fightrunner.co.uk

Star Trek

Needless to say at fightrunne towers we were never that excited about this one as like most people we suffered from Trek overload with Next Gen/DS9/Voyager/Enterprise beating us into submission with their blandness and just all round boredom factor 9. So when Lost/Cloverfield writer JJ Abrams announced he was going to re-boot the franchise it was met with a “huh so what?” kind of reaction.

So this movie takes us back to the Early days of Kirk, Spock, Bones, Sulu, Uhura, Checkov and Scotty. We see the academy days and first mission of the young crew through our new fresh faced cast. Now I refuse to go into plot here as to be fair it stinks and makes little sense when you give it a second look, it would fry Spock’s logic centres. Needless to say its some malarkey involving time travel and Old Spock.

So the script and plot are weak , does anything Boldly save the grand daddy of SF from its big screen re-birth?

Yes.

That being the acting becuase the casting here is so spot on its spooke how close this young bunch nail the characters whilst bringing something new. Praise has to go first to Karl Urban as Bones McCoy whilst maybe not having the physical appearence the perfmance is uncanny and he delivers some of the films funniest moments. Next up for a mention is Anton Yelchin as Checkov and he has to be one to wactch for the future. The new Captain Kirk also hits the ground running as a womanising, drinking fighting alpha male type that we all imagined the young Kirk to be so another tip of the hat to Chris Pine. The rest of the cast like i say all fill their roles perfectly and there is no feeling of graves being tread on.

So ovrall? this is a light , fun movie and a perfect set-up for some more meaty adventures for this new crew. Ignore the terrible plot and just enjoy it for the fun ride it is

Rating – 7/10

A lightweight story saved by some great acting.

gran torrino

Inferno and I were at a loose end after having a crappy pub lunch so we decided to stuff this one in the DVD player. Its been out for a while and I thought it looked cool in the trailers, so I was rather optimistic… after all, how often is it that Clint Eastwood fails to deliver?

Grand Torrino is the story of an old Korean war vet by the name of Walter Wakowski, played by Eastwood. At the start of the film, we realise he has just said goodbye to the only thing he ever gave a damn about, his loving wife. It doesnt take him long to realise that he is surrounded by a world that has changed since the glory days of the 50’s. His family are a bunch of stuck up, self obsessed shit wipes and the local neighbourhood is running down hill faster than Steven Hawkin with a broken wheelchair. A family of Vietnamese has moved in next door to him and constantly seem to erk him by just existing. Soon however he finds himself helping the young son from next door from falling into the trap of getting involved with a gang. He “reluctantly” befriends his neighbours and finds that, for all their differences, they are more like the old ways than most white Americans these days. After his “unique” getting to know you phase, Walt actually quite takes to the young lad who he first meets as he is trying to steal Walts car, a ford Gran Torrino. He helps him find work and generally pushes him on his way to becoming a man… He also rubs the local Vietnamese gang up the wrong way when they try to take young Tao into their gang, he shoves his US Army issue M1 Grand into their faces and blurts out a stak of well thought out racist slurs and threats. The more he gets to know his new friends, the deeper he gets into this new trouble, but it all seems to make him feel more alive than he has since the glory days!

Now this wasn’t the film I was expecting… I thought it was gonna be a out and out vengence movie, with old Clint doing the Dirty Harry Shtick one more time for the road. But instead this movie is a sort of tale of how urban life has changed in the US and how some of that change is good but most however is for the worse. Walter is a symbol for the old America, failing to move with the times, but still has something to teach the new America.

There is no real action in this film at all really, but Eastwood seems to hold your attention non the less. He maybe in his 70’s now but he can still do that grizzly “you better think twice before messing with me” lines with recless abandon.

For me it was missing a sort of “Big moment” a “stand alone scene” that you will always remember… maybe that’s for the good but none the less it could have done a little more.

Verdict: 7/10

Not what I expected, there is life in the old dog yet.

The Punisher MAX: Girls in white dresses

As should be abundantly clear, here at Fightrunner HQ, we are the Punisher’s biggest fans. And although the movies in the past have generally been a bit of a let down, the comics almost always come up with the goods, especially if we are talking about Max titles. I have read a good few and most of the best ones are written by the main man Garth Ennis himself, so when I saw that this was written by another dude, I wondered to myself if this newbie had the balls to make old Frank Castle as gritty as the mad Irishman did.

