing a barrel role is also a badass visual, but of what we've seen so far, I think Rodan's just going to be a badass in every scene he's in, which is very different to his last onscreen appearance; at the bottom of the body pile after Godzilla kicks the piss out of him, Anguirus and King Caesar in Final Wars. But if we want to discuss badass visuals, then the last ten seconds of this trailer are where it's fucking at, I literally can't watch this ten second bit without my heart rate going into triple digits, in fact, they showed this trailer at Cineworld in the trailers for a screening of Aquaman, and I probably pissed the entire cinema off with my pounding foot and repeated, growled fuck yeahs. This must be quite some bit then, and indeed it is, even people who aren't interested in this film at all have told me how cool that final shot is as Godzilla and Ghidorah charge at one another and clash, which you know is a final battle shot, and holy shit is it awesome. I honestly can't put it into words, Godzilla charging, Ghidorah charging, the music, the lightening, (which is blue behind Godzilla and yellow behind Ghidorah, interesting observation) and how the trailer hard cuts to the title while the pounding drumbeat just keeps pounding, I honestly can't explain how that makes me feel. It also shows definitively that Godzilla can look big while also moving like a freight train *cough* Anime Trilogy *cough,* the speed really adds to ferocity of the clash, and perfectly accompanies the music. We already knew that Legendary had a better grasp on portraying Godzilla's size than at least Polygon and also debatably Toho, a Godzilla that's massive and threatening, but also proactive and aggressive, one that actually uses his arms. Speaking of Toho, there've been rumors that Legendary has more monsters than they'll admit to, which might be possible, but it's also possible that they don't, or that they do and won't announce or reveal it until the film releases, either way, we're not finding out until May, but the trailer does give us a glimpse at some other monsters besides the big four; a big crab thing rising out of the desert, and a mountain moving by itself in what I assume is the United States. This would make sense as there are three Titans in mainland America and two in the Middle East according to the Monarch sciences website, so we're getting our first look at two of them here, not that there's much to see; one's a bunch of legs and the other's a mountain, but so far, the Monsterverse's monsters have been crazy, and how ever many new ones they're cooking up for this film, I'm sure they'll all be just as weird and cool as the MUTO's and Skullcrawlers.

This trailer really is something, but it's also a trailer that makes a promise to the audience, and that promise is monsters, lots and lots of monsters. Do I doubt that King of the Monsters will deliver on that, no, there really isn't a spin on this one, Godzilla: King of the Monsters is shaping up the be the best kaiju movie America has ever produced, and the way I see it, at worst the film could turn out like Kong: Skull Island, a passable film with awesome Kaiju action. But when we're talking about Ghidorah, Rodan, Mothra and Godzilla, four of the most famous kaiju in history, coming to the big screen with hundreds of millions of American dollars behind them, that really is all the film needs to deliver on for a majority of people, and even if the human story is pathetic, if they then deliver on the big four, I'll love the film regardless. Speaking of delivering on the monsters, a new poster dropped  before the trailer released. It was of Godzilla, obviously, and also featured a really good look at his new spines, as well as Millie Bobby Brown for some added star power and sense of scale. I and many others thought nothing of this outside of it being a cool poster, but then three more were released that each depicted a star monster, and two of them gave us our best looks at that monster yet. Like Godzilla's poster, there's nothing remarkable about any of these posters, none of them give us anything that we haven't seen before, they just show off the Monsters, but god damn are they cool posters. I particularly like the Rodan poster for its volcanic, chaotic visuals and its fiery colours, but the poster also proves something that we've known for months, that Rodan hasn't changed at all, he's still a giant pterosaur with a mean arse beak and a spiky belly, and as someone with an immense amount of affection for Godzilla and his many foes, I am in love with this film's Rodan. The weakest poster is actually the Mothra one, since it doesn't really show us much of Mothra herself, just her stupidly big wings, while Ghidorah's is just big and cool and creepy, everything it should be for the Destroyer of Worlds. These are four brilliant posters though, as weak as Mothra's is, and they'll all be going on my wall as soon as I have my hands on them, God knows where I'll put them though, don't really have a patch of wall big enough for four massive movie posters side by side. To be honest, expanding our horizons from just the posters, I'm stunned that the marketing is being so open about the monsters; the marketing of the first Godzilla didn't even show the MUTO's and the closest we got to knowing what they looked like before the film were the Bandai toys, then in rolls the sequel and its marketing with the modesty of a porn star and the grace of, well, a porn star, this is a weird analogy. To be fair, I did say that if the marketing suddenly gave us everything, I wouldn't complain, and how can I, the film's still months away and I will take anything I can get. Yet I at least expected that Ghidorah wouldn't be getting the stoplight in the marketing, because surely they'd at least want to keep that a surprise, yet the trailer ends with Godzilla and Ghidorah clashing, so what the fuck do I know.


I'm very late to the party as usual but I'm sure you knew someone as hyped for this movie as I am wouldn't just keep his mouth shut about a new trailer, and what a trailer it was. There's nothing new to say at this point though, you already know that I am more excited about this film than I've probably ever been about a film, in fact I'm almost entirely confident that at some point between now and the film's release I will die of a lightning strike or Liopleurodon attack or some other freak event, because I am that excited and the universe is that much of a bitch. to tell the truth, that's probably not going to happen, and I'll be walking into that cinema wearing my brand-new Godzilla Tshirt that a friend got me for Christmas, as well as the world's biggest and most insufferable smile, I doubt they'll let my take in my twenty-four inch Godzilla toy though, that'll be pushing it. so roll on 2019, and my most anticipated film of the year and probably of my life.

