I shall be going down 10 Cloverfield Lane, mapping out its lines and surveying its turns to discover if we should hit that road or if it’s or a dead-end. So read on only if you’ve already seen 10 Cloverfield Lane, or don’t plan to.
[Note: my copy included an introductory splash screen, so listed times might be off by 2 seconds or more.]
0:02:38 A young woman (Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Michelle) hastily packs a box of her belongings and leaves her wedding ring on the table. Either she’s leaving her husband or proposing to her furniture.
0:03:15
Notice the colour of her car? #redshirt
0:03:41
Michelle didn’t enjoy being flashed
While she’s putting petrol in her motorcar, a large truck stops in front of her. The music is telling us this is the vehicle that will give her that run-down feeling.
0:04:54 While she’s driving, someone named Ben (Bradley Cooper!) calls her on her hands-free phone and tells her couples fight and she should go back to him. She hangs up on him without saying a word. I suppose this means she’s…phone-y.
Mary Elizabeth Winstead is trying to dial it down
0:05:32 While listening to news of massive power outages along the coast, Ben calls back and her car is hit so hard that she sees the opening credits.
0:06:54 When she comes to, she’s chained by her leg to a basement wall and hooked up to an IV. I’ve had some fantasies that come close to this…
0:07:14
Air BnB (Bed in Basement)
0:09:31 Michelle tears out her IV and uses the pole it hangs from to pull her mobile to her. Unfortunately, like an alcoholic in Utah, she can’t get any bars.
Michelle wants to call someone up
0:10:47 Howard (a very convincing John Goodman) enters the cellar with a tray of food. He ignores her pleas for release and informs her he’s going to keep her alive, but doesn’t say what for.
0:11:12
I’m sorry, but no one is looking for you.
Howard throws Michelle the key to her cuffs along with this comment.
0:13:02 When I saw this film in the cinema, the tension of seeing a young woman in her underwear chained to a pipe and locked in a stranger’s cellar had me more tense than a gay man in an Irani bathhouse.
Willing to take a stab at it
0:14:42 After whittling her crutch tip to a point with a key (and not sharpening it against the cinder block wall like someone who wanted to kill more than time would’ve done), Michelle starts a fire in an air vent so that Howard will have to enter her cell, where she can attack him. He fends her off easily, however, and gives her a shot to knock her out faster than Ronda Rousey fighting Holly Holm.
0:16:16
There’s been an attack. … A big one. I’m not sure yet if it’s chemical or nuclear, but down here we’re safe.
Howard explains why they live in the cellar but sounds more deluded than a Trump supporter.
Surprise parties in the bunker lacked something
0:18:47 Loud noises rise from outside Michelle’s room. Either they’re not alone in the bunker, or the mice are big enough to take on both Mickey and Minnie.
0:19:58 Michelle wakes up to the sound of a truck driving on the ground above the cedar and to find her bedroom door open. She walks out of the bunker to the tune of Frankie Avalon’s “Venus” and meets Emmett (John Gallagher Jr.) who lives behind the shelves and is reassuringly non-rapey.
[The complete soundtrack, including the ‘real’ songs not found on the OST, is found at the bottom of this synopsis.]
0:24:13
The gloves are off
0:24:22 Michelle finds copies of old Teenagers magazine issues. Howard tells her they belong to Megan, and when Michelle asks who that is, Howard simply says,
Megan’s not with us anymore.
He probably means she’s dead, not that she’s against them.
0:25:04 Howard shows Michelle his 2-way radio which isn’t receiving any signals as proof that the outside world doesn’t exist anymore. She’s as sceptical as a teenager’s parents.
0:26:00
Worn out welcome
0:27:02 To prove to Michelle the air is poisoned, Howard takes her up a flight of stairs to an improvised airlock, where she can look outside the door and see two rotting pigs. Funny, usually I’m the sick pig. 🐖
0:27:31 While there, she also notices a pickup truck with red paint marks, and realizes Howard didn’t happen to come across her but ran her off the road. Seems like there’s more than two pigs in this story. 🐖 🐖 🐖
0:27:46
In hindsight
0:31:02
[The explosion] wasn’t like fireworks. No, this was more like something you read about in the Bible.
Michelle learns Emmett saw the explosion that poisoned the air and fought his way into the bunker. She’d assumed he’d been kidnapped, like she was, but now she knows he’s even stupider than he looks.
0:32:12 Howard overhears Michelle expressing her disbelief over the cataclysmic event, just before dinner. She may not be able to eat now that she’s put her foot in her mouth.
The film is over their heads
0:37:56 During a tense dinner, Michelle flirts with Emmett to get a rise out of Howard, so that she can distract him and steal his keys. She wants him to be like me when I sing (out of key) / I’m a servant (lack-key) / I’m Thor’s brother (low-key).
0:41:26 At the same moment Howard reaches for the bottle opener on his key ring and discovers his keys are missing, a car pulls up overhead. Michelle makes a break for it with Howard hot on her heels, but she’s able to block herself in the airlock, breathless.
0:42:04
Can’t face it
A woman from the car Michelle heard reaches the door and Michelle understands that people are dying to get into the bunker, and that she’d be dying if she got out.
0:44:07 Howard admits he crashed into Michelle’s car in his hurry to get back to the bunker when he learned of the attack. I still maintain he’s lying, that he crashed into her on purpose: ‘I fancied running into you’ and not ‘fancy running into you!’
0:45:51
Has to stay inside or she’ll be French toast
Michelle has to shower because trace amounts of tainted air may have leaked through the outer door when she was up there. Howard gives her some of Megan’s clothes to wear afterwards. The wardrobe change from the white tank top to the Paris t-shirt symbolizes her change of heart concerning Howard’s intentions; she now trusts him and has resigned herself to living in the bunker. But she still has on her iconic blue bra beneath, demonstrating her rebellious nature is not completely gone. That she’s still the same underneath.
0:46:43
Cool it!
Howard chills homemade vodka in a tin cup using liquid nitrogen spray. His relationship with Michelle is no longer on the rocks, but his drink is.
0:48:33
Picture this
We learn Megan was Howard’s daughter and that his ex wife turned her against him and took her away to Chicago. Seriously though, I think I’d rather die in Chicago than live under a corn field.
0:53:54 Life in the bunker montage to the tune of Tommy James & the Shondells’ ‘I think we’re alone now’.
0:56:18 Loud noises from above echo through the bunker. Howard gives his appraisal of the situation.
My guess? Those flashes that kicked all this of, that was Phase 1. Take out your opponent’s population centres with big hits, all at once. Fast. And then for Round 2. Ground sweeps. The satellite log showed an increase in coded traffic recently. Possibly, extraterrestrial signals. I bet what we just heard were airborne patrols sent to hunt down the remaining signs of life. Like us.
She has eyes in the back of her head – just not her own
0:57:18 Immediately after, a flashing light indicates there’s a problem with the air filtration system, and access to it is blocked. This kind of situation takes my breath away.
0:59:22 Michelle must squeeze through the narrow ducts to reach the machine that controls the filtration system and her crawling through the narrow spaces activates my claustrophobia.
1:00:50
Dyslexics are dying to escape
In the closet-sized room with the machine, she finds a ladder that leads to a plexiglas window to the world. Climbing it, she discovers someone before her had scrawled their initials on the cover, if their initials were ‘HELP’.
1:01:44 Michelle finds a pair of bloody earrings on the ground beneath the skylight. She shows these to Emmett, and then shows him the picture of Megan [48:33], which had the young woman wearing the same earrings. Emmett looks at the photo and says
Wait, that’s not Megan. Her name is Britney. I remember her. She went to high school with my little sister. She went missing two years back.
It would seem Howard kidnapped Britney and kept her prisoner in the bunker until he tortured her to death. This means the bunker is a whine cellar.
1:03:08 They find another photo in the same book, with Howard sitting beside Britney on a sofa with his arm around her. She’s wearing the same Paris t-shirt Howard gave to Michelle. Michelle feels badly because she’s as used as the shirt she has on.
Michelle needs to step up
1:03:56 The song the oblivious Howard plays is The Exciters – Tell Him. And yet they don’t.
1:04:47 Looking at the shower curtain design of a duck wearing a raincoat, Michelle has an idea and changes back into her original white shirt because she’s back to her old rebel self.
1:07:16 Emmett tricks Howard into getting rid of the shower curtain by telling him Michelle may have contaminated it with ultra high doses of hazardous materials when she touches the air filter. The two fish the curtain out of the dust bin so that Michelle can use it to make a hazmat suit. Or be a giant condom for Halloween.
1:07:27
Where will she get the other 2 arms?
Montage of Michelle and Emmett making the suit. Sew what?
1:12:49 A suspicious Howard orders Michelle and Emmett to assist him in opening a large barrel of Perchloric acid.
It’s highly corrosive. Dissolves most biological material on contact. With humans? Right down to the bone.
Don’t drop this acid.
1:13:51 Howard tells the other two he’s found the scissors, box cutter, and duct tape they’d pilfered and insists on knowing what they were doing with the implements as he drops them into the vat of acid. Emmett lies to save Michelle by saying he was using them to make a weapon so he might steal Howard’s gun. Emmett steps up…and in it.
1:15:01
Howard: You’re sorry?
Emmett: I am sorry.
Howard: I accept your apology.
[Michelle breathes a sigh of relief.]
Here’s how you really make someone sorry.
Emmett has bullets on the brain
[N.B. The piece of paper Michelle looks at in her room, from Emmett’s wallet, is the bus ticket he gave up when he decided not to go to uni on a track scholarship because he felt inferior (50:48)]
1:17:02 With Emmett out of the way, Howard says they can do whatever they want now. He apparently wants to shave and look as much like a paedophile as possible.
1:19:04 Michelle is working on the homemade gas mask when she hears Howard coming, so she only has enough time to hide the object in a vent. Unfortunately, she doesn’t have enough time to secure the screws and one falls just as Howard is leaving. In other words, Howard isn’t the only one with a screw loose.
1:19:46 Howard discovers the hazmat suit pieces under the mattress and goes after Michelle, who had just enough time to lock him in her room before she escapes. There are some moments you want to get away from it all.
Howard tries to get a handle on the door
1:20:12 Michelle grabs the liquid nitrogen spray from a desk as Howard approaches.
Howard: You’re going to walk out on me? After I saved you and kept you safe? This is how you repay me?
Michelle: No. This is.
And she kicks over the barrel of acid so that it washes over Howard’s feet before he slips and falls into it, head first. He’s like a hockey player: having a face-off.
1:20:49 The acid also eats through an electrical cord which causes a short that starts a fire and reminds me of Zombeavers, without the beavers.
Leave it to Beaver
1:21:04
Face your problems
Howard confronts Michelle with the right side of his face eroded away. She pulls a large shelf full of food down on top of him and climbs over him. Howard needs to lose some weight.
1:23:02 Michelle crawls out through the vents while Howard tries to stab and grab her. She makes it out unscathed and hazmat suits up while the fire spreads near an electrical box with flammable warnings on it. She best be careful this plan doesn’t blow up in her face.
1:24:08 Using the liquid nitrogen spray, she freezes the lock so she can shatter it. This is called an ice breaker.
1:24:34
She buys off the shelf – the bathroom shelf
1:24:41
A local bar in Yemen / strip club in Vatican City / YouTuber’s Mensa meeting
1:24:43
Thanks a car lot
1:25:26
A close one
Michelle tears her suit when she’s getting into the pick-up truck. She places some duct tape on the rip on a panic, but she feels as exposed as a stripper removing wallpaper.
1:26:28 Seeing birds fly overhead, she realises the air must be safe to breathe so she removes the gas mask because she’s a bird, too.
1:28:07
I don’t want to believe
Oh, come on!
Michelle’s reaction (and that of millions of viewers) when she understands the planet has been taken over by aliens.
1:30:55
A busy day at the orifice
An alien investigates the garage where Michelle is searching Leslie’s corpse [the woman who wanted in at 42:04] for her car keys. Or perhaps the E.T. is hunting for a bargain on a used vehicle.
1:31:44
Michelle feels brighter
1:31:54 The aliens brought a can of pest spray.
Pest control
1:32:00
Running out of time
1:32:42 Michelle makes it to the truck with her gas mask reattached, and is relieved ‘breaking glass’ is an alien concept to the extraterrestrials.
Star Wars reference?
1:33:24
Can you pick me up?
1:34:19 Michelle throws a Molotov cocktail into the alien’s maw: Fire in the hole and a burning sensation.
Just drop me off here
1:35:45
Post apocalypse
1:36:53 As Michelle drives away, she hears a radio message telling people who need protection to go north to Baton Rouge, and those who are strong enough to help to go to Houston. Precisely at this moment, she reaches a crossroads, with a sign pointing to Houston and another to Baton Rouge. She heads for Houston, as it would make a better sequel.
1:37:22
Aliens have their heads in the clouds
Roll credits
Tally Ho’
WTF!?’s: Nary a 1 WTF
When to Follow: This would be a good watch for fans of suspense or fans of huis clos. Try it on a Sunday night when you’d prefer not to be too freaked to sleep before class on Monday.
Where’s This Found: The most irritating aspect of this film for me was the title. Originally, it was meant to be called The Cellar, which makes a great deal more sense, but then J.J. Abrams decided to import it into his Cloverfield universe. As a fan of the original Cloverfield, I’d hoped to find at least a modicum of connection between this film and its predecessor, and yet there is none. Not even a ‘blood relative’ or whatever ridiculous term the marketing people coined to trick viewers into believing this was in any way remotely related to the original. Upon leaving the theatre, I gave this film 5 F’s, but on re-watching it and knowing it was not a sequel to Cloverfield, I attributed 7 F’s because John Goodman made some very good choices in his character and a lot of tension was developed in such a tight space. So, taking the average of these impressions, out of a possible 10, I have 7 F’s to give
What To Feedback: Many people online complained about the ending, after Michelle left the bunker. What about you?
I shall be investigating the Gods of Egypt, testing its convictions and examining its idols to decide if it’s the answer to our prayers or holy shit. So read on only if you’ve already seen Gods of Egypt, or don’t plan to.
0:01:22 In ancient Egypt, the Gods decide to live with mortals, because who doesn’t want to live amongst the people that worship you (just ask Justin Bieber)? The Gods are taller than humans, and have gold for blood (from whence the expression ‘gold vein’).
0:01:35 Egypt is ruled by two brother gods
Osiris (which apparently is not an old person’s bone disease) is ruler of the rich land of the Nile
Set (his middle name, as the rest of his name is ‘Ready Go’) ruler of the desert and then comes…
Horus, Osiris’s son and new king of the good part, making him the Land Lord
0:02:19
Model City
0:02:41 Interesting choice… They have a boy (Brenton Thwaites as Bek) playing a girl playing a boy as the lead.
Miss Representation
0:03:19 Ooh, sorry. When I said ‘playing’ a boy, I hope I didn’t mistakenly give you the impression that he can act. Fortunately, the script is so poor it distracts us from Brenton’s lack of talent.
0:03:46 Oh dear, in another unfortunate casting choice, Courtney Eaton’s cleavage is portraying Zaya. Tragically, her performance is not as deep.
She dresses like a Horus
0:04:36 Horus (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) wakes up with a hangover on the day of his coronation. I suppose English royalty is based on him.
Horus won’t forget the little people
0:05:54 Horus’s girlfriend (Elodie Yung as Hathor) arrives for the coronation and all of the actors speak as though they’re seeing the script for the first time and doing a casual read-through.
0:07:11
Bright Light, Big CIty
0:10:34 Lol! Gerard Butler appears at the coronation as Set. I shouldn’t be surprised, he never misses an opportunity to act badly.
0:13:27 Set kills Osiris so that he can be King, taking sibling rivalry to whole new levels.
0:15:01 After Osiris dies, Set and Horus fight like a toilet spray and a bad odour.
Winging it
0:15:43 The gods turn into animals and my opinion of this film remains unchanged. At the very least they owed us good CGI, and this looks like it was done on a BlackBerry.
0:17:18 Lol, Set takes out Horus’s eyes to take away his perfect vision. Horus didn’t see that coming.
The eyes have it
0:17:48 Hathor pleads with Set not to kill Horus. Set leers at her as though he were Gerard Butler.
0:18:18
Facing the tower
0:21:41
Set [after returning from a campaign and sexing Hathor]: I think you missed me.
Hathor: I have to miss you, I’m your prisoner, after all.
She, in fact, became the queen of Egypt when Set spared Horus’s life. I once had a lovely weekend with a queen of Egypt…
0:22:40 With the help of his architect Urshu (Rufus Sewell), Set is building a large, black obelisk to honour Ra, his father. This is meant to be Set’s legacy. I should think the reason Urshu chose black for the colour is obvious. #big
0:25:06 Bek is surreptitiously entering Set’s treasure room to steal Horus’s eyes so that he can return them to the exiled god, who will then recover the throne from the evil Set. Until then, Horus doesn’t see what I mean.
Aisle try harder
0:25:11 Lol, this is the map which explains how to avoid the traps triggered by shadows leading to the treasures. Has lots of stupid bird icons, looks legit.
Next time, stop and ask for directions
0:27:47 Bek falls into the scorpion pit after retrieving one of the eyes, but fortunately scorpions react to the eye like I do to a Nicolas Cage film.
These scorpions are the shits
0:29:58 Urshu discovers the theft of the map to the treasure room, so sets a trap for Bek when he comes to meet Zaya at Urshu’s house. As they escape using Horus’s eye, Urshu shoots an arrow across the city and kills Zaya. He’s a far better archer than he is an architect.
Zaya [while dying]: I’ll love you forever.
Which for her won’t be long enough to boil an egg.
0:30:11
A Horus house
0:33:54 Horus calls forth Anubis, the God Dog of the dead, to escort Zaya through the afterlife. In exchange for this, Bek must give Horus back his eye. I fail to see how Bek would approve of this deal, unless he’s blinder than Horus.
Death is a bitch
0:36:30
Horus: No one may leave the afterlife once entered, but the journey through the nine gates will take several days to complete. And only a king can make Anubis turn back. If I kill Set and take back the crown before your beloved reaches the final gate, I might be able to save her.
Horus spells out the story of the rest of the film. It’s idiot-proof, but Bek may still get it anyway.
0:37:46
Watch your tongue
0:38:17 Set learns that a mortal stole one of Horus’s eyes from the ‘impenetrable’ treasure room, so he sends his bull god Mnevis (Alexander England) after Bek.
Grave issues
0:38:32
That’s a lot of bull
0:40:11 Horus and Bek climb atop some sort of mountain so that Horus might address his grandfather, the sun god Ra. He’s so hot.
Sunny side up
0:41:09 WTF!? The sun god lives on a spaceship orbiting the earth?
Humans, we have a problem
0:42:56
The ends of the earth
0:43:52 Ra (Geoffrey Rush, trying not to look ridiculous and failing miserably) fights a cloud and wins by breaking the wind.
0:47:30 The special effects are a joke, literally. I cannot stop laughing
The FX don’t bug only me
0:47:46 WTF!? Set battles his way into his ex-wife’s castle (Emma Boothas Nephthys) to defeat her kingdom. Either her guards are gods, or humans have suddenly become very tall with golden blood. Guard damnit!
0:49:27 When she attempts to fly away and escape, he cuts off her wing (perhaps because she’s a chick and he wants some dinner).
0:52:32 Mnevis arrives with hench-bulls, and Horus dispatches them with the absolute worst imitation 300 slo-mo CGI I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen Pompeii.
This scene is terri-bull
0:57:08 Hathor escapes Set by removing her bracelet and getting sucked into the Land of the Dead. Once there, she replaces the bracelet and returns to the Land of the Living. As she’s a part of this film, though, part of her will always be in the Land of the Dead.
1:01:54 The two snake women ride their snakes after Bek and Horus. It’s in the desert, so we can refer to this scene as ‘hot pursuit’.
Kiss my asp
1:05:35 Hathor and Horus eliminate the snakes and their masters. Like braided tails, that’s two loose ends which were tied up nicely.
Black Snake Moan
1:09:01 After Horus and Hathor quibble about her sexing the god who ripped out his eyes, Hathor understands she cannot charm Bek into doing her bidding because he’s in love with Zaya. This is scene is bad enough to make me miss the special effects.
How Tom Cruise must feel
1:11:08 The trio meet Thoth (Chadwick Boseman), God of Wisdom, whom they need to answer the Sphinx’s riddle when Bek steals Horus’s second eye. Because he trusts no one, Thoth employs only clones. If you want something done right, do it yourselves.
1:17:26 Hathor uses her bracket to let Bek talk to Zaya in the Land of the Dead. Bek is now a necrophiliac and Zaya is frigid.
1:20:34 Inside a pyramid, Thoth confronts the Sphinx, who poses a riddle:
I never was, am always to be. No one ever saw me, nor ever will, and yet I have the confidence of all who live and breathe. What am I?
The answer is, a good Nicolas Cage film. (Not really, it’s ‘tomorrow’.)
That cat is stoned
1:22:37 Lol. Set ambushes the group and uses the opportunity to pull Thoth’s crystal mind out of his skull, or pick his brain.
Hold onto that thought
1:23:38 Instead of pouring the magic juice retrieved from Ra’s spaceship into the fiery hole that would kill the desert and remove Set’s power, Bek lets himself be distracted so Set can take the juice and pour it on the ground. Then Set brings the house down, and the house is the pyramid.
1:27:22 After Bek, Horus and Hathor escape, Hathor makes a deal with Anubis in which she agrees to relinquish her bracelet to Bek, who will deliver it to Zaya so that she might have enough cash for a ticket to heaven. In doing so, however, Hathor sacrifices herself, for she needs the bracelet to stay out of the Land of the Dead. Despite Horus’s protests, Hathor’s dying to help Bek.
1:28:24 In the afterlife, Zaya enters the Hall of Two Truths. For example, (1) this film has shite actors and (2) a worse script.
Be careful with the tips
1:30:38 Set builds a god suit which includes the wings of Nephthys for protection, the brain of Thoth for intelligence, the heart of Osiris for dominion over all lands, and the eye of Horus so that no enemy can deceive him. The fabric is nice but makes him look like a little bitch.
One hell of a suit
1:34:26 Set pays a visit to his father, Ra, on the spaceship. He tells the old man he wants immortality.
Ra: Immortality awaits us all in the afterlife.
I’m not sure Ra knows what ‘immortality’ means.