“Girls in white dresses” is set in a small Mexican town where the local girls are being systematically abducted and then subsequentaly dumped a few weeks later with their eyes and lungs missing. The distraught townsfolk have heard only in folklore that there is a man from the north that will do what needs to be done and go where the police are to afraid to dare… You guessed it, Frank Castle, AKA: The Punisher. They manage to track him down and eventually convince him to help them get their loved ones back and make the bad guys pay…

Making Bad people pay is what the Punisher is all about!!!! And boy do they get it in this book. Frank beats, shoots, stabs and explodes his way up the criminal food chain in order to get to the bottom of this one. In true Punisher Max style, the violence is brutal and fairly graphic… MAGIC!!! I love nothing more than seeing the king of vigilantes chain five drug dealers ups by their feet and pound the living shit out of them until they spill the beans!

The art in this is quite stylised and it works well with the gritty realistic storyline and the general mood of the Punisher Max series. Never really come across this artist, “Laurence Campbell” but he has made an impression on me. His grainy style and sharp lights in the deep shadows really brings out the bleakness of the situations Frank finds himself in.

The Writer too is a new one to me, “Gregg Hurwitz”, but I swear to god if he had jacked a few more bizarre sex scenes in there, you would be forgiven for thinking it was Ennis Himself… In fact, Ennis is quoted on the cover saying “This is The Punisher, all right. This is how it’s done”. So with approval from the big man, how can you go wrong?

If you like your comics dark, gritty and brutal… Bobs your uncle!

VERDICT: 8.5/10

Like hitting a piñata with a grenade launcher… effective and fun!

Punisher MAX Volume 1 : In the Beginning

You’ve got to hand it to Garth Ennis he has a knack for re-booting popular comics and even resurecting some. As you know the fightrunner have a soft spot for the punisher and with this title Garth Ennis took the Punisher to new heights.

The MAX label is basically Marvel for adults and as such the Punisher feels right at home here. The first change is that the timeline is now fixed and Frank Castle is now in his 50’s as opposed to the fresh faced version seen in the regular marvel run. But with the MAX series we finally get to the see the punisher in full swing and these comics feel more real and grittier.

Beginning with a bloody flashback to the murder of Frank Castle’s family and followed by an even bloodier assault on the mob, Frank finds himself hounded to become the CIA’s own personal hitman, and none other than Frank’s long thought dead partner Micro is here trying to convince Frank to do it. All of this leads to a shocking , violent conclusion that you just can’t put down. The final few panels are heartbreaking to read and some up the genius of Ennis’ work on the character.

The violence and gore are amplified 100 times here but it never ever feels like its done for cheap thrills same with the swearing, like I say if any other comic had the MAX treatment it would feel like shock tactics but here it feels like the punisher is in familiar territory. The artwork here is amazing throughout and perfectly compliments the dark tone of the subject matter at hand whilst also striking a chord for the more emotional parts and even helping the black humour along.

For sure if you are a casual comic reader this won’t be your cup of tea but for anyone else this is nirvana. A bleak, violent, dark, gory piece of genius and a great start to a series. Don’t know about you but I’m up for more!

Rating 9/10

Miss this and you deserve punishment

X-men Origins : Wolverine

After a good year for the comic movies last year with Iron Man, Dark Knight and Incredible Hulk all showing what can be done when a comic movie sticks to the source material. We get arguably amongst you comic fan boys the most popular anti-hero getting his very own movie. Hugh Jackman made this role his own the mixed X-men trilogy playing the role right on the money so a full length feature focusing on him should get the nerves tingling. So with that the fightrunner team gathered for our weekly assualt on the Vue cinema in Aberdeen.

And on paper things look good we see the early days of wolverine and his brother sabertooth some 145 years ago and then through some intriguing shots we see them fighting in all the major conflicts of the past century until present day where they are employed by the mysterious General Stryker to join a band of mercs who also posses special abilities. During a mission in Nigeria Wolverine has a crisis of conscience and retreats to a simple life as a lumberjack in Canada living out a wholesome life with a school teacher. Sabertooth then murders his girlfriend and Wolverine agrees to take part in the Weapon X programme with Stryker to get his revenge, it is here that he gets his Adamantium skeleton and wolverine as we know and love him is born.

