Superhero Media: Punisher War Zone (2008)

Before Frank Castle got his own Netflix series, the big argument between fans was which film was better, the '80s version, The Punisher from 2004 and Punisher War Zone. As you probably know by now, the Tom Jane version is my personal pick, but for a while War Zone was the favourite of many. Filled with stars of television, War Zone appears more to be an elaborate pilot for a cable series than it does the start of a new film franchise. In recent years, War Zone has become something of a cult darling, with the director, Lexi Alexander, doing a series of interviews in which she discusses the misogyny and obligations of the Hollywood studio system and how that came to impact the film. It's fascinating, but fails to distract from the fact that the film still didn't turn out all that great. Not that I'm implying that Alexander is a bad filmmaker, just that an interesting story doesn't always make an uninteresting film more engaging. Still, at least Frank shoots a lot of people and wears a skull shirt for most of the run time.

Taking a great deal of "inspiration" from the Garth Ennis The Punisher MAX run I've discussed before, War Zone is full of references to those comics, or at least pretends to be. You know how the 2017 Ghost In The Shell makes a lot of reference to previous iterations of the franchise, but they don't really mean anything? Same here. Sure, it's great to see Christu and Tiberu from "The Slavers", but their inclusion doesn't make any sense and they're just there to be a reference; same with a name-only version of Maginty from "Kitchen Irish", who, in War Zone is a freerunner on a constant meth high. That's not to say that there isn't a lot in War Zone to enjoy, it certainly does play like a Punisher story, with plenty of kills, a variety of guns and a nice bit of gore. The big fight just before the finale is reminiscent of The Raid or Dredd, taking place in an abandoned hotel, with Frank murdering his way through ranks of goons to get to Jigsaw and the plot device hostages in the penthouse. It's really well done and just a good action sequence to check out.

One thing I've noticed about the best Punisher stories is that there tends to be a character other than Frank who is eating up a lot of the plot. This is typically a good thing, as Frank doesn't have a lot of room for growth and tends to not have an arc of any discernible kind, so people have to react around him, rather than him reacting to them. Think Agent Carter in Captain America The First Avenger or anyone in Superman The Movie. War Zone dose have a few characters that exist around Frank, but only really the antagonist, Jigsaw, actually undergoes much change in reaction to Frank's actions; it's just not a brilliantly-written film, sorry. Again, this really feels like the kind of "movie-length" television pilot that was common for genre programming in the 1990s, and the cast being drawn from programmes such as Rome, Dexter and Lost tends to just reinforce that notion. If War Zone is your favourite Punisher film, I really can't fault you, but it just leaves me cold and wanting Tom Jane to return.

From the Archives - 21

In our last adventure, Inquisitor Kang and his retinue failed to penetrate the Lair of the Mutants in a little solo game I ran way back in 2020. Well, not happy being beaten by my own game, I decided to re-equip and go back into the catacombs.

Read about the game here: https://ludusbellorum.blogspot.com/2020/05/in-lair-of-mutants-part-ii.html

Come back soon for the epic finale of this Superheroic 40k trilogy!

Superhero Media: Godzilla - City on the Edge of Battle

Having survived their encounter with the not-really-Godzilla, protagonist man and his team must race to their ship before the mothership leaves orbit or they're eaten by the local fauna. A chance discovery leads the survivors to a massive factory city composed of nanometal, a city grown from the wreckage of Mechagodzilla. You know what? I've figured these damned things out, they're not Godzilla films, they're someone's Science Fiction concept that they couldn't get made into a series or film until they slapped Godzilla branding on it, like a bunch of the crappier Doctor Who novels. Even for one of the cheaper Godzilla efforts, there is precious little Godzilla in City on the Edge of Battle, excepting the planet full of Kaiju spawn; and Mechagodzilla doesn't actually appear at all, unless you count the city, I guess?

Thing is, as a Science Fiction film? City on the Edge of Battle is actually alright. I'm not really a big SF fan when it really comes down to it, but from what I have seen, the concepts here were interesting and all of the tech looked pretty cool. But I did tune in to see giant monsters fighting each other, and I got all of none of that, so I can't really rate the series that high on that aspect. The most interesting part of City on the Edge of Battle is the continuation of the exploration of the two alien belief systems, here revealed to both rotate around Kaiju of some form, which makes a sort of sense, as the creatures are destroying civilisations across the universe, evidently. One species even does the thing where they don't say the name of the monster as a kind of Magical Thinking, with our protagonist ending the film by recalling the name "Gidorah". I hope this means the next one at least involves a monster fight at some point.

I'm personally pretty forgiving when it comes to the huge range of Godzilla fiction, even defending Jet Jaguar and Minilla when I get the chance, but I'm yet to find anything in this series that I feel I'm really going to carry forward. Keep in mind that I even like elements of the 1998 American Godzilla, so this series is really leaving me cold. I'm just not sure what the point of it all was, as it barely even contains Godzilla and even I'm not familiar with the weird philosophy and politics of the narrative, if indeed there is a message trying to be conveyed. Now it's on to the last one of these, which will at least be the end, even if I doubt it will be satisfying.