1:35:30 Ra would like Set to take over the family job of fighting a cloud and dragging the sun around by a chain. Set has a counter offer: kill his dad with bad CGI.
Set fires his dad
1:36:51 The gates of hell break open and chaos is spreading. I know this feeling from the time I had a bad burrito.
1:37:52
Is that an obelisk, or is Egypt happy to see me?
1:38:18
Apophis sucks
1:38:20 Set sends Apophis, the Egyptian god of chaos (and the cloud that Ra was fighting), to drink the Nile and thus destroy all life on earth. But not Nicolas Cage’s career, which is already dead.
Apophis swallows
1:43:38 Bek kills Urshu by knocking him off the lift in the middle of the obelisk. Now we don’t have to wait for the Urshu to drop. [Hey, you try and make a better pun with ‘Urshu’.]
1:44:39 WTF!? The reason Bek and Horus go to the top of the obelisk is to steal Ra’s sword so that Ra (who didn’t completely die [WTF!?]) can defeat Apophis. Yet when Set leaves the sword to attack Bek, Horus could simply grab the sword, but doesn’t. He’s too busy drawing the film out.
Set up
1:44:47 Set says he’s tired of Bek, but instead of picking up the mortal and throwing him from the tower, he decides to hold Bek so close that Bek can steal the eye of Horus. WTF!?
1:45:18 WTF!? Bek throws the eye to Horus, who decides to ignore the eye in order to save Bek. But if Horus had chosen the eye, he could’ve got his wings back and still saved Bek. Just like if he’d chosen to pick up the sword of Ra, this movie could’ve ended early and put us out of our misery.
1:46:02 WTF!? Horus decides to turn into a bird and save Bek as they fall from the tower. Apparently the whole ‘Horus can’t fly without both his eyes’ story was a load of Mnevis.
1:46:31 Horus explains the Mnevis shite about needing his eyes to transform.
I believed I needed my eye to transform, but my journey isn’t to seek revenge at all costs.
WTF!? That’s as clear as the Nile after laundry day.
1:47:14 Set and Horus have an ‘epic battle’ stolen from The Egyptian Empire Strikes Back.
God Wars: The Horus Awakens
1:48:28
Bringing the house down
1:48:53 Horus kills his brother with the sword of Ra. I hope the film ends as quickly.
Scared the piss out of him
1:50:34 Horus delivers Ra his sword, who fights off Apophis so the doors of the afterlife are reopened and Hell is back in business once more.
1:52:18 Either Bek dies from wounds sustained while battling Set, or he fell asleep watching this film like the rest of us.
1:54:01 Ra brings Bek back to life and is so relieved (or so gay) that he doesn’t care Zaya was brought back with him.
1:54:09
Tonight we’re going to party like it’s 2599 (BC)
1:56:04 All of the gods are brought back with the exception of Hathor, whose sacrifice ended up meaning nothing in the grand scheme of ancient Egypt.
Roll credits
Tally Ho’
WTF!?’s: 9 classic ones
When to Follow: This might work on Saturday morning with a nice fry up as a replacement for cartoons. Don’t watch Gods of Egypt after midday, though, as you’ll turn into a sloth.
Where’s This Found: Gods of Egypt is a cheap, gold-plated souvenir sold in some Middle Eastern tourist trap. Like the ersatz bracelet Hathor wears, the director hopes we’ll be taken in by the sparkling, superficial layer on the bauble and not scratch any deeper to find there’s nothing of value beneath. Nothing — not the script, not the acting, not the special effects, not the 300/Star Wars rip-offs (or the matte work, which is this movie’s only saving grace) — can elevate this steamy camel turd of a film above the level of normal turds. Out of a possible 10, I have 4 F’s to give.
I shall be passionately probing Hardcore Henry, stripping it bare and penetrating its depths to dictate if it’ll turn you on or turn you off. So read on only if you’ve already seen Hardcore Henry, or don’t plan to.
Tim Roth is your dad when you’re younger and being bullied by kids who are ugly enough to be victims themselves. The opening scene sets up the device of being filmed in the first person. The movie is made from your perspective, as if you are seeing everything. It’s like P.O.V. pornography with no less nudity.
[N.B. I’ve included a playlist with the songs — including the songs not on the soundtrack — and music from the film at the end of this synopsis.]
0:04:36 You wake up in a vat of liquid in a laboratory, attached to wires and tubes, feeling like Wolverine or a lobster in a restaurant.
0:5:01 Wow, you’re buff! At least what’s left of you…
Surgery cost an arm and a leg
0:05:16 A blonde in a lab coat (Haley Bennettas Estelle) drains your tub as a machine descends from the ceiling and establishes a video link (your camera). She then informs you that you cannot speak. Evidently, the bath left you speechless.
0:06:04
Estelle: This next part might hurt. Maybe quite a lot.
You wonder why she didn’t let you sleep through the painful part.
0:07:32 Estelle attaches a foot and a forearm to replace the ones you’ve lost. She completes you.
Twisted my ankle
0:08:26 She tells you she’s your wife, then hands you a wedding ring for your fake hand and tells you she loves you. If I were you (and in this film, I am), I’d be worried the marriage was as genuine as my arm.
0:08:31
Did you crack your knuckles?
0:10:02 Before lab techs can give you your voice, an albino and his crew shoot their way into the lab. He’s obviously the villain, because albinos always make the most colourful villains.
0:10:11
Boy, is his face red!
0:11:36 Using telekinesis , Akan levitates a tech and cuts him to bits with a butterfly knife. Akan certainly knows how to keep people in stitches!
0:11:52 WTF!? Estelle turns up the computer and plays a guitar chord file so loudly that the speakers explode and knock three grown men over, allowing her and Henry to make their escape? Sounds a bit far-fetched.
0:12: Estelle and Henry run through a small morgue.
She’s so blonde, she thought this was a meet freezer
If Akan gets a hold of my work, men like these will be brought back from the dead to form his army.
The only practical use I can think of for an army of dead people is to drop their bodies from planes onto the enemies.
0:12:32 Your girlfriend shouts at you to go through a door marked ‘Emergency Exit’. When you do, you nearly fall out of a flying dirigeable. You almost fell out of love.
Mind the Gap
0:13:52 Now your girlfriend forgets to tell you to open the chute of your escape pod and you crash land. You might be better off gay…
0:15:22 A group of Akan’s mercenaries arrives at the crash site (in Moscow). After saying you’re weak, the lead thug tases you. This is not the burst of energy you needed.
Can you spot the alien? (Hint: He has antennae)
0:18:04 While you fight to escape the mercenaries who’ve followed you down the embankment from which you fell, you are saved by a man called Jimmy (Sharlto Copley), who’s disappointed you don’t have s voice box.
Three years I’ve been waiting for this fucking moment and I get Charlie-fucking-Chaplin.
Jimmy (Sharlto Copley): The good news is, you’re going to live a while. The bad news is that, in this case, ‘a while’ means 20…30 minutes tops.
The man who rescued you has you connect yourself to an electronic meter to gauge your health. Which means you have connections!
Henry’s feeling a little low
0:20:07 The police pull you and Jimmy over, but they’re in Akan’s pocket. While pulling away from the ambush, Jimmy is shot in the head and crashes the car. He needed that bullet like a hole in the head.
Getting a load off his mind
0:22:09 You have to escape the corrupt coppers through underground tube tunnels. The parkour scenes work less well, as the movement is too fast to be captured on film. You could say the parkour scenes are a little…jumpy.
0:22:58 A homeless alky on the bus you sneaked onto turns out to be Jimmy, as in a different version of the Jimmy you just witnessed being shot in the head. This one may be a wretch, but compared with the dead Jimmy, he’s got his head together.
Putting the ‘Public’ in ‘Public Toilet’
0:23:56 Jimmy instructs you to go to Akan’s right-hand man (Slick Dmitry), open up his chest cavity, remove an electronic pump from beneath his heart and take said pump to Jimmy, who will install it in you to save your life. Hardcore transplant…
0;24:36
Jimmy [speaking about some bloke walking in the street]: That has got to be the gayest jackets I’ve ever seen.
Turns out to be a fireproofed coat that protects the wearer when he unleashes hell through his flamethrower.
0:25:02
I’ll be in touch.
Alky Jimmy’s dying words
0:27:01 Using parkour, you climb into Dmitry’s building through a second floor window. You can’t use the door because there are more guards than vodka bottles in the Kremlin.
Henry’s going out on a ledge here
0:30:21 After shooting a slew of his henchmen, you discover Dmitry (Andrei Dementiev, who also plays Henry — most of the time) playing dead in a room full of monitors. He escapes through a window after he tricks you. You may have a high tech body but your intelligence is definitely low end.
0:32:04 It’s a fairly average chase scene until they run along the support beams atop a blooming bridge!
Walk on the wild side
0:33:21
Wait, wait! I can tell you something very important about the man who sent you here.
Slick Dmitry just before his head is shot off
Um no, you can’t. You can’t tell us anything.
Dmitry lost his head
0:33:24
Look, that dog has a pet arm!
0:34:02 After you take the electronic pump from Slick Dmitry’s chest, Jimmy calls you on a mobile he gave you and tells you to meet him at a high class establishment. I predict it’ll be more ‘high’ than ‘class’.
0:35:26 You find the next Jimmy high on cocaine and sexing 4 prostitutes in a private room. Your battery is draining. Jimmy’s is, too, only it’s not his battery.
0:37:02 As your energy depletes to nothing, you see your sex life pass before your eyes.
Estelle makes sure it’s a real thumb
0:37:54 Another Jimmy, Straight-laced Jimmy, enters and he installs the power unit that saves you. Good thing, as apparently you have less battery life than an Apple Watch.
0:39:36 You and Cocaine Jimmy have to hold off an onslaught of Akan’s men in the whore-house. Thinking of your grandmother in her knickers might help you last longer. [The song is The Sonics’ ‘Strychnine’]
‘This is fuckin’ war, baby!’
0:40:40 Trying to escape the whore-house, you find Akan torturing a patron. Some patrons pay good money for that.
His head on a platter
0:41:01
Girls throw themselves at you
0:41:32 Akan tosses you and Cocaine Jimmy’s corpse down a garbage chute, proving Akan is a tosser.
0:42:48 A new Jimmy, Hippy Jimmy, interrogates one of Akan’s men in the garage to determine where he’s taking Estelle. When the man refuses, Hippy Jimmy shoots him in the knees and asks,
What do you want, higher self [shows him a marijuana joint], or ego [showing him the gun]? Higher self…or ego?
0:43:08 At that moment, the two young female owners of the brothel (Svetlana Ustinovaand Darya Charushaas Olga the Dominatrix and Katya the Dominatrix, respectively) arrive in black leather with sabres and pistols. Jimmy lets them follow him to Akan’s base. You climb in a motorcycle sidecar, but you’re not riding shotgun, you’re riding machine gun. [The song is ‘My Woman’, by Biting Elbows]
0:51:18 Hippy Jimmy and Olga are killed by heavy artillery, so you attack the tank that shot them. They need to install reversing lights on tanks just for you.
0:52:01
It’s a toss up
0:54:07 After you fall from the helicopter you’re attacking, and then a horse who doesn’t like you getting on his back, you finally arrive at Jimmy’s lair, escorted by Commando Jimmy.
0:54:37 You discover corrupt policemen attempting to rape a woman in the abandoned building that houses Jimmy’s lab. They tell the girl, ‘Baby, the gag reflex is psychological. It’s all in your head,’ and then you prove it by jamming a hose in their heads.
Squeeze the grapes for red whine
0:56:40 Once in Jimmy’s lab, he plays a video showing him creating an army of super soldiers for Akan. In the video, when the group of burly lads function worse than expected, Akan uses his telekinesis to throw Jimmy into the group of muscle bound clones where he gets more hits than Selena Gomez’s album in a singles bar.
0:56:48 Then, still using his mind force, Akan picks up Jimmy and drops him to the ground, shattering his spine. Being Akan’s stooge is back breaking work.
0:56:59
Will the real Jimmy please stand up?
0:57:44
I grew men made of cyber-flesh.
Jimmy explains where all of his clones come from
He then puts on his helmet to control a new ‘avatar’, Pullover Jimmy.
0:58:04 Pullover Jimmy explains that you are a cyborg, with ‘bits and a brain’, meaning, unlike his avatars, you can think for yourself. What did the cyborg say to the battery salesman? How much do you charge!
1:02:10 Unbeknownst to you, you’ve been broadcasting images to Akan, who is now debarking en masse at Jimmy’s lab to destroy the two of you and any avatars Jimmy cares to throw at him.
1:02:58 The new plan is to defeat Akan, retrieve your wife and build a new lab using Akan’s equipment. Sounds like a Plan B: B very lucky.
‘Dammit! You told me we’d be in the forest!’
1:03:22 You and Paramilitary Jimmy plant plastic explosives through the lab. That ought to bring the house down.
1:08:11 You and Jimmy have to shoot your way out of his residence.
Raise the dead
1:08:38 There’s a lot of action, but not all of it is new or original. Some of it, however, truly is.
Shooting pigeons
1:09:34 WTF!? The army has been shooting to kill for the entire sequence, but now that they outnumber Henry, Jimmy the Cripple, Pullover Jimmy and Tommy Jimmy, they decide not to shoot at all but instead to wait for Tommy Jimmy to blow the lab and bring down the roof of the building in them.
Knows surrendering like the backs of his hands
1:10:30
Parallel Parking
1:11:51
Example of an anti-joke: What’s worse than finding a worm in your apple? The Holocaust.
What’s red and bad for your teeth?
Henchman fighting you at Akan’s HQ
The answer to this anti-joke is in the palm of his hand.
1:12:14
1:13:42 As he dies, Jimmy confesses that he tampered with one of your memories to make you a better soldier, or, as they say in the American mafia, ‘Forget about it!’
1:15:56 Akan is on a video monitor, displaying his cyborg army. He explains they will come to life just as you did: with a blonde telling each of them that he’s married to her and has to defend her. Those are fightin’ words.
1:16:14 You realise you were tricked and that the blonde doesn’t really love you but has instead promised her heart to your worst enemy. In cinema terms, this device is known as ‘real life’.
1:16:28
1:17:49 You kill one of the cyborgs and remove his battery to replace yours with, because his is much stronger and you need all the strength you can get to fight the entire cyborg army. 💪
Henry’s not afraid to open up
1:19:04 You battle the totality of the cyborg forces and remind me of the expression, ‘You and what army?’
1:21:21
A Heart attack
1:21:54 ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’, by Queen plays as you shoot up adrenaline to prepare for the final battle with Akan. Because you’re ‘Akan’ to get started.
1:23:16
It’s out of your hands
1:24:07 Estelle runs to Akan to make sure he’s OK in a scene I’ve been waiting for since she appeared on screen. A real twist would’ve been if she’d been loyal.
1:24:59
The eyes have it
Akan, thinking you’re defeated, kisses you goodbye.
You didn’t make history, Henry, you helped end it.
1:25:32 Akan knocks you semi unconscious and you finally get a good look at yourself.
A reflection of your former self
1:25:34
I wish Tim Roth were my father…because then I’d be rich
You…little…pussy. That’s what my old man called me, just like it was my name. And I proved him right by killing all of the wrong people. I love you Henry, and I’ll never call you anything but your name, but you gotta decide. Are you gonna lay there, swallowing all the blood in your mouth, or are you gonna stand up, spit it out and go spill theirs?
Your father in a flashback
The memory Jimmy hid from you comes back and you learn that your father supported you when you were bullied. For some reason, this makes you want to fight, just like you have been for the entire film when you thought he wasn’t supporting you. WTF!?
1:26:14
Get a grip
1:26:39 You surprise Akan and rip his hand in two. Like a poker player with a pair of twos, he has a terrible hand.
Not very handy
1:26:5 In a brilliant scene, Akan (for some WTF reason), decides to levitate all of the cyborg bodies, which you use like stepping stones to attain him.
Akan raises the dead
1:27:23
Akan has half a mind to die
1:28:38 You leap into the helicopter to show Estelle what’s left of Akan. She shoots you, but you deflect one of the bullets with your metal hand and it strikes her in the heart. Maybe she won’t die, though, because she’s heartless.
1:29:04 I was right. She doesn’t die, but instead falls through the helicopter door and hangs on for dear life miles above the city.
Listen to your heart, Henry.
Your pleading ‘wife’
You pull the door down on her fingers and listen to her scream.
When to Follow: Perfect for a Saturday night with the lads and a lot of beer, but not so much that the first person filming style makes you ill.
Where’s This Found: Hardcore Henry has brilliant pacing: from beginning to end there’s never a dull moment. While it’s true the action is often repetitive, at least there’s a lot of it. As for the FPS filming style, it looks good on paper and usually on the screen, except for the running / parkour scenes. What the film delivers in adrenaline it lacks in story, but the idea, the execution and especially the fun top the scales and make this film one I’d recommend. Out of a possible 10, I have 7 F’s to give.
I shall be opening up the Green Room, invading its space and unlocking its secrets to see if it’s homey or homely. So read on only if you’ve already seen Green Room, or don’t plan to.
[Before we get underway, please note that the pose the machete carrying bloke on the poster strikes is (possibly) a hommage to The Clash’s “London Calling” album cover, with bassist Paul Simonon smashing a guitar.]
0:00:53
The beginning is corny
0:01:11 Tiger (Callum Turner) awakes at the steering wheel to find he’s crashed his band’s van in a cornfield. The band’s name is the Ain’t Rights, which seems appropriate judging by their driving.
0:01:54 Two of the other bandmates are Sam (Alia Shawkat) and the tragically departed Anton Yelchin, who portrays Pat. They ride to a nearby skating rink to steal petrol for their van, which was left running all night. I’m not sure if this will pay off, as skating has never given me gas.
She’s being taken for a ride
0:02:48 The loss of Anton Yelchin is all the more tragic in that he was a beautiful man and a beautiful talent and young enough to have graced us with both these gifts for many years to come.
0:04:34 The band crashes (and not in the van, this time) at a fan’s apartment (David W. Thompson as Tad).
[N.B. The song they begin on the turntable before falling asleep is Fear‘s “Legalize It”. It’s not on the official soundtrack, but it is on my playlist at the bottom of this synopsis.]
Not talking about the cat…I think
[This shot epitomises Green Room’s true punk nature. As an outsider, it’s my understanding that ‘punk’ is more about being true to yourself than following a specific trend. When the band meets Tad, Reece wonders aloud if he’s a poseur because he sports a mohawk. Tiger, however, declares Tad to be ‘legit’ when he sees the proudly displayed pictures of cats. Tad is not afraid to risk ridicule to be true to his nature, thus he receives Tiger’s punk validation. (Credit to a Reddit user who commented this in the site’s official Green Room discussion.)]
0:06:22 Later, Tad interviews the band in his flat for a radio show.
Pat cannot come up with one, which is eerie now, somehow.
0:07:46 Tad informs the Ain’t Rights that the gig he’d lined up for them has fallen through, so they will now play a Mexican Denny’s. (¿ Dennito’s ?)
Hotter than a tuna melt
[N.B. The song they perform here, “What Have I Become”, is a Human Brains cover. I can find no audio of it online.]
0:09:08 To make up for this, Tad arranges for the group to perform at a bar his cousin frequents. It will soon be a favourite haunt for many of them.
Tiger: I say we just gank his vinyl. [gank = steal]
[Tad arrives at the van window]
Tad: All right, so, all set. Matinee tomorrow, doors at 1 p.m., you guys are on at 3 p.m.. I texted the addy. [addy = address]
Sam: How much?
Tad: $350, minus your tab. And, um, just so you know, it’s mostly boots and braces down there. [boots & braces = doc martens and suspenders (“braces” in the U.K.), which is the uniform of punk rock skinheads]
Tad: Uh, right wing, or technically ultra left, but not affiliated.
Pat: And your cousin’s cool?
Tad: Yeah, don’t talk politics but stick with Daniel.
0:10:27
Poster Child for Punk
0:11:26
The calm before the shit-storm
0:11:50 [The music playing in the van as they approach the club is “Suffer the Children”, by Napalm Death. See soundtrack below.]
0:12:37 The group arrive at the car park of the “club” (and I mean that in the caveman sense, nearly). Tiger talks to cousin Daniel (Mark Webber).
Daniel: You guys look hammered.
Tiger: One night at Tad’s will do that to you. And if your girl’s gonna be crashing– [at one point Tad mentioned that Daniel and his girlfriend would be visiting Tad’s in the near future]
Daniel [taking Tiger by the throat]: Don’t mention that.
Tiger: OK, I was just mentioning–
Daniel: Yeah, no worries whatsoever. Just shut the fuck up about him and me and her.
Daniel wanted to strike up more than a conversation.
Tiger wondered aloud how the walls could be uglier than his pullover
0:13:14 [The song playing as they enter the club with their gear is “Prowling Leather”, by Midnight. See soundtrack below.]
0:14:32 The Ain’t Rights go along with Pat’s idea to kick off their set with “Nazi Punks, Fuck Off”, a Dead Kennedys cover. It’s a love song, if you love being not racist.
Putting the ‘Man’ back in ‘Manilow’
0:15:08 During this song, a brunette in the crowd (Taylor Tunesas Emily) engages in some sort of commerce with Daniel. It seems to be a drug deal, but how would I know?
0:15:38 I’m reminded Alia Shawkat portrayed a bassist as well in The Runaways.
All about the bass
0:17:21 As they’re leaving the bar, Pat returns to the green room (a room in which performers wait before going on stage) to retrieve Sam’s mobile. Upon entering, he finds Emily [the brunette from 15:08] holding a knife…with her skull.
“I see your point.”
0:17:52 Pat runs into the hall, only to be stopped by the stage manager (Eric Edelstein as Big Justin) and Gabe (Macon Blair plays the club manager). Pat phones 911, proving he’s not a real punk.
[Macon Blair is a childhood friend of director Jeremy Saulnier’s and has appeared in each of his his three feature films: Murder Party, Blue Ruin, and Green Room. He is also credited as co-producer for Green Room.]
“I can count to this many!”
0:18:21 [The song playing while the group waits is possibly Obituary‘s, “Paralyzed with Fear”. See soundtrack below.]
0:19:40 Gabe leads everyone back into the green room which is occupied by Cowcatcher [the headlining band for the bar and also a large iron, grate on the front of steam trains] and friends, including the stylistically challenged Amber [Imogen Poots, whom we also saw in the quite terrible Need for Speed]. Gabe takes a call from 911 about the stabbing and tells everyone the police are coming. The only one holding their breath on this is the dead girl.
