Doom: Eternal Video Game Review

Here's what you need to know; things have quite literally gone to Hell on Earth as the planet is ravaged by a full-scale Demonic invasion. But as Earth is transformed into a smouldering Hellscape and the armies of Darkness harvest human souls on an industrial scale, all hope is not lost, not while The Slayer lives. But older, darker forces stir, forces that have facilitated the extinction of Mankind for their own ends as they have done countless times before to countless worlds. The Slayer has other plans, however, and this endless cycle of destruction is about to be brought to a violent halt at the business end of a Super Shotgun.

Welcome to the Apocalypse, folks; entire countries are on lockdown, including my own, thousands of people are dead and thousands more are going to be, the entire world is terrified. But with the Government urging people to stay indoors, we all need some way to pass the time, which is easier for some of us than it is for others. Take me for example, I bought the Borderlands 3 season pass, beat the game as Zane and am now on my fourth playthrough with my fourth Vault Hunter. A new beast is on the board now, however; the sequel to one of the most hardcore games of the past decade, Doom: Eternal, and to say this game has been hyped is an understatement, but was it worth it, the short answer is yes, oh my fucking God, yes, but please do stick around for the long answer.

Doom: Eternal's opening cutscene is perfection, it's absolute perfection. We see Earth, scarred with demonic symbols and glyphs while nameless victims cry for help. But someone is listening, as on his orbital fortress, because he has one of them now, the Slayer is getting ready to hunt. This really is an entertaining sequence, with someone down on the surface rambling about having faith in "him" while the Slayer suits up and loads his shotgun, the sequence ends with a badass close up of the Slayer's glare as he pumps the shotgun, before hard cutting to the title, again accompanied by the black magician Mick Gordon's soundtrack. You're then thrown straight into the mayhem with a bit of a tutorial to show you the ropes of combat, though if you played the previous game, little of this will be new to you. We'll get to gameplay, but first let's talk about the story, because that's something the Doom franchise has an odd relationship with, and Doom: Eternal is no exception. Doom 3 was a very story heavy game, and fleshed its story out with its collection of audio logs and PDAs, Doom 2016 had a very light story, but still had a stupid amount of backstory and lore hidden in the codex, Doom: Eternal is more in the middle. There is still a codex full of backstory and lore, even more than before, in fact, and you'll still be spending the vast majority of the time killing demons, but this time the game actually has a couple of cutscenes, moments of the Slayer meeting people and getting told to stay out of their way, or later on when we learn the Slayer's true identity in a moment of pure, unadulterated fan service.

Doom: Eternal doesn't tell a complex story though, the plot is actually stupidly simple; the Slayer is on Earth looking for the Hell Priests overseeing the invasion. Where things get a bit insane is how this game fleshes out the lore of Doom, as him killing the Priests pisses off some very powerful people, and when they tell him to stay away, he obviously ignores them. Doom: Eternal takes that amazing world building from the previous game and not only continues it, but puts it right in the players face, and it's awesome. I mean, how many games are there where you piss off God. This naturally means the Slayer is even more badass than before, and with the game going considerably deeper into his past and the things he has done, you get even more of a taste that he is a God, and even outside of the lore and in the game itself you see this; for god's sake, he blows a hole in a planet then gets to the escape pods by firing himself out of a point defence gun at them. I won't spoil what is revealed about him, but it literally is a game changing reveal, and makes the already massive world of this new Doom series even bigger in a way that's kind of beautiful. The game also goes heavy into the history of Argent D'Nur and the Sentinels, you even visit Argent D'Nur in this game, or at least the parts of it that aren't Hellified, and if the 2016 game made this world interesting, this game makes it completely captivating, as before, I sat and read all of the codex entries, and the more I read, the more I fell in love with this game's worldbuilding. Doom: Eternal is a truly galactic game as you not only go to Hell and Earth, but Mars, obviously, the Arctic circle, Argent D'Nur, Hell again and probably the most insane of all, a world called Urdak, the home of the angelic Makyrs and their matriarch, the Kahn Makyr, who is one of the game's antagonists.

These settings aren't random, however, and are all weaved together by a surprisingly coherent story that only gets more and more biblical as it progresses. It's so nice that a game tells an interesting story and crafts a compelling world after the last game I reviewed, Borderlands 3, dropped the ball so hard, and how ironic is it that the game that gets it right is Doom. A big part of Doom: Eternal's storytelling and worldbuilding is its environments as like the 2016 game, the in-game world of Doom: Eternal is a goldmine of atmosphere and history. Take the Earth levels for example, as in these levels, the war against the demons has already been lost, the landscape is littered with crumbling buildings and abandoned and destroyed war machines, all being corrupted and infected by Hell. The streets and buildings are choked by Hell growths and littered with the remains of the dead. The game completely sells the look of a world literally gone to Hell, and sometimes you just have to stop and look, give yourself a chance to take it in. The game's other worlds are just as strong, Argent D'Nur for example has vast, ancient cites, sprawling mountains and forests, and reminders of a battle very long since lost; from the ruins of great temples to the corpses of Titans, lying where they fell at the hands of the Sentinels. As in the 2016 game however, the winner in this category is Hell, from the corrupted ruins of Earth and Argent D'Nur, down to the bowels of Hell itself in Nekravol, or as biblical types would call it, the tower of Babel, it's just horrifyingly beautiful. Even when you're not killing demons and just taking in the scenery, this game is epic, look in any direction on any of the levels and you'll probably find a desktop wallpaper.

Again mentioning Nekravol, in my Doom 3 review I praised the game for its ridiculously fucked up portrayal of Hell, and Nekravol feels like that, it is the fucked up version of Hell that every six year old Christian in the world pisses themselves at the thought of; a sprawling factory of endless torture and pain, where Hell's victims are crammed into cages and have their souls extracted through suffering. Like you'll be playing Doom: Eternal with a weak stomach in the first place, but some of this game's imagery is genuinely disturbing. Again though, for all the moments of horror, there are moments of utter beauty, Doom: Eternal is a visual feast, more so than even the last two Doom games which both also completely crushed it with atmosphere and worldbuilding. But one thing about Doom: Eternal's presentation is in a league above every other game in the franchise, even above the 2016 game, its music. Mick Gordon returns to compose the soundtrack and as I said before, his work is black magic, his score for the 2016 game is one of the best video game soundtracks in existence and is almost certainly the best used, but even that is underwhelming compared to his work in Doom: Eternal. When shit's going down in this game, his music is a strong as it ever was in the last game, it's hardcore, it's pulse pounding, it's metal as fuck, a symphony of heavy guitar and electronic beats that moves in perfect sync with the Slayer. 

But where Doom: Eternal is just as effective is, weirdly, in the quieter moments, the game's ambient music is incredible; it can be haunting, atmospheric, filled with subdued rage or with a sense of wonder and awe. The Sentinel Prime level is a great example of this, with an amazing ambient homage to Sign of Evil, followed by a hardcore Electronic assault on the senses in the boss fight with the Gladiator. Like all things about Doom: Eternal, the music is rich, there's just so much to dig into and it's the kind of music that elevates a game from being fun to being an experience. And all of it; the music, the backdrops, the locations, the codex, makes this simple game so rich and juicy, like Doom 3 and Doom 2016, it's a masterpiece of atmosphere and worldbuilding. One area where Doom: Eternal makes changes from the previous game is in the look of a lot of the enemies and weapons, though these changes are purely aesthetic, and if I'm honest, a lot of it is improved. Oh yeah, after describing Doom 2016 as visual perfection a few years ago, I think Doom: Eternal is even more perfect. The game takes a lot of design ideas from the original Doom, while seamlessly blending it in with aesthetics and motifs from Doom 2016. Enemies like the Mancubus, Archvile and Cacodemon are spitting images of their OG Doom counterparts, while other enemies like the Revenant, Imp and Pinky haven't changed much from the last game. Doom: Eternal brings in some new demons like the Carcass and the Doom Hunter, the former being a support demon that can spawn shields, the latter being the top half of a demon grafted onto a hover-tank.