2018: A Year of Movies

And so 2018 has come and gone, and let me tell you, it's been a long year, Three Billboards and Darkest Hour seem so very long ago now. But I didn't waste this incredibly long year, well, I did, but I at least went to the cinema a bunch, this year it was 46, less than last year, but still enough to take at least a few months off my life expectancy. I wasn't so good with keeping up with reviewing them this year, in fact half of my top ten are films I didn't even review, but this year I'll also be doing something a little different. Usually I give three honourable mentions and one dishonourable mention, but since this year I saw a good few bad films, in addition to my favourite ten, this post will be about my five least favourite films of the year, five films that I wanted to like but ended up hating for one reason or another, so while I did watch Robin Hood, I didn't except to like it so it doesn't qualify sadly, rest assured though, it was wank, but fun in a get drunk and watch with your mates sort of way. A couple of these films are also technically not 2018 films, having had limited releases at the tail end of 2017, but since they didn't release in jolly little Britain until 2018, that makes them eligible for the list. And as usual, this is not an objective list, this is only the films I've seen this year and is purely based on how I felt about these films personally, whether or not I loved or hated them, so if you disagree with my choice of films or the order they go in, that's fine, this is just how I feel about these fifteen films, and with out of they way, let's start with some shit.

Second-raters: Pacific Rim: Uprising

I'm a huge fan of Guillermo del Toro, I'm also a fan of kaiju movies, so I naturally adored the first Pacific Rim and was naturally very excited for the sequel. But that sequel, which wasn't directed by del Toro, really wasn't up to the standard that the first film set; it was visually appealing and had a cool finale with a giant super Kaiju, but the film was all just so corporate; it had the look of Pacific Rim but none of the passion, none of the soul. It lacked the fun, epic, adventurous tone of the first, with battles that lacked any sense of visual flare, a plot that made even less sense with a terribly executed twist, and a complete lack of personality in its Jaegers and pilots outside of Boyega, Spaeny and Eastwood. I said when it came out that it felt like a Pacific Rim knock off rather than a sequel, and I'm still of that opinion, it's a very underwhelming film.

Top Ten: Ant-Man and the Wasp

Of the Marvel movies I have seen, the first Ant-Man was one of my favourites, and Scott Lang is one of my favourite Marvel heroes, up there with Thor, Doctor Strange and the Guardians, and since I seem to be slowly creeping aboard the Marvel train in the wake of Infinity War, I watched and enjoyed Ant-Man and the Wasp. This is the first on the list that I didn't review, though I'm sure I will at some point, but I can say that while the film certainly lacked a lot of emotional depth, especially in the shadow of Infinity War, its light hearted tone and non-stop comedy kept me entertained for most of its runtime, and just like the first, I really enjoyed the action sequences and all the science mumbo jumbo, as little sense at it makes. Different films serve different situations and emotions, Ant-Man and the Wasp is the kind of film I'd watch if I just wanted to turn off my brain and have fun for two hours and not feel guilty about it at the end.

Top Ten: The Shape of Water

Our next film is on the complete opposite end of the spectrum, The Shape of Water is the kind of film I'd watch if I wanted to watch a master of his craft, because it's a film where a woman fucks a fish, and it somehow wasn't creepy or funny. This is another film I didn't review, but it's del Toro, so you damn well know that I watched it, and I wasn't disappointed. It's not his best film, in fact a lot of things about it reminded me of Pan's Labyrinth, to the point that they're arguably the same film in some ways, but again, it's del Toro, even a bad del Toro is still leaps ahead of your average Hollywood film, and The Shape of Water was one of his better ones, not that I care about the Oscars, but del Toro has deserved the Best Director award for years, and I'm glad he won it.

Second-raters: The Predator

Oh you knew I wasn't done beating this one, surely if I was going to be revisiting the stinkers of the year, I'd inevitably dig up the corpse of this film that had absolutely no idea what it was doing. This Predator movie thought it was a great idea to be a comedy, a decision that cost this Predator movie any chance to be suspenseful or scary. This Predator movie decided it'd be great to make the Predators mad scientists, a decision that not only turned the entire film into a joke, but also hit a little too close to home for me when they revealed that the Predators wanted to take Autism, something that would have offended me a whole lot more if I hadn't already stopped taking the film seriously. And then that Predator 5 stinger where they get and Iron Man suit, it really is a damn shame that that film hasn't got a chance of being made, I mean, how will we survive in a world where that film never happens. This film was incredible for all the wrong reasons, and I honestly cannot believe it got made in the state it was in.

Top Ten: Black Panther

So who remembers this film, eh? It was just that little film that burned as hot at the box-office as it did on twitter, for some very good and some very bad reasons. I myself was nervous going into Black Panther because of what I feared the film could have been; a multi million-dollar virtue signal about racism and empowerment, but like Wonder Woman before it, it proved me very wrong, with the added twist that, far from reinforcing the victimhood narrative I feared it would propagate, it instead criticised those very ideas. But for all the normies who don't care or understand identity politics, firstly, I envy you, secondly, Black Panther is actually a very enjoyable film with a fun, albeit very Lion King-esque tale of Kings and family, with some decent drama and philosophy sprinkled among the (mostly) good action sequences, it's not your average Marvel movie, but this time that's a good thing.