When you let your boyfriend cut your hair
0:22:26 The back of Patrick Stewart’s head arrives at the same time as the police (he plays the club owner and top Nazi, Darcy). Gabe and the club’s resident killer-dog wrangler / accountant (Kai Lennox as Clark) pay off twin bothers to recreate the crime. One twin holds the knife and the other gets the point. This way, the police have a stabbing and don’t need to look any deeper.
0:23:38 Gabe arrives to release Cowcatcher from the green room. On the way out, the lead singer (Brent Werzneras Werm) tells Pat he liked their set and offed Emily to their song “Toxic Evolution”. It’s a killer song.
Grumpy no longer likes his “Cheering stick man doing the splits” tattoo
0:26:47 After speaking to Darcy, Gabe arrives at the green room and tells Big Justin to give the group his gun, without the bullets. This because the plan is to make it look as though the group was mauled by dogs while siphoning petrol. Bullet wounds would poke holes in this scenario.
Found his interior decorators
[N.B. Darcy orders, through the door, Big Justin to give up his gun to the group because he intends to let them leave. This is just one of several surprise moves that pleasantly surprised me in Green Room (another example being the moment Gabe answered 911 and told them there’d been a stabbing when they called to follow up on Pat’s initial call).]
0:28:31 With Darcy and the other neo-Nazis locked out of the green room, the group (with Amber) jump Big Justin and steal the bullets back for the gun. Hostage situations often end with a bang.
0:28:34 [In the corridor, the song Darcy hears coming from the stage is “Corpus Rottus” by Corpus Rottus. See soundtrack below.]
Pat takes advantage of the gun show
0:30:38 The song playing while Clark tells Darcy the price of the dogs in the case one one should die is “Mutilation” by Corpus Rottus.
Clark: It’s 1,200 [dollars] for a prospect, 2 for a bait dog. No studs, no champs unless you wanna pay 20 grand a head.
Those bitches are expensive!
0:34:20 The lights go out in the green room, making it a dark room.
0:36:28 The lights come back on but Darcy sends the concert audience home, claiming electrical problems. The drinks are like the faulty electricity: No charge.
“What’s the difference between Hitler and a debutante? Hitler has only one ball.”
0:36:33 The skinheads with the red laces are the hardcore nuts. They wear red laces because they’re tightly wound. #OrSomething
A shoe-in
0:37:11 Darcy sends Cowcatcher to a safe house with his dope bearing an afro-American gang’s stamp on it. The idea is for them to lay low until the trouble blows over. With that amount of dope, they’ll be laying pretty damn low.
0:42:21 Negotiating from the opposite side of the green room door, Darcy tells the group he’ll let them go if they give up the unregistered firearm they took from Justin. The group agree, but not before securing their collateral in a wrestling hold before the exchange.
Patrick Stewart is a true skin head
0:43:50 During the hand-off through the slightly ajar door, a red-laced punk grabs Pat’s arm and slices it to ribbons before he can pull it safely back into the room. In the meantime, Reece, holding Justin in the wrestling hold, breaks the bigger man’s arm. This scene should be known as “Farewell to Arms”.
Pat is such a cut-up
0:45:32 While Reece chokes Justin to death, Sam asks how long it will take to be sure he’s really dead. Amber cuts that question short with a cutter.
Justin is gutted
0:48:12 Tiger and Reece break through the floorboards to reach an underground lab. Unfortunately, the only exit is a metal trap door in the ceiling and it’s locked from the outside. The Nazis use the lab to make heroin: even their drugs are white.
0:51:38 The group decide to make a break for it, but before they do, a moment of truth.
[See my earlier note at 4:34 about punk rockers being themselves rather than sheeple.]
0:53:16 The group leave the green room, surprised to find the bar empty and dark. Immediately after they decide to split up and look for an exit, the pit bulls are released into the bar. One of the dogs tears out Tiger’s throat. He’d rather the cat had his tongue.
Tiger feeds the dogs
0:53:38 Reece crawls through a window, only to be knocked unconscious by a skinhead waiting on the other side. This reminds me of their heroin: a lot of smack.
0:54:58 While Amber fights off one of the dogs with a microphone stand, Pat realises the beasts don’t like the screech of feedback even more than they dislike being bashed about the head by a microphone stand.
0:55:38 Sam, Amber and Pat retreat back to the green room. Each of them has a drawback. Pat has his cut arm, Amber has her chew toy ankle and Sam has to look at Amber’s haircut.
Rabbi Amram can’t remember where he left his shtreimel
0:55:46 At 0:32:48, Pat found a tissue with the words “Fleisch Wolf” scrawled on it in Emily’s pocket. Now, seeing the same words on Cowcatcher’s set list, Amber tells them it’s a song whose translation is “meat grinder”. It probably sounds like one, as well.
0:56:27 Daniel volunteers to go in and kill everyone. He’s paired with a chap called Jonathan, though not romantically. Sadly, there’s a great shortage of openly gay Nazi skinheads.
“How many slices do you want?”
0:58:12 After Daniel and Jonathan break into the green room, Amber tells Jonathan what happened.
Werm found out she was leaving, but she didn’t say that it was with you [Daniel]. “Meat Grinder”. That song was their cue.
We finally know what happened! 🙌
The reason Daniel was so concerned about people knowing he and his girlfriend were staying at Tad’s [12:37], was that his girlfriend was leaving her boyfriend — i.e. Werm — for Daniel
Daniel gave Emily a note with the words “Fleisch Wolf” on it [15:38], because when Cowcatcher performed that song, she was meant to find Daniel and leave
Somehow, Werm discovered Emily was leaving, and stabbed her during the Ain’t Rights’ set
Grab the cow by the horns
0:59:18 In the boot of Daniel’s motorcar, Darcy finds a bat that has seen too much excitement for baseball. In fact, it’s material evidence Daniel and Emily were going to abscond with, either to use as blackmail so no one would follow them, or as proof to put someone (Werm?) away for a long time.
1:00:58 Everyone descends into the drug cellar, where Sam is introduced to Daniel.
Sam: Who’s he?
Daniel: A traitor. If they don’t already know, they know now.
They certainly know more than your grammar teacher [“didn’t know before”].
If he doesn’t see a doctor, he’ll D.I.Y.
1:01:17
It is still blades and fangs for the visitors, but we are getting lean on time. Now, if you have to shoot, shoot once. If more than once, keep it a tight grouping, ‘cause you’ll be digging the slugs out yourself.
Darcy gives these instructions to the red laces because they’re going to mask the murder of the band as a dog attack. Canine bullet wounds would give one paws…
1:01:58 While Daniel is retrieving a shotgun hidden behind the bar, something bigger than a thought crosses his mind.
Mind blown
1:02:24 Pat finishes off the shooter with a machete. Time to cut and run.
1:03:18 The trio make a break for it but Amber is shot in the leg and Sam is devoured by a pit bull. We should call her Purina now because she’s dog chow.
1:05:34 Amber and Pat retreat back to the green room and Pat finishes his boring story about how he went kamikaze in a game of paint ball. This story plays a critical role in putting the film over 90 minutes.
White Power, with a ‘d’ thrown in
1:08:34 Darcy gives Gabe his red laces and tells the bar manager to find a new house band.
Gabe: You think Cowcatcher is gonna talk?
Darcy: I’m more worried about their habits. Really have to stay away from that n*gger dope. There’s a bad batch doing the rounds.
Darcy here is confessing to tricking Cowcatcher into killing themselves with the tainted heroin he provided them [37:11]. Darcy shouldn’t play poker because he’s a terrible dealer.
“I’ll take a Black & White scotch, hold the black.”
1:10:34 Jonathan and a chap called Kyle (Mason Knight) enter the bar with three shot gun shells and the dog Sam wounded before it ate her.
1:11:06 The dog runs away because there’s more feedback. Note to self: pit bulls probably don’t like Jimi Hendrix.
Strikes a chord
1:12:28 Jonathan drops down the hole in the floor after Pat, whom he did not shoot upon entering the green room, but instead let escape into the lab. I’m calling WTF.
1:12:32 Amber slits Kyle’s throat with a box cutter, turning the knife into a voice box cutter.
Amber gets into sofas
1:15:48 While Pat and Jonathan wrestle for the rifle, Amber slips down one hole and puts two in Jonathan.
1:17:36 Amber and Pat lead a repentant Gabe out of the bar at gunpoint while the sun rises. Day isn’t the only thing that breaks in this film.
1:19:38 They let Gabe go, and he promises to call the police when he gets where he’s going. Amber and Pat decide to confront the remaining Nazis at the residence because it’s too early for either the violence or the film to end here.
1:22:27
Reece’s pieces
1:23:07 In the car park at the residence, Amber shoots Clark with the shotgun.
Pat: So we’re doin’ that?
Amber: Why else would we walk up here?
Pat: I don’t know, I was gonna ruin the crime scene.
Amber: I thought we’d leave a new one.
1:24:44 Amber and Pat shoot Darcy and Alan (Colton Ruscheinsky), the last red lace still standing. They’re deader than an Apple Watch battery.
Stream of consciousness
1:25:32 Gabe finds farmers at the side of a nearby road and tells them to call the police. The suspense regarding his promise to call the police was as well-developed as a porn actress after surgery.
1:25:42 [see 1:08:34]
The Cowcatchers shall catch no more cows
1:26:26 The pit bull that ran from the bar [1:11:06] arrives at the residence. Instead of attacking Pat and Amber, he sits beside Clark’s corpse. He’s a dog, but he’s also a red herring.
1:27:09
Fade to black
Pat: I know what it is.
Amber: What what is?
Pat: My desert island band.
Amber: Tell somebody who gives a shit.
“Sinister Purpose”, by Credence Clearwater Revival plays, leading us to believe this was Pat’s desert island group. [See playlist]
Roll credits
1:31:08 [“Right Brigade”, by Bad BrainsSee playlist]
1:34:07
The film is dedicated to the Barnetti Clan
The “Barnetti Clan” refers to the film collective to which a younger director Jeremy Saulnier belonged and used for inspiration.
…I looked backwards to my past, my punk rock roots. The bandmates with whom I hung out were also the people I made movies with at a young age. It was always part of the same thing. … Generically, we were called the Barnetti Clan, based on two brothers, Sandy and Tim Barnett. They were part of the crew and they still are. I dedicated “Green Room” to the Barnetti Clan. It’s an homage to that part of my history. [Source]
When to Follow: When you want to get your punk on and your shit scared out of you. This ultra-violent, edge of your seat stage dive is good for a night of fortys when you can turn the lights down and the volume all the way up.
Where’s This Found: Saulnier is no stranger to the punk scene and no stranger to directing (his Blue Ruin was critically accepted). As Green Room doesn’t try too hard to be punk but tries hard to be hardcore it works on both fronts. Definitely in my Top Five for the first half of 2016. Out of a possible 10, I have 8 F’s to give.
What To Feedback: Let us know your Desert Island band in the comment! Also:
I shall be attacking Batman v Superman, taking on its challenges and tackling its themes to decide if it’s a win or for losers. So read on only if you’ve already seen Batman v Superman, or don’t plan to.
0:00:39 The film opens with a funeral, that of little Bruce Wayne’s parents. He lost his parents, but he can find them in the cemetery.
0:01:31 Interspersed with the images of orphan Bruce running away from the burial is the stylised flashback of the night his folks were murdered. Unfortunately, no amount of style can make me forget I’ve seen this scene a thousand times.
The worst part of their death is they won’t be able to see Excalibur
0:02:12 In a shot lifted directly from Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins, little Bruce plummets down a well. He always falls for that.
Well, well, well…
0:02:22
That necklace is to die for
[N.B. This scene is an hommage to Frank Miller’s Dark Knight comic book series, where the entire pearl scene originates. Also noteworthy, Martha Wayne is played by Lauren Cohan, The Walking Dead‘s “Maggie Greene”, while Thomas Wayne is Jeffrey Dean Morgan, “Negan” in The Walking Dead and…the Comedian in Snyder’s Watchmen.]
0:05:07 Back to the future, Bruce Wayne arrives in Metropolis to see General Zod’s ship, the Black Zero, trying to terra-form the earth. This is exactly the sort of thing rural Brits are worried about.
Illegal Aliens
[N.B. The Film Guy did a rather well-done mash-up combining the climax to the Man of Steel and this flashback in Batman v Superman.]
0:05:40 WTF!? Bruce’s staff are still in the building downtown, waiting for him to call and give them permission to leave? I hope their death benefits are better than their emergency policies.
0:06:24
Getting into real estate
0:08:01 Bruce arrives to see his building collapse with his employee Jack O’Dwyer (Hugh Maguire) still in it (which he can only know through some sort of intense, psychic bond). That Jack never left the building in the first place is a mystery, unless it’s because he wanted to see first hand how Zack Snyder copied the Twin Towers collapsing on 9/11.
“Oh God! I hope they badged out before they fell from the building!”
0:08:56 Bruce Wayne goes to the rubble to find another employee (Scoot McNairyas Wallace Keefe) and rescues him by lifting a girder off of his legs. Looking at his legs, Wallace won’t stand for that.
0:09:32 Bruce then saves a young girl from falling metal. When he asks where her mother is, the child points up to the top of a mangled building. Bruce should tell her “Not anymore” and move her finger so she’s pointing at Heaven.
“Are you pointing at Heaven?”
0:09:58 Superman decides to arrive at this moment. I’m still not sure how Batman could beat him to the scene in an SUV through heavy traffic.
0:10:27 18 months later, somewhere in the Indian ocean, two strapping young lads (Matahi Drollet and Mormon Maitui) bring up a chunk of kryptonite bigger than Warren Buffet’s bank statement / Donald Trumps’ ego/ my diction.
Looks fishy to me
[N.B. The wreckage in the background of the screenshot is the World Engine, the other half of the ‘Black Zero’ Zod was using to terra-form the earth into something a little more Kryptonian.]
0:11:42 In “Nairomi, Africa”, Lois Lane (Amy Adams) meets Jimmy Olsen (a sweltering hot Michael Cassidy) for the first and last time as they go to meet some African warlord (Sammi Rotibi as General Amajagh) for an interview. They might ask him how he feels about his country’s name being a counterfeit of a real place. #Shicago,America
0:14:22 A dastardly looking private security guard [Callan Mulvey as Anatoli Knyazev, AKA the KGBeast in comic book land] takes hot Jimmy Olsen’s film canister and discovers a secret homing device located within. Jimmy should’ve known a film canister in the millennium would be as suspicious as Bill Gates with a BlackBerry.
“It is so nice to meet me.”
[N.B. Thanks to a C.I.A. radio broadcast–“Talon is down”–we know that Jimmy Olsen is an assassin for a Gotham City cabal known as The Court of Owls.]
0:15:08 The rebel General takes out Jimmy, and I don’t mean on a date.
0:16:04 Strangely enough, the private security experts begin shooting the General’s team, whom they were paid to protect. Anyone left alive should inquire about a refund.
0:17:26 After the shoddy security blokes flee, the CIA launch a drone missile at Lois and the General, but Superman (Henry Cavill) arrives in time to prevent it from reaching the General’s compound. It looks like Superman is having a blast.
0:17:35
“Whoo! Super hero landing! You know, that’s really hard on your knees. Totally impractical. They all do it.”
0:18:34 After Superman saves Lois, a CIA operative known as Python Team Leader (Bailey Chase) and his team arrive at the compound to observe how the General’s unit got burnt in more ways than one.
0:19:46 WTF!? In a Senate hearing, a “Nairomi” woman accuses Superman of killing everyone in the village!? And the lead Senator (Holly Hunteras June Finch) believes her? What happened to Lois Lane? Or the Python Leader? Do you mean to tell me this entire film is based on bad Intel and a gullible politician?
0:19:58 Trivia: In American university football, Metropolis is trouncing Gotham City 58 – 0. This is also the likely true cause of the Batman vs Superman fight later.
Proof that Gotham is for losers
[N.B. Note the player brandishing a poster of Richard Nixon, which is a reference to Zack Snyder’s Watchmen, in which the beleaguered President didn’t know when to quit.]
0:20:44 While leaving the car park, the police car drives beneath a billboard…
A bad sign
[N.B. The observant viewer will note that “The end is nigh” graffiti is yet another reference to The Watchmen, in whichthe character Rorschach is seen parading about with this slogan. The Ace Chemical factory in the background is where an engineer called ‘Jack’ fell into a vat of acid and emerged as…the Joker.]
0:23:10 Responding to a radio call, Gotham City police officers arrive at a house being used to imprison foreign female sex workers. The officers interrupted Batman’s interrogation when they came prematurely.
[N.B. Easter egg: The unit responding to the call is “Delta Charlie-27”, which is radio speak for “DC-27”: Detective Comic #27 was the issue that introduced The Bat-man.]
Batman is cornered
0:23:38
Brand image
Batman stamps his fugitives before sending them to prison.
0:24:44 In a discovery that will have many repercussions, Lois finds one of the mercenary’s bullets in her notebook. If she wants to exonerate Superman, this will give her a shot.
Wishes it were the other kind of shot
0:25:30 Lois and Clark now live together, so he no longer needs to use his x-ray vision to see her naked.
Lois comes clean
0:27:16 In the Bat-cave:
Bruce Wayne / Batman (Ben Affleck): You’re getting slow in your old age, Alfred.
Alfred (Jeremy Irons): Comes to us all, Master Wayne. Even you got too old to die young.
0:29:43 Senator Finch and Senator Barrows go to meet Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg), who asks them for permission to import the kryptonite our island boys found submerged in the Indian Ocean [see 10:27]. He wants to use the mineral to build a weapon to use in case of emergency against Superman, or other ‘Kryptonians’. Or they could use it against Jesse Eisenberg, to stop him trying much too hard to ape Heath Ledger’s Joker.
[N.B. The Kryptonian shown undergoing the kryptonite knife in the experiment which proves Superman’s vulnerability is General Zod (or Michael Shannon playing dead). The Lex Corp researcher who presents the experiment is Emmet Vale, the doctor who changes soldier John Corben into Metallo, a kryptonite-fueled villain in comics.]
0:33:16 Luthor asks Senate committee co-chair Barrows for access to the Kryptonian spaceship and Zod’s body. Luthor takes a sliver of skin from the alien’s fingertips, demonstrating Kryptonians are thin skinned.
3-piece hazmat suit
0:34:02 I still cannot get over this giant WTF. The African woman (Wunmi Mosaku as Kahina Ziri) continues to whinge about Superman’s impunity, this time in the news. Does no one realise that all of the local mercenaries were killed by machine guns and grenades and that Superman could not have killed them because he doesn’t have a permit to carry a concealed weapon BECAUSE HE DOESN’T NEED ONE!?
[N.B. Kahina is a reference to Kahina the Seer, one of Aquaman’s mates.]
0:36:18 Wallace Keefe, the bloke who lost his legs in the intro [see 8:56], goes to Heroes’ Park (think Vietnam memorial for the victims of Zod’s attack) and climbs atop the Superman statue to spray paint “False God” on the statue’s chest. WTF!? Superman ended the attack, not start it. Also, how did Keefe have time to climb up there and paint the text while the police were standing there, telling him to stop? Keefe painted himself into a corner…and a prison cell.
EXCLUSIVE Easter egg: Most of the names of victims on the Heroes Wall are all technicians / crew members of the film
0:38:16 Bruce Wayne attends an illegal underground boxing match to clone Knyazev’s phone. Judging from the crowd, illegal boxing is a hit.
0:42:24 Senator June Finch tells Lex she’s blocking the import license on his kryptonite. But, like the rich man’s orphan once said, “Where there’s a will there’s a way.”
0:44:53
People in glass houses shouldn’t grow bones
0:45:56 Bruce Wayne is going to a charity reception at Lex Luthor’s house to determine why Knyazev’s mobile is constantly sending info to the Luthor residence. What do you call Batman’s cell phone? The Bat-mobile.
What is the state of DM?
[N.B. Misha Bukowski — the name at the bottom of the invitation — is in reality the Batman v Superman‘s key 2nd assistant director.]
0:47:31 Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman are all in attendance? Is this a charity event for poor little Superheroes?
Our first glimpse of Wonder Woman out of her bra
0:49:46 Lex Luthor’s “Thank You” speech is also Jesse Eisenberg’s concession speech, because it shows how much the actor has lost it.
0:50:43 At the reception, Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent meet for the for the first time and verbally spar.
Bruce Wayne: …every time your hero saves a cat out of a tree, you write a puff piece editorial about an alien who, if he wanted to, could burn the whole place down. There wouldn’t be a damn thing we could do to stop him.
Clark Kent: Most of the world doesn’t share your opinion, Mr. Wayne.
Bruce: Maybe it’s the Gotham City in me. We have a bad history of freaks dressed like clowns.
0:53:02 Diana Prince / Wonder Woman (played Gal Gadot) steals the electronic device Bruce was using to copy data on Luthor’s surprisingly accessible phone switchboard. After Catwoman, Bruce is used to women with light fingers.
0:53:34
They’ve got to hand it to Superman
0:54:08
Watch out for that iceberg
0:55:24
Holy Shit
0:57:23 Clark reads a newspaper headline in the Gotham Free Press [the byline is B. Elliot, do any of my readers have an idea to whom this might refer?] which states:
For Gotham City Inmates, Bat-Brand is a Death Sentence
Prison inmates kill you because you were arrested by Batman? WTF!? Are they suddenly on Batman’s side now?
0:58:54 WTF!? Lex bails Wallace [see 8:56] out of jail to pay him to whine to Senator Finch about either Superman or Batman. I’m a professional whiner, too, but I wager he makes a lot more than I.
He made me half a man.
Who did? Superman because he captured Zod? Or Batman because he saved your life? Where is this bloke coming from…other than jail?
Reading Donald Trump’s Twitter feed
1:01:34
Nobody cares about Clark Kent taking on the Batman.
Meant to be a joke. I’d prefer they spent more time explaining why Perry doesn’t want the story written, rather than on silly jokes. That’s my job.
[N.B. In this scene, Clark tells Perry that when the Daily Planet was founded, it stood for something. Perry responds “and so could you if it was 1938. But it’s not 1938!” Of course, 1938 was the year Action Comics #1, — Superman — appeared.]