On paper it all sounds good and for the first 15 minutes things look promising as the band of mercs including Ryan Reynolds as one of my comic book faves Deadpool (or the character who will become him later) and Reynolds nails this role and at the start i had very high hopes but then the film goes awry. The plot just becomes a very disorganised mess punctated by some decent fight scenes and dodgy CGI. The whole movie feels rushed and the makers were 50/50 on wether to keep true to the comics or try the best please everyone route and keep clear from the source.

Point in case is the later appearance of Deadpool or what the writers have made Deadpool into and this is not Deadpool in anyway. The whole appeal of this character was the “merc with a mouth” and in the opening Reynolds hits it perfectly but at the end Deapool can’t talk. What the fuck? Its like spider-man with no webs, superman no lasers from his eyes, hulk not smashing you get the picture. Now I’m not  fan boy and will allow movie makers a little licence when bringing a comic character from the page to screen but to fundamentally change such a popular character in such a way is a crime.

Another sticking point is the very crap CGI employed at times like the scene where wolverine is checking out his new claws in a bathroom looks just shite. I have no idea why they didn’t just use prop claws as they would have done the job. But like i say there is some entertaining action and an array of marvel characters are ticked of the list but it feels like that  they are trying to satisfy the comic book spotters in the audience. But this film is way of the mark for casual and hardcore viewer alike as the plot twists that come just don’t shock or excite. But the movie gains some points with the Fightrunner team for a brief Patrick Stewart cameo.

Rating : 4/10

Not the Dogs Bollocks , just a dogs dinner.

I ended up seeing state of play on Friday night at the local cinema. It wasn’t my choice honest – I wanted to see Wolverine. Reading reviews this film was supposed to be an electrifying thriller, a rollercoaster ride of a film. Think I must have seen the other version of this film. It was dull, boring and nothing that gave this film any glimmer of hope.

Plucky report  “Cal McCaffery” played by Russell Crowe links two seemingly unrelated murders to the nations senior political figures. The film follows him as he pieces the clues together. The information is drip fed – SLOWLY. The twist at the end I guessed in the first five minutes and the hardest thing about this film was trying to stay awake.

The acting is standard, nothing worthy of oscars, or the coveted fightrunner praise. I am no fan of Ben Affleck who delivers his usual performance, as does Russell Crowe. Under utilised Helen Mirren does add a few minor comedy moments which seem to waken up the audience up as they are starting to fall asleep.

There is a rather useless hitman, who pops up from time to time in the film. Then decides to get himself killed at the end of the film which I didnt quite understand. Wheres Frank Castle when you need him.

There is more depth in a puddle than there was in the characters in this film. The characters are so one dimensional.  There was nothing that drew the audience in, nothing that I related to in the film. Just absolutely terrible.

This film is definitely one to miss. A waste of time, a waste of money and a waste of talent. This is the most boring thrillers ever made. Worse than a straight to video release.

Rating:  -1/10

Miss this at all costs – even as a sat afternoon film on five.

PREACHER (The entire collection)

Time for my first comic book review. I have been collecting comics seriously since 1992 when I was but 12 years old, but I have to say that this comic really marked the change for me, it’s kinda what lead the way into the darker side of comics.

Preacher, is the story of a small town Precher by the name of Jessy Custer that has grown up in the deep south of America and has began to loose his faith. Jessy is of the rare disposition of being a direct descendent of the big man, Jesus Christ himself. Not only this but he is also possessed by a newborn offspring produced by the forbidden love between an angel of heaven and a devil from the deepest realms of hell. This leaves Jessy with a godlike power, “the voice of God”… this allows him to command a man to do anything he says… literally. This power has only previously been held by God himself and now god shit his pants realising this monumental fuck up and has fled heaven.

This sets off a whole host of people hunting down Jessy for their own means. First off we have a band of angles, that believe he has to be killed in order for the big man to return, they send in a relentless, unstoppable killer by the name of the Saint of Killers.

We also have The Grail, a world wide orginasation that has been around since biblical times to protect the bloodline of Christ. They aim to replace the pope with Jessy Custer in a bid to make the world fall at their knees at the sight of a true envoy of God, thing is they plan to use it to their own end.