Top Ten: Solo: A Star Wars Story

It's hard to believe this film came out in 2018, it feels like such a long time ago, and after watching it back when and thoroughly disliking L3-37 and her rebellious zeal, I didn't think 2018's Star Wars release would be on my top ten, and yet, even with L3, even with Enfys Nest, even with Solo not getting the girl in the end, I must admit, I still have a bit of a soft spot for this film. I still really love this film's Chewbacca, I enjoy the film's numerous chases and laser battles, and that entire Kessel run sequence was just the tits. Like The Last Jedi before it, I still enjoyed watching Solo, and no matter how mediocre Episode 9 ends up being, I'll probably have a soft spot for that too, I guess the Force Awakens dream never really died for me like it did for so many others.

Second-raters: Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters

That's right, I didn't like a Godzilla film, though if you actually read my reviews, you'd know that, also I love you, please don't leave. Planet of the Monsters had so much potential; an animated Godzilla film set on a post-apocalyptic Earth, a film that juggles the harrowing, existential themes of its narrative with some of the most visually striking action in the series. But Planet of the Monsters wasn't that at all, in fact it was a boring, joyless grind of a film with cheap, ugly visuals, uncompelling characters, a wasted world, and a preposterous lack of Monsters, most importantly of all being Godzilla, who might as well be a tree for his complete lack of personality and energy, a rather fitting analogy since they turned him into a plant, a metal plant. The more I think about this film and its sequel, the more I think that they just didn't care about the franchise, while they were taking that franchise into a genre it'd had never ventured into before, a genre it would probably be really awesome in if it didn't suck.

Top Ten: Deadpool 2

Another film I didn't review, one that came out in a very busy time in the same window has two of the biggest blockbusters of the year, well, one of them. Deadpool 2 was great though, it didn't reinvent itself or become a radically different film, aside from noticeably having double the production budget, which is very understandable given the Earth-shattering box-office success the first film was. Its action was ace, the comedy was a little less on point for me personally, but Deadpool was still an absurdly likable arsehole, and his friends, both old and new made this film a lot of fun to watch, especially Cable, because how can you not love a time traveling cyborg.

Top Ten: Avengers: Infinity War

The longer I thought about Infinity War, the more I went back to watch it, the higher my opinion of it became, because it really isn't often that a film like this comes along. Infinity War was a film with no clear main character, no defined plot, and an ending where the heroes lose, and yet somehow it was still a ridiculous amount of fun, with a massive collection of lovable heroes throwing down in exciting battles with Thanos, arguably the best villain of the year. And despite the heroes losing and two thirds of them dying, the film has such an energy to it, it's so much fun to watch, and has a decade of emotional weight behind it, I can respect that even as someone who hasn't seen that much of the MCU. Avengers: Endgame is going to be a fascinating film to watch when it releases, and that's all because of how successful Infinity War was.

Second-raters: Halloween (2018)

This year I fell in love with a little Horror film called Halloween, a suspenseful, violent thriller about a group of babysitters and a masked murderer that refused to be stopped. That wasn't this film though, because this one true sequel ended up pissing me off, really pissing me off. The film kept constantly being great with scenes of suspense and horror that rival and even surpass the original, but then that brilliance would disappear back beneath a boring family drama with a wasted hero, a wasted villain, and desperate attempts at heart and humour. There was a point in this film that I genuinely considered just getting up and leaving, and from that point I just couldn't enjoy this film anymore, I hated it. Even though there's one more bad film left to discuss, this film pissed me off more than any other film this year, and that maybe because of these films I ended up hating, I wanted to love this one the most, who knows, maybe I'll warm to it in time, but that remains to be seen.

Top Ten: Ralph Breaks the Internet

Double bill now, two films I didn't review, the first of which is the sequel to Wreck-It Ralph however, a film I also haven't reviewed, so you won't know that it's a film I very much enjoy, one with a great sense of humour, a solid heart, and a Toy Story with video games concept that has literally limitless potential. The sequel then pulls a bit of a Ghostbusters 2 and is basically the same movie, with the same basic formula and emotional beats, but like Ghostbusters 2, I love it every bit as much as the first. The heart's still there, the comedy's still awesome, my concerns of it being like The Emoji Movie because of its new setting weren't founded in reality, thank god, and the film had a surprisingly creepy and incredibly heart felt finale that I loved, Ralph Breaks The Internet was good, and when I comes out on Blu Ray, I might actually get off my arse and review it.

Top Ten: Incredibles 2

Don't count on me reviewing Ralph Breaks the Internet, because this film came out on Blu Ray months ago and I still haven't reviewed it, though, like another pick of 2018, Ant-Man and the Wasp, I was in the process of reviewing it, just never finished and published it. Bao deserves to be brought up because it was one of the weirdest and yet most lovable things I've seen this year, and while I don't think it's Pixar's best short, that still goes to Piper, it's up there for sure. Incredibles 2 however was a very enjoyable super hero film, one with a few really fun action sequences and lots of funky super powers. But what I remember most from the film was the Incredibles themselves, the Parr family were so incredibly lovable, and the film making Bob a stay at home dad while Helen goes out and stops baddies was one of the funniest things I've seen all year. Incredibles 2 does have a bit of a shit villain however, one that has nothing on Syndrome, with a much more muddled and poorly developed motives and a convoluted plan that didn't really make sense, the film's strengths are in in the family, who are all out of their comfort zone in one way or another in this film, that's where the fun is in this film, and there's a lot to be had.