1:02:49 Museum charity with Diana Prince…blah blah blah…Sword of Alexandria…blah blah blah…cut the Gordian Knot [and you thought my synopses were boring]…blah blah blah I just wish they’d cut to the chase.
“You’re quite a Gal.”
[N.B. The song playing at the gala is Suite for “Jazz Orchestra No. 2,” by Shostakovich. The song is not on the official soundtrack but it is on my playlist at the end of this synopsis.]
1:03:31
Diana: I believe Mr. Luthor has a photograph that belongs to me.
Wonder Woman explains why she nicked the drive with Luthor’s data from Bruce Wayne. She must, however, be drunk on champagne because once a photo goes digital, there’s no recovering it. Just ask Jennifer Lawrence. WTF!?
1:05:08
Batman’s dream destination
[N.B. The large omega symbol in the sand is the sign of DC’s ultimate villain: Darkseid (see 1:08:08)]
1:08:08 Batman is betrayed when he thinks he’s acquiring Lex Luthor’s slab of kryptonite. I’m more interested in the men with wings because they may be faeries.
These men bug me
[N.B. The beady-eyed creature behind Batman might be Darkseid, and his flying minions are Parademons. (A nice explanation of these can be found at Collider.) Aiding these arch-villains in their attack on Batman are Regime Soldiers, representing Superman’s Regime. Why Superman would need a regime is beyond me.]
Here’s a better shot of Darkseid.
“Have some punch, Batman!”
And the Regime Soldiers…
Soldiers try the superhero landing in slo-mo
1:09:50 The Knightmare is, in fact, not a dream but reality, as attest the flurry of papers on Bruce Wayne’s desk when he ‘awakes’. It ends with Flash coming back to tell Bruce that Lois Lane is the key and not to trust Superman. I have this dream after too much Taco Bell, only it’s not Robin that comes back and it’s not a dream.
1:11:17 After spending hours decrypting Lex Luthor’s files, Batman learns the White Portuguese isn’t a man but a cargo ship carrying the chunk of kryptonite. I would’ve thought a Google search could’ve told him this in much less time.
“All of this technology and I just need Google Now.”
1:11:51 Bruce explains himself to Alfred.
That son of a bitch brought the war to us two years ago. [No, actually that was General Zod; Superman saved the planet.] Jesus, Alfred. Count the dead. Thousands of people. [Yes, but Superman didn’t kill them.] What’s next? Millions? He has the power to wipe out the entire human race and if we believe there’s even a 1% chance that he’s our enemy, we have to take it as an absolute certainty. And we have to destroy him.
WTF!? 1% chance = 100% certainty? Wow, I hope Batman is better at crime-fighting than maths.
1:18:54 In a fairly run-of-the-mill chase scene at a port, Batman in his Batmobile pursues the lorry carrying the kryptonite shipment. Unfortunately, he runs into Superman. Literally.
1:19:11 The pair threaten each other with innuendos, though I would really like to know why Superman is working harder to stop Batman than he is the lorry carrying the means of his own destruction. WTF!?
Batman thanks Superman for making the Batmobile a convertible
1:22:28
LOL, Superman wears his cape when he visits his mum
1:24:31 Secretary of Defense Calvin Swanwick (Harry Lennix) informs Lois Lane the bullet used in the desert was manufactured at Lexcorp to frame Superman. That people stopped believing Superman was a mass murderer in a heartbeat is less surprising than the fact they believed it in the first place.
1:25:46 WTF!? Lois Lane tells Perry to run an article on how Lex Luthor created the desert situation to frame Superman. She wants him to do this so Superman will know before he attends the Senate hearing, which begins in 5 minutes. Is it really faster to let him know by publishing a newspaper issue than calling him on a mobile?
Uses botox so she won’t get headlines
1:26:05 Senator Finch explains to a co-chair on her anti-Superman committee that Lex Luthor paid the African woman to lie under oath. She’s a politician, she should’ve recognized all the lying.
Batman fan Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy in his 6th Batman cameo
1:28:06 Anatoli Knyazev throws Kahina Ziri [see 34:02] under the bus, only the bus is a subway.
1:28:28
A capitol moment
1:29:49 Senator Finch is distracted from chastising Superman because there’s a jar of urine on her desk labeled Granny’s Peach Tea. Lex put it there, in reference to an earlier conversation. [42:14]
Lex Luthor: Can I call you “June”?
Senator June Finch: You can call me whatever you like. Take a bucket of piss and call it “Granny’s Peach Tea”. Take a weapon of assassination and call it “deterrence”. You won’t fool a fly, or me. I’m not going to drink it.
#UrineTrouble
1:30:47 While Senator Finch stumbles over her words at the sight of the mason jar of urine pee, the Capitol building explodes. #UrineForItNow
Hot air in politics
1:34:21 Batman drops in on Lexcorp for a surprise visit. He stole Lex’s kryptonite and replaced it with a batman throwing star. Lex looks as though he feels he got the wrong end of that trade…and that throwing star.
Yo-yo Batman
1:37:40 WTF!? Using the fingerprints he skinned off of Zod, Lex enters Zod’s ship. Instead of refusing access when the prints are different than the authorised user, the on-board computer simply asks if he would like to become the new commander. With security like that, I’m beginning to understand how planet Krypton came to be destroyed.
1:38:16
Proof Ben Affleck can fill more than Batman’s shoes
1:39:16 While going through Lex’s computer, Bruce discovers a file marked META_HUMAN (think “superhero”). Inside are dossiers relating to Wonder Woman, Cyborg, the Flash, and Aquaman. For the moment, they aren’t in Batman’s League.
In memory
1:40:07 Bruce discovers Diana is Wonder Woman and finds a copy of the photograph (named “Belgium, November 1918”) she was interested in. She’s afraid people will believe her to be immortal, because she doesn’t understand modern expressions, such as “I look like my grandmother.”
The Wonder years
[N.B. Note Chris Pine (on WW’s right) as Wonder Woman’s boyfriend Steve Trevor.]
1:40:28 WTF!? Seriously, standing in a pond in the control room of the Kryptonian spaceship, Lex hears the ship say,
Alexander Luthor, your security override had been accepted.
The voice does not explain how or why it took only a matter of seconds to be approved. Apparently all a wrong-doer need do to gain control of the craft is say “please”.
[N.B. The “ship” is voiced by Carla Gugino, who also played Sally Jupiter / Silk Spectre in Zack Snyder’s Watchmen.]
Can afford many things, but not to be seen dressed like that
1:41:18 Then, when Lex wants to combine his DNA with that of General Zod, whose corpse he’s floated in the space soup, the ship insists:
Onboard Computer: Action forbidden. It has been decreed by the Council of Krypton that none well ever again give life to a deformity so hateful to sight and memory. The desecration without name.
Lex Luthor: And where is the Council of Krypton?
Computer: Destroyed, sir.
Lex: Then proceed.
Computer: Very well.
WTF!? That’s all it took? The security measures on the ship are nothing — virtually.
1:42:21 I still find it impossibly hard to believe the population of the entire nation blames Superman for the destruction of the Capitol simply because he happened to be present when it exploded.
Superman gets fired
1:44:34 Lois goes to Keefe’s flat and sees he bought groceries, meaning he wasn’t insane and did not blow up the Capitol building on purpose. Luthor framed him by planting bomb evidence after the explosion. Nice frame, but not a pretty picture.
1:44:48 Lois’s assistant (Jena Malone as Jenet Klyburn) tells Lois the wheelchair Lex gave Wallace Keefe was the explosive device, and that it was covered in lead. Lead, you’ll remember, is the only material Superman cannot see through — well, that and the lies people tell him.
1:47:08
Wayne Manor a mouse?
1:49:26 Superman’s mum, Mrs. Superman (Diane Lane), is kidnapped by men in black vans because white vans are for children only.
1:49:29 Batman readies his kryptonite spear and turns on the Bat-signal because Superman once said if he ever saw the Bat-signal again, he would break the Bat.
Not very bright
1:51:12 In a shopping centre car park, Lois walks up to Anatoli and says, “Let me make your job easier. Kidnap me, please.” #MayAsWellHave
[N.B. The van that sweeps Lois away is labelled ‘Terrio Janitorial’, which is a nod to Chris Terrio, the writer who came in at the end to clean up the script.]
1:53:32 Batman calls Superman, but Superman doesn’t come. Lex finds a better way: Throw Lois off the top of a skyscraper.
1:54:41
1:56:32 Lex shows pictures of Martha Kent to Superman and tells him the only way he’ll get his mother back is if he kills Batman. Which is what Superman said he would do already, so that’s him sorted.
Superman is hot-headed
1:58:28 While all of this is going on, the arena containing the Kryptonian spaceship is lighting up with power surges. It’s electrifying.
2:00:48 Bruce emailed Diana her photo, along with the other Meta Human files. There is the Flash
He comes so quickly
2:01:16 Aquaman…
Aquaman is all washed up
2:02:14…and Cyborg
We’ll make a man of you yet
2:02:25 or 28
The raining champion
2:03:09
Turn around, bright eyes 👀
2:03:24 Let the fight begin.
2:03:45 Superman tries to explain that Lex Luthor had set them both up for the fight and that they’re being used. Batman, unfortunately, can’t hear this above all the WTF?!
Yet they don’t see eye to eye
2:05:27 Batman brings Superman to his knees with Krypton gas. Or essence of the lad’s toilets in Wembly after a George Michael’s show.
Smoking section
2:06:01 Now that Superman doesn’t have his super powers, we see what would happen if a human Superman and Batman were to fight. Batman would win in a knockout.
2:07:04 Well that sure didn’t last long. Superman gets his powers back and Batman doesn’t like the looks of things…from where he’s lying on the ground.
2:07:23
Hard hitting action
2:08:36 After shooting Superman with more kryptonite gas, Batman hits Superman with everything, including the bathroom sink.
2:09:11
He’s got your back
2:09:34
A puddle of Superman
2:10:21
2:11:22
You’re letting them kill Martha.
Superman, just as Batman is about to kill him with a kryptonite lance
Supes should’ve led with that. That Batman will stop wanting to kill his nemesis because their mothers share the same name is on the wrong side of ludicrous. Especially when you realise Superman had never once referred to his mum by her first name until now. WTF!?
2:12:12 Batman flashes back…
A little heavy on the rouge
2:13:54 Batman and Superman are now best friends. They should have matching t-shirts that read “B.S.” Batman promises to save Martha Kent while Superman says he’ll resolve the issues at the spaceship containment centre. Lois, who has since arrived, promises not to do much of anything other than move the story along which, as awkward as it is, might be the most difficult task.
2:16:03 Alfred waits until the last moment to tell Batman he’s been tracking the Anatoli Knyazev’s mobile because that criminal mastermind and Lex Luthor aren’t smart enough to use burner phones.
Wants to try life in the fast Lane
2:19:31 Batman saves Martha Kent and kills the Anatoli.
Batman: It’s okay. I’m a friend of your son’s.
Martha Kent: I figured. The cape.
2:21:04
E-scape
2:22:01 Doomsday, the monster Lex made with Zod’s and his own DNA, is born. Lexis now a literal and figurative mother.
Born to be wild
2:22:27
Superman holds his punches
2:23:04
“You look shorter in real life.”
2:26:52 While Superman fights the monster in outer space, the U.S. President opts to nuke both of them, like most critics and this film.
The U.S. Army has incredible aim!
2:27:05
Ooh, that one looks like a mushroom!
2:28:12
Doomsday goes ballistic
2:28:33
Over more than just the hill
2:29:08
Just because it looks so bloody cool
2:29:34 Batman realises he must lure the monster back to Gotham, where he’ll be able to kill the beast with the kryptonite spear he didn’t use on Superman. Hopefully the monster will get the point.
2:30:12 Superman rejuvenates because he faces our yellow sun. All he had to do was look on the bright side.
2:30:44
Oh, shit.
Batman just before the monster blasts him
Wonder Woman makes her entrance to deflect the Kryptonian monster’s red energy beam with her magic bracelets. It’s all in the wrist.
2:30:56
Wonder Woman is so handy
2:32:22
“Is she with you?” “??? I thought she was with you!”
2:33:54 It may have taken is a long time to reach this fight scene, but by god it was worth it.
2:35:01 Superman stops fighting because he hears Lois drowning while fetching the kryptonite spear. Either that or he wanted to see her in wet clothes.
2:36:34
“Come and get it, big boy!”
2:38:36 In a team effort, Wonder Woman holds Doomsday in place with the Golden Lasso while Batman shoots him with his kryptonite gas and Superman stabs him with the kryptonite spear. Doomsday, in turn, stabs Superman, who pulls himself further along the monster’s spike-fist so that he might plunge the spear deeper into the monster. It takes a whole village to kill a Superman.
2:41:41 WTF!? The military arrive to arrest Lex and in doing so they disintegrate his World of Warcraft character?
Avatard = Stupid Avatar
[N.B. This character is Yuga Khan (Darkseid’s father) juggling mother boxes. I should point out that many writers believe this to be Steppenwolf, but I can’t help it if I’m right.]
2:42:45 I enjoy how everyone thinks Clark dying at the same time as Superman is a coincidence. What makes them think he died? It’s not as though they found his body.
2:45:18 Oh, I understand. After Superman died, everyone changed his clothes into Clark Kent clothes and sent his body to the Kent farm. So now it’s Superman’s body that’s missing.
2:45:42 At Superman’s funeral, the United States seems to have forgotten they hate Superman.
A nice turnout for the free bagpipes concert
2:47:08 At Clark Kent’s funeral…
The dead shall live. My slain shall rise again. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust. For thy dew is like the dew of the morning, and the earth shall give birth to her dead.
2:48:22 Bruce Wayne and Diana crash the funeral, so that Bruce can tell Diana to find the other superheroes so that they can fight.
2:53:12 Batman pays a visit to Luthor to tell him he’ll be sent to Arkham asylum in Gotham. Then Batman decides to punish Lex by punching a wall with his Bat brand. Not Lex. A wall. I’m not convinced Lex interprets this as punishment.
2:54:44
Prepare yourself for zombie Superman
Roll credits
3:01:30 Frank Miller is at the top of the list in Special Thanks. This makes sense, as a plethora of scene/lines are lifted directly from his Black Knight series.
Tally Ho’
WTF!?’s: 18 challenging ones
When to Follow: Attack the ultimate edition when you’re in for the evening, yet not so late that you risk falling asleep.
Where’s This Found: While I’m no where near a fan-boy, I do have a slight preference for the darkness of DC compared to the PG-13 of Marvel. Dawn of Justice is a monumental effort and, as I’m a big fan of over-the-top style, I count myself on the side of those who loved this one. The sheer spectacle of this beast was enough to win this reviewer over. That said, the flaw in Batman v Superman is not in the directing but in the over-long story that loses its focus. This film is better directed than Captain America: Civil War but the story of Civil War is better. Out of a possible 10, I have 8 F’s to give.
[N.B. I used the very informative Screen Rant and Den of Geek articles as research tools for this review]
Left Over WTF (Way Too Funny) Photos
More Easter eggs
0:23:48 The name on the letter box besides Lane’s when she returns from the desert is a tribute to BvS’s stunt co-ordinator: Tim Rigby.
Mail horomones
34:32 As Keefe prepares to deface Superman’s statue, we are shown a flashback of his preparations. In his flat, there is a drawing on a bulletin board which is an updated drawing for the cover of Action Comics #1.
Car-bon copy
0:49:34 Senator Leahy [1:26:05] isn’t the only Senator to have a cameo in BvS. Senator Debbie Stabenow (from Michigan, where parts of BvS wer filmed), makes an appearance at Lex Luthor’s reception.
According to Ms. Stabenow, her reaction to Luthor’s speech “is probably the same baffled one she might have at a Donald Trump speech.”
0:54:36 In addition to the Watchmen references, Snyder sneaks in a nod to another of his films, 300.
“Tonight we travel to outer space…in HELL!”
1:08:11 This is one I found on my own! Snyder is a fan of religious symbolism and comparisons are drawn between Superman and God throughout BvS. Batman isn’t left out altogether in this, however. During the Knightmare, Batman is knocked unconscious and awakes in an underground bunker, hanging by his hands. Hanging beside him are two other men, one on each side, just like Christ hanging on the cross.
Christ complexed
1:15:48 Kicking off his pursuit of the lorry transporting the kryptonite, the batmobile hurtles out of a storage building bearing the sign ‘Nicholson Terminal & Dock Company’. The name no doubt is a wink to Jack Nicholson who portrayed the Joker in Tim Burton’s Batman (1989).
You don’t know Jack
2:09:08 Just as Batman has defeated Superman and is carrying him through the halls of the abandoned manor, he passes graffiti on a column which reads, “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” This phrase is Latin and can be translated to mean “Who watches the watchmen?” This is another direct reference to the Watchmen film and also themes in this film (who does Superman answer to?), as well as being at the heart of Captain America: Civil War.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
2:09:36 Keeping with the graffiti, there is a subtle reference to the Joker, just after Batman drops Superman from the uppermost floor of the mansion.
Batman looks down on Superman
2:43:41 At Clark Kent’s wake, Zack Snyder’s wife is seen carrying away pans of casserole. Less clear, to her right, wearing glasses, is Supe’s friend Peter Ross from Man of Steel.
Looks like she’s producing something else right now
2:46:46 The silver and black ‘S’ on Superman’s empty coffin speaks to the back-from-the-dead Superman in the The Death and Return of Superman multi-issue story.
Think of it as a twin bed with a ceiling
2:53:02 Finally, Lex Luthor’s prison uniform shows his number as being 16-TK421, while the Stormtrooper Luke Skywalker impersonated in Star Wars was TK421. Yet, despite this number, when Batman comes to pay a visit, the guard refers to Lex as “Prisoner A-C-23-19-40”. This is code for “Action Comics #23, 1940“, which is the issue that introduced a new villain to Superman’s universe: Alexei Luthor.
“Tissue!!!!!!”
Left over GIFs
Wonderful WomanLook on the Darkseid
Left over photos
Using his X-Ray vision to see if his lawyer is appealing“Did I put on my invisible blouse again?”“Have we hung out together before?”I’ve always wanted a skylight“You forgot your umbrella, too?”I’ve seen cheap condoms that offer more protection than her suit
Prints suitable for reposting!
WTF!? did they say?
WTF!? do you meme?
What to Follow Up
WTF Review
WTF!? Review of DeadpoolWTF!? review of Mad Max: Fury RoadWTF!? review of Guardians of the GalaxyWTF!? of another Epic Superhero film
Bar None Review
Oh, Al! Bar None review of The Dark Knight Rises
Fernby Films Review
Fernby Films review of Batman v Superman
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I shall be attacking Captain America: Civil War, penetrating its lines and arbitrating its conflict to declare if it’s revolutionary or a lost cause. So read on only if you’ve already seen Captain America: Civil War, or don’t plan to.
Doesn’t know if it’s crabs, or if he sat on Ant-Man again
0:00:42
A hard Winter
0:01:32 In 1991, Colonel Vasily Karpov and his Hydra goons wake up James Buchanan ‘Bucky’ Barnes (Sebastian Stan as the Winter Soldier) from under a blanket of snow by reading random words to him from a code book.
0:02:18 His mission is to run a car off the road and steal five bags of liquid kept in a case in the boot. His future might be in the bag.
Scarlet Witch gets killer heart burn and her farts light themselves
0:04:08 Samuel ‘Sam’ Wilson / Falcon (Anthony Mackie) sends Red Wing (a remote controlled drone) flying after a suspicious garbage truck. Something about it smells fishy.
On the back burner
0:04:58 The truck is a battering ram allowing armed men to destroy security at the Institute for Infectious Diseases, not to be confused with a prostitute’s Center for Infectious Diseases.
0:05:58 Captain America, Scarlet Witch and Falcon arrive at the scene, and the henchmen start falling like drunken tightrope walkers.
0:06:36 Brock Rumlow / Crossbones (Frank Grillo from The Purge: Anarchy & Election Year) steals a test tube of blood (resembling the one containing super blood which allows regeneration after injuries, and that we saw injected into Deadpool). Brock now has blood on his hands.
How vial
0:07:13
Bad guys have the best costumes
0:07:26 Black Widow finally decides she’s been shopping long enough and shows up to help her friends.
0:07:58
I don’t work like that no more.
Crossbones when Black Widow shocks him in the neck with a taser disk
Compared to Crossbones, Natasha is more thin skinned than Donald Trump after exfoliation
0:09:14 One of the four remaining henchmen is carrying the blood vial, and they’ve split up in the town centre to make it difficult for the Avengers to track it. Fortunately, instead of increasing their odds by running in four separate ways, they decide to stay in groups of two, because they’re a couple…of WTFs!?
0:10:20
Getting a leg up on the competition
0:10:53 Black Widow secures the vial with the help of Red Wing, whom she refuses to thank because being a drone is a thankless job.
0:11:18
This is for dropping a building on my face.
Crossbones to Captain America during their brawl
[N.B. See 7:58]
0:11:38 Crossbones takes him helmet off. Everyone asks him to put it back on.
Ear today, gone tomorrow 👂
0:12:22 Crossbones sets off an explosive device attached to his person. Scarlet Witch contains the fireball with her powers, but only until she moves it near a crowded office building. Many employees are fired.
MRW I accidentally see my dad’s browser history
0:14:05 In an idealised memory, a young Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is home from uni for the holidays, being nice to his parents. In reality, it’s a memory he’s broadcasting onstage at MIT, calling it a Binarily Augmented Retro Framing, or B.A.R.F. We learn that after this moment in real life, his genitors died on the way to the airport, so their trip became one-way.
0:16:01 At the end of the speech, he’s meant to introduce Pepper Potts, but she’s too busy leaving him to attend.
0:18:18 Standing at a lift back-stage, a middle-aged woman (Alfre Woodard as Miriam) hands Tony a photograph of her son who was killed in Sokovia, and blames Tony for the lad’s death. WTF!? If people die during a tornado, do you blame the doctors?
Iron Man lost his head
0:23:18 Thaddeus Ross, the U.S. Secretary of State (William Hurt with a nice hair piece), arrives at Avengers’ headquarters, shows the team a slideshow of all their disasters and then drops on them an agreement the size of a telephone book approved by 117 countries saying their actions should fall under United Nations purview. What I find most WTF!? is the Avengers, with all of their tech, knew nothing about the preparation of a treaty fatter than War & Peace and signed by more countries than their collective IQ.