And for more goodness, the game brings in demons of Doom's past, like the Pain Elemental and the Arachnotron, both of which are a lot of fun to fight, as well as the Tyrant, which is basically a Cyberdemon, albeit one that looks and fights very differently to the Cyberdemon of doom 2016. As before, these are all a lot of fun to fight, and Doom: Eternal takes it a significant step further by giving a lot of them exploits; now in addition to shooting them until they stop moving, some enemies have weak spots and are weak to certain weapons or attacks. And you can use this to your advantage, crippling a Revenant's or Arachnotoron's ranged attacks by blowing off their cannons, or knocking off a Cyber-Mancubus' armour with a blood punch. One that never gets old is instantly putting a Cacodemon in a staggered state by shooting a grenade into its mouth, I could do that all day. And trust me, few things are more entertaining than staggering multiple Cacodemons and glory killing them all, first one before jumping or dashing to the next. The game really mixes up its encounters too with the demons you fight, throwing all sorts at you at once, from small fry like the Imps, all the way up to Tyrants and Doom Hunters, all with different strengths and weaknesses that you'll have to learn to exploit, and most of these encounters are stupidly fun. I say most because there is one issue, one enemy that I don't like and don't enjoy fighting, and if you've played the game or seen any reviews of it, you'll know its name already; the Marauder.

The Marauder is a dick, I hate him because every time he shows up, whatever battle you're in grinds to a halt. The Marauder is the one enemy in the game that doesn't play by the rules, designed to be an equal to the Doom Slayer, he's very dash happy and how and when he attacks doesn't always make sense, and he can instantly block all direct attacks with a shield, only being vulnerable to direct attacks when his eyes turn green, keep shooting the shield and he'll send his dog after you too, so have fun with that. He is one of the hardest enemies in the game, and easily the most bullshit, but the fact that he's then thrown in with all the normal enemies makes him insufferable. Doom: Eternal is all about momentum, as we'll get to when we discuss gameplay, but the Marauder disrupts that momentum every time he shows up, he's a perfectly fine one-on-one fight, but you only fight him one-on-one once, and every other time you fight him, you have to leave yourself open to every other demon in the room to focus on him, or avoid his dash happy arse until the rest of the room is dealt with, and he does take some of the fun out of it. The weird thing is that he's the only one though, he's the only enemy in the game that I don't enjoy fighting, which makes him all the more annoying, but also shows just how polished this game is, because when it's not the Marauder, be it lowly Imps, all the way up to towering Tyrant's and Doom Hunters and everything in between, sending them back to Hell is a treat, and their designs, even the Marauder, are gorgeous, especially the Marauder, in fact, his look is as steeped in lore as it is badass.

But where would the fun be if your tools for the job weren't all that impressive, luckily, Doom: Eternal has you covered. Anyone who played the last Doom will be familiar with these guns, because the initial lineup hasn't changed; you got guns like the combat shotgun, a plasma rifle, a BFG-9000 obviously, and a rocket launcher. The Gauss cannon has been replaced with a weapon called the Ballista, but it's still a slow firing, super accurate and high damage plasma weapon. Changes include the absence of a pistol, the radically old school look of the plasma rifle, and a handful of new mods to play with. As in the 2016 game, all the weapons have interchangeable mods, ranging from a grenade launcher and full-auto mode for the shotgun, to the returning heat blast for the plasma rifle and the new microwave beam, to a mod for the Ballista that is completely ridiculous, firing a charged horizonal beam that can cut pretty much anything clean in half. As with the last Doom as well, all of these mods can be upgraded with tokens awarded in combat, and mastered by completing challenges or finding the occasional mastery token. And like with the last Doom, some of the fully upgraded weapons are a bit insane, like the Chaingun's turret mod once it no longer overheats, or the Plasma Rifle's heat blast that gives you a damage boost when it's fully charged. Nothing compares to the Super-Shotgun though, nothing, because that meat hook is so much fun, it love it, I want to marry it.

And then you have the BFG-9000, and what else needs to be said, it's the BFG-9000, for when you absolutely have to kill every mother fucker in the room. Once you unlock it too, the BFG-9000 shares a slot on the weapon wheel with the Unmakyr, a super-fast firing, super high damage plasma weapon that's very impractical to use thanks to it sharing ammo with the BFG-9000, for which you can carry a grand total of two shots. Another awesome but not very practical weapon is the Crucible, which is basically a Doom lightsaber, it can kill pretty much everything in a single hit, except the Marauder because he's a dick, but like the Unmakyr, the issue is ammo. You can only carry three charges for the Crucible, and like the BFG-9000, you have to find ammo pickups in the environment, meaning you have to be very selective in where and how you use it. Which brings us to the issue of ammo, something a lot of people aren't happy with. Doom: Eternal does not give you much ammo, even when your ammo capacity is fully upgraded, you can still only carry twenty-four shotgun ammo, and one-hundred-and-eighty bullets, which is real problem when you're rocking the fully upgraded Chaingun. I asked my nephew about this and he's of the opinion that it isn't good, that you need more ammo, I meanwhile disagree, I think it's brilliant. Doom: Eternal is a lot smarter than it looks; it may look like mindless mayhem, but in reality, it's a game where you really have to think about what you're doing, you have to stay mobile, think fast and keep on top of your limited resources.

All of your equipment plays into this; you have the chainsaw which is now on a cool down, letting you use it more which you will need to do to get ammo. The Glory kills are back, and you'll need them for health drops, though you can also get them from the Blood Punch and killing frozen enemies once you've upgraded the ice bomb. And the new flame belch is a blessing thanks to it making enemies drop armour. Does all that sound like a lot to take in, yes, does it make for an intense and enjoyable experience, fuck yes. The constant ammo shortage forces you to play with all your guns, the chainsaw is a necessary tool to keep yourself alive, as is the flame belch. This throws a lot more strategy into the battles as now you can't just strafe and shoot, now you have to strafe and shoot while also keeping on top of your resources, making the combat even more dangerous as you constantly have to throw yourself into the thick of it to get ammo and armour, weeding out and farming the fodder while trying not to get torn apart by everyone else. Doom 2016 struck the perfect balance of being hard and making you feel unstoppable, and Doom: Eternal has doubled down on it, making a game that's far harder, but that I don't think I can go back from, I adore it, I can play it for days. But it doesn't just stop at weapons and equipment, because Doom: Eternal's greatest leap from its predecessor is movement. Since beating Doom: Eternal, I've replayed Doom 2016 and burned through Borderlands 3's latest DLC, and Borderlands 3, a game I love playing, felt disgusting to play, but the real kicker is that even Doom 2016, one of the most fun games of the past decade, was underwhelming to go back to.

Doom: Eternal just feels so good to play, it feels so good. In addition to the double jump, you now have a double dash, which even further increases the speed as you bounce around the room, constantly dashing and jumping out of the way of the demons. In addition to ledge climbing, you can also swing on conveniently placed monkey bars or get flung into the air by conveniently placed grav-lifts, letting you play with the verticality of a lot of the levels. But that meat hook though, mounted on the Super-Shotgun, firing it an enemy will pull you towards the enemy, letting you cover distance easily to hit them with a devastating point-blank shot. And on top of that, when mastered, the meat hook sets enemies on fire, I have a beard all of a sudden, how bizarre. All of this melts together into the game equivalent of a Prequel Trilogy Lightsaber duel; very fast, very flashy, and more like a dance than a fight. It is, however, the most ferocious dance you will ever have because even at full armour and health, death is always only a few good hits away, every fight is a fight for your life, and every fight is different. For my first playthrough of the game, I got my arse kicked, I was still getting to grips with it, I faired far better in my second playthrough, but what I found fascinating was the battles that gave me the most trouble were different in each playthrough. Example; in the Cultist base level, before you get the Super-shotgun, you get dropped into a smallish square arena that gets flooded with demons, and that room killed me half a dozen times in my first run, but I blitzed it in my second, meanwhile a room before that that I blitzed in my first run gave me real trouble in my second. I've never seen that before in a game, and I bet in my inevitable third run, a completely different set of arenas will be the bane of my existence, and that excites me knowing that Doom: Eternal will, at the very least, never get stale.