Second-raters: Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle

Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle may not be the most disappointing film of the year, and it certainly isn't the worst film I've seen this year, but it is possibly the worst Godzilla film I've seen, which for me is even less forgivable. Everything I hated about the first film stayed for the sequel, but this film made the mistake of bringing in Mechagodzilla, a monster that they subsequently ruined by turning him into a city. Turn Godzilla into an unthinking plant, turn Mechagodzilla into an unthinking bunch of buildings, neither of which have any personality at all, and neither of which are visually interesting enough to keep me from wanting to fall asleep, what a recipe for success. What could have been one of the coolest battles in the series ended up being a lazy, shameless recycling of the first film, one that kept insisting it was brilliant and a work of genius. It's the only film I've discussed today that I wouldn't willingly watch again, because it was just so painful and boring and lifeless, I'm definitely watching The Planet Eater, but my expectations for it are very, very low, because if they could fuck up Mechagodzilla this much, god only knows what they're going to do to Ghidorah.

Top Ten: Overlord

I'm definitely giving my top two too much credit this year, since neither of them are masterpieces by any stretch of the imagination, but as I said at the beginning, this is based on how I feel about these films, and of all the films I've seen in 2018, Overlord kicks the second most arse for me. There really isn't much explaining to be done with this one, it's a War film about Paratroopers finding a Nazi lab where they're making Zombies, the film from that point on is exactly what you think it's going to be, and it's as awesome as it sounds. This film was violent, intense, gory, exciting and absurd, it was everything I wanted it to be, and when my local Odeon were giving away their old promotional material for charity, I donated £10 and snatched up their Overlord poster, it barely fits in my room but I put it up anyway because this film deserves that love, god knows it didn't get much at the box-office, but I can absolutely see Overlord getting a following in the years to come, and that'll be very exciting to see.

Top Ten: Bumblebee

Given how absolutely infatuated with this film I've become, is it any wonder that it'd be my favourite film of the year. Last year IT fired up a full blown obsession for me, I loved that film so, so much, watched it six times in the cinema, framed a poster of it and put it on the wall, and going into December this year, while I was beginning to dream up my top ten, I was saddened that no film in 2018 had grabbed me quite like IT had. Then I saw Bumblebee, and I got that film, Bumblebee didn't just surprise me, it blew me away, even I didn't expect a Transformers film to be this good, and I've been a Transformers fan for ten years. No film in 2018 has made me feel this good; it's just so warm and fun to watch, and like IT last year, I really could watch this film a dozen times and never get tired of it, for god's sake, I've probably listened to the song Back to Life by Hailee Steinfeld a hundred times by now and I'm still not tired of it. I pray to god that Bumblebee does well financially, because this film has given the Transformers movie franchise a second wind, and if the series goes in the direction Bumblebee appears to be taking it, I'll be a very, very happy man.

And so ends another year, and like I said at the beginning, 2018's been a long year, many things have happened, some good, some bad, some very bad. But if I could branch out from films for a second, 2018's been a really fun year, all things considered, it started on a bad note for me personally, but with 2019 just around the corner, I'm going into it in a very good mood, I've been happier in the past couple of months than I have been for the last three years. And who knows, 2019 might end up being every bit as fun as 2018 was, or it could end up being the end of everything since a lot of bad real world things are coming to a head in the coming months, but if I'm still legally allowed to, I'll be continuing to spew my thoughts out into the void on this blog, and with any luck, I'll still be a happy little creature ranting away in his sad little corner of the internet. And while I'm sure I'll be watching a lot of films next year, I got a bad feeling that I already know what my favourite of the year will be, that's assuming it's good, but if it is, 2019 will indeed be a great year.

Bumblebee Movie Review

Here's what you need to know; still struggling with the grief of losing her father, Charlie's shattered life is about to get the spark it needs when she comes across a rusty old Beetle and takes it home. This is no ordinary Beetle however, it's an Autobot, one lost on a strange and frightening new planet with the Government and a pair of evil Decepticons on his tail. But Charlie isn't deterred by the threat of a looming alien invasion, Bumblebee needs a friend, and she needs a catalyst to bring back the joy and love that was lost in her life.
As you may or may not know, I'm a huge fan of Transformers, after watching Michael Bay's 2007 film when I was 11, I was in love with this franchise of action and transforming robots and bleak, harrowing tales of war and death. But as I've detailed before, while I hold shows like Transformers Animated and Prime and the video game Fall of Cybertron very close to my heart, I've developed an increasingly cynical attitude towards the Michael Bay series, a series that, on top of not really understanding how to be good movies, blatantly had no idea how to approach doing this franchise even a modicum of justice, while killing any integrity it had left with over exposure and those sodding turbo-changers. So when a Bumblebee spinoff was announced, I really didn't care, all I saw was an attempt to double down on the Bumblebee over exposure and cash in on a franchise that, if The Last Knight's box office numbers were anything to go by, wasn't long for this world. Then I learned that Travis Knight was directing this film, and the trailer dropped, and my attitude towards the film basically did a 180, I was suddenly excited for a Transformers movie, and while other, more exciting things have happened since that trailer, *cough* Godzilla *cough * Battlefield V *cough,* my excitement for the film never really went away, until the other night when I attended two showings of the film on the same day, the first out of excitement and curiosity, the second out of pure joy that not only had I seen the best Transformers movie yet, but I'd watched one of the most enjoyable films I'd seen all year, maybe even my new favorite of the year.

Bumblebee's prologue is just five minutes of pure fan service as the last remaining Autobots hold off the Decepticon army on Cybertron. Anyone who's played High Moon Studios' Cybertron games will get a massive kick out of this, but more so than the Cybertron games, this film's prologue seems almost designed to tickle the pickles of G1 fans, because there's just so many Transformers, all of which are visually unique and instantly recognisable; Wheeljack, Ironhide, Arcee, Soundwave, Shockwave, Starscream, Thundercracker, and of course, Optimus Prime. All of which fit effortlessly into a happy middle ground between the aesthetics of G1 and Bayformers that I genuinely didn't think was possible, and I'll be honest, it was beautiful. Then Bumblebee lands on Earth, and the film just doesn't stop, as he unfortunately lands right in the middle of an army training exercise before throwing down with Blitzwing. Something didn't expect and really like is how Bumblebee still has his voice in this prologue, it's in this prologue that we learn how he lost his voice, and I was surprised by the amount of emotional weight it adds to Bumblebee and his friendship with Charlie, a key element of which being Charlie trying to teach Bumblebee how to talk. This prologue was amazing, I just wanted to see that and nothing else, but I knew it was only a prologue and expected that the film would end up losing a lot of steam, and yet it didn't, somehow.