Throw the book at them!
0:25:38 WTF!? A complete stranger knocks on the door of the Russian colonel (Gene Farber as Colonel Vasily Karpov) who’s in charge of guarding Bucky’s red code book and says “I’ve had an accident.” The special forces Colonel simply opens his door wide and lets the total stranger waltz in. The stranger (Daniel Brühl as Sokovian agent Colonel Helmut Zemo) proceeds to kick Karpov’s arse and steal all the Winter Soldier information. If you ever wonder why the Soviet Union disintegrated, remember this moment.
Safe deposit box designed by Hydra
0:30:08 The debate where the Avengers choose sides for or against oversight by an international committee is the biggest WTF of the film for me. I realise I’m quite alone in this, and it may have something to do with the fact I’m not an MCU fanboy, but I find it incredibly backwards that Tony Stark, the devil-may-care, rules-were-made-to-be-broken playboy is pushing to become a branch of the government, while squeaky clean, God bless America Steve Rogers is arguing the Avengers should fight any and all types of authority and set themselves up as the world’s overseers. The Marvel universe seems to be full of black holes.
“Your attention span isn’t the only thing that’s short, Tony.”
0:32:37 Steve’s very old flame, Margaret ‘Peggy’ Carter, is deader than her series, so Steve Rogers goes to London to seduce her niece. #Classy
“Are you ready for a newer model?”
0:33:25
Holy crap
0:35:54 At the ceremony marking the ratification of the Sokovia Accords in Vienna, Natasha Romanoff meets up with King T’Chaka (John Kani) and his son (Chadwick Bosemanas T’Challa). Despite none of them being American, they all speak better English than you or me.
0:37:09 An explosion at the conference kills King T’Chaka, meaning the accord is now a piece treaty.
Great Balls of Fire
0:44:41 Captain America goes to Bucharest to arrest the Winter Soldier before the local law enforcement can, because the press believes the Winter Soldier is responsible for the bombing. Man, but that Winter Soldier is cold.
Captain America and Gun Control
0:45:08
Captain America: You pulled me from the river! Why?
Captain America tries to get the Winter Soldier to remember their past so that he’ll surrender to the Romanian SWAT team. With logic like that, it’s not surprising Bucky decides to fight instead.
[N.B. At the end of the Battle at the Triskelion (see 7:58) in Captain America America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America is thrown from the hellicarrier and into the Potomac River. Frank ‘Winter Soldier’ Barnes pulls him out, saving his life.]
0:45:58
That’s handy
0:46:54 Captain America helps Bucky (who claims he did not blow up the signing ceremony) defeat the Romanians. How American of him!
0:47:27
And you though Aquaman was the biggest pussy
0:49:02 WTF!? While Bucky escapes on foot, Black Panther and Captain America take up the chase. If Captain America, Black Panther and the Winter Soldier can all run faster than motorcars, what good is the Flash?
0:51:36 Black Panther removes his mask to reveal he’s T’Challa. Evidently, T’Challa doesn’t grasp the concept of secret identities.
“Why, yes, I do have a nice tail.”
0:53:13 Vision (Paul Bettany) flirts with Wanda while keeping her under house arrest. Unfortunately, ‘flirting’ to him means boring her with background on the Infinity Stones.
Vision [talking about the light on his forehead]: Do you know, I don’t know what this is? Not really. I know it’s not of this world, that it powered Loki’s staff, gave you your abilities but…its true nature is a mystery.
Boy, is his face red!
0:55:10
Captain America [to the Black Panther in the back of a police vehicle]: Your suit, it’s Vibranium?
Vibranium is the metal used in Captain America’s shield, so they have the same tailor.
0:56:28
Deputy Task Force Commander Everett K. Ross (Martin Freeman) [to Captain America, Black Panther and Eagle scout]: You’ll be given an office instead of a cell.
What’s the difference?
Waiting for Natasha to go to bed so he can log into Porn Hub
0:58:10 In the office-cell.
Steve Rogers: Is Pepper here? I didn’t see her…
Tony Stark: We’re…kinda… Well, not kind of–
Steve: Pregnant?
Tony: No, definitely not. We’re taking a break. It’s nobody’s fault.
Steve: So sorry, Tony. I didn’t know.
Tony: A few years ago I almost lost her, so I trashed all my suits [see Iron Man Three]. Then we had to mop up Hydra… And then Ultron: my fault. [seeAvengers: Age of Ultron] And then and then and then I never stopped, because the truth is I don’t want to stop.
1:00:48 Just as Steve is about to sign the accords, Tony tells him Wanda is under house arrest in his penthouse. Steve thinks twice about signing, and both times it’s “No”.
“Yes, it’s the Collected Works of Dr. Seuss.”
1:02:44 Steve realises that the Winter Soldier was framed for the explosion so that his photo could be placed in the hands of the media, which meant the whole world would be looking for him. This makes it impossible for Bucky to remain in hiding, as he had been for years, ever since The Winter Soldier film came out.
The Winter Soldier is heavily armed
1:03:36 An electronic pulse bomb goes off and shuts down all the power in Berlin faster than an immigrant who hasn’t paid their electric bill.
1:04:18 The man interrogating Bucky is Helmut Zemo, the same gent who nicked the red book at 25:38. He reads the code words we heard at the beginning of the film, and turns Bucky into the Winter Soldier. Proof that words can change a man.
Psychologist: You’re like an Avengers Movie. You have Multiple Personalities.
1:06:55 Tony, Natasha, Sharon Carter, and Black Panther all fight the freshly brainwashed Winter Soldier to keep him from escaping, yet the W.S. defeats them all. The Avengers used to be in good shapes…
1:09:02 & 07
Steve is catching a flight 🚁
1:09:58 After kicking the helo over the edge of the pad and into a river, Steve is able to arrest an unconscious Bucky, who is out of his depth.
[N.B. This is also a way for Captain America to repay his debt to the friend who once saved his life by pulling him from a river. See 45:08]
“Quick, hold my hand, Bucky.”
1:12:01 Bucky tells Steve and Sam that the reason the euro-villain wanted a word with him [see 1:04:18] was to find out the location of the secret base in Siberia where other Winter Soldiers are on ice.
1:12:48 In a flashback to 1991, we see the Winter Soldier running the car off the road [see 02:18], only now we learn the blood that was stolen was put inside a large number of soldiers. If the plasma inside then was stolen, does that mean they’re hot blooded?
Arm-y
1:16:22
My friends and me
1:17:09 Tony Stark goes to recruit Spider-Man and his Aunt May is Marisa Tomei, who knocked me out in The Wrestler.
1:19:02
Tony Stark: You’re Spider-Boy?
Peter Parker: S-s-s-Spider-Man.
Tony: Not in that onesie, you’re not.
1:20:52
Peter Parker: Look, when you can do the things that I can, but you don’t, and then the bad things happen…they happen because of you.
Captain America didn’t fool anyone at the Halloween party
Clint Barton: Really. I retire for like, what, five minutes, and it all goes to shit.
Scarlet Witch will stand for a spell
1:24:12 To escape, Scarlet Witch must hurt Vision and knock him through all of the floors of the Stark building. She’s bringing him down in all sorts of ways.
She makes his blood boil
1:25:24 Captain America and Sharon Carter make out under a bridge. #sharonakiss
Captain America has found virgin territory to invade
1:26:57 Bucky, Steve and Sam meet Clint and Wanda in an airport parking garage. Clint and Wanda have brought a special, surprise guest: Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) as Ant-Man.
1:27:36
Sam Name: What’s up, Tic Tac?
Name Lang: Uh, good to see you. Look, what happened last time–
Sam: –was a great audition, but it’ll never happen again.
1:29:14 Iron Man, War Machine, Black Widow and Spider-Man confront Captain America at the airport and tell him they’ve promised Secretary of State Ross that they’d bring the Captain and the Winter Soldier in. Captain America says it’s the psychiatrist’s fault and there are five more Winter Soldiers (billed as Super Soldiers in the credits) they need to capture. The masks are on but the gloves are coming off.
Stick the landing
1:30:16 The fight begins…
Team Iron Man:
Iron Man
War Machine
Spider-Man
Black Widow
Black Panther
Vision
Team Captain America:
Captain America
Winter Soldier
Ant-Man
Scarlet Witch
Hawkeye
Falcon
1:38:51 My favourite part of the fight is easily when Ant-Man turns into a giant.
Ant-Man: I’ve got something kind of big…but I can’t hold it very long.
And you don’t like being beaten over the head with my innuendos.
They grow up so quickly
1:39:01
Rhodey has big problems
1:39:27
One way to catch a plane
1:41:10
I wish you were into me like Vision’s into Ant-Man
1:41:34
Black Widow [with a chance to stop the Winter Soldier and Captain America from escaping]: You’re not going to stop.
Captain America: You know I can’t.
So she lets them go!? WTF!?
How is it Black Widow and Spider-Man never got together?
1:41:54
Spider-Man: Hey, guys, did you ever see that really old movie The Empire Strikes Back?
Rhodey: Jesus, Tony, how old is this guy?
Iron Man: I don’t know. I didn’t carbon date him. He’s on the young side!
Spider-Man: You know that part, when they’re on the snow planet, with the walking thingies?
Iron Man: Maybe the kid’s onto something.
Like Luke did with the AT-AT Walkers on Hoth, Spider-Man wraps his web around Ant-Man’s ankles while Iron Man and Rhodey push the giant over. That’s one way to bring down a giant.
“War…hunh…what are you good for?”
1:43:31
Black Widow [to Black Panther]: I said I’d help you find him [the Winter Soldier], not catch him. There’s a difference.
Wow, really? Natasha’s not a witch, but she rhymes with that.
1:44:38
War Machine is a little rusty
1:48:52 Tony discovers Helmut Zemo replaced the real psychiatrist who was meant to interview Bucky at the prison [see 1:04:18]. In the dead psychiatrist’s room, there were some makeup up and facial prosthesis used to resemble James Buchanan ‘Bucky’ Barnes, which Zemo wore when he planted the bomb in Vienna, to make the world think the Winter Soldier was the guilty party. WTF!? I don’t understand how one can look at a pile of makeup and decide who it resembles.
1:52:56 WTF!? To better hunt Zemo, Tony pays a visit to Secretary of State Ross who has no place better to hang out than a ‘super-max floating pokey’ ocean prison where the captured members of Team Captain are incarcerated. How many police officers do you know that work out of the prison where their captures are kept?
Works in the prison so he can use a ‘cell’ phone
1:53:48
Tony Stark: What do you need? They feed you yet?
Sam Wilson: You’re the good cop now?
Tony: I’m just the guy who needs to know where Steve went.
Sam: Then you better go and get a bad cop, because you’re gonna have to go Mark Fuhrman on my ass.
1:54:34 Tony apologizes for being in the wrong side and promises to go and retrieve Captain America, so Sam gives up the location. I, personally, don’t see the link between Zemo killing a psychiatrist and the Scarlet Witch blowing up a building of civilians, which created the whole Avenger Accords in the first place.
1:55:34 Black Panther and his plane are hiding in a cloud, secretly following Iron Man, who’s flying solo after Steve. Iron Man might want to invest in some sort of radar that can detect a fighter aircraft flying up his arse.
Iron Man joins Captain America and the Winter Soldier in Siberia to fight Zemo and the other Soldiers. As Bucky doesn’t trust Iron Man, he keeps his weapon trained on Stark, which explains Stark’s reference to a political candidate who is brainwashed into becoming an assassin.
Winter is coming…
2:01:44 Zemo (who eliminated the other Super Soldiers off camera) plays a VHS video of the Winter Soldier murdering Tony’s parents [see 2:18]. Tony watches and it’s clear he doesn’t enjoy home movies.
2:02:17 Lol, back when the video was being filmed, the Winter Soldier takes out the camera filming the scene…after it’s recorded him killing everyone. WTF!?
One hot Winter
2:05:41 As Zemo escapes, Tony commences to fight Captain America and the Winter Soldier, yet again.
Captain America: This isn’t going to change what happened.
Iron Man: I don’t care. He killed my mom.
Are we sure this isn’t meant to be a joke?
2:06:06
Between a rock and a hard place
2:06:34 In an effort to induce arms reduction, Iron Man shoots off the Winter Soldier’s metal appendage.
2:06:44
Something’s coming between them
2:07:48 Away from the action, Zemo confesses to Black Panther that he killed Black Panther’s father, blew up Vienna, kidnapped Bucky, and made everyone believe he wanted to awaken the other Super Soldiers just to make Iron Man fight Bucky and Captain America…which already happened half an hour before! He did all of this to watch a rerun, for God’s sake! AND THEN HE LEFT WHEN IT WAS ON! WTF!?
2:08:27 Zemo wants the Avengers to kill each other so he can exact his revenge over their killing his father, wife and son in The Age of Ultron, when ‘they’ destroyed Sokovia…only it wasn’t them, it was Ultron. Would you blow up a police station because criminals killed your family? WTF!?
Bucky wants to give Iron Man a hand
2:09:01 Black Panther prevents Zemo from killing himself so that he (Zemo) can be punished by the courts. He’s got more faith in the justice system than anyone I know.
2:10:42 Captain America rams his shield into Tony’s heart light, which keeps bullet fragments away from his heart, which means he’s killing Tony to protect Bucky. And you still don’t believe there’s something far deeper than a simple friendship going on between Steve and Bucky. #GiveCaptainAmericaABoyfriend
A heart attack
2:11:44 Captain gives up his shield because Tony says it doesn’t belong to him. Between his armour and his friends, Captain America chooses to be vulnerable.
Iron Man has buns of steel
2:12:15 In Zemo’s prison cell…
Everett K. Ross (Martin Freeman): So, how does it feel to spend all that time, all that effort to see it fail so spectacularly?
Zemo: Did it?
Zemo says this because the Avengers are more split up than Johnny Depp and Amber Heard.
2:13:14 Tony helps Rhodey with physical therapy. Rhodey won’t stand for that.
#GiveRhodeyABoyfriend
2:14:21 Cameo by Stan Lee in a delivery boy send up.
2:16:18 The delivery is a letter from Captain America, who says he’s breaking the ex-Avengers out of Raft Prison. He included a cheap mobile phone so Iron Man can call him if he needs the exes, and an apology as cheap as the phone.
Roll credits
2:19:34 Post credit scene: The Black Panther agrees to put Bucky into suspended animation and hide him until they can find a way to scrub his brainwashing.
Black Panther is stoned
Tally Ho’
WTF!?’s: 11 rebellious ones
When to Follow: A Saturday night with friends when you’re looking for something more exciting than Pictionary.
Where’s This Found: A solid addition to the Avengers series and a nice evolution from Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Civil War has high entertainment value. The actors know their roles, the story is easy to follow and the action is regular and well-shot. I like this one as much as I liked BvS: Dawn of Justice, though for different reasons. Civil War is a fun, popcorn and cola, comic book movie. BvS aims a little higher, trying to reach the heights of The Dark Knight — it does not want to be a classic comic book film, it wants to be a classic film, full-stop. It falls short, to be sure, but watching it try is worth the watch. This is why I have for both films, out of a possible 10, 8 F’s to give.
Get a grip, Captain!Scarlet Witch’s wing manSuddenly, Sharon realises Steve meant to forget her LEGAL briefsWouldn’t mind Sharon a little bit herself10/10 Will make you forget her dead auntNot impressed by the massage chairMount Rush More“Vision can see through clothes?”Caught red-handedDoes his suit really have muscles? Are we really doing this?
Prints suitable for reposting!
WTF!? do you meme?
What to Follow Up
WTF Review
WTF review of Batman v Superman: Dawn of JusticeWTF review of Deadpool
Bar None Review
Oh, Al! Bar None review of Captain America: Winter Soldier
Fernby Films Review
Fernby Films review of Captain America: Civil War
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I shall be trying The Non Demonon for size, looking at its patterns and judging its look to decide if it’s a runway hit or fashion weak. So read on only if you’ve already seen The Non Demon, or don’t plan to.
0:03:22 Note the contrast between the blue dress and the red blood. This is important because symbolism.
Fashion victim
[N.B.Natasha Braier, the Director of Photography on TheNeon Demon, says in an interview with The Guardian that the blue is symbolic of the myth of Narcissus (a Greek hunter who falls in love with his own reflection and stares at it until he dies) and that red is symbolic of danger. It’s also used to represent Ruby — every scene with her includes the colour (down to her name!)]
0:05:51 After the shoot, in the dressing room, the model Jesse (Elle Fanning) meets makeup artist Ruby (Jena Malone playing a shade of red). Jesse admits she’s newer to L.A. than the latest designer drug.
It’s a tie!
[N.B. Linked to the myth of Narcissus, the observant viewer will remark the abundance of mirrors in this film. The characters, like Narcissus, are obsessed to death with their own images/reflections. In this scene, for example, both Ruby and Jesse stare at their own reflections.]
The colour red and a murder reference. There’s enough symbolism here to choke a model.
Model Citizen
[N.B. Note the triangle necklace on Gigi’s bosoms. The triangle is a big theme in The Neon Demon as it represents the female pubic area (and the desires lying within) and femininity in general. You’ll also see the mirror motif is repeated here.]
0:20:07 Jesse goes to a modelling agency and the boss (Christina Hendricksas Roberta Hoffmann), tells Jesse she’s going to be even bigger than Kim K’s asset.
0:20:32 WTF!? Back at her flea bag hotel, when Jesse forges her parents’ signature on the permission form, she signs it right to left, not left to right! Is the reason we haven’t met her folks that they’re in Isis?
0:22:53
Jesse is mooning you
[N.B. The pose Jesse strikes is reminiscent of witchcraft and Wiccans, who worship the moon. There are other references to this belief in the film, including the triangle symbol.]
0:26:24 Jesse goes out for a drive with the young photographer (Karl Glusmanas Dean) who took the shots at the beginning of the film. Here he takes a different sort of shot — even after learning she’s only just turned 16 — but has to settle for a handshake. Frustrated, her hand isn’t the only thing he’ll be shaking tonight.
0:30:26 After the date, Jesse returns to her cheap hotel to find her room is infested by a mountain lion. This is only the first pussy in this film.#keanureeves #catty
0:32:34
Ruby likes painting nudes
0:34:52 Jesse goes to be photographed by Jack (Desmond Harrington, whom I remember well as Joseph ‘Joey’ Quinn in Dexter). He insists everyone leave because it’s a “closed set”. The set may be closed but his mind seems open.
Ruby is losing focus
[N.B. The necklace Jack is wearing is decidedly more phallic than the one Gigi sported at 8:41.]
0:39:18 Jack instructs her to undress, turns out all of the lights and finger paints her body with more gold than Saddam Hussein’s trophy room.
Jesse is golden
0:42:52 Ruby meets Gigi and Sarah at a local diner. When she explains Jack photographed Jesse, the other models are surprised. Sarah is jealous, yet Gigi is in denial.
Gigi: Jack shoots me all the time.
Sarah: That’s not gonna last.
Gigi: What’s that supposed to mean?
Sarah: It means your expiration date is almost due. Who wants sour milk when you can get fresh meat?
Who wants sour milk even when you can’t get fresh meat?
“Yes, you’re that ugly!”
[N.B. As to what the women represent, director Nicolas Winding Refn says in a Slant magazine interview, “You have Abbey Lee, who’s external beauty, Bella Heathcoate is a woman who tries to recreate beauty artificially, and then you have Jena Malone—who’s all about inner beauty, virginity, and innocence.”]
0:45:21
Abbey Lee always looks younger when she’s naked
0:47:12 At a casting call for a fashion show, the designer (Alessandro Nivolaas Roberto Sarno) ignores Sarah and falls in love with Jesse the moment he espies her. Sarah sheds a tear but Jesse fits his pattern.
0:50:24 In the lav afterwards, Sarah has broken the mirror and destroyed her photo book. Jesse tries to help her, and cuts her hand on a shard of glass. Sarah sucks as much blood from the wound as she can, until Jesse stops her. Sarah is hungry…for success.
[N.B. If you like the cannibalism here, you’re in for a treat later on! And here we have more mirrors!]
0:50:38
Lip shtick
0:51:42 Ruby goes to her other job, making up bodies at a funeral parlour. It’s the same as her first job, except here the corpses are horizontal.
0:53:41
Bed of roses
0:53:44 Refn decides to play that Facebook click bait game with symbols.
How many triangles do you see? Most people don’t care!
0:56:06 Dean pays the hotel manager (Keanu Reeves as Hank, and, don’t fret, I understand you readers hate it when I point out what a shite actor he is, so I’ll keep mum and go on pretending with the rest of you) for the damage caused to the hotel room by the mountain lion.
Hank: I just wanna make sure you’re getting something out of this deal. ‘Cause if you’re not, got plenty of other girls here. Take a peek in room 214 if you get a chance. Rented it this week to a girl from Sandusky, Ohio. Runaway. Thirteen years old. Real Lolita shit. Real Lolita shit.
Said the proctologist.
0:58:36 Note the red and blue makeup sketch, because this film is dyeing to be symbolic.
Coloured people
0:59:36 At Sarno’s fashion show, Gigi treats Jesse like a peasant and explains how she’s been re-modelled. But then Sarno chooses Jesse to close the show. Gigi’s indifference, like her surgery, is purely cosmetic.
1:03:03 During the show, the light on Jesse’s face changes from blue to red to signify her loss of innocence and her entrance into the ‘biz’. This entire scene with its cheesy music and cheesy lighting and cheesy experimental camera angles is so ugly 80s that my laughter sounds like a groan.
Jesse is red hot
1:03:57 Even the triangles change from blue to red, just to let you know how seriously this film takes itself.
1:09:08 At a restaurant with Sarno and Gigi… After a debate on how inner beauty pales in comparison to physical beauty in the real world, the new, hardened Jesse mistreats Dean. She’s grown up and a set of balls
Fashion is a Designer drug
1:14:12 Because I loathe dream sequences and this film has it out for me, Jesse has a dream in which the manager sneaks into her room and slides a knife into her mouth while she sleeps. #sharptongued
[N.B. Director Nicolas Winding Refn has this to say about the scene, “…that’s where the movie touches upon Jesse’s fear of penetration, and that’s what she imagines. That’s her nightmare about the predatorial aspect of the film, because beauty is not about just what you look like, it’s also what other people want from the inside — youth, perfection, purity, and virginity.”]