It does however bring me to say that this game has a learning curve, it being an even more hardcore game than the already hardcore Doom 2016, it's a game that forces you to play it a certain way and if you don't want to learn or it's too hard, Doom: Eternal probably isn't for you, my advice is obvious though, stick with it, git gud, and it'll be worth it, I promise. Weirdly, the game gets easier as you get further in, as you get upgrades and new guns, not to mention the extra lives scattered about that will throw you right back into the fight when you die, basically a get-out-of-jail-free card if you fuck up which you will, don't worry, it happens to all of us. They do kind of break the game a bit though, as you get more confident in the Doom dance and start needing them less, but you're still picking them up, eventually you'll have way more of them than you could ever need. To be honest, there's only one thing about Doom: Eternal's gameplay that I don't think is an improvement, and that's the boss fights, though I don't think that's the fault of Doom: Eternal, I think that's just because Doom 2016's boss fights were so awesome, because let's face it, nothing will ever compare to the Spider Mastermind. In fact, if I'm honest, the Cyberdemon tops all the bosses of Doom: Eternal, which might be heresy to say, I don't know yet. Doom: Eternal also has the Slayer Gates, six optional arenas scattered throughout the game that will unlock the Unmakyr once completed. Not that the Unmakyr is the only incentive for beating them, because in a way, they are Doom: Eternal at its most pure, they are small, contained arenas that throw literally everything at you and force you to use every skill you've learned if you have any hope of surviving.

They hold nothing back either, even super heavies like the Tyrant, which you'll have to fight two of in one of them, to the Doom Hunter, to my favourite cunt, the Marauder. My only complaint with the Slayer Gates is that there's only six. I do however take genuine issue with the secret encounters, which are a lot like the pervious game's Rune challenges, in that they suck. They're gore nests scattered around the levels that, once triggered, will spawn a bunch of demons that you have to kill in a usually very stick time limit, and why do I hate them, that's simple, killing a Marauder in thirty seconds is bullshit. Like the Rune Challenges, these almost always come down to trial and error, and you lose any recourses you use when you trigger them, whether you complete them or not. Rune challenges are gone, thank god, now Runes are just scattered throughout the world, as are the Praetor tokens for upgrading the Slayer's suit. Suit upgrades are less exciting than the weapons mods and runes, but useful nonetheless, upgrading basic stuff like decreased cooldown and buffs on your equipment; taking less damage from the toxic goo for example, or letting you fire two grenades between cooldowns. The ability to make yourself immune to explosive barrels is a bit daft though, as is making them drop ammo and respawn when they're blown up. The runes are where things get more crazy, obviously, giving you buffs like faster glory kills and the ability to do them from further away, to having greater control of movement in the air, to more strange ones like the two that slow down time either when you're in the air or when you take a fatal hit.

If I may rewind a bit to the goo though, because if you've read to this point, you know I have some issues with the game, and there's just one more I need to mention. Doom: Eternal's movement is incredible, but there are times where the game kind of spoils it, several sections where you have to do platforming or solve basic puzzles. The puzzles are not the real issue, it's the platforming; it's having to jump onto a floating platform and then jump to the next one before it falls, or having to jump dash across a bottomless pit and time your jumps and dashes perfectly or you won't make it, or a handful of sections where you are walking through purple goo that you can't jump or dash in, not technically platforming but you get the point. These sections don't suck because they're hard, they suck because they slow the pace of the game and get very tedious. But when you get past one of these platforming sections and get back to ripping and tearing, or get your hands on a new toy, album or cheat code that you can enjoy back at the fortress, it picks up again. I didn't mention that, did I? Doom: Eternal's levels are filled with secrets, it'd be criminal if they weren't, and these secrets vary from pickups, to cool shit like action figures of all the game's demons and vinyl albums you can interact with on the Fortress, as well as cheats you can mess around with, should vanilla Doom: Eternal not be crazy enough for you. The Quakecon cheat is particularly awesome, as is the classic Doom Marine armour you can unlock on the Fortress, which looks completely absurd and yet stupidly awesome, as well as a host of other player and weapon skins to play with, Doom: Eternal didn't need customisation, and I guess it's only there for the Battlemode which I haven't bothered with, but I'm glad it does, just for that classic armour.

A Steel Barrelled Sword of Vengeance
Doom: Eternal is a dangerous game; once it has its teeth in you, it won't be easy to get free from it, and once you're dancing to its tune, it'll make every other shooter out there underwhelming, even its own predecessor. There are things I don't like for sure; there are too many platforming sections and light puzzles for my liking, and they make especially replaying the levels less enjoyable, and the Marauder is a cunt. But when you're not platforming or fighting the Marauder, Doom: Eternal is in a class of its own; whether you're exploring its vast and beautiful levels, pouring through the codex and soaking up that juicy lore, or knee deep in the demons, there aren't many games out there that are as fun as Doom: Eternal. Its combat is a ferocious blend of recourse management, frantic movement and utter demon carnage, it's not a relaxing game, that's for sure. The game is tough, especially in its earlier levels, but it's a hell of a rush to rip and tear into a room full of demons and leave none standing, even more so than in Doom 2016. I'm not sure what a Doom 3 could do to top this, I guess we'll find out in another four or five years, probably, but I'll happily wait that long with this pair of Shooter masterpieces, my only regret is not getting the Collector's Edition with the wearable helmet. Doom: Eternal is an absolute must play.

Underwater Movie Review

Here's what you need to know; seven miles down at the bottom of the Mariana trench, the pressure is quite literally building for the crew of the Kepler drilling station. When a sudden earthquake devastates most of the station, the handful of surviving crew are faced with an unwinnable situation; wait for rescue and get crushed to death, or risk death by suffocation in a daring mission to cross the ocean floor on foot. But it soon becomes very apparent that the crushing pressures and limited oxygen aren't the only dangers, and that the station might not have been destroyed by a simple earthquake, but by something unfathomably worse, lurking in the dark.

In my neck of the woods, this film opened on the same day as Birds of Prey, and not surprisingly, that film was playing on most of the screens at my local Odeon, whereas Underwater was limited to a measly two late screenings. What was surprising though was that the first of those two screenings was packed, while Birds of Prey had a pretty quiet day, the word bomb is beginning to come up around Birds of Prey, but for me, it wasn't a choice, because I had a feeling. Every once in a while, a film will come out that just satisfies me on a visceral level, a film like Overlord or Ready or Not, and sure enough Underwater is another, a monster movie set on the bottom of the ocean, gimme gimme. And do you know what, not including Godzilla, I don't think a film has felt me this thoroughly satisfied since Overlord.

Underwater doesn't waste any time, how can it, it's only got ninety minutes to work with and so, shit starts hitting the fan within the first two minutes. And when I say shit hits the fan, it really fucking does, from the opening scene to very end of the film, things are always happening, something is always going wrong for our survivors. This does mean that character introduction tends to be a brief affair, and this crew isn't anything massively subversive, you've got a seasoned commander in charge, a shit talking comedian, an easily frightened one and a resourceful, determined lead, and a black guy who dies first, horror movie 101. While these characters fill archetypal roles, I was surprised by how invested I found myself with them. Over the course of the film, I found myself coming to really like them. They're not complex by any means, but this film's atmosphere is so incredibly effective that you can't help but become attached to them. As the film goes on and they start getting picked off, we slowly begin to learn more about some of them, chiefly Kristen Stewart's Norah, the captain and the girl, who is dating one of the other survivors, while the captain has a daughter on the surface to get back to. This is all basic stuff, but the magic is how this film basically forces you into their shoes, to the point that they aren't just characters, but rather your fellow survivors. Underwater could easily be described as derivative, but it's strength is just how well it pulls off what it tries to do, and a lot of that is down to atmosphere.