Right out of the gate, Bumblebee already leaves Bayformers in the dust with its approach to socially outcast heroes, whereas Sam was obnoxious and awkward, deliberately but a bit too successfully, Charlie is neither, she's sweet and likable. Like Sam, she is flawed, she has a personal conflict, but while Sam's was crushing on a girl way out of his league and having fuck all social skills, Charlie's personal conflict is a little heaver, and handled far, far better. How this struggle is developed in this one film is more emotionally impactful than the first three Bay films combined; Charlie is in very genuine, very human emotional pain, and like Bumblebee's voice box getting ripped out, this is something I didn't expect, and really, really liked. The friendship that Charlie and Bumblebee develop in this film is its biggest strength by far, they are both incredibly likable characters, and the love they end up feeling for each other is just so warm and sweet, making for a bitter sweet ending that really pulled at the heart strings for me, which is weird; a Transformers film making me well up, that's literally never happened before, and I saw Optimus Prime get his spark blown out when I was 12. Like I said in my post on the trailer, the importance of a human and a Transformer hugging cannot be understated, and I adore that about Bumblebee.

Now if this were Bayformers (which it technically is,) here's where things would start to fall apart; side characters, but once again, Bumblebee doesn't completely fuck it up. The parents are no longer annoying, there's a little brother that is annoying, but that's the point and the film doesn't over-do it, and when you do hate a character, it's actually because you're meant to. John Cena's in the film, and despite him being a famous actor, wrestler and meme, I haven't seen anything with him in it, not that it would have changed my outlook on the film or his character. Burns is likable for the right reasons; he's charmingly over the top, and he has some funny moments sprinkled throughout when he isn't being cartoonishly intense, and while he really isn't the villain of the film, the film succeeded in not losing any of its momentum as it switched back and forth between Charlie and Sector 7, something that, once again, this film pulls of while Bayformers doesn't. Then there's Memo, and he could have sucked, but he was great. In a way, he's the Sam of this film; the nerdy, awkward guy crushing on a girl who doesn't even register him, and like Charlie and Bumblebee, him and Charlie develop a surprisingly wholesome and genuine friendship, though like a lot of films these days, he doesn't get the girl, I'm just going to lie and say that I don't know the reason why because this is a wholesome review for a wholesome film, we're green on fucks and shits but politics is a no-no.

Bumblebee, being a family film, has a lot of comedic moments, but like everything else about the film, it's wholesome; gone is the low brow, obnoxious, offensive drivel of the Bay films, no gay dog sex, no stoned parents, no screaming roommates or insufferably Twins. It occurred to me at some point that Bumblebee was actually making me laugh at times, something Bayformers also managed but with a much lower success rate, and at the cost of the rest of the comedy making me want to brush my teeth with 12-Gauge Birdshot. The film's generally more family friendly nature does bug me in one way however, and that's how the film handles death and violence. For a film whose emotional core is built around a grieving daughter, the film's reluctance to show any kind of violence to its human characters is a bit weak. Sure, having people turn to slime when they die is more kid friendly than them dropping dead, covered in blood and burns, but it seems so clean and safe compared to how the film handles Charlie's grief, disappointingly so, since there's a scene in this film that's bound to be more distressing to kids than any dead Texan, I know, I could hear them crying in the cinema. But, and this is second biggest but in the film, and something that I've already commented on, the film has heart, in fact it has a vomit inducing amount of heart. Rather ironically, for a film I initially expected to be the most soulless film in the series, it actually has more soul than any other film in the series, it has genuinely lovable characters, compelling drama, compelling heroes and villains, and a general feeling of joy and warmth that no other film in the series even comes close to having, Bumblebee almost made me cry, and that's not something I'll admit easily, unless we're talking about Paddington, that is.

But then there's the other but, the bigger but; possibly Bayformers' biggest failure was its complete inability to do justice to the Transformers, its butchering and gutting of lovable heroes and villains by stripping them of personality or style while cramming in as many recognisable names as possible, turning them into nothing more than vehicles of mayhem, literally. Bumblebee on the other hand takes a less is more approach, cutting its roster down to four, that's right, four Transformers; Bumblebee, Blitzwing, and the film's main villains, Shatter and Dropkick. This honestly couldn't have worked out more perfectly for the film, with all three of the film's Decepticons having distinct and appealing looks and personalities, so much so that I actually want their toys, particularly Shatter, who, while not a match for Megatron, is a solid and sinister villain, one that embodies the manipulative and sadistic cruelty of the Decepticons admirably. And while Optimus, Ironhide, Soundwave etc. are all in the film, they're very much in the back seat, which might turn you off if you expect more Bayformers Mayhem, but Bumblebee is very much a film of substance before style, something I've always said Transformers needed, and here we are, I was right.