Ultimate Alliance China: Part VII

Chen Zheng was exhilarated. Despite years of inactivity, his body had responded when he needed it to and his equipment had functioned perfectly. Though now he could feel the beginning of all-too-familiar fatigue setting in, it was if he here in his twenties and just starting out again, rather than a man well into his fifties playing at superhero. Taking the private penthouse elevator at a luxury Hong Kong hotel, he would be off-camera and his equipment would be waiting, including a trusty medical kit. Chen stood under a scalding hot shower and manipulated any small rocks and slivers of metal that had worked into his skin, being rewarded with small flows of fresh blood that he found invigorating. A call down to his private kitchen and shortly Zheng was eating several steaks, quarts of soy milk and half a bottle of expensive scotch; he was sitting on the edge of his bed, considering calling up a masseuse when sleep overcame him. 

Waking more than twelve hours later, Zheng felt as if his body was made of rocks and shattered glass stuffed into a wetsuit. Unclenching his fist, Zheng was rewarded with a series of snaps and pops that indicated he had not moved at all since falling asleep, a sure sign of complete exhaustion. He sent for strong coffee, congee and the massage he'd passed on the previous evening, though opting for the ancient man with his needles and callouses rather than the young lady with oils and soft hands. Later, sore but invigorated, Zheng made a call to the office, blustering all of his appointments off to another day as he dressed in a tracksuit and arranged a car to take him to one of the company's warehouses, deep in the industrial district. The warehouse was something of an open secret among the staff who knew Zheng well, it was a hidden workshop with vintage cars and motorcycles where he went to "tinker" from time to time. Whilst that was true to a degree, the warehouse held a deeper secret as well.

Once assured he was alone, Zheng started up an automatic program that would reliably produce the lights and sounds of work whilst he accessed the true workshop in the hidden sub-basement, The Masked Warrior's Ironworks. Despite being inactive for many years, Zheng still came by this place and tinkered from time to time, mostly on projects he could never get to work properly in his heyday; a powered exoskeleton that once broke his leg, a gas gun and countless other weapons that never did what they were supposed to. Firing up the computer, Zheng cleared space on the main workbench as his proprietary AI searched the dark web for what he needed, a back door into wherever the Science Patrol's files where archived. Zheng had long ago learned that hacking was near useless when just about any information was available somewhere for a price, which he could typically easily afford. 

Soon Zheng was having the computer analyse the schematics, performance records and diagnostics of Super Inframan, comparing them with currently available technology and the materials that were at hand in the workshop. By pulling some supplies from across the company and "losing" the paperwork, Zheng should be able to construct a new armoured suit and suite of weapons within a couple of days, a week at the most. With his new gear, The Masked Warrior would return like righteous lightning from heaven, to destroy Inframan and end the pathetic rebellion in Hong Kong once and for all.

Superhero Media: Dracula Untold

Hey, remember the "Dark Universe" that Universal pictures tried to get going with that version of The Mummy that everyone (but me) seemed to hate? Well the first foray into the concept was with Dracula Untold, which, like The Mummy, was pretty poorly reviewed, but I found it reasonably entertaining. The concept of Dracula Untold, of casting Vlad the Impaler as a tragic hero, forced to give up his humanity to save his people is... pretty interesting? The real failing of this film is, for me, not that it's a bit crap (but what do you expect it's a film where Dracula defeats the Turkish army single-handed?) but that it can't help being a bit racist. Not that I'm accusing the cast and crew of being deliberately Islamaphoic, but it's pretty hard to not look that way when the literal text of the film is Vlad the Impaler trying to prevent a takeover from the most advanced nation on the planet at the time. Like, I know there's framing of slavery and all that, but the basic through-line is that it's better to be an undead monster and lose your family than it is to be Muslim. Gross.

What are cool are the fight scenes, with Dracula cleaving through ranks of soldiers like an act of god more so than an actual character. For players of Vampire The Masquerade, like myself, seeing what is essentially a low-generation Inconnu (probably, Dracula is pretty complicated in the World of Darkness) represented in a film the way they're discussed in the fiction. All-in Dracula Untold frames vampires really well, as monsters of folklore that aren't understood and hold such godlike power that fighting against them is essentially pointless. After seeing waves and waves of vampires mowed down in the Blade and Underworld films, it's a nice change of pace that this film only really has a couple of scenes with more than one vampire in it. The finale, where the bulk of the Transylvanian refugees are turned and Dracula has to destroy them to stop them overrunning the planet, is a little much, and the entire thing ends with more of a whimper.

Trying to frame the classic Gothic/"Universal" monsters as heroes isn't a new concept, and it has worked very well in the past, but the problem with the "Dark Universe", at least as I see it, is that it focuses more on the heroic aspect than the monstrous. Losing one's humanity for increased power has a literary tradition stretching almost as far back as Gilgamesh, but Hollywood has always struggled with the concept, as the dominating model centers the heroic over the tragic. Again, I really think the Dark Universe could have been interesting, if not reasonably good, had it had another film or two to get going. Hell, the Legendary Godzilla franchise did really well with just four films (as of time of writing), easily being the best non-Marvel Cinematic Universe, so the eventual team-up film that never happened that probably would have featured Dracula, the Mummy, Mister Hyde and Frankenstein's Monster could have least have been fun to watch.