From the opening scene to the final shot, this film never stops, our survivors never have a moment to relax as at any minute, the room they're in could implode, or their suits could fail and implode, or one of the monsters could leap out from the blackness and snatch one of them away. And in a film where there is no natural light, where they're always lumbering around in bulky, clumsy pressure suits, where the very air they breathe is a limited resource, and where the room they have to work with is constantly shrinking and filling with water, is it any wonder that this film makes you feel a little claustrophobic. Even in my packed screening, there was barely a peep from the audience, barely even a sigh or a gasp, it was like they were all holding their breath, and it's understandable. The film is wet, cramped, dark, and the threat of death is constant, the dark, murky abyss being a perfect place for building tension. It even got to the point where the jumpscares didn't bother me. Now, you know I hate jumpscares, I think they're incredibly lazy, but Underwater is so effective at building tension and atmosphere that the jumpscares are less cheap attempts to scare you and more culminations of minutes and minutes of dread. But if I'm giving you the impression that Underwater doesn't lean hard into science fiction and even into fantasy, that'd be wrong, which means I'd have a hard time selling it to my brother. It's got a decent amount of Life in it, if anyone remembers that film, both films follow similar stories as a group of characters thousands of miles from any hope of rescue or escape find themselves in a seriously fucked up situation, but while Life is a bit stronger on the science fiction, Underwater's undoubtedly stronger on the horror.

The monsters of Underwater are only one of the threats our survivors face, though they naturally are the catalyst of their struggle. They actually spend as much time dodging debris and crawling through suffocating gaps in rubble, or running for their lives as the hull around them collapses as they do running from the monsters, but it makes the moments where they show up a real treat, and makes them so much more intimidating, as not just a problem to solve but an active and persistent adversary. The film also uses its setting brilliantly in building the monsters; in the crushing depths of the trench, where there is no light at all, and a monster could get within a few feet of you without you having a chance of noticing. But once again, if you're hoping to really get to know these bastards, you'll be disappointed; you get a good enough idea of what they look like by the end, but Underwater isn't a film that gives you answers. It doesn't really explain what they are or where they're from, outside of establishing that the drilling operation was what woke them up. Rarely does one get close enough for you to get more than a glimpse, but when they do, the film makes the effort to show you just how terrified our crew is of them. The trailer might have also given you the wrong impression if you think these monsters are constantly showing up, because it takes quite a while before they show up, and even longer before you get a sort of look at them.

I'm very much of the belief that understanding a monster makes it less scary, it's one of the many reasons the Xenomorph was scarier in Alien than it was in Alien: Covenant, it's why Calvin stopped being scary when they gave him a face in Life. If you understand a threat, you can overcome it, which is a fundamental problem with a lot of horror movie monsters, especially if we're talking sequels, but when you don't understand a threat, when you can't predict its actions, when you don't understand its intensions or even really know what it looks like, at that point it can be as scary as your imagination can conjure, and that's what these monsters are, they're unknowns, creatures our crew, and by extension, us do not understand. I was already loving Underwater, it's atmosphere had completely hooked me and I was intrigued by its monsters and its world, but in its final moments, it suddenly goes full on Lovecraft, and I can't put into words just how happy that made me. Just the shot of when Norah shoots a flare at it is such a mesmerising and haunting image, it's the most Lovecraftian image I think I've ever seen on the big screen. A lot of talk has been going around about what the thing in this film is, and if I'm honest, I don't think it's Cthulhu. Sure, there are plenty of visual similarities, and the film makes numerous implications pointing in that direction, but I don't think it is so obvious; Cthulhu inspired, absolutely, but this is not a Lovecraft monster, rather, it's a monster in the spirit of Lovecraft, if that makes sense, this is a very Lovecraftian film in a lot of ways, and that might make it a little too bleak for some people, but I eat that shit up.

Worst Idea Ever

Underwater is not a ground-breaking film, in fact it feels kind of out of it's time, you might even call it uninspired, but that's not the case for me, it's one of those films that I'm a complete sucker for; a science fiction horror set on the ocean floor and it has monsters, what's not to love. As it turns out though, Underwater ticked all the boxes for me, I adored this film from beginning to end. I must confess that this is the fourth 2020 film I've seen, and the first one I've reviewed, but some films just fill me with enthusiasm, I have to talk about them, films like Godzilla, Overlord, Life, Ready or Not, and now Underwater, it's my favourite film of 2020 so far and I'm just going to say it, it's an absolute must watch.

Borderlands 3 Video Game Review

Here's what you need to know; in the years following the defeat of Handsome Jack and the downfall of Hyperion, a new threat has spread across the borderlands; the Children of the Vault, a psychotic cult led by the maniacal Calypso twins, a pair of murderous Sirens looking to open the fabled Great Vault. And standing between the twins and the greatest power in existence is the Crimson Raiders and their newest recruits, a fresh pack of Vault Hunters on whose shoulders the fate of the universe and all its loot now rests.
I don't really talk about video games on this blog that much, usually I'm wrapped up in movies and identity politics, which is weird given just how much time I spend playing them; before this game released I pumped literally days into Borderlands and its sequel in anticipation for this latest excuse to kill bandits and make off with some sweet loot. But Borderlands 3's not a game that's made it this far without some issues, chiefly Randy Pitchford being a thoroughly unlikable dude, the Epic Store exclusivity, and the parent company of the game's publisher going mafia on a Youtuber. But this game is months old now, and a few months is forever in internet time. But while Take-Two was trying to intimidate a harmless Youtuber, the game itself just seemed to get better and better, and if its sales figures are any indication, Take-Two being shady dicks wasn't enough of a disincentive for a lot of people, including me. In the first week that this game was out, I'd played twenty-six hours of it, I've finished the campaign twice now and played around with three of the game's Vault Hunters. I hadn't been this hooked on a game since Far Cry 5, which was incidentally the last new game I reviewed, and like that game, I have some things to say, so I'm gonna say them.

The first thing that stood out to me about Borderlands 3 was its presentation, because this game looks bloody amazing. Like the previous games in the series, its visuals are cell-shaded and exaggerated, but what's striking is the amount of detail they crammed into the game even with that visual style. This is the most appealing a Borderlands game has looked to date; a lot of the rough edges of the previous games have been sorted, and character models and environments are as complex and detailed as they've ever looked, though naturally not on the level of photorealism. Like Borderlands 2, there is a lot of variety and diversity in the game's levels, unlike Borderlands 2 however, this game gives you a whole galaxy to play with, kind of. We'll get to this part of the game later but now I'm talking about the visuals, and each of the game's planets are wildly distinct from the others; Pandora's still a dusty, inhospitable wasteland crawling with skags and bandits, but the game will also take you to Promethea, a cyberpunk-esque city planet ruled by the Atlas corporation, and to Eden-6, a jungle planet overrun with dinosaurs. Each of these planets are as fun to explore as they sound, with Eden-6 being the obvious highlight because it has dinosaurs. Even if going to a new planet never promised or delivered something wildly new from a gameplay standpoint, the simple curiosity of warping to a new planet and crashing onto it in a drop pod never got old. Neither, for that matter, did finding new baddies on these planets to kill; whether they were Maliwan soldiers, monkeys, skags or fire-breathing tyrannosaurs, I'm telling you, dinosaurs make everything better.