Since Michael Bay isn't directing this film, the film, rather unsurprisingly, has a massively different tone and visual style, but both of those changes are unquestionably for the better, since the film's Transformers look amazing and all have unique looks, the action isn't over the top and rendered almost unwatchable by pyrotechnics and a medley of metal. The film is less action heavy than previous films, but the action honestly hasn't been this good since the forest fight in Revenge of the Fallen, which is unsurprising given Travis Knight's background in animation, but's it's very refreshing that the action is both fun and violent, but actually has stakes and emotional weight, and unlike the Bay films, Bumblebee doesn't have to be as reliant on its action to be entertaining thanks to the characters and drama. It's also set in the 80's, which naturally means there's a fuck ton of retconning, but at this point, I really don't care, this franchise is more retconned than Star Wars by now. That does give the film the opportunity to capitalise on the 80s nostalgia wave, which it absolutely does with a solid selection of 80's songs including Bon Jovi, The Smiths, Steve Winwood, and The Touch by Stan Bush, because why the fuck would it not have The Touch by Stan Bush, as well as a serviceable soundtrack of its own, including a song performed by Hailee Steinfeld, the film's lead actor, and someone whose music I've not really liked that much, and yet I'm listening to her song; Back to Life while I write this, and have actually been listening to it basically non-stop for the past two days, all the while daydreaming about how much I love this film, because I really do, I really, really do.

My name is Bumblebee
My opinion of this film has changed a lot since it was announced, what I feared would be the most cynical and soulless film the series has seen yet, somehow turned out to not only be the best film the Transformers series by far, but possibly my new favourite film of 2018, and I really mean that. The film's a bit too kid friendly and PC at times for my tastes, but they really are my only issues, and compared to everything else, they are minor. The film's less is more approach has resulted in the most compelling story in the series, packed with genuinely lovable characters and heartfelt, soul melting drama on top of the excellent robot action. It's the warmest film I've seen since Paddington 2, even warmer than Ralph Breaks the Internet, which I did see, just didn't review because I'm lazy. I watched Bumblebee three times in two days, and I'd happily watch a fourth, a fifth, a sixth time. Never thought it would happen, but it's true, Bumblebee is an absolute must watch.

Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle movie review

Here's what you need to know; after witnessing the true enormity of their opposition, Haruo and what remains of his crew find that they are not alone on this alien Earth, and that even in the shadow of Godzilla, humanity still found a way to carry on. More miraculous however is the discovery that buried beneath the ruins of the old world is an ancient weapon that was once the solution to the King of the Monsters, and that even after twenty thousand years, might still hold the key to ending Godzilla's reign for good.
And so, after rather strongly disliking the first, I decided to carry on this masochistic adventure of the Godzilla Anime Trilogy by watching City on the Edge of Battle, the much hated sequel to Planet of the Monsters. But after finding Planet of the Monsters to be complete doo doo and hearing that City on the Edge of Battle was even worse, I still wanted to see for myself, because I'm just so loyal to my favourite monster, more loyal than he deserves in this case.

City on the Edge of Battle picks up right where the first left off, where *spoilers* they kill Godzilla, only for another, bigger Godzilla to appear out of nowhere and completely fuck them up, a twist that I thought was really dumb, like there being two Megs in The Meg, it's just an excuse to give the trilogy's first act a finale without actually being creative. But the immediate aftermath of Godzilla's attack does start out kind of interesting, with the crew of the Aratrum panicking at the idea of Godzilla noticing them in orbit and shooting them down, and Haruo having a run-in with a native, which, like the first, opens a Pandora's box of fascinating and completely wasted potential. For some reason the film throws out exposition about how these humans aren't actually human, but a kind of insectoid de-evolution, which is another one of those things that's never explained and never serves the plot, that is unless you consider their telepathy and culture of worshiping "The Egg," which I can only assume is Mothra. But sadly, despite being a massive revelation that Earth can in fact support human life, the natives don't serve much of a purpose outside of helping them film Mechagodzilla city and being all foreboding about the "poisonous" Nanometal of the "Shining Valley". What bugs me (pun intended) is how the film pontificates about these natives like it's some kind of philosophical exploration, every time the natives are on screen or referenced, it feels like the film is trying to say something, but I don't know exactly what because this film isn't as clever as it clearly thinks it is, inferring things like a "Genetic Monster Factor," whatever that means, and endlessly pontificating in its finale about how man must surrender its humanity to kill Godzilla as the only way to defeat a monster is to become a monster, which sounds clever on paper, especially considering the philosophical gold mine that is the Kaiju genre, but again, the film isn't as smart as it thinks it is so it comes across as the film just wanking itself off. This all ties into Mechagodzilla and the Nanometal, but that's further down this rabbit hole. Like the first, this film tries to consider some of the genre's philosophical overtones, but it fails because it doesn't really know what to do with those overtones; man not being the lords of creation and being struck down for their arrogance is just a tiny stem of an idea that's never allowed to grow, Godzilla being the lord of creation is literally only implied one time and never brought up again, nature overcoming and surpassing all of man's technology is another idea that never goes anywhere, and technology being a threat to the order of nature, despite the film's desperate peddling of it, only comes out half baked, and is used instead as a lazy dramatic device.