Unmatched - In battle, there are no equals...

I've recently become quite enamored with the board game series Unmatched, a 1v1 miniatures combat board game from Restoration Games and Mondo Games. The game first came to my attention because of a set entitled "Hell's Kitchen", containing Marvel's Daredevil, Bullseye and Electra, enabling the players to recreate one of the most iconic fights in the history of Marvel Comics. Now owning every expansion bar one, with plans to purchase more as they become available at work, it's pretty safe to say that I'm hooked, even if I don't get to play the games all that often. The game borrows heavily from previous board games like Tanhauser and Star Wars: Epic Duels, but mixes those mechanics together into something unique and very playable. Each character comes with a health dial and a deck of cards that enable them to fight and act during the game, some come with tokens for sidekicks or special abilities, but none are "balanced" in the way games tend to be; they are, in fact, unmatched.

Despite being interested most in the Hell's Kitchen set, the first Unmatched box I bought was "Cobble & Fog", because it what was available at work. This box contains The Invisible Man, Dracula, Doctor Jekyll and Sherlock Holmes, so hit my Literature Graduate heart full-on straight away. What immediately enamored me with Unmatched was the quality of the product, not only in terms of how it plays, but how it is packed. Each game comes with a vac-formed tray that fits all the components, divided by character, allowing enough space for each deck to be properly sleeved and still stored. The miniatures are nice enough and take paint well (I'm hoping to have some done up to show before too long) and the range of characters is amazing; in addition to those mentioned above, I also have Robin Hood, Bigfoot, Medusa, Beowulf, Little Red Riding Hood, Sinbad, King Arthur and Alice, with a final total that will be somewhere over 100 with just what's slated currently. 

For me, Unmatched is a great little game to play between larger games that scratches the miniature combat itch without requiring an elaborate set-up, that is still nicely presented and visually pleasing. Plus, as each new character is different in their own way, replay value is excellent, I still own several characters that have never seen use, let alone played with myself. I certainly will be painting mine, of course, but I think the models look alright as they are, even if things like facial detail can be a little soft. Initially, I didn't play to collect the entire series, but when selecting between the Marvel sets, I realised that I was getting all but one, so I bit the bullet and got that two. With luck and generous friends I was able to get the Jurrasic Park, Bruce Lee and Deadpool sets, so now I'm just waiting on Lee Vs Ali to hit Australian distributors. Sure, I'm not as keen on The Witcher or Buffy, but having more characters is fun to add to the mix. The system is ripe for a certain kind of character and there's plenty of gas left in the tank, as far as I'm concerned.

Superhero Media: Alita Battle Angel

I actually read some Battle Angel Alita manga years ago when I was getting ready to run my "Equalisers" Mutants and Masterminds campaign, as one of the players wanted to play a version of the manga's antagonist, Sechs. That character was never translated over to my miniature collection, as it was pretty annoying and didn't really fit the tone, but it does mean I knew a little about Alita Battle Angel going in. In the distant year of who knows how far in the future, civilization is divided between a floating city and their massive garbage dump, also there's robots, so a bit like that Astro Boy film I covered ages back. Everyone is trying to make their fortune to get to the city, but the only way is some kind of Rollerball/Mario Kart hybrid game for cyborgs, so most just eke by on what they can scavenge. When Christoph Waltz discovers the wreckage of Alita in the dump, our story begins.

A couple of things out of the way with this one first; the animation used to make Rosa Salazar into a living anime girl is both really impressive and kind of unsettling to look at. After a few minutes, my eye got used to it, but every now and then it was a little creepy. Also, Alita Battle Angel is very much made with tween- and teen-aged women as the intended audience, and makes no secret of this, which means there's a bit of romance and lots of feelings, not that it bothered me, because I don't hate on that kind of thing to make myself feel less inadequate. Honestly there isn't that much to Alita Battle Angel, but the construction is solid and the whole product looks brilliant. The cyborg fights were the kick in the pants I needed to get back to my Cyberpunk project, with cool designs and a nice mix of futuristic and retro tech so that every character, even those only on the screen for a moment, looks unique and is easy to identify.

For those who enjoy such, Alita Battle Angel is what I call an ideal "painting movie"; something to have on while doing hobby work which is fun to watch but slow to distract. The setting is interesting enough to recommend itself, though isn't properly explored, but renegade cyborgs and the bounty hunters who chase them are an easy sell to me. I don't think much of Alita as a character, but then, it was the same with the Manga, so I wasn't expecting Lady Macbeth or anything. Sometimes good is good enough, and given the source material, I believe Alita Battle Angel is more than good enough, especially if you just want something fun to watch. Now that the brand has shifted to Disney, there may be another film, or perhaps a series down the line, and I could easily see that working well in the right hands.