Who could forget, Arseface… A teenager whos face has been chewed up in a botched suicide attempt with a shotgun. He has sworn to kill Jessy for ordering his father to go fuck himself, which he does by ripping his own cock off and shoving it up his own arse.

There is a host of other minor characters, ranging from gay private detectives to a Nazi sex dominatrix… yeah that’s right, a Nazi sex dominatrix.

Its not all bad though, Jessy has is one true love by his side, Tulip… a strong willed and passionate girl that would follow him to the end. And Cassidy, an Irish vampire that has a penchant for booze and blood.

Quite a lot to take in eh? Well it is everything you could ever ask for in a comic… funny, dark, violent, action packed, straight talking, hard hitting and very very sharp witted. Written by Garth Ennis, who for me is the greatest comic book writer ever. He may not be as intellectually stimulating as Allan Moore but for me anyway, he sure is more entertaining. Its the kind of writing that means you can’t stop flicking through the pages, it leaves you hungry for more and more and for me, it has left a void in my soul since it ended. Don’t get me wrong, the end was necessary and expertly executed. It ties up to many loose ends in the last book that you feel almost happy that its ended because Ennis just… well he just did it all justice.

As for the art, Steve Dillon is an old pro and these two work together like bacon and brown sauce in a Saturday morning hangover cure. His sharp inks and colours work well without being overly detailed and messy. A few other artists have a pop at some stories in the later books, but for me, it just doesn’t feel right unless its Dillon.

Sorry that this was almost a novel, but fuck me if you haven’t read this book… you really need to get your fat arse of the sofa and run as fast as you can down to your local comic shop and beg the vendor for some of the reprints!!!!

Verdict: 10/10

The most entertaining comic of all time… That is the word of God.

Battlestar Galactica Volume 1 – Dynamite

This more fucking like it, after the big let done and laborious effort that was the BSG manga this first of three in the official comic tie in to the TV series redeems the reputation of BSG comics fully. The action here takes place during the second season whilst Boomer is still in the holding cell. The Galactica encounters a distress call from a long since thought lost in action medical frigate but even stranger is the crew on board they are all people that died in air-borne incidents back on the colonies years ago then add into the mix a group of terrorists and a virus that stricken s nearly the whole fleet and it feels like getting into that warm pair of slippers on a winters day, this is familiar ground.

The writing here is inch perfect and truly feels like part of the BSG universe with all the story elements and plot lines that come about never feeling forced. The Identity of several of the “returners” as they are dubbed by the colonists will come as a big shock and that is where this novel will lose marks as the events in this book seem so large its impossible to believe that they will never be referred to in the TV show. But that aside the characters are also well written with Admiral Adama’s reaction to the identity of one of the returners being on the money.

The big plus here is the artwork and let’s face it the Japanese style does not suit a subject matter as dark and with such a heavy narrative as BSG. Character drawings are all spot on with my only gripe being that President Roslin looks a tad on the young side which we know will dissapoint McFlee given his lusty feelings towards the mature Roslin.

A lot of high points in this story the main revelation is a true shocker and provides the main meat of the story (will try and keep this spoiler free) and also the discovery of a fleet of old school Cylons that are still programmed to respond to human commands, and after the discovery upon being told to go frak themselves proceed to blow seven shades of shit out of each other.

In summary is best to look upon this as an alternative timeline entry, but is still damned entertaining and given that the TV series has just wrapped this will ease those BSG DT’s a little.

Rating : 8/10

Not just a good BSG but a great comic worth checking out.

Battlestar Galactica – Echoes of New Caprica (Tokyopop)

Now that BSG has quite literally gone of our our screens and into the sunset we need something to battle the withdrawals that we will all be feeling looking at that gap in the TV schedule. Thankfully the comic book world has stepped up to the plate on both sides of the globe and here BSG goes east – Manga Style. In the first ever BSG manga title what we have are three different stories set around season three , in fact these were plots that had to be cut from what we saw on TV due to running time.

The first is I think the weakest, not to say that its terrible but merely average. It focuses on President Roslin’s school that she taught on New Caprica under the menacing glare of the Cylons. The main thrust is that some one in the school is giving intel to the toasters and the path leads to one of the children in the class being a Cylon collaborator. Like I say this is an average story and it feels like the bog standard comic book tie in filler in between what we saw up on the screen. The plot is very basic and to be honest unimaginative but the artwork is of good standard and manages to make it look like BSG and traditional manga at the same time. But my mine gripe is there isn’t that much new in this tale it feels like going over old ground and if you wanted so interesting background info into the whole New Caprica affair then give this a miss otherwise it will pass away an hour or so.