Did I say drama, well I guess it's time we talk about characters. Haruo is exactly the same as he was for the entirety of Planet of the Monsters, he's still an angry, emotionally driven fool on a quest for revenge, which makes one scene when someone gives him shit all the funnier, because while the film tries to make this guy sound like an idiot, he isn't wrong as it is Haruo's fault that they're stranded on Earth because he led them into a battle they couldn't have won, this is Last Jedi levels of self-destruction, minus the forced conflict, trying to make someone out to be in the wrong when they irrefutably are not. And on the other side of that coin is Haruo, the idiot whose fault it is that they're probably all going to die, and the film still treats him like a competent and heroic leader, still kind of reminding me of the thing I hated most in The Last Jedi, and when you're being compared to Admiral Holdo, that's a very bad thing. At least the film gives him a bit of development in the final act by forcing a moral choice on him, one relating to the idea of abandoning his humanity in order to save it, but like everything else, the potential is wasted, and two acts into this trilogy and I still wouldn't care if our main hero died. The big issue here is that people actually do die in this film, characters that the film wants you to care about, and the film tries to go deep with the Bilusaludo as they embrace this film's philosophical Monster factor and attempt to force Haruo into doing the same; this gets people killed, including *Spoilers* Yuko, who becomes romantically attached to Haruo for some reason, even when that love isn't reciprocated until after she dies, making it feel forced. Yet again there are places the film could have taken this; like Haruo mourning that Yuko will never get to see this Earth that she's only ever heard about in stories, or a more philological angle on the lines between man and monster, and how innocence and humanity, while morally just, are weaknesses in the face of evil, but I very much doubt that was the intention, it's clear that Haruo is mourning out of love, a love that was never expressed or even hinted at for the previous three hours of this trilogy. But at least the film does start to flesh out its characters a bit more, at least we see, for example, that Haruo and Metphies are in fact friends, that the Bilusaludo aren't just people with spiky faces, they actually have an outlook on the world that is different to that of humanity and the Exif, one that kind of comes out of nowhere upon the discovery of Mechagodzilla city. And as weak as the romance is, at least there was a slither of effort put into making you care, not that it worked.

The film's presentation isn't much of an upgrade from the previous film; the CG anime style still looks cheap, the film still has an ugly colour pallet, only now with a bit of orange thrown in with the green and grey, until the finale that is, where we get some admittedly very pretty blues and reds, the ecosystem of Earth is still dull and empty, seemingly populated only by Godzilla, the natives and the Servum, once again, the opportunity of creating a weird and wonderful Monster Planet rich with biodiversity and crazy creations is wasted. In fact it's so lifeless that while I was at work I dreamed up a scenario that would have killed three birds with one stone. How's this; rather than Yuko kissing Haruo in Mechagodzilla city, she kisses him in the natives' little valley where the air is breathable, while there maybe they could run into some monsters that resemble normal Earth animals, let's say a herd of deer monsters, Yuko could be mesmerised by the creatures, she could think that they're beautiful. At that point you could have some cool monsters and a deeper philosophical meaning all at once, as Yuko is now not just a forced love interest, but a symbol, a thing for Haruo to fight for that isn't revenge, so that the people born aboard the Aratrum who never set foot on Earth can have a future and know what it means to truly have a home, which would have given her death some actual weight as with her dies not just a love interest, but a dream. But no, rather than kissing him in a scenic valley surrounded by animals, she kisses him in the dull, dark, grey, lifeless waste of screen time that is Mechagodzilla city, a place that, despite repeated claims to the contrary, feels more dead than my hope of enjoying Doctor Who again. I know that I've just spent a bit of time complaining about what isn't the film, but what I hope I'm explaining comprehensibly is that even with the shitty framework this film shambles around on, a trim here and expansion there could make all the difference, but that doesn't happen. The music's better this time at least, which isn't saying much given how inconsistent and weird the first film's soundtrack was, and this film also has a pop song; The Sky Falls, and while it isn't as annoying catchy as White Out, it's decent enough, and some of the returning musical cues from the first film are used effectively. And while Godzilla's design is still decent, the film is never given a chance to fuck up any other monsters' appearances for the sake of forcing change, sort of.

But what does that mean, sort of? Well, Mechagodzilla is in this film, except he isn't; like his cameo appearance in Planet of the Monsters, he's nothing more than a name in this film since we never see him and since they abandon their original plan of rebuilding him in favour of an unbelievably boring climax. But in a way, this is a blessing because the design they created for Mechagodzilla in this film is fucking hideous. I'm not kidding, Mechagodzilla is completely unrecognisable, he's just a mass of metal with a shape that's practically impossible to describe, and that only bears a vague, faint, maybe noticeable if you squint, resemblance to Godzilla, which defeats the point of Mechagodzilla being a robot Godzilla. I mean, just look at him on the poster of the film, if you didn't know that it was supposed to be Mechagodzilla and saw that on the poster, would you even be able to tell, the answer is no because the design is horrible. This is all also going on the notion that it even matters, which is doesn't because he's not even in the film. Oh yes, despite the amount of fun you could have with Godzilla having to take on a robot version of himself, the film instead has Godzilla being lured to a trap point and shot at by stationary artillery guns, and if that sounds familiar, it's because this film is so original and different that it is in fact exactly the same as the last one. I am baffled that they would even consider this a good idea, absolutely baffled; promise Mechagodzilla, create a design that looks like something vomited up a pile of scrap metal, and then rip off the first film by having the heroes use the exact same strategy as before, only bigger and with big metal domes somehow being an even less appealing backdrop to the dull, boring jungle of last time. Granted, the strategy worked in the first film, barely, and at the cost of far too many lives, but when you have access to an unlimited supply of magic metal that can do literally anything, how could the best thing you come up with be some guns and couple of flying mechs, and I say this not to the characters but to the writers, how could you have so little fun with the Nanometal, especially since you promised Mechagodzilla, and since with an unlimited supply of magic metal you could create something completely insane, and the most insane thing you could come up with was the hoverbikes from last time, only now they're mechs and there's only three of them, fucking genius. Maybe I'm getting a little too personal with this, but it genuinely annoys me that they took the Nanometal, a substance in unlimited supply that can literally become anything you tell it to become, and they turned it into a boring contrivance and pseudo-philosophical crutch.