Just the tip
1:16:16 Then, back to reality, the manager (we assume) decides to ‘buttonhole’ the child in the next room instead. Jesse decides to listen rather than call the police. Perhaps there was nothing on the telly.
1:17:14 Jesse phones Ruby…
Jesse: I didn’t know who to call.
Uhh, the police maybe?
It’s curtains for Jesse
1:17:38 Ruby tells Jesse to leave the hotel and stay with her in a creepy mansion.
Ruby: Come here. You’re gonna be safe.
Famous last words.
1:18:36 The way Ruby is dolling herself up and kissing the air while Jesse is in the shower, makes it clear the role Ruby’s playing in this melodrama is that of ‘obsessed fan’.
1:22:08 Jesse thwarts Ruby’s ardent advances and Ruby doesn’t just take it badly, she takes it stalker badly.
Rejection slip
1:26:02 After seeing a dead face drawn with lipstick on a mirror, Jesse passes yet another savage cat, this one stuffed. There are more bad signs here than a deaf people’s bar at happy hour.
House cat
1:28:01 Ruby begins seducing one of the cadavers she’s prepping, and she’s not getting much resistance. [This screenshot is NSFW!!!]
1:28:32 Meanwhile, Jesse decides to lose her virginity to the person she loves most in the world. Herself.
[N.B. Is the necrophilia actually happening, or is Jesse fantasising it as she masturbates?]
She’s got to hand it to herself
1:29:07 My favourite scene of the film. Ruby spits into the dead woman’s mouth to lubricate the kisses. [This GIF is NSFW!!!]
1:33:08 Back at the mansion that evening, Jesse stands on a diving board contemplates an empty pool of darkness.
Jesse is above it all
1:34:18 Turning her back on Gigi, who’s arrived at the mansion, Jesse is caught off guard by Sarah, who jumps out of nowhere and punches Jesse. Jesse’s face is a hit.
1:35:54 Ruby pushes Jesse backwards into the empty pool, where the young woman dies from the fall. It’s only fair, Jesse did push Ruby over the edge, after all.
Jesse hits bottom
1:37:31 The women decide to bathe in Jesse’s blood, no doubt hoping to ingest some of her essence into themselves.
Blood bath
1:37:38 Gigi and Sarah shower together to wash away the blood. Intellectual soft porn. [This collage is NSFW!!!]
1:41:08 Naked in the moonlight, Ruby lies on the floor and expels enough blood from between her legs to paint a nice-sized living womb.
[N.B. Refn explains this by saying, “Jena Malone’s character, who initiates this whole ceremony of beauty, menstruates again, has something flowing through her.” In other words, he has no idea what happened. Also remark, the feminine motif rears its ugly head here once again with the blood, the menstruation and the moon.]
She’s got Jess in her blood
1:43:28 Jesse and Sarah go to a beach house for a photo shoot and Sarah strikes up a conversation with another model [Dani Seitz as Young model/Annie] during makeup.
Annie: You ever had a girl screw you out of a job?
Sarah: Yes.
Annie: So, what did you do about it?
Sarah: I ate her.
And not even “out”.
1:45:24 Jack [the photographer from 34:52] spots Sarah waiting for Gigi and decides to fire Annie and replace her with Sarah. Sarah has that look of, “I am who I eat.”
1:45:56
It’s a crap shoot
1:49:16 Gigi runs off the set to throw up an eyeball. See what she’s doing there?
Models are hard to stomach
1:49:46
Gigi: I need to get her out of me.
She takes a pair of dress maker’s shears and jabs them into her stomach. This film has ‘pulled a Jesse’ and gone off the deep end.
[N.B. Refn explains “Bella Heathcote, who wants to manufacture her own beauty, dies — because that’s the one thing that you can’t do.” In other words…no, sorry, I’ve no idea what he’s on about. “You can’t have plastic surgery to make yourself beautiful because then real beauty will kill you?” WTF!?]
1:49:54
Shades of Abbey Lee
1:50:21 WTF!? Gigi dies miraculously quickly as Sarah watches on, yet no one (not Jack, not the makeup staff, not the technicians, not the lighting people) think to find out why one model ran of the shoot holding her stomach and the other disappeared just after?
1:51:01
See food
[N.B. According to Refn, “And then there’s Abbey Lee, the supermodel, who felt like a ghost, but finds everything within her again, by eating the thing that Jesse is.” WTF!? Abbey/Sarah didn’t feel like a ghost, people treated her like a ghost.]
1:52:11
Liv is dedicated
[N.B. The reason NWR dedicated the film to Liv Corfixen, his wife: “She was the idea behind the film. Two years ago, I woke up depressed one morning. I wasn’t born beautiful, but my wife was. And I thought, ‘I wonder what it’d be like to have been born beautiful.’ And of course, there’s a sixteen-year-old girl in every man. This is a way to do my version of her. It made sense going from Drive, which was the height of masculinity, and my own fetishization of a hero, and even Only God Forgives, where Ryan’s character is my own male obsession deconstructing itself and emasculating itself, trying to crawl back into the womb of the mother. And now, I am reborn as a sixteen-year old girl. In the end, beauty was what I was making a film about, and the only person I knew around me who was beautiful was my wife.”]
Roll credits
1:52:34 The song at the closing credits is “Waving Goodbye”, by Sia.
Soundtrack
Tally Ho’
WTF!?’s: 6 worn out ones
When to Follow: When you want to see models’ milk sacks but your girlfriend won’t let you watch porn. Or when you’re 15 and want to pretend to be intellectual.
Where’s This Found: The Neon Demon is the Kim Kardashian of art films, only wanting to be talked about for how camp it is. Where it tries to be like David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive it’s a dead end. Where it tries to be artistic, it’s kitsch. When it tries to be highbrow, it comes across as pseudo-intellectual. It’s over-stylised, artsy drivel that isn’t even new: director Ken Russell (Tommy, Gothic, The Lair of the White Worm) has been churning out the same genre of nonsense since 1971. Out of a possible 10, I have 4 F’s to give (and those only for the actresses)
What To Feedback:
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[N.B. I used the very informative Slash film article as a research tool for this review]
Left Over WTF (Way Too Funny) Photos
Left over photos
She’s got fashion in her blood [Yes, this caption is better than the film’s actual tag line]In a love triangleDean’s getting the picture“You suck at hide-and-seek.”After a fashionUpon further reflectionSofa, so goodShe’s making a fashion statementA vicious animal…and a stuffed coyoteDressed to killCutting-edge fashionWhen you try not to look in the bowl afterwardsRuby really digs graves…I mean, she’s really into them
Prints suitable for reposting!
WTF!? do you meme?
What to Follow Up
WTF Review
WTF review of another film with Bella HeathcoteWTF review of another film with Abbey LeeWTF review of another film with Abbey Lee
Bar None Review
Oh, Al! Bar None review of Maleficent with Elle Fanning
Fernby Films Review
Fernby Films review of another Nicolas Winding Refn effort
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I shall be toying with Warcraft, examining its shots and playing its roles to determine if it’s game or for losers. So read on only if you’ve already seen Warcraft, or don’t plan to.
0:01:40 An orc voice-over says there was a time when no one knew what the evil green magic, the fel, had done to them. That makes two of us.
0:02:01 We get our first glimpse of the face we’re going to spend the rest of the film with. Tbh, I’ve seen worse CGI. (I’m looking at you Sharkansas Women’s Prison Massacre)
Toothy grin
Durotan (Toby Kebbell): Our world was dying, and I had to find my clan a new home.
What I like most about this film is the social satire. #homelessness #refugees
0:02:28 Durotan’s wife (Anna Galvinas Draka) is pregnant. Or perhaps it’s a food baby, meaning she ate one.
She’s having a baby…for dinner
0:05:08 Gul’dan (Daniel Wu as the leader of the orcs) has created a magic portal for the orcs to escape through so they might cultivate a new world. More social comedy. #IllegalImmigrants
Behind the Green Door
0:05:26 Gul’dan uses the lives of prisoners to fuel the magic portal. He plans to send his strongest warriors through to the new world, where he’ll capture more prisoners to create a new portal for the rest of the orc population. Because, humans are full of gas.
0:09:02 Draka gives birth the moment she lands on the new world (Azeroth). Judging from the way the baby looks, Shrek was the father.
That baby is a handful
0:09:32 A dwarf gives a gun to a human called Lothar and tells him to return to his land because his garrison was attacked. Btw, the gun is called a ‘boom stick’, and if Americans began using this name, the rest of the world might be more lenient in their attitude towards gun control. “I have my boom stick,” just doesn’t sound as menacing.
Drunk shots
0:10:34 Lothar meets a magician (Ben Schnetzeras Khadgar) who, upon examining the body of a fallen soldier, says they must see the King for permission to see the guardian. I still don’t care about what they mean.
Break like the wind
0:13:56 In a burst of exposition as fluid and painful as diarrhoea, we’re force fed the knowledge that the King is married to Lothar’s sister, and that Lothar’s son (Burkely Duffieldas Callan) is a member of the King’s troops. That’s a lot to digest.
0:14:37 The King (Dominic Cooperas King Llane Wrynn) gives Lothar a blue ring that cost a lot of tickets at Chuck E Cheese’s, so that Lothar and Khadgar the mage can fly to the guardian on the back of a bird-horse. The actor playing the king looks as regal as the cheap ring.
Lothar riding a bird
0:15:52
When your castle is a plasma globe
0:21:22 Medivh the Guardian (Ben Foster as a hippy looking chap I’d like under my spell) teleports himself, the young mage and Lothar from his castle to King Wrynn’s throne room, which is actually a set that looks as though it were assembled for the original Star Trek series in 1969.
0:22:47 Lothar takes some troops to try and capture a giant so that they might understand their enemy better. This plan might be better if they had a plan.
Thrown out of the orc family reunion
0:26:07 Medivh fends off an ambush by surrounding himself with a force field and launching a fel spell that eliminates only the green men, turning the giants / orcs into giant puddles.
[N.B. One can distinguish between the magic used int he film by the colour. Blue = Good magic. Green = Bad/Fel magic.]
He’d like to stand for a spell
0:30:38 The knights capture an escaping orc, but is forced to kill him when he attacks Garona (Paula Patton), a human-orc half breed prisoner copied (even in name!) from Gamora in Guardians of the Galaxy.
0:32:11 King Wrynn promises to grant Garona her freedom if she leads them to the place where the orcs are keeping their countrymen prisoner. She seems more interested in giving Lothar her freedom. #interracial #interspecies
Once you go green, you won’t want to be seen
0:39:28
Durotan: Wherever Gul’dan works his magic, the land dies.
So, Gul’dan is a Conservative.
0:39:54 Durotan says that with the humans’ help, they could defeat Gul’dan and save this planet. Told you this was social satire! #ecology
That belt will help him get a-head
0:45:22 Durotan finds Goran leading Lothar and Khadgar to the orc encampment. He tells her he wants to meet the human chieftain to plot the overthrow of Gul’dan. I don’t see how he can stand working with humans. I know I can’t.
0:51:21 Medivh burns up all of Khadgar’s research on the portal the orcs are building to transport their entire population to Azeroth. He tells Khadgar to protect the king and forget the fel. It seems Medivh fell for the fel.
Caught reading Orc’s in Heat
0:52:46 Khadgar tells Lothar that someone on their side of the portal invited the orcs to invade Azeroth. #GateCrashers
0:54:14 Durotan meets with the humans in a mountain pass with Medivh spying on the scene from on high. Like me, he is above all this.
Fresh meet
0:55:58
Durotan [to King Llane Wrynn]: In 2 suns, the humans we have captured will be used to fuel the portal. If you attack our camp and draw his warriors away, Frostwolf clan will kill him.
Well, it looks good on parchment.
1:00:28 A group of green orcs loyal to Gul’dan ambush the meeting. After they kill dozens of humans, Medivh finally decides to intervene and create a wall of blue lightning to block the orcs and permit the humans to escape. Unfortunately, a few stragglers, including Lothar’s son Callan, are trapped on the wrong side of the barrier. And he can’t de-side.
They’re blowing their tops
1:01:58 The chief bad orc kills Callan while Lothar looks on. Frankly, judging by how much nicer his armour is than everyone else’s, I’m guessing young Callan got fast-tracked because of his father. As this is the second time in the film he loses a battle in this film, I’m tempted to say he was a walking corpse just waiting to die.
1:03:34 Medivh is spent after all his effort, so he’s taken to his castle and placed in the pool of blue energy. His eyes, however, flash fel green. Khadgar immediately says he has to go, though perhaps he just means to the loo.
Khadgar has his head in the clouds
1:04:52 Blackhand (Clancy Brown as the sergeant-at-arms) comes to arrest Durotan, who says he’ll go peacefully if Blackhand lets his people be. Blackhand acquiesces.
Draka [to Durotan]: What will I call our son?
‘Bastard’ might be apropos under the circumstances.
“I was going to flush but saw it had eyes.”
1:08:54
Marriage: A metaphor
1:12:26 Gul’dan reneges on his promise to Orgrim (Robert Kazinskyas Durotan’s number 2), and begins to eradicate the Frostwolf clan (the tribe of which Durotan was chief). Orgrim helps Draka escape with the baby, probably because no one wants babies around anyway.
1:17:12 Medivh changes his blue energy pool to a shade of diarrhoea green with the fel, and then sucks the energy from his friend Moroes. Imho, anyone whose name is ‘Morose’ shouldn’t expect much more from life than that.
1:21:22 While Medivh leads troops to fight the Horde of orcs at the gate, Lothar is put in the cooler because of his hot head. He then confesses his love to Garona because she reminds him of his favourite colour of M&Ms.
Garona hangs out in bars
1:22:46 Orgrim comes to rescue Durotan, who is now as free as ice in Alaska.
1:24:47 Khadgar then breaks Lothar out of his cell to go and fight Medivh.
‘High’ fantasy
1:25:46 Draka, running away from her pursuers, decides to save her infant by floating him down the river in a wicker basket. I had no idea the orcs were Jewish. #Moses
1:26:30 She dies just after but no worries, after she gave birth her character became as useless as Nicolas Cage’s acting coach. #cheapshot
She had her salad tossed
1:26:44 Durotan invokes Mak’gora, a Duel of Honour to rule the tribe. To do this, he must defeat Gul’dan which will be tricky because Gul’dan cheats more than Brad Pitt with a supporting actress.
1:29:12 In the meantime, Lothar and Khadgar pay a visit to Medivh, who is reciting the incantation to open the portal over to near where the Gul’dan and Durotan are battling. Medivh has had his face transfigured by the fel, but he shouldn’t have fel for that.
1:30:49 Gul’dan cheats in his battle by sucking all the white stuff out of Durotan instead of beating him using his hands.
Like a tube of toothpaste #crestfallen
1:32:12 Gul’dan gives the fel to Blackhand so that the war chief might defeat all the ‘smallteeth’ (humans). Fortunately, just as the smallteeth arrive, the entire horde forgets they were about to revolt against Gul’dan (WTF!?). But they’re still revolting.
1:35:17 Gul’dan opens the portal enough to recruit more conscripts from the other world. The humans will want to close the door because of this draft.
1:38:14
Medivh is getting horny
1:38:24 Khadgar lures Medivh’s giant golem over a magical trap door and it falls through, landing squarely on Medivh, who is wading in the green fountain. The portal on the other side of Azeroth slams shut as Medivh collapses under the pressure.
1:39:24 Khadgar is exposed to the evil of the fel but, as he’s stronger than Medivh, he’s able to resist its power. In doing so, the fel in the castle is destroyed and Lothar is free to help Llane fight the orcs. This is his battle. Mine is staying awake during this film.
1:40:46 With his dying breath, Medivh reconverts to the good side and opens the portal to Stormwind, the human’s capital. WTF!? Medivh doesn’t need Gul’dan to open the portal between worlds, but not only does Gul’dan need Medivh’s, he also needs to suck souls for the juice to open the gate? The link between Gul’dan and Medivh is explained too much not at all.
AA meeting in Russia
1:42:42 The humans free some prisoners and send them through the portal to the safety of Stormwind. There as saved as Christian money.
143:32 When Medivh dies, the door to Stormwind is slammed like the humans are Jehovah’s Witnesses.
1:43:52
Blackhand has a crush on a soldier
1:44:41 Llane wants Garona to kill him before Blackhand can, so that Garona will have the respect of the orcs and can make a pact with the surviving humans. Garona just wants to go home and mate with Lothar.
1:45:18
When someone makes eyes at Bae
1:45:22 Garona kills Llane without hesitation, like she’s gutting an old fish.
1:48:32 Lothar arrives to find he his friend the king is dead and that he must fight the evil chieftain who’s been possessed by the evil green magic. Out of the frying pan and into the fire of Hell.
1:48:42
Blackhand is gutted
1:50:24 Lothar leaves with the king’s body, knowing his almost girlfriend is responsible for the death [at 1:47:11 he found the knife he’d given Goran in Llane’s neck]. The look on his face says he’s changed his mind about giving Gorana white meat.
1:50:51 Orgrim rips out one of Durotan’s teeth to give to his orphan boy. Will this make the lad a tooth fairy?
1:51:55
This city is more crowded than the Ladies’ loo
1:52:58 At King Llane’s funeral, Lothar promises to defend the sequel.
1:53:54 Durotan’s voice talks to his orphan baby who is still floating down the river. He tells the infant he’ll grow up to be a pain in the sequel.
His name is ‘Jealousy’ because he’s a little green monster
Roll credits
Tally Ho’
WTF!?’s: 5 crafty ones
When to Follow: When you’re addicted to the video game and want to see what it would look like if you’d lost control.
Where’s This Found: This film is like the game which inspired it: it’s technically perfect but you need to be a fan to spend more than 10 minutes with it. The impressive special effects can’t add any interest to a story written with a specific population in mind. Out of a possible 10, I have 5 F’s to give.
[N.B. I used the very informative as a research tool for this review]
Left Over WTF (Way Too Funny) Photos
Left over GIFs
Left over photos
Iron Forgery“I think we’re getting sidetracked.”YFW, you pass wind and then realise there are people behind youYFW you realise camping means shitting in the woodsOrcs are a pain in the neck“Whoa! That’s what a sword does!? But that’s dangerous!!!”Her eyes are bigger than my stomachThe pigeon drops bombs“Your turn to clean up after him.”“Looks like someone has crashed there for the night.”Durotan’s last look before the wolf swallowed him
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WTF!? do you meme?
What to Follow Up
WTF Review
WTF review of Gods of EgyptWYF review of The Fellowship of the RingsWTF review of The Two TowersWTF review of The Return of the King
Bar None Review
Booze Revooze of the Battle of the Five Armies
Fernby Films Review
Fernby Films review of Tarzan
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I’ve elected to review The Purge: Election Year, and shall be vetting its ideas and studying its proposals decide if it’s a prime candidate or an also-ran. So read on only if you’ve already seen The Purge: Election Year, or don’t plan to.
0:01:08 The film begins with T-Rex “20th Century Boy” and Original-P “Give Up The Funk” playing on an iPod. A man in a mask is talking to a bound and bloodied family sitting together on the sofa before him about his Purge playlist. I can’t decide if the family is suffering because of the torture or the playlist. What would you put on yours? “Dirty Deeds (Done Dirt Cheap)” “Do You Really Want To Hurt Me”?
[N.B. At the bottom of the page, you’ll find a link to the soundtrack and songs from the film. You’ll also find a Collaborative playlist to add songs to your Purge playlist! What song would you listen to when you’re out Purging? Add your choice to the playlist to make the perfect Purge!]
0:02:08 The bloke in the mask announces the new Purge game is mommy will decide who survives. #Sophie’sChoiceCuts
Family Ties
0:02:58 18 years later, and 2 days before the purge, there are riots in the streets with people apparently unaware of the irony in using violence to protest the Purge.
0:03:34 Mention is made of the up and coming presidential election which pits a New Founding Fathers candidate (Kyle Secor as Minister Edwidge Owens) against wild card and anti-purge candidate Senator Charlie Roan (Elizabeth Mitchell). In the 2016 U.S. election there are also a male and female candidate. Coincidence? Like diarrhoea after Taco Bell is coincidence.
0:03:38 We learn Charlie is the one whom mum picked to survive in the intro scene, 18 years earlier. The mum must be rolling in her grave, seeing her daughter has wasted her life by becoming a politician.
0:03:49
Is this an Easter Egg?
[N.B. My dearest American readers, I need your help! Can any of you tell me who these presenters are? Are they really a morning chat show team, or are they simply actors playing the part? I’ve spent ever so much time online researching this yet, alas, to no avail!]
0:04:08 Senator Roan is the first real threat to the New Founding Fathers of America (NFFA) since the party was formed 25 years ago. 25 years isn’t that old. There’s cheese in my fridge older than that.
0:05:18 The leader of the NFFA, Caleb Warrens (Raymond J. Barry), is out to get both Senator Roan and Dwayne ‘Dante’ Bishop (Edwin Hodge)…and I don’t mean birthday presents.
Caleb Warrens: It’s time to do something about all these cock suckers, like that rat Bishop and the cunt senator trying to dismantle everything we’ve built.
The Bored Room
[N.B. The only character to appear in all three Purge films, Dwayne ‘Dante’ Bishop was credited as the ‘Bloody Stranger’ in the first Purge. In that instalment, he was the person of colour set upon by the Purgers who then took refuge in the house where the film was set.]
0:05:56 The presidential debate resembles less an exchange of political opinions and more a white person comedy rap battle. Minister Owens and Senator Roan say obvious things, but the crowd cheers Roan because they think it’s a rock concert. No doubt because rocks are what’s filling their heads.
“This is how many times you should donate a kidney / visit Las Vegas / watch a Purge film.”
0:09:28
March 20, 1 day before the annual Purge
0:09:48 In a gesture they claim is meant appease the masses but is, in fact, intended to promote political assassination, the NFFA change the rules to authorise the killing of ‘level 10’ politicians (which obviously includes Senator Roan). Where was this rule when George Bush was president?
0:10:52 A news presenter in the airport informs viewers that young people are coming from all over the world to participate in the Purge. Kind of like what Americans do now, but in reverse.
Accidental terrorist
0:12:47 In a local bodega, teenaged girls (Juani Feliz, and Brittany Mirabile as “Freakbride Kimmy”) harass the shop owner (Mykelti Williamson as Joe Dixon), until a young woman associate of the owner (Betty Gabriel as “OG badass” Laney Rucker) threatens the girls. Always a good idea to antagonise as many natives as possible on the day just before the Purge.