Much like a good three course meal we started with a light entry and now we get to the meat and potatoes. The second volume is a Zarek centric story about the early days of the Cylon conspirator trials held on Galactica immediately following events on New Caprica. This story more than the other two does give us something new and that will enhance your viewing of the TV show. Zarek has always been one of the most intriguing players in the BSG mythos. There is a neat twist to this story when Zarek has to face one of his best friends and hand him over to the mob rule and this does have genuine impact. In the time line this follows immediately on from the liberation of New Caprica during Zarek’s very brief stint as president. Overall this is great little story whilst you could see why it would be dropped from the TV it does add something to the BSG story as a whole.

Like the three course meal we get to the sweet which is probably the best way to describe the third and final story of the book. This time the focus is on Starbuck and the child she accepted as her own on New Caprica. There is nothing much ti write home about here storywise and you won’t learn very much about Starbuck or anything else. Simply put Starbuck is haunted by visions of the child and tracks her down where she sees her on her own, abducts her then child returns to her mother and thats about it. Scrub what I said earlier this is in fact the weakest story of the book as nothing new or exciting happens.

Overall the book is a patchy affair but a decent start as there will be more on the way. I feel though that given the Japanese style of fleshing out characters to the maximum, maybe if the writers stick to the supporting cast of BSG for story lines then we will have something to look forward to in the future. The manga fails when the stories focus on the principal charcters as they seem unable to add anything new to what we know already. Overall I would say this book is for the seasoned BSG fan as the casual fan won’t gain that much from it.

Rating – 5/10

TAKEN

Seeing as there was no films about Zombie Nazi’s left at the old blockbuster store, Inferno and myself decided to rent a more mainstream, but still blokey film. I had only heard good things about this movie and I was pretty optimistic.

The plot: Liam Neeson plays Bryan Mills, a retired CIA agent who is trying to be closer to his daughter as she grows into a young woman. The pressures of his old lifestyle has already broken his marriage and his daughter now lives with her cunt of a mother who has shacked up with some old rich dude that keeps trying to buy her affection. Mills realises that he has to make up for all the time he was away on missions as his daughter was growing up, when she asks if she can travel in Europe for a few weeks with a friend, he is reluctant but realises that he may loose her if he doesn’t allow her to grow up.

Turns out this was a bad idea, as she is only in France a few hours when her friend and her are kidnapped by Albanian pimps. She is on the phone to her father as it happens and he talks to one of the abductors, vowing to use his CIA skills to track them down and kill them all. When he arrives in France, it doesn’t take him long to start putting clues together and soon he is on to there case. Cue the onslaught of uber violence as he beats, shoots, explodes and brutally tortures his way through the European underworld in order to locate his beloved daughter.

Neeson is outstanding in this movie. To be honest, he has made a living out of playing stony faced serious types and you know what? He does it here again… but he does it so well that you just have to love him for it. He is about 55 now, but he still comes across as a pretty fit dude. You can honestly believe that he can handle himself as you are presented with him taking on an entire crack house full of Albanian scum bags and handing them the beat down of the millennium.

The violence is pretty extreme, not overly gory, just you can see the rage inside Nessons character as he desperately tries to get his daughter back. It soon becomes apparent that he will stop at nothing to achieve this. One scene in particular conveys this, he tortures a man by ramming two 6 inch nails into his thigh bones, then attaches them to the house mains via crocodile clips…. OOCHAAA!!! Also heads get smashed in car doors, a dude gets a broken bottle stabbed into his chest, another gets a fire extinguisher rammed off his face 8 or 9 times and more people get chopped in the throat than I care to remember.

This movie is dark and violent, but I still think that most women will still enjoy it, as every moment in this film, you can see the love that Neesons character has for his daughter. You know that although he is being a brutal monster at times, it is all spawned for that love that can never be broken. Have to say it again, Neeson is unbelievably good in this!!!

Dark, broody, violent, intelegent film making, that is a relief after this years wishy washy cinema realises.

Verdict: 9/10

Let it TAKE your attention to the darker side of life.