But easily the most visually impressive thing about Borderlands 3 is its guns, the number of which is incomprehensible. I can't even tell you how many guns Borderlands 3 has because like the other Borderlands games, there's just a stupid number of them, all with different stats like damage, mag size and rate of fire, as well as the various quirks and gimmicks the guns have now; for example, get a critical hit with a Jacobs and the shot will ricochet to another enemy, other guns from companies like Vladof and Tediore have fun little party tricks like some Tediore guns sprouting legs and running around on their own when you reload them, or Vladof weapons having under-barrel attachments of just about every kind; grenade launchers, shotguns, tasers and mini-missiles. The guns I tended to stick to though were the Jacobs and Dahl weapons, though I did occasionally let loose with the handful of Legendary weapons I came across, and it just occurred to me that if you've never played Borderlands, none of this means shit to you. Basically, Borderlands' insane assortment of guns are all made by a bunch of manufacturers, with each one making different guns to their competitors, and Borderlands 3 takes that system even further in a very entertaining way. In addition to the various manufacturers, Borderlands' loot is divided into different levels of rarity ranging from Common to Legendary, with Legendary obviously being the most rare, most valuable and usually most insane weapons you will come across. This rarity and weirdness also extends to other items in the game like shields and class mods, which can do little things like buff your stats and skills, throw up a shield wall when you crouch or let you launch exploding sawblades when you slide, because that's cool, not practical, mind you, but cool.

Borderlands 3's gear also has a host of elemental effects; with some guns doing bonus elemental damage, be it fire, corrosion, shock, cryo or radiation, with different elemental types being more effective against certain targets, and other items like shields and mods can give you damage boosts and resistance to certain elemental attacks, but unlike Borderlands 2's elemental system, I generally just stuck to the gear with the highest stats. But anyone who's played this series before knows that the loot is only part of the puzzle, because Borderlands 3 throws four more Vault Hunters at you, each one with their own strengths, weaknesses and action skills. What makes this game special though is that each character now has three different action skills. The guy I played as the most; Fl4k, can spawn Rakk to attack enemies from the air, turn invisible for a short time or teleport his pets and cause radiation damage to enemies. The one I used the most was Fade Away, the invisibility power, and I've heard some people say it's the strongest action skill in the game, an assertion that I'd probably agree with. While invisible, Fl4k can fire three shots with any weapon, with the pro being that those three shots will all do critical damage, and the con being that this cancels the action skill and makes him visible again. However, invest in the Fade Away skill tree and you can unlock a mod that lets you fire critical shots for the length the action skill, with the catch being a damage and skill time reduction, invest in it further and you can unlock another mod that ups your critical damage, at which point you can melt pretty much anything, or at least you could until they nerfed him, which isn't nice.

Fl4k's pets are also really cool with each one having its own strengths; the Jabber can use guns while the Skag and Spiderant give you damage and health boosts respectively. Fl4k is easily the most fun of the three so far for me, with Moze and Zane being the others. Moze, the gunner's action skill is spawning a mech, unlike the other characters and their wild abilities, the gunner's abilities are loadouts she can put on the mech, ranging from simple machine guns to flamethrowers, grenade launchers, homing missiles, railguns, as well as different mods like the machine gun doing fire, explosive or cryo damage. There's plenty more to dig into; the Siren has crazy magic powers like trapping enemies in the air with a phasegrasp and phaseslamming the ground for area of effect damage, while Zane, the Operative can project shields and spawn support drones and holographic decoys, as well as being able to use two action skills at once at the cost of a grenade mod, I've heard you can make some mad builds with this guy, but I haven't played enough with him to know yet. They all sound like fun to play around with, so just like the previous games, you're getting a solid amount of game with Borderlands 3; an easy hundred hours, not including any of the endgame stuff, and even three entire days into the game, I know I've only just scratched the surface. I've also spent a lot of time with the game's Mayhem mode and can confirm that it is insane; enemy damage and health is increased, but the rewards are also increased; more XP, more money, better loot, and this mode makes farming Epics and Legendarys almost comically easy if you can survive the grind. And if that wasn't enough, there's two more mayhem modes, so you can make the game even more extreme if you're that kind of masochist. Mayhem names lives up to its name and I could honestly play it for hours, as if I wasn't already doing in the normal mode to begin with.

And then there's Borderlands 3's bosses, which can often be about as nuts as the rest of the game. The bosses in this game aren't just bullet sponges, they are bullet sponges for sure, but they actually remind me a lot of the bosses in DOOM, with attack patterns that can be learned and avoided, making the boss fights themselves very intense and a lot of fun to beat as you dodge and avoid lethal attacks while exploiting the boss' weak spots for critical damage. Some of the game's bosses are also huge, easily as big as the Warrior from Borderlands 2, and while only a few live up to the Warrior, The Agonizer 9000 certainly does, There's only really one fight I didn't enjoy, and if you've played the game, you probably know which one it is; Killavolt, his floor trap attack is bullshit. In addition to bosses, Borderlands 3's levels are full of challenges to complete, from scavenging parts for Claptrap's girlfriend to sniffing out the weapon caches of Typhon DeLeon, not to mention the hunting and assassination challenges that function essentially as mini boss battles. All of this gives you even more stuff to on top of the story missions and long, long, long list of side quests. And before I forget, Borderlands 3 has cars too. In previous games, driving was always little more than a way of getting around faster, and in this game, that's still the case, except now you can customize your vehicles far beyond just a crappy skin, you can put on new wheels, armour and guns, each with different strengths and weaknesses, and you unlock parts by hijacking enemy vehicles with the parts you want and returning them to the Catch-A-Ride, which is a novel way of getting vehicle parts, if a little tedious.

Customization extends to characters and guns as well, with the game giving you the usual options of funny heads and skins for your characters. But the guns though, you can now give your guns skins to spice up their appearance, giving them rainbow colours, corporate colours, black and green, black and red, black and white, pink, sand and blood, blue and orange, and probably the funniest one I found or bought, poop, yep, you can give your gun a poop skin and it's a nasty as it sounds, and I bet that isn't even the funniest one in there. More cute than the skins though is the trinkets you can put on your guns, they're completely pointless and completely adorable; because why wouldn't you want a tiny Claptrap or a tiny Helios Station dangling from your gun, just so you can watch it swing around and dangle there pointlessly, who cares, it's cool. It's the little things that matter anyway, tiny improvements to make the game just that little bit more convenient, like now being able to resupply health and ammo from a vendor with the push of a button, or how Legendary and Epic drops are made easier to distinguish thanks to useful sound-ques and Legendarys being marked on your map when they drop. How about being able to fast travel to anywhere in the galaxy from anywhere in the galaxy with your Echo device. It sounds cool, but it comes with problems like the fast travel system trading simplicity for convenience; sure, it's more convenient to fast travel from your Echo device, but navigating to other levels means you have to navigate through the planet and galaxy menus, which is two more menus than it used to take, and Borderlands is famous for its crap UI.

Speaking of crap UI, why can't I see the stats of a weapon in my backpack compared to the weapon I have equipped like I could in Borderlands 2, that would have made sorting through the junk loot a lot quicker because make no mistake, Borderlands 3 may have some sick loot, but you'll still be selling or dropping plenty of useless guns, that hasn't changed. But on the plus side, Borderlands 3's map is now 3D, which would make challenge and secret hunting easier if using your Echo device wasn't so tedious, and being able to track more than one mission at once would probably be nice, and with all the other little improvements in Borderlands 3, that's an odd omission. But as far as problems go, the headache of a UI is the tip of the iceberg, because while Borderlands 3 is a very fun game to play, it tells a story that is a let down at best and a colossal failure at worst. The first big problem the game faces is its villains, and this is the easiest issue with the story to pin down because the Calypso twins suck. It's easy to say that though as Handsome Jack was so good, but I've heard it said once of the Far Cry series that after Far Cry 3, every villain was trying to be Vaas, I don't think that's true of Far Cry, but in Borderlands, I absolutely think it's true. Handsome Jack was a very memorable villain; he was evil and sadistic for sure, but he was also very funny and charming, frequently insulting and mocking the Vault Hunters, at first in a playful manner before letting the mask slip (pun intended) after the death of Angel.