Oh, did I not mention the philosophical aspect of the Nanometal, well then buckle up because you're gonna love it. Like everything else in the film, City on the Edge of Battle loves to wank about how brilliant and deep the Nanometal is; throwing around names like "poison" and "wicked" while heavily implying that it's somehow alive, which could be awesome couldn't it, a city made entirely of a material that is alive and can think, there are so many directions you could take that. You could have it becoming its own master and choosing its side; it could decide that Godzilla and humans both need to go and that Earth would be better if it was all just Nanometal, or it could decide that humans are more useful as processors and start trying to assimilate Haruo and his crew while also attacking Godzilla, which kind of happens, but it's the Bilusaludo controlling the city who tell it to start eating people, forcing them into a villain role that makes very little sense. Or how about it decides that the best way to kill Godzilla is a rebuilt Mechagodzilla, resulting in a completely autonomous Mechagodzilla that's as big a threat to humanity as it is to Godzilla, which could then give the subsequent battle some actual stakes. Or since it's apparently a living city, you could also have Godzilla attack the city and have the city attack back, as in have the city itself attack Godzilla rather than just growing guns and shooting at him, that would be interesting, that would be original, and it would be immensely more interesting to watch than Godzilla moving down a straight path while guns shoot at him and he spams his atomic beam. And what I find completely laughable is how while Godzilla is lured through a narrow, straight path, we are told, not shown, told, that he is attacking his surroundings, which is utterly laughable, as if animating Godzilla swinging his tail at the walls of the trap was too much, instead lets settle for a shot of him moving his tail, then cut to a wide of degree flying about like he actually did something. This is a problem that Godzilla had in the first film; that he doesn't interact with his environment in any meaningful way, but it's exacerbated in this film because of his size, and this film absolutely, demonstrably proves that bigger is not better. Godzilla in this film is three hundred meters tall, making him the biggest Godzilla there has ever been, nearly triple the height of the previous tallest, and while that would be very menacing were he looming over a city, in City on the Edge of Battle, he never even enters the titular city, and spends most of the film roaming around in the surrounding jungle, standing literally dozens of times higher than the trees. This makes his lack of interaction with his surroundings even more boring to look at because there simply isn't anything big enough for him to interact with.

It's such a strange problem in a kaiju film, or at least you'd think, because when it comes to giant monsters, surely bigger is better, but that isn't the case with this film because for all I care he could ten miles tall, it still wouldn't make this boring, empty excuse for Godzilla entertaining to watch, it still wouldn't fix that he has absolutely no personality, that he displays no intelligence or cunning despite the film wanting us to believe he does. And like the first, the plan is simply to lure Godzilla into a trap, destroy his shield and blow him up with EMP probes, only now the EMP probes are EMP harpoons, and in place of the spider tanks from before are big domes with guns sticking out of them, it's the same finale as the first film, the exact same, only with more colours and bigger guns, which is not enough to save it, especially with the unlimited potential of the Nanometal, which would at least be more entertaining as a lazy justification for the film not having rules than as a lame dramatic and philosophical device. And to add insult to injury is the mere knowledge that the plan won't work; we saw the plan just barely work in the first film, only for it to all be made pointless because it was just a babyzilla, and we know that this is part two of three, which means that Godzilla will survive no matter what, unless they honestly want to make a Godzilla film with no Godzilla in it at all. This is a problem that literally every film has though, the inherent knowledge that the heroes will win, only in this case it's inverted, we know that the heroes will lose and that Godzilla will win, but that doesn't matter because we can still become invested, we can still have our heart strings pulled by an inevitable ending if it is executed well, shit, if it's executed well, people will lap up a disaster of an ending where all the heroes lose and most of them die, yet Infinity War this film is not. People were shocked by Infinity War's ending because of the build up to it and the execution of it, sure, the heroes all losing kind of sucks, but it hurts because we like these heroes and because even against the insurmountable threat of Thanos, there's still a chance that they could win, making their battle so much more intense, and their eventual defeat so much more powerful. Meanwhile City on the Edge of Battle has written this trilogy into a corner, one that almost certainly will not be sorted out in an emotionally satisfying way because we don't care. By making Godzilla so powerful to the point of being literally unkillable, not only have you made the entire film pointless, but you've put the heroes in a situation where they either win by incredibly convoluted means, or they don't win, one of which would almost certainly be stupid, and the other would render the entire trilogy pointless, and because I still don't have any emotional investment in the story and characters, I'm not going to care how it turns out, even when you throw in Ghidorah, or rather the space spaghetti that's supposed to be Ghidorah.

Are the Passing Crows Wings of Death?
Planet of the Monsters was underwhelming and boring, but City on the Edge of Battle isn't just that, it's a mess of a film through and through, one plagued by all its predecessor's shortcomings as well as its own painful lack of substance and wasted potential. Once again the film fails to deliver on the simple promise of its title; giving us a city that is lifeless and uninteresting and a battle that's just one long bout of Deja vu. But more egregious than that is the film's handling of its monsters and themes, giving us the same weak and unenjoyably dull portrayal of my favourite movie monster, and a Mechagodzilla so ugly and poorly handled that it beggars belief. But instead of being entertaining, the film instead tries to be insightful and meaningful, the only problem is that it fails there too, its deeper themes are half baked at best and completely ridiculous at worst, and none of it is able to amend for the absence of this genre's biggest draw, entertainment. City on the Edge of Battle is an uninspired and boring film, but it is a terrible Godzilla film, and I don't know which I find worse, I definitely wouldn't recommend it.