Would you like a coffee to go with that roll?
0:16:31 Joe’s insurance company raises his Purge insurance rate by thousands of dollars, so he decides he’ll protect the shop himself when the time comes. It might be more logical to Purge his insurance company.
0:17:22
Purge Night – 12 minutes to the annual Purge
0:18:42 Laney climbs inside a reinforced ambulance because she and another woman will be driving around the city, providing aid to those who need it. Thus, she is literally looking for trouble.
An ambulance behind bars after a cardiac arrest
0:18:56 Remember Leo Barnes from The Purge: Anarchy? No? He was the bloke who left his car unlocked in the most dangerous part of the city, neglected to verify the car was empty when he returned, and then chose to drive directly at a madman with a 50 calibre machine gun mounted in the rear of a semi, when he could have reversed and driven safely away. Yes, well, this is the chap they put in charge of Senator Charlie Roan’s security. WTF!?
0:20:22 The Purge begins. I’m reminded the sound effects (sirens, in this case) and the music are not the worst part of this film.
0:23:44 Laney and her partner drive through the city and see a group beheading people with a guillotine in an alley. #FrenchToast
The Final Cut
0:24:22
Abe decides to sit this one out
0:25:06 While Joe takes up a defensive position on the roof atop his shop, Marcos (Joseph Julian Soria), his young, immigrant sidekick arrives surreptitiously. WTF!? Do people really sneak up behind their gun toting, booze drinking allies during the Purge? For God’s sake, this isn’t even safe behaviour outside of Purge night!
“Get your gun out your ass ’cause we’re in some deep shit.”
0:26:06 Freakbride arrives with her wedding partiers, decked out in full regalia and carrying an impressive cache of weapons. Do the two heavily armed men immediately shoot the trio, as that’s precisely what they came onto the roof to do? No, they simply stand and watch. WTF!? It’s moments like this I suspect the Purge is actually a Darwinian rite designed to weed out stupid people from the gene pool.
Masking her feelings
[The music to this scene is “Party in the U.S.A.” as performed by Alana D (AKA Alana Da Fonseca). My playlist has the original Miley Cyrus version as the Alan D version is not available online.]
0:29:27 Senator Roan’s campaign manager (Ethan Phillipsas Chief Couper) and Leo Barnes’ right hand man (Adam Cantor as Tall Eric Busmalis) are involved in the plot to kill the senator. Of course they are. It’s not as though Leo Barnes has demonstrated sufficient intelligence at any moment during the franchise to make us believe he’d be an effective Head of Security.
“Security detail? I wouldn’t put you in charge of a security blanket.”
0:31:32 Eric lets militia with White Power patches sewn onto the backs of their camo uniforms into the safe house. They have more power in their weapons than their skin, however.
0:32:24 Leo discovers the ruse and that Roan is in danger. This is really not like him. Totally out of character.
Elizabeth Mitchell looks “Lost”
0:34:27 WTF!? Leo and Charlie escape through a trap door under a carpet, and somehow after dropping from it to a lower floor, they’re still able to cost the trap door and replace the carrier on top of it!? From the other side!?
0:35:56 Leo is shot by a sharpshooter but he’s wearing a magical bulletproof vest so he’ll be fine. At the same time, he detonates a remote explosive device he left behind in Roan’s office which decimates Eric, Chief Couper, and a handful of mercenaries. #BreachOfContractKiller
0:36:02
Washington D.C. on Purge night, or Chicago any Tuesday
0:37:14 Purge victim removal services passes by. WTF!? One would think this could be done the day after without risking the safety of the workers.
0:41:51 Charlie and Leo are tased by the Uncle Sam and Statue of Liberty figures from the poster. These are ‘murder tourists’ from Russia. Murder Tourists is a nice twist I hope they explore in more depth.
0:42:23 Foreigners – murder tourists – pull Roan and Barnes along the sidewalk. They find this a drag.
Status of Liberty
0:43:44 Joe and Marcos recognise the senator from their rooftop so the two of them sneak down and kill a dozen murder tourists with pistols. So much for expanding on the idea of murder tourism. And this epitomises my main complaint about the Purge franchise. The poster for this film was superb, yet the people on it are only in the film for all of 65 seconds. We go to see these films for the promise made on the poster yet all we’re given is a poor substitute. I long for the day a Purge film is as good as its marketing.
0:47:34 While Joe, Marcos, Leo and Charlie get to know each other in the bodega, Freakbride returns with more of her posse in the fairy lights parade.
A bright idea
0:48:02 WTF!? Why aren’t the people on the bodega going on the roof and shooting the looters rather than just pacing in the shop and complaining? They could easily eliminate these girls…To the victors go the spoiled.
0:48:10
Freakbride: Hey you fuck! I’m back, and I brought some friends. And I’m gonna get that candy bar.
The only thing worse than this line is the way it’s read. That she would go to all of this trouble for a candy bar reminds me of John Wick.
0:51:34 Laney heard the message Joe left her on her cell, so she arrives and takes out Freakbride and her Maid of Horror, who are feeling very run down ask of a sudden.
0:52:07 Laney shoots the other girls who arrived with the wedding partiers.
Clear your head
0:53:35 Everyone piles into the back of the ambulance to go to an underground triage centre that Laney assures us is totally secure. Would that be Leo Barnes secure or actually secure?
0:54:15
Hanging around for the Purge
0:56:52 The militia in the helicopter are able to track Senator Roan through the bullet lodged in Leo’s shoulder. They light up the ambulance but only kill the passenger who didn’t know who the senator was. Proof how important it is to vote.
0:57:54 WTF!? To escape pursuit of the helicopter, Leo instructs the driver of the ambulance to stop under a bridge, immediately beside a heavily armed mob fighting each other with weapons. Because this is Leo’s idea of safety.
Fight For Your Rights…to Purge
0:59:12 Leo finally realises the enemy can track him because of his tracer bullet, so he pulls it out with long forceps while the medical team in the vehicle do nothing more than look on with disgust.
0:59:24
There’s a whole bunch of negroes coming right this way, and we sitting up here like a bucket of mother fucking chicken.
Joe, as the ballers approach
Apparently this isn’t racist if a white man [director James DeMonaco] pays a black man to say it.
1:00:54 The “Negroes” are yelling and banging on the ambulance with their weapons not because they were purging, but because that’s the way they ask for emergency assistance for a fallen friend. Perhaps all inner city violence is the result of a misunderstanding.
What not to look like when you ask for medical help
1:03:48 Senator Charlie Roan meets Dante Bishop in an underground homeless shelter known as “The Safe Zone”. The Safe Zone is like the Friend Zone, but for “negroes”.
1:04:51
Senator Roan: Mr. Bishop, I’ve heard stories of tactics that you employ on Purge Night… I can’t say that I agree with any of it.
Here, she’s making a reference to Purge 2: Anarchy, where a group of armed men under Bishop’s command attacked packs of rich purgers like teens commenting on YouTube.
1:10:22 Leo and Charlie uncover a plot by Bishop’s team to murder The Minister (her Donald Trump) and his backers (The NFFA) in a church named Our Lady of Sorrow, no doubt called this in tribute to Elizabeth Mitchell after her appearance here.
1:14:48
Her husband is hot
1:15:04 Government troops are going to invade the Safe Zone to kill Bishop, so Leo and the Senator have to go back outside to avoid getting killed themselves. The bad news for Senator Roan is that Leo is in charge of her security once again.
1:16:28 While Roan discusses going back to save the Minister’s life so he doesn’t become a martyr, their ambulance is knocked on its side by a government lorry. Perfect metaphor for National Health Care.
1:17:12 Leo says the militia is taking the now-kidnapped Senator to Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrows to be sacrificed.
2nd Amendment debate
1:19:27 At the service, Roan is knocked unconscious with an injection and tied to a dolly beside another victim-to-be, while the congregation chants on the other side of a curtain. I bet they’re praying for no more sequels. I know I am.
Happy birthday, Mr. President
1:23:46 Leo reconnoitres with Bishop and tells him it’s no longer an assassination attempt but now a rescue mission. Little does he realise nothing can save this film.
1:23:54 WTF!? Both Laurence (the drug addict who was tied up first and waiting there when he senator arrived – and will certainly die because he didn’t get top billing) and Charlie Roan have gags in their mouths but can’t make noise? A piece of cloth across your lips does not prevent you from opening your mouth or un-clenching your teeth.
It’s on the tip of her tongue
1:25:42 The priest, Harman James (Christopher James Baker), kills Laurence. I nearly die as well…from laughter at the overacting.
1:27:41
We must rid ourselves of the negative emotions that she has stirred inside. We must stop her from poisoning our great country by taking away our freedoms.
Minister Edwidge Owens
New game: Who said it, the Purge or Trump?
1:30:22 Just before Caleb can slit Charlie’s throat, Bishop’s team are able to take him out with a sniper. Say what you will about the Purge series, at least they’re utterly predictable.
1:30:56 During the shootout, why is it no one tries to kill senator Roan? I suspect because she’s protected by so much WTF!?
Shotgun Wedding
1:35:04 After freeing Senator Roan, Dante Bishop is unable to kill the Minister because the latter begs Dante to Purge, and Dante refuses to abase himself to the Minister’s level. To think some believed the Minister didn’t have a prayer.
1:36:08 The group discover a roomful of homeless people tied up and gagged with duct tape; they were to be the night’s offering in the church. Leo says he’s not as politically correct as the senator and punches Minister Owens in the Easter eggs.
1:37:26 The three remaining militiamen ambush our team in the underground car park and wound Dante. In a last gasp effort, he hot wires an automobile and drives it into two of them before the leader empties all of his bullets into him. He’s deader than the engine.
1:38:48 Leo, shot and wearing only a suit, defeats the head militiaman who’s uninjured and wearing full military protection. And here I thought Leo was bad at his job.
Are you winding me up?
1:40:06 Harman enters the antechamber with the homeless brandishing a shotgun. He shoots one of the dispossessed so we understand how the gun works, then only wounds Marcos. He takes a revolver and takes aim at Senator Roan, but Joe throws himself in front of the senator and takes several bullets for her as he kills Harman. The priest is now holey, but Joe is holier. Good thing as he’s on his way to heaven.
1:41:42
May 26 / 2 months after the annual Purge
1:42:01 Charlie Roan wins the election and we wonder why the New Founding Fathers felt the need to change election day from November to May. Maybe it’s so that I might make “This May suck” jokes.
Senator Roan isn’t yet over the Hill-ary
1:43:26
We’re just now hearing reports about a few, scattered incidents around the country where NFFA supporters are reacting violently to this defeat. They are burning cars, breaking windows, looting, attacking police officers…
News presenter on the telly
Maybe their candidate convinced the simpletons that the election was rigged.
[Song on the way out is David Bowie, “I’m Afraid of Americans”]
Roll credits
Nathan Whitehead’s soundtrack is certainly the best part of the film.
Tally Ho’
WTF!?’s: 14 sick ones
When to Follow: When you feel you have to watch the entire series of Purge films (and, imo, this one is the second worst, after the first one, which is first worst). Or, even better, on U.S. election night (November 8).
Where’s This Found: The aspect which frustrates me most about this entire franchise is that the premise is brilliant and the marketing is spot on. The Purge has everything going for it, and then they ruin it by making shite films. The acting is over the top (Elizabeth Mitchell’s talents are wasted in this film) and the script is nothing short of ridiculous. There are no sympathetic characters and the directing is so heavy handed I always finish a Purge film feeling abused. Out of a possible 10, I have 4 F’s to give.
What To Feedback: Let’s build the perfect Purge playlist! What would you listen to while you purge? Please tell me in the comment what song you’d kill for, and I’ll add it to the collaborative playlist below! [N.B. If you’re a Spotify user, you can ‘Follow’ the playlist and then add songs directly.]
My idea of a minimalist movie posterThe real story behind Lincoln’s assassinationDate rape & pillageUber-violentSwingers on Purge nightThey’re all jealous of the Senator’s vestThe cast prepares to meet the press
Prints suitable for reposting!
WTF!? did they say?
WTF!? do you meme?
What to Follow Up
WTF Review
WTF review of the first and worst of the franchiseWTF review of a far better action film
Bar None Review
0-5 Shot Booze Revooze of Jack Reacher
Fernby Films Review
Fernby Films review of the second (and best) of the series
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I shall be committing Suicide Squad to memory, examining its shots and studying its jumping off points to determine if it’s killer or dead in the water. So read on only if you’ve already seen Suicide Squad, or don’t plan to.
0:00:21 To the strains of the Animals singing “House of the Rising Sun”, we’re given our first peek at Belle Reve, the maximum security prison where the Suicide Squad is kept on ice.
They caught their death
0:00:36 Deadshot (Will Smith) is in solitary confinement, punching a bag and wishing it were his favourite least favourite guard.
[N.B. The song playing to introduce Harley Quinn is You Don’t Own Me, by Lesly Gore. All songs from the film, including those not found on the official soundtrack, are on this playlist.]
0:03:28
That is just a whole lot of pretty in a whole lot of crazy.
[N.B. The song as we transition into Washington D.C. is the Rolling Stones, “Sympathy for the Devil”. See playlist at the end of the post.]
0:03:56 Agent Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) presents her case for using the Suicide Squad by referencing Superman’s death at the end of Batman v Superman, even using the same images of his funeral.
Superman could arrest her for stealing, if he weren’t dead
0:04:12
What’s my name?
0:05:12 & 0:05:16
Dead right
0:08:37 After showing one of his hits, Amanda says she was able to get Batman to arrest Deadshot by following Deadshot’s young daughter (Shailyn Pierre-Dixon as Zoe). It’s always a pleasure to see Batman (Ben Affleck) literally drop in.
0:09:11
How bad can she be?
[N.B. The song playing at Harley’s introduction is the extremely appropriate Rick James’s, “Super Freak”. See playlist at the end of the post.]
0:10:06
Talk about a workplace romance gone wrong…
Waller gives us the backstory of Harleen Quinzel (Margot Robbie), the Arkham Asylum psychologist who fell in love with her patient: Jared Leto as the Joker. Completely understandable — this is Jared Leto we’re talking about, after all. You’d have to be crazy not to fall in love with him.
“I’m crazy…for you!”
0:11:17
A handy smile
[N.B. The hoodlum with whom the Joker speaks, and eventually shoots, is none other than rapper Common, as Monster T (a character based on The Tattooed Man but named after Mr T.)]
Let us prey…
0:14:22 After Batman chases the diabolical duo of the Joker and Harley Quinn, he must plunge into the lake to rescue and arrest Harley, who can’t swim. We also learn that when Batman gives someone mouth-to-mouth, he uses his tongue.
0:14:33
“What goes around, comes around,” Captain Boomerang
[N.B. The song playing during the jewellery shop robbery is the again appropriate AC/DC’s “Dirty Deeds”, no doubt in tribute to the fact both Digger and AC/DC are Australian. See playlist at the end of the post.]
0:14:55 Digger (Jai Courtney) is arrested in the shop by the Flash, who ran all the way over from the small screen.
What are the charges, Flash?
0:15:09
Diablo is such a hot head
0:15:15
Diablo is fired up
[N.B. The song playing while El Diablo (Jay Hernandez) surrenders to the police in a flashback is “Slippin’ into darkness” by War. See playlist at the end of the post.]
[N.B. The song playing while the guards feed Killer Croc is “Fortunate Son” by Creedence Clearwater Revival. See playlist at the end of the post.]
0:17:22 The backstory of archeologist June Moone (Cara Delevingne), who breaks a sacred doll’s neck whilst spelunking and becomes possessed by an ancient witch, The Enchantress. This is nothing new for Cara, however, she’s had a lot of women inside her.
Witch way?
0:17:42 Waller explains she’s able to control the Enchantress because she has the witch’s heart, and not in the married way.
Heart-shaped box
0:18:19 Waller tells the Admiral (Ted Whittall as Admiral Olsen) with whom she’s dining that she can control the villains and force them to work for the government, with the help “the finest special forces officer this nation has ever produced” (Joel Kinnaman as Rick Flag). She arranged for him to fall in love with the Enchantress so she can control him. One would think, if he fell in love with the Enchantress, that she would be the one able to control him.
0:18:31
Would appear Cara Delevingne is dirtier than we thought
0:22:24 During a meeting at the Pentagon, Amanda Waller has the Enchantress zip over to Tehran to pick up their weapon’s plans, in order to convince the government to authorise her to form Task Force X. The Enchantress should say “Iran all the way there.”
[Imho, this is one of the largest WTFs in the entire film. If she can disappear into an Iranian vault and come back with secret documents, why can’t she disappear into Waller’s room and take back her heart?]
0:24:17 Once the government okays their project, Waller and Flag fly to Belle Reve to meet their captive audience.
Tunnel Vision
0:25:04
To my haters and trolls
0:26:12 While Flag tests Deadshot’s shooting skills, the latter points the pistol at Griggs, who tormented him earlier.
Griggs: Ames, if this man shoots me, I want you to kill him…and I want you to go clear my browser history.
You may be a prisoner, but at least your jacket matches your shoes
0:28:14 One of Deadshot’s demands to work for Waller is to send his daughter to an Ivy League university and…
…if she can’t cut it and her grades start slipping? I need you to ‘white people’ that thing.
“What? This mobile doesn’t have red eye removal?”
0:28:48 While justifying her choice to use criminals to defend the country, Waller tells Flag,
In World War II, the U.S. Navy made a deal with the Mafia to protect its ships on the waterfront.
0:31:52 The Joker approaches Griggs in an off-license gambling spot to enlist the guard’s help in breaking Harley Quinn out of jail. (The assistance Griggs furnishes will be to provide Harley with a phone during her transfer [@38:01].) Jared Leto’s Joker is good enough not to be laughed at.
Joker’s look is like Boy Scouts: In tents
0:33:37 The second act begins with the Enchantress astral travelling to put her brother’s spirit in the body of a really fit business man she found washing his hands in a tube lav. Of all the unusual things that have happened to me in the underground toilets, this doesn’t even crack the top 10.
0:34:29 Enchantress tells her brother she intends to build a machine that will destroy humanity to punish us for not worshipping them any longer. I’m more concerned with the colossal WTF!? of why the Enchantress didn’t astral travel and resurrect her brother ages ago if it is really this simple.
Dirty little secret
0:36:08 Enchantress’s brother eats some people on the Midway City subway platform and places his hand on the third rail to come to gain strength. He’s not the only one who’s shocked.
0:36:50 The military assembles Task Force X in Belle Reve to combat at the subway situation. When the guards come to collect the team for the adventure, however, they all commence to resist and kick a great deal of U.S. army ass. Apparently they’re far happier inside their cells than we were led to believe. WTF!?
A Cute Angle
[N.B. The song playing during the fight scene is Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid”. See playlist at the end of this synopsis.]
0:38:01 Task Force X is taken to cargo planes strapped in wheelchairs after having injections in their necks. Griggs slips Harley a mobile phone so she’ll tell the Joker he took good care of her. Griggs is worried his number’s up.
Feeling tied down
0:39:07 The Joker and his team infiltrate the lab which designed the hypodermic equipment used on the Suicide Squad at 38:01. The Joker injects a lab tech in the neck with one of these devices. There’s a lot of that going around in this film.
[N.B. The method behind the Joker’s madness is no doubt to gain access to the nanite bomb technology so that he might disarm Harley’s bomb when the time comes (at 1:13:26).]
0:40:26 The Enchantress eludes Rick and seeks out her brother (Alain Chanoine as Incubus), the now mega villain. When Waller stabs the Enchantress’s heart, she has her brother fix her right up. She says she’ll get her heart back, yet she seems happy being heartless.
Wants to stand for a spell
0:42:07 Task Force X is delivered to the safe zone outside the city.
Hi, boys! Harley Quinn. How do you do? Huh? What was that? I should kill everyone and escape? [To the group] Sorry, the voices. I’m kidding! Jeez!…
That’s not what they really said.
Harley, on meeting the army unit surrounding them
Harley is busted
0:43:11 Boomerang and Slipknot are introduced into the mix. The unceremonious fashion in which Slipknot is presented tells me he’s not long for this film.
0:43:44 Flag explains the squad had to obey him because he controls the nanite explosive in their necks, which is as small as a grain of rice but more powerful than a hand grenade. #mypenis
When you don’t put “Good Guy” on your Grindr profile
[N.B. Easter Egg Deadshot tells Flag he should read Phil Jackson (“triangle, bitch”) on how to lead teams. Phil Jackson is a new age inspired basketball coach. From his wiki: Jackson is known for his use of Tex Winter’s triangle offence as well as a holistic approach to coaching that is influenced by Eastern philosophy, earning him the nickname “Zen Master”.]
0:44:24 Costumes are delivered to the members and Harley finds her original costume, circa 1992.
A costume party
[N.B. The music playing while the team suits up is Eminem, “Without Me”. See playlist at the bottom of this post.]
0:45:14
Dressing downClick on the shot if you don’t believe me
[N.B. EXCLUSIVE 123WTF.COM EASTER EGG: Note the faded dolphin tattoo next to the more recent “Lucky You” tattoo. I’m convinced this is because psychologist Harleen Quinzel acquired the dolphin tattoo long before she became Harley Quinn. After her conversion, however, she or the Joker decided to ink was no longer appropriate and so began having it removed; thus, it’s faded condition.]
0:46:31 Amanda Waller addresses the Task Force via tablet. She explains they have to enter the attack zone in Midway City and rescue HVT-1.
Deadshot: I’m sorry, for those of us who don’t speak good guy, what is HVT-1?
Waller: The only person that matters in the city. The one person you can’t kill.
In other words, “I’m not going to answer your question.”
0:47:48 As the helicopters are taking off, we’re introduced to Katana, an Asian ninja bird whose job it is to have Rick’s back. So she’s a Flag carrier.
Harley Quinn, nice to meetcha. Love your perfume! What is that, the Stench of Death?
Harley introduces herself
[N.B. The song playing as the group fly into Midway is “Spirit in the Sky” by Norman Greenbaum. See playlist at the bottom of this post.]
0:48:16
Air pollution in Midway City was a real problem
0:50:28
Slumming it
0:51:34 As predicted at 43:11, Slipknot is disposed of as he tries to escape when Flag explodes the bomb in his neck.
Killer app!