But I think what really makes Jack so memorable was how compelling he was; his retconning into the events of the first game and relationship with Angel helped to give him a sense of presence, and his insistence that he was the hero of the story, contradicted by his apparent joy in hurting and manipulating others, and his desire to cleanse Pandora made for a surprisingly complex character. Borderlands 3 follows a lot of these beats with the Calypsos; dabbling in their pasts and the events that made them genocidal psychos, but their motivations just aren't as strong as Handsome Jack's, and the twist about where they come from wasn't nearly as effective as the Angel twist from Borderlands 2. But the biggest weakness of the Calypsos is just how unlikable they are; Handsome Jack was funny, but these two are insufferable, taking the piss out of the streamers and influencers they're mocking a little too well and embodying all of their most annoying characteristics. Like Handsome Jack, they're constantly bantering and making jokes, but unlike Handsome Jack, it's not endearing or funny, and the moral conflict of Jack thinking he was the hero is completely gone here, they're just dicks who do dickish things for the fun of it, which would be a least a little scarier if they weren't so annoying. There was a lot of potential in them as well, which is another reason they annoy me; their relation to the Vaults could have been a fun twist, them rallying Pandora's bandits into a "family" of zealous cultists could have been very intriguing.

The relationship they have with each other could have also been expanded upon in a more engaging way, with Tyreen hogging all of the glory and Troy being under her thumb for most of the game. They could have made both of these guys more sympathetic, especially Troy, but they didn't, and they fail as compelling villains as a result. Again bringing up Far Cry, Far Cry 5's Eden's Gate cult is what I have in mind when thinking of what the Children of the Vault could have been; an army of broken people rallied around a higher purpose, be it saving the world from nuclear hellfire or opening the Great Vault, but whereas Joseph Seed was a twisted but genuinely well meaning man of God, something New Dawn expanded on by the way, the Calypsos are just arseholes who want to become gods by opening the Vaults. But unlikable villains isn't actually the worst thing about Borderlands 3's story, the biggest issues are the way it's told and how it prioritises certain characters. Firstly, let's again go back to Borderlands 2, specifically its final moments; you slay the Warrior by dropping a Moonshot on it's head after a long and epic battle, and then the game gives you the choice to let Lilith kill Jack or do him in yourself. Throughout Borderlands 2, the Vault Hunter doesn't feel like an afterthought and in the game's final moments, it actually gives you the credit for saving Pandora. The game is also a lot lighter on cutscenes, because Borderlands 3 has a lot more of them and it's almost comical how the Vault Hunters just do not factor into them.

It at least isn't that silly when Lilith loses her powers, which is naturally shown in a cutscene, but not that much later in the game, a key character is killed by the twins in a room that the Vault Hunters were in just seconds before, so while a key character was being killed by the twins, what were they doing, were they, the biggest badasses in the galaxy, just standing off camera doing nothing while their friend was being killed. This happens again and again and again throughout the game; big character cutscenes involving the heroes and villains, cutscenes that drive the story forward, and the main characters of the game aren't there, it's like they just disappear every time something important happens. This even happens after the two most important boss fights in the entire game, no points for guessing which, which is just bullshit. But to really make it worse, while Borderlands 2 gave you the credit for saving Pandora, Borderlands 3 gives it to Lilith instead, which wouldn't have pissed me off so much if my actions as the Vault Hunter didn't feel so disconnected from the game's story, far from feeling like a planet saving badass, Borderlands 3 turns you into a minion, a passive onlooker as everyone else saves the world, while you're the one doing literally all the work. And who are the characters leading the charge while doing fuck all work? it's a bunch of women, of course, which sounds very random, I know, but let me explain. The game focuses on four central characters; Lilith, the first game's playable siren, Maya, the second game's playable siren, Tannis, an autistic Dahl scientist studying the Vaults, and series newcomer Ava, a bratty kid and Siren to be. 

This wouldn't have raised my brow were it not for a few things, firstly; the game really focuses on these four, to the extent that it side-lines practically everyone else, including the Vault Hunters, secondly, the song Girl on Fire by Alicia Keys plays over the end credits, I wish I was kidding but I'm not, I've even checked I'm not imagining it a few times, thirdly, the game's full of weird writing choices like renaming the Midgets Tinks and leaning hard on Hammerlock's sexuality. Add to all of this the fact that I've heard the phrase non-binary thrown around with regards to Fl4k and the needle on my progressive meter starts twitching a bit. Take for example the fact that key characters from Borderlands 1 and 2 like Brick and Mordecai are completely side-lined, as well as the likes of Tiny Tina, Rhys, Zero, Hammerlock, Markus, Moxxi, and Claptrap, while other characters like Zed, Axton and Salvador don't even show up. To be fair, a lot of these characters serve small roles in Borderlands 2 as well, but it feels so much more noticeable in this game with how detached you're made to feel from the story, as well as how story heavy it is. And the last cutscene's and end credits' deifying of Lilith to the soundtrack of Girl on Fire is laying it on thick with the girl-power, immediately after you killed the final boss, it's kind of ironic when you think about it. What's even richer is Ava, who I imagine will be a big player in the inevitable Borderlands 4, the only problem is I don't want that because Ava isn't a good hero. She's a brat; a whiny, inexperienced child whose actions get people killed, yet she never develops past that as a character, she blames Lilith for her own failures and never self-reflects, and in the last cutscene, Lilith effectively gives her the Crimson Raiders, as if she's earned that in any way, as if she's proven she can handle that responsibility, as if she didn't get someone very important to Lilith killed.

Then there's Tannis, who gets a big twist some way into the game that just doesn't work, there's coincidental, and then there's bad writing, and what is revealed about Tannis in Borderlands 3 is the latter, without question, though I'm sure there's some lore somewhere to explain it away. It highlights another issue I have with Ava as well, but to explain why would spoil the twist. This thing though, the other issue I have with Ava, it's another one of those girl-power things that ends up feeling really forced and contrived, which is the primary issue I have with it, it doesn't feel genuine or natural, rather, it feels ideological. Hammerlock being considerably more gay this time is another example of what I'm saying, but it's not enough to undermine what made him lovable in the first place, here's hoping Hammerlock remains the galaxy's finest Gentleman in Borderlands 4, and I ended up really liking Wainwright as well, the two make a good pair, and will hopefully be more important in the sequel. Then there's renaming the Midgets, which was apparently because they can build turrets and were nicknamed tinkerers during development, but I doubt that, what with them explicitly saying that Fl4k, who's an AI, is non-binary, which is a very progressive thing to point out about a sentient AI, especially when it doesn't factor into the game in any way, almost like it's there for the sake of it. It's entirely possible that I'm reading too much into this, as one like me who spends a lot of time talking about Social Justice would, but anyone who's seen contrived girl-power and forced identity politics knows what it looks like, and Borderlands 3's story really, really looks like it, and that on top of its weak villains and downright broken way of telling its story, really brings this game down, even compared to previous games in the series, because at least Borderlands 2 had a good villain.

Blood Feud

Borderlands 3 is a game that's hard to talk about in its totality; as a game, it's amazing, it was easily my favourite game of 2019, the combat is fun, the loot and levelling up is addictive, and the four new Vault Hunters are all really cool and inviting for new ways to play the game. On top of that, the game looks gorgeous, sounds awesome, and with a lot of the post-release bugs patched out, it's almost mesmerising to look at at times. As far as sequels go, it doesn't change much in the grand scheme, it's still just Borderlands, but it's Borderlands at its absolute best and with only two of my guys max-levelled, my time with the game is still far from done. As a piece of storytelling however, this game falls apart; its villains are infuriating, it completely shafts many of the series' most likable characters, and it does so seemingly for the sake of a contrived girl-power narrative that's so on the nose and undermines the player's role in the story, which is bullshit. And it's easy to say that it's a video game and the story isn't important, but when there are games out there like The Last of Us, Spec Ops: The Line, Halo 2, Bioshock and Spider-Man, what excuse is there for a game as story heavy as this one to have a bad story, one that's final moments undermine the heroism of the Vault Hunters and leave a bad taste in your mouth. But with as disappointed as I am with the game's story, I can not deny that I loved every minute of the game that I had a gun in my hands and like Borderlands 2 before it, I can easily see myself coming back to this game year after year, it really is that fun, and it's definitely worth playing.

2019: A year of Movies

And that's 2019, another year gone by and more closer to the dark, cold, empty void that awaits us all. Yeah, that was a bit more bleak than I intended, because 2019 hasn't been a bad year, it hasn't been a good year, mind you; out there in the real world I lost a close friend in 2019, she didn't die, don't worry, she was just a bitch, and more importantly than that, I and many other Brits spent a lot of this year wondering if the thing we voted for in 2016 would even end up happening, which was not conducive to a healthy, positive outlook on the world, but hopefully that's behind us. I try to keep real world shit off my blog, simply because the internet and everything on it is more fun and I highly doubt anyone would care if I wrote about my day to day and how I feel. But in 2019 I made a decision; for my entire life I've been too willing to take responsibility for things that weren't my fault, but that changed this year, and I've been called nasty and an arsehole a lot over the last few months.

But do you know what, people are arseholes; if they want to talk to you and treat you like you're a retard or a child, if they want to blame you and expect you to apologise to their shitty attitude and behaviour, fuck them, and if they don't like you giving them shit back, they can sit down and shut their mouths. 2019 was the year I gave up trying to be accommodating of bad attitudes and embraced my inner sadist, because it's better that they hate me than they think I'm a Doormat, and if they're going to hate me regardless, it's better that I have fun with it than let it kill me. If you couldn't tell, it's not been an easy year, and as usual, one of my refuges was the cinema, a place where the pressures and annoyances of the real world disappear and all that's left is the magic of the big screen, or at least, that should be the case, and for most of the films I'm going to talk about today, that was the case, but it's that time again when everyone's doing top ten lists of their favourite films of the year, and I've done it since I started in 2015 so why stop now.

In addition to my favourite films of the year, I've seen a handful of films this year that I did not enjoy for whatever reason, so they're getting a mention today too, because with regards to most of them, some dead horses just need an extra beating to be sure. And these are not the best films of the year, these are my subjective top ten of the films I saw, I never saw Rocketman, only saw the first half of The Irishman, and 1917, a film I'm really excited for, isn't out until January. On the flip side, there's a lot of shit I didn't watch this year too; Terminator: Dark Fate, Charlie's Angels, Black Christmas or Cats, all films that would no doubt be among my least favourite of the year based on what I've seen and heard. So you may think I'm too harsh to a lot my second-raters, and too nice to a lot of my top ten, but this is subjective, these are my best and worst films of 2019.

Number ten was a toss-up between three films this year; Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and Us are two of those films that left me very conflicted. The former is a very enjoyable sci-fi fanstay adventure with some beautiful visuals, fun action and a story that falls apart at the seams and annoys the crap out of me. The Latter meanwhile is a creepy, creative horror film with some amazing setups and payoffs, a midpoint twist that makes the film crazy awesome, and an ending that brings it all crashing down. I guess that makes these pups the honourable mentions this year.

Second-Raters: Glass

Glass is a film I didn't review when I saw it, because if my bringing back of Halloween week on Christmas eve doesn't clue you in, I haven't really been on top of reviewing things this year, but it was a film I was excited to see after enjoying Split and being completely hooked by its big twist. Then Glass happened, or rather, the finale of Glass happened, because everything was going fine until our three main heroes and villains all die completely unceremoniously, and the film throws in a big twist that, unlike Split's, doesn't hook me, in fact it made me roll my eyes. Glass is a good example of a good set up and completely botched payoff, so it's business as usual for Shyamalan.

Top Ten: Avengers: Endgame

So why did this film win out against Star Wars and Us, well, as I explained before, I love those films, but I also hate them; both of them have moments of brilliance and moments of complete mediocrity. Avengers: Endgame meanwhile has no identity crisis like Us and isn't a mess like Star Wars, it's not just the culmination of the MCU, it's the tribute, it pulls the series' greatest heroes together for one final stand against the biggest, bestest, most purple super villain in comic book movie history. It's timey-wimey plot is clumsy and has more than a handful of holes in it, but it's the emotional payoff of seeing Iron Man's and Captain America's stories end that makes Endgame so memorable, that and its balls to the wall mad finale.

Top Ten: It Chapter Two

It Chapter Two was not its predecessor, but like I said in my review for the film, its predecessor was lightning in a bottle, so it was never going to be. But even if it is basically a three hour long epilogue to the first film, that doesn't mean it's without charm or merit. It Chapter Two was funny at times, weaker on horror than the first, and a grind in its middle hour, but as a character drama, it's every bit as strong as the first and a perfect companion to it. And as much as I love the villain of the two films, he's not a villain I want to see again, because this film, like the first, isn't about a killer clown, it's about a group of friends, and any sequel or prequel to this film would completely miss the point.

Second-Raters: Captain Marvel

Captain Marvel isn't a completely irredeemable mess; it has Ben Mendelson and cool MCU Cosmic stuff, but it also has a hero that sucks. Carol Danvers is about as charming and endearing as a table, and about as flat as one too, she's not deep or compelling or funny, he's not humble or heroic, she's not vulnerable or flawed, she's an indestructible flying fireball who never needed to prove anything to anyone, even the audience, apparently. And then there's the film's message of female empowerment, which the film completely botches by being exactly what you'd expect; feminist garbage about standing up to the patriarchy and not needing to improve because women are already perfect. I said in my review that Captain Marvel single-handedly tanked her own movie, and I still think she did, and I fully appreciate that my entrenchment in the culture war is a factor in me not liking this film, that being said, it's feminist crap and it sucks, and MCU Cosmic isn't enough to save it.

Top Ten: Toy Story 4

Yet another movie I didn't review this year, this and John Wick 3 were films I wanted to review after reviewing the others, but never got around to doing it and as such, I reviewed neither. That being said, Toy Story 4 was a film I was very cynical about going in, as were a lot of other people, I'm sure, and this film ended up surprising me with how well it carried on the story of Toy Story 3 while also expanding on its ending. This wasn't a cynical sequel like I thought it would have been, it was a fun, gorgeous and emotionally heavy ending for the series, just like Toy Story 3, and probably Toy Story 5, this is Disney we're talking about, after all.

Top Ten: John Wick 3: Parabellum

Did I say I didn't review John Wick 3, well rest assured that I saw it, multiple times, because it's awesome. For years now, I'd heard that the John Wick films were great, and when a friend of mine said he wanted to see John Wick 3, we binged the first two and went straight into 3 that same day, and it was awesome. John Wick is one of the slickest and most entertaining action franchises of recent years, it makes Gun Fu look as cool as it sounds, along with all the other creative and ridiculous ways Wick kills his foes. And each film got more and more ridiculous, to the point that he'll probably end up going to space, because John Wick 3 is that insane, he kills a guy with a book, for god's sake, and the finale with the High Table enforcers and the ninjas, I could watch that shit for hours.

Second-Raters: The Lion King (2019)

When I watch a film I don't like, I usually mellow on it with time, either not caring or becoming at peace with the fact that it isn't good, but with The Lion King, the opposite happened; when I saw it, I didn't like it, now I fucking hate it. It's a film that has the gall to share a name with one of the best films ever made, while having none of the soul, none of the passion, none of the beauty, none of the charm; it's just a lazy, dull remake, and that's something I probably wouldn't mind as much if it wasn't The Lion King, and if so many normies who saw it didn't fall into its trap, because it uses nostalgia as a weapon. It uses the same songs, the same imagery, even uses large chunks of the same script, and its execution is so manufactured and sterile that it hurts. It's casting is a mess; something I'm sure was the result of Disney wanting a more 'authentic' cast or some other corporate, progressive nonsense. And on top of all of that, the film's use of photorealistic CGI just doesn't work; like I said in the review, it's not compatible with the story of The Lion King. It's a film that killed any enthusiasm I had for the Disney remakes, now I just want them to go away.

Top Ten: Shazam!

In a way, there was a Captain Marvel film this year that I liked, and it came from DC in Shazam! This is another film I didn't have much interest in when I saw it, and I ended up really liking it, loving it even. It's not the most wholesome film I've seen this year, but it's definitely wholesome, it's a wonderful little film, one that has fun with the superhero side while also telling a very sweet family story. The film isn't scared of being ugly either, going dark not just in its visuals, but in some of its subject matter, and that, in a story as small and personal as this one, makes this film something a bit special to watch. If this and Aquaman are how DC on film is going to go, then I'm completely on board.

Top Ten: Ready Or Not

If you haven't seen Ready Or Not and or have no intention of doing so, then what are you doing. What may look like an unremarkable black comedy turned out to be one of the most intense, gory, funny and just plain fun films I saw this year. The premise of killer hide and seek is genius, but could have fallen apart if they didn't completely nail it, and they completely nailed it. Ready Or Not is one of those rare films that manages to juggle multiple contradictory tones flawlessly, being as funny as it is nail biting, all leading to a finale that is completely insane. There's very little in this film that I don't like, it's heroine is charming and cunning, it's villains are hilariously stupid, and it's gore is merciless, I still wince when I think about that bit with the nail.

Second-Raters: Godzilla: The Planet Eater

Remember how I said I usually mellow on bad films with time, well the exception to that is when you make me hate something I love, that was the case with The Lion King, and that is even more the case for The Planet Eater, and indeed the Godzilla Anime Trilogy as a whole. This film is so damn boring, it thinks it's so clever and philosophical when in reality, it makes no sense, and the 'fight' between Swolezilla and the Space Noodle might be the most unengaging fight in any Godzilla film, that I've seen at least. It's a pathetic end to a pathetic trilogy, a trilogy that had so much promise; being the first Godzilla anime, set on a distant-future Earth ruled by monsters. None of that potential was delivered, instead we get a pretentious exercise in pseudo-philosophy masquerading as a Godzilla movie, and it sucks.

Top Ten: The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part

No one saw The Lego Movie 2 when it came out, which is a bummer because it was great. It might also be an unpopular opinion that the sequel was better than the first but I honestly think it was, because while the themes and message of the first film are relatable to the obsessive toy collector in me, the themes of this film; sibling rivalry, a battle of the sexes, and learning to let people into our hearts hit me like a truck. I have a sister, and this is the kind of shit we did to each other all the time. The film's employment of its themes in its characters is genius; the invasive sister embodied in the evil Queen Watevra and General Mayhem, and the edge and hard-heartedness of the brother embodied in Rex Dangervest, with the film's heroes torn between them, eventually coming to accept themselves and each other for who they really are. If that isn't wholesome, I don't know what is, and to top it off, the film is really pretty and really funny. This short-lived Lego Movie franchise may effectively be dead, but in my opinion, it went out with one hell of a bang.

Top Ten: Alita: Battle Angel

Bet you never saw this coming. Alita: Battle Angel was a film that got unfairly dragged into the culture war, being positioned by people on both sides as the anti-Captain Marvel, an example of the values preached by that film actually being practiced and done with class. I kind of helped in that, or not, given that barely anyone reads my stuff, but it wasn't my bias against Captain Marvel that brought me to this film's defence, it was my adoration of Alita: Battle Angel. If it wasn't going up against Godzilla: King of the Monsters and The Lego Movie 2, this would be a shoe-in for most underrated film of the year, and it's thanks to the film's awesome world-building, high octane action, insane visual effects and a main character that steals the entire show. I really have to stress just how lovable Alita is, and how intriguing and gripping her story is, I don't want it to end here, which is why I went out and bought the entire Manga, and it and my Junji Ito collection remain the only books on my shelf that I actually read. It's the first film I ever bought on digital because I wanted to see it again, I wanted to share this film with others so they could see it, because only one other film in 2019 made me more enthusiastic about a film that this one, and I'm sure you already know which one.

Second-Raters: Hellboy (2019)

It sure as shit wasn't Hellboy, I can tell you that, because this film was bad. Bad doesn't quite cover it, in fact, because at least all the other second-raters this year had plots, Hellboy has an incoherent pile of events that happen in an order that almost kind of resembles a plot. It's a film about a heroic Demon saving the world from a blood witch and a Demonic invasion, and it somehow manages to make that suspenseless and joyless, which it does by having more than just an incoherent plot, but a roster of characters who all need slapping and visual effects that are absurdly bad, laughably bad. The only film I saw this year that had less soul than Hellboy was The Lion King, and at least that film was competently put together. Hellboy is like a superhero movie from back when the genre hadn't really hit its stride yet, and you'd get films like Fantastic Four, Spawn and Catwoman, and ironically, even the Hellboy films of that time were good, because they came from the heart of a genius filmmaker, where did this come from, if not the deepest bowels of movie studio Hell.

Top Ten: Joker

I can imagine that Joker is on a lot of top ten lists, but there's a good reason for that. Joker is just one of those films, it's hard for a fool like me to really put into words just what makes it so special, but I'm gonna try; the film is an artful dive into the life of Arthur Fleck, a film protagonist who is as much a cautionary tale as he is a spectacle to watch as his life falls even further apart, causing him to collapse into madness and villainy when he finally decides to abandon the world that abandoned him. Calling it a comic book movie is like calling Empire Strikes Back a sci-fi movie, it's not fair on the rest of the genre, because it blows the entire MCU out of the water, and is easily the best DC film in my opinion, yes, even better than The Dark Knight, fight me.

Top Ten: Godzilla: King of the Monsters

Well, well, well, the Godzilla fanatic's favourite film of 2019 was Godzilla, colour me surprised. But in all seriousness, when I said that King of the Monsters was the most excited I've ever been for a film, I meant it, and even after all these months, the joy this film gives me from just the simple fact it exists is enough to make me giggle like a complete lunatic. My bias is showing hard here, or is that just how pleased this film makes me, because seeing all four of these monsters on the big screen is a dream come true, and seeing them brought to life by people who treat them with the respect they deserve, even better. Godzilla: King of the Monsters is a film that doesn't just understand the series' past, it reveres and embraces it, all while infusing it with Blockbuster bombast and spectacle in a way my seven year old self never imagined was possible. I've watched the film in its entirety six times and watched all the monster bits countless times, and do you know what, Rodan dismantling a pack of fighter jets while trying to catch up with the Argo, still awesome, Serizawa saying goodbye to Godzilla before detonating the nuke, still awesome, Godzilla marching into Boston to fight Ghidorah, accompanied by a fleet of warships and fighter jets, not to mention Bear McCreary's awe inspiring and pulse pounding rendition of Akira Ifukube's Godzilla theme, hook it up to my veins. I could go on about all the fuck yeah moments in the film for hours, and while it's easy to criticise the film for its narrative shortcomings, it takes these monsters, thought of by normies as the stars of schlocky old sci-fi movies, and turns them into Gods, and that's enough for me.

And that's it; my favourite and least favourite film of 2019, I'm sure very little of that was surprising, but then again, not a lot of things are these days, but 2019's been a good year for films. There have been hits and misses, box office toppers and bombs, there's been scandal, controversy and outrage, there's been hype and disappointment, and it seems the fun is only just beginning as we go into 2020, and not because there's another Godzilla film coming out, eventually. But there's a Scooby Doo movie coming out, which will be interesting, there's a new Bond film, No Time to Die, which looks kind of crap, and then the big one for me, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, and not just because of all the salt, I promise, though that will be beautiful. And into 2020 we go, let's hope it's a good one. But then again, it was my New Year's Resolution to not lose my cool, and I almost failed on the first day, so I'm certainly off to a great start.