Harley makes a Saint Pauly joke
0:55:07 The Suicide Squad must fight the herpes zombies Incubus made. Killing is Task Force X’s living, and they’re making a killing.
They lose their heads for Katana
0:59:37 The missing half of Flag’s company, company Bravo, is taken to the train station where the Enchantress’s kiss turns them into herpes monsters.
1:01:38 Entering the building which houses HVT-1, Harley must fight zombies to the tune of “Come Baby Come” by K7 [See playlist at the bottom of this article]. She also gets a text from the Joker, saying he’s close so she should be ready to come with him.
1:02:22
Cheeky
1:04:52 When the team are besieged by the crack team of tar zombies, Diablo finally lets loose and burns the enemy up when he loses his cool.
Things are heating up
1:06:28 Looking down the stairwell, Harley flashes back to the night she and the Joker escaped and back flipped out into the vat of the same chemicals that created him.
1:07:39
A colourful past
[N.B. The song playing while he saves her is “Gangsta”, by Kelhani. See playlist at the bottom.]
1:10:08 We discover HVT-1, the asset to be rescued, is Amanda Waller herself. Before leaving her operation centre, she shoots everyone working with her because they didn’t have enough security clearance for the jobs they were doing. They all get fired. Literally.
They’re behind her 100%
1:13:26 The helicopter coming to rescue them off the rooftop had been hijacked by the Joker. He disarms Harley’s nanite bomb, so she leaps from the building and grabs the rope he’s dangled for her. I suspected she was a swinger, and here I see I was right.
1:15:38 Waller orders the Joker’s copter shot down, and when it happens, Harley falls from the fiery craft and lands safely on the roof. The Joker, however, acts like Nicolas Cage’s career and goes down in a ball of flames.
The Joker is an insane kisser
1:17:11 Waller’s helo is brought down in turn and she’s kidnapped by herpes zombies. It would seem helicopters in Suicide Squad are as safe as Death Stars in Star Wars.
1:18:26 Harley rejoins the team but her heart isn’t in it…it’s too broken.
MRW People ask me how I am and I feel like shite
1:20:02 Incubus, the Enchantress’s brother, gives her back her heart. She celebrates by wrapping her tentacles around Waller to learn government secrets. Honestly, reading Clinton’s emails seems a lot easier.
1:22:48 After Flag explains they’re fighting supernatural forces and not terrorists, everyone decides to quit Task Force X and go to a bar. They’ll have to change their name from “Suicide Squad” to “Rational Decision Squad”.
[N.B. The song playing in the pub is Etta James, “I’d Rather Go Blind”. See playlist.]
1:24:52
A hot dancer
1:25:32 Diablo gives his backstory and explains he killed his wife and children when he lost control of his anger. He really burns them up.
1:25:54
What I’d like to do to a Porsche
1:28:13 Flag enters the pub (his backup team dissipated in the cloud of all the WTF). He breaks the nanite bomb detonator and tells the Suicide Squad they’re free to go. Only Boomerang leaves (WTF do the others stay!?) Then Flag tells Deadshot his daughter writes him every day. This is a week, judging from the pittance of letters he hands over.
“Hey Harley, who is your daddy?”
1:28:52 Deadshot is so angry at Flag that he agrees to do what Flag wants. WTF!?
1:29:14 Instead of enjoying their freedom, the rest of the team decides to accompany Deadshot and Flag in a heartwarming display of WTF!?
WTF!? The only one brought cover from the rain lives in water!?
1:33:06 The group arrive at the station to distract the Enchantress and Incubus while Killer Croc and the Seals blow the charge in the basement that will kill Incubus. Is it just me or does Cara Delevingne move like the alien in Mars Attacks?
Transcend-ance
1:39:02 Diablo, as some ancient demigod, battles Incubus, who’s also in flames, meaning they’re hot for each other.
[N.B. Chato Santana (a.k.a. El Diablo) manifests as Chutriel, a fallen angel who chose to remain in Hell as its righteous punisher of the guilty.]
Wants his reflection to be hotter
1:40:10 After her brother dies, the Enchantress uses her tentacle link with Waller to target key military installations. You might say she’s picking Waller’s brain.
The future is cloudy
1:44:02 Harley agrees to join forces with the Enchantress if the witch will bring the Joker back to life. This, however, is only a ruse Harley uses to get close enough to the Enchantress to cut out her heart. I suspect this isn’t the only time Margot Robbie has stolen someone’s heart.
1:45:58 In a slo-mo sequence long enough to explain generosity to a politician, Killer Croc tosses a bag of explosives into the trash tornado the Enchantress has created, and Deadshot shoots it at just the right moment to destroy the killer weather. You won’t believe me, but the exact same thing happened in Sharknado.
Scales of justice
1:47:51 After Flag destroys the Enchantress’s heart, June peels off the Enchantress’s face and steps naked from the dead witch’s skin.
1:50:38 The out-tro — during which we see the concessions Waller made to the team: Deadshot spends some time with his daughter, Killer Croc watches BET and Harley drinks espresso — is shown to the strains of Panic at the Disco performing Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”. [See playlist below.]
Harley has been booked
1:52:21 This idyllic scene is interrupted by the Joker who breaks into Belle Reve to break Harley out. That’s one way to take out a girl.
1:52:46 Roll credits
“That was one big dog.”
[N.B. The song during the credits is “Heathens” by Twenty One Pilots. See playlist below.]
1:55:18 In a post credit scene, Ben Affleck as Bruce Wayne is speaking with Amanda Waller in an empty restaurant. He tells her he will protect her politically from the fallout following the Midway City affair if she shares a file containing information on Flash and Aquaman. As he leaves, she tells him he looks tired and should stop working nights.
1:55:57
[N.B. The ensuing credits song is “Sucker for Pain” with Lil Wayne, Wiz Khalifa, Imagine Dragons.]
Tally Ho’
WTF!?’s: 6 dead ends
When to Follow: Buy it on Blu-ray and watch it with all your friends and a series of vodka cocktails.
Where’s This Found: One point for D.C.! Not only one of the best super hero films of the year, one of the best ever. In a world of politically correct, white bread movies, Deadpooland Suicide Squad really stand out. Suicide Squad learned a lot of lessons from Deadpool, especially concerning the humour. The dark humour works especially well in that the jokes don’t detract from the sinister ambience that makes me prefer the D.C. universe over that of Marvel. Suicide Squad is a good omen for future D.C. films! Out of a possible 10, I have 8 F’s to give
Suicide Squad is a Hit movieIn plane sightHarley at the dentistGet hammered with Harley“I can’t feel your heartbeat!”Thinks Harley is hotter than he is“This may shock you…”Got a text on his Note 7Taking a stab at itEveryone is under the weatherThey’ve just read my review
Prints suitable for reposting!
For Instagram
A handy smileFree King Hot
WTF!? do you meme?
What to Follow Up
WTF Review
WTF!? review of DeadpoolWTF!? review of Batman v Superman: Dawn of JusticeWTF!? review of Captain America: Civil War
Bar None Review
Oh Al! Bar None review of Dr. Strange
Fernby Films Review
Fernby Films of another Margot Robbie film
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I shall be celebrating The Star Wars Holiday Special, observing its acts and revelling in its observances to decide if it’s happy holidays or doesn’t have a prayer. So, read on only if you’ve already seen The Star Wars Holiday Special, or don’t want to watch the complete film, included below!
Han and Luke were disappointed when Chewbacca won The Dating Game
[N.B. Times referenced are from the version above.]
0:02:18 Han Solo and Chewbacca are running from two Star Destroyers. Han says he’s going to turn tail, then flip flops and promises to get Chewie home for “Life Day”. Sounds to me as though Han just didn’t feel like driving.
0:02:22
You can see it was long ago by the screen font
0:04:21 No crayons were spared in the creation of Chewbacca’s home.
Holiday Special effects
0:04:42 We meet Chewbacca’s father, Itchy, and immediately want to scratch him to make him go away.
Named after an STD symptom
0:05:16 We meet Chewbacca’s wife, Malla, and wonder if she’s also his sister.
One hairy mother
0:05:18 We meet Chewbacca’s son, Lumpy, and immediately want to ice him.
Look what the cat coughed up!
0:05:28 Now might be the best moment to tell you the Wookiees don’t speak English, but instead make a noise resembling an angry pig with a defective vibrator lodged in his anus.
0:09:43 Lumpy watches a hologram TV programme with miniature, Dr. Seuss-esque characters performing circus tricks. Whatever it is, it’s better than what we’re watching.
0:10:21
Lumpy on acid
0:13:01 Malla does a scan to see if her wayward husband is on his way back, but of course he isn’t. Or perhaps the typewriter attached to the old computer is defective.
No intelligent life, either
0:15:06 Malla calls Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) on a Visio phone that resembles a safe (for secure calls?) to bitch about her husband. Luke brushes her off because he’s in the middle of repairing an engine and his sex change.
Something’s getting fixed
0:18:02 Malla decides to call a shop on the “wall screen”. Art Carnie is Saun Dann, the manager of the Trading Post on Wookiee Planet C (dear lord but Wookiees lack imagination). There’s an Imperial Navy trooper shopping there (must be a fetish thing for him), so the manager must speak in code.
I know just why you’re calling. You’re wondering when that shaggy carpet you ordered will arrive at your home. Let me assure you, madam, it’s on its way. You know, it was made especially for you by a little old lady four planets away. She did it all by herself. In fact you might say she did it by hand, solo.
0:20:24 Lol, James Earl Jones makes a cameo as Darth Vader’s voice, but the footage is lifted from A New Hope.
0:21:57 Malla decides her day isn’t bad enough, so she turns on her kitchen telly to witness a Harvey Korman in drag give instructions on how to prepare a Bantha Surprise. A bigger surprise is how there is no narrative arc to this story, but simply random skits designed to make us feel uncomfortable and happy that the world left the 70’s.
What’s cooking?
0:26:23 Han Solo and Chewbacca must fight off four TIE/LN star fighters, just like we’re fighting off the urge to be sick. Han then berates his hairy friend for wanting to return to his family on Life Day.
Why do I always think that taking you home for Life Day is going to be easy?
A friend in need is not Han Solo.
0:26:46 The “wall screen” alarm sounds and an Imperial officer announces that martial law is in effect because of rebel activity. A blockade had been established and no ships will be permitted to land. Chewbacca’s flight remains up in the air.
0:29:36 Saun Dann arrives and explains that if he can get through the blockade, anyone can. He also has Life Day gifts. For father Itchy, he has a cartridge of Diahann Carroll as Mermeia Holographic Wow giving Wookiee meditation porn for a virtual reality helmet. Now I see how Itchy’s palms got hairy.
Itchy, I thought you might like this. It’s one of those… It’s a real… It’s kind of hard to explain– [Waving his hand in a ‘hot’ gesture] Wow! You know what I mean? Happy Life Day. And I do mean happy Life Day.
Actual script
VR (Very Ridiculous) helmet
0:33:34 Lol. There’s a song interlude ofMermeia Holographic Wow(seriously) singing “This Minute” that might not have been too bad if they hadn’t tried to Star Wars it up with sound effects and sci-fi synthesizers.
Holographic wow: Am found in your eyes only eyes only – I am in your mind as you create me. Ohhh yes… I can feel my creation… [Giggles] I’m getting your message – are you getting mine?”
Itchy: [orgasmic sounding] ARRGGHHHUGHH!
Holographic wow: Oh… oh… we are excited, aren’t we?
0:37:20 Princess Leia calls on the phone safe even though she can’t speak a warble of Wookiee. C-3PO interprets for her, but this interlude serves no other purpose to the story than to demonstrate Carrie Fisher had to be inebriated to do the show.
0:39:38 Apparently all it takes to evade the blockade is to fly straight ahead. The only thing easier than getting past an Imperial front is blowing up a Death Star.
0:40:10 But before our intrepid heroes can arrive, a pair of Stormtroopers and two Imperial officers arrive at the Chewbacca household. Like Chewbacca’s bath, things just got a little hairy.
0:45:24 Saun Dann switches on the gift he gave Malla for one of the Imperial officers. The device is a small stage which plays mini Jefferson Starship concerts in 3D. Starship is widely recognised to have have written the worst song in the history of rock, “We built this city“. Anyone who believes that, hasn’t heard this song.
A fluorescent condom?
0:53:16 Lumpy is being a git while the Stormtroopers search the house so Malla sits him in front of what looks to be a mini telly to watch a Star Wars cartoon. One thing this special correctly predicted was how much we’ll watch TV on different screens at home.
0:55:01 Boba Fett makes a cartoon cameo and looks better here than in the films. He’s such an animated character.
0:56:28 I wonder what it’s like for Lumpy to see a cartoon version of his father on the mini telly while he’s waiting for him to return in real life.
Colourful personalities
0:58:58 Lol, Lumpy screams when he sees the cartoon Darth Vader on his screen, so the Imperial officer approaches. Interesting they have a rebel channel with cartoons for kids mocking a contemporary leader. Maybe we should start a cartoon like this for some current world leaders. And make Ivanka Trump watch it.
1:01:02 WTF!? Cartoon Boba Fett, who is armed and facing two unarmed prisoners, runs away simply because they’ve discovered his secret pact with Darth Vader.
“It’s right behind me, isn’t it?”
1:05:32 Lumpy assembles the mini transmitter that Saun Dann gave him for Christmas. Harvey Korman represents a character different to that of the cooking show maven. Here he portrays a defective alien instructing us on how to construct the mini transmitter. The SWHS budget is so low they could only afford Harvey Korman and have him play all of the parts. I need proof he’s not also doing Malla and Lumpy.
Totally board
1:09:26 The Imperial forces who are still occupying Chewbacca’s tree house (and why would something as big as a Wookiee want to live in a tree?), start watching the wall telly, which is broadcasting an episode of “Life on Tatooine”: the universe’s first irreality show.
1:10:28 Bea Arthur (as Ackmena–not the name of a skin condition) is the bartender and her lovelorn patron is…Harvey Korman… as Kroman. The writers’ imagination is as limited as the cast.
1:11:21
Harvey has a head for alcohol
1:14:02 The punchline is that the patron is in love with the barmaid because, the last time he was there, she told him, “Come back soon! I’ll be waiting!” Even though she insists she wasn’t sincere, he doesn’t believe her… until he overhears her saying it to another patron. It’s the punchline because it makes me want to punch someone.
1:16:22 WTF!? The Empire imposes a curfew on the Tatooine system, and Ackmena has to beg her customers to leave, but they refuse. This skit is not comedy, not a musical number and not a drama. Can its sole purpose be to show off the costumes so poor they wouldn’t be worn trick or treating in a Christian camp?
More like Halloween than Tatooine
1:17:39 Ah, here’s the musical number. I understand why they kept putting it off: Bea Arthur talk/sings almost as badly as William Shatner does with “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” [N.B. If you haven’t heard this version yet…save it for when you’re having a shite day, then come home and unleash all the mighty WTF that is this cover. Trust me, you’ll never hear anything like this again.]
1:22:21 Lumpy uses his mini transmitter to send a fake message to the Imperial officer in his house, recalling the troops. They leave because of course they fall for the trick. Their logic is as good as their aim.
1:24:17 In a burst of bad action, a Stormtrooper discovers the ruse, chases Lumpy out of the house where a returning Chewbacca does nothing to save his son — but Han Solo does. Hmm, maybe Han Solo is Lumpy’s father.
♬ I wanna hold your Han ♬
1:26:31 The family reunites for Life Day. The way Wookiees can’t kiss tells me Han Solo is definitely Lumpy’s father.
1:27:44 The wall screen has an announcement for the missing/dead Stormtrooper to call in. Well, this is one special that’s not going down without a fight.
1:28:22 Saun Dann calls the commander on the Wall Screen (and not the safe phone, which is odd), and says the missing Stormtrooper stole food and supplies, then buggered off.
1:29:46 Holding fake candles in eerie lights is one of my favourite Life Day traditions…
They’re rather dim
1:30:17 …but I prefer the tradition of magically changing into clothes when you’re a nudist species and then you float in space.
Spaced out
1:31:26 Lol! You should hear the ungodly wailing noise of Wookiees attempting to sing in harmony. If you ever catch yourself feeling ridiculous, look back on this scene and reassure yourself you’ve never been as ridiculous as a conglomerate of Wookiees singing Life Day carols.
1:31:51 Leia, Luke and Han arrive out of nowhere, which is ironic because that’s where this show is headed.
Leia is bouncing for joy
1:32:39 Leia takes center stage at the base of the Tree of Life and starts singing…in English! I can already hear the Wookiee intellectuals complaining about white appropriation.
1:34:28
Ok, maybe there aren’t any Wookiee intellectuals
1:34:32 WTF!? Now they’re just showing random clips from the film that have nothing to do with this story!?
1:36:51 Roll credits
Tally Ho’
WTF!?’s: 12 special ones
When to Follow: When you want to get into the Christmas spirit and laugh incredulously while doing so. A good watch for a Sunday afternoon, on the condition that everyone watching it knows to keep their sarcasm handy. Do Not Watch this if you are a true fan of the franchise! Seriously, you’ll never be able to look at Star Wars the same way again.
Where’s This Found: This holiday special is, actually, a Christmas-themed variety special, the kind of which were very popular in the late 70’s in the United States. (Who hasn’t seen the clip of David Bowie singing “Little Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth” with Bing Crosby from 1977’s Bing Crosby’s Merrie Olde Christmas?) This may explain the special, but does not excuse it. The actors are only half there, the WTF level of most scenes reaches levels rarely seen since Sharknado, and the script was most certainly written on the toilet paper used to collect the ideas. Out of a possible 10, I have 9 F’s to give if it’s based on my perverse enjoyment of the show, and only 1 if it’s based on my appreciation of the oeuvre.
Stop playing with your food, Lumpy!♪ “I Want Chew-bacca” ♫ / ♬ “Chewbacca in the Saddle Again” ♪ / ♬ “Baby’s Got Chewbacca” ♫Let’s see what 3PO’s made ofWookiee suicide cult!
Prints suitable for reposting!
WTF!? do you meme?
What to Follow Up
WTF Review
WTF review of Star Wars: The Force AwakensWTF review of another Christmas special: Krampus
Bar None Review
Oh Al! A Bar None Christmas episode
Fernby Films Review
Ferny Films explains Disney’s plans for Star Wars!
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I shall be rushing to judgement of Death Race 2050, clearing its lines and checking its breaks to decide if it’s a winner or gets lost along the way. So read on only if you’ve already seen Death Race 2050, or don’t plan to.
NOTE: NSFW! THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE CONTAINS IMAGES OF NUDITY. DO NOT CONTINUE IF THIS OFFENDS YOU.
Not just bad asses, they’re the worst asses
00:00:47 Banners celebrate the U.S.’s new name: United Corporations of America
The United Corporations of America makes cents
0:00:51
Jose can you see?
0:01:08 A giant hologram of the leader of the United Corporations of America (Malcolm McDowellas the Chairman), towers above a packed stadium. Sadly, he’s not the only leader with a big head.
Is it a stadium or a Jacuzzi?
0:01:14
Why did those pilgrims land on Plymouth Rock? Because they needed a place to stage the greatest pissing contest known to man!
Chairman kicking off the death race
As if you needed this more proof this was a parody of Trump’s presidency… #PissingContest
0:02:27 We meet the first competitor: Tammy the Terrorist (Anessa Ramsey)
Three-time veteran of the race and leader of her own, very convoluted religion.
Yeah that was me – but it wasn’t something I planned on doing. It was just that the crowd in the opening scene was %100 Peruvian, and I thought we needed at least one non-Latino looking person in the audience so the audience wouldn’t get confused that it was supposed to be America. Also why not blow up the director in the first three minutes? Seemed like a good plan to me.
0:03:48 Grace Tickle, our female emcee (Shanna Olson), informs us that points are calculated on time races and people killed, with 10 points for adults, 20 for babies and 50 for the elderly.
What’s the point?
0:03:56
JB: Despite our free sterilisation clinics, Americans continue to reproduce at an alarming rate. And when we irradiated the entire against cancer…well, that was probably a huge mistake.
Grace: Oops!
JB: That means a lot of old people. And a lot of children who grow up to be old people.
Thus, population control is given as the reason for the Death Race. Seriously, this is a WTF because the number of people who are killed during these three days will likely have little to no impact on the overpopulation of an entire nation. But if you’re watching this film that closely, you’re watching the wrong film.
0:04:52 We’re introduced to the second contestant, Minerva Jefferson (Folake Olowofoyeku).
Minerva, her fans, and her car
Gail: A successful recording career… a blockbuster sex tape… Why risk it all to compete in the Death Race?
Minerva: My new single can answer that question perfectly.
0:05:54 At a Death Race viewing party, the younger man wears a special pair of glasses that alter his reality. The sexy women are, in fact, well over a hundred (and his grandmother), while the chic bar is nothing more than his slovenly flat. The glasses also permit viewers to share in a virtual race mode.
This year, each driver is carrying a passenger fitted with neurotransmitters, these proxies allow you to see, hear, and smell your favourite driver in stunning virtual reality.
That makes a lot of common senses.
0:06:38 The next contestant is Jed Perfectus (Burt Grinstead).
My heart is racing faster than Jed!
We hear a lot about professional athletes getting an early start, but in Jed’s case, his career began at conception. The product of genetic engineering, Perfectus breezed through sectional qualifying.
Apparently, he isn’t a self-made man.
Jed Perfectus, his fans, and his car
0:07:34 The next contestant is returning, four-time champion, Frankenstein. (Kiwi Manu Bennett who, after Malcolm McDowell, is probably the most famous actor in DR2050, having appeared in The Hobbit Trilogy, 30 Days of Night and the lead role of Crixus in the telly series Spartucus.)
He’s got more machinery in his body than most guys have in their cars.
Surgeon
Frankenstein has been put back together more times than Humpty Dumpty, except better, because it’s with electronics and metal. Speaking of a self-made man.
0:08:48 The final racer arrives…
This is the first self-driving car, programmed to follow the complex rules of the race.
ABE will be the first self-driving car to run over pedestrians…on purpose.
ABE, his followers, and his exterior
0:09:57 Frankenstein meets his proxy, Annie Sullivan (Marci Miller). He despises her so much that she must be a future love interest.
[ Easter Egg: The real Anne Sullivan is the teacher best known for teaching famous blind girl Helen Keller. Thus, our Annie Sullivan will help enlighten Frankenstein and bring him out of his solitude.]
0:14:04 The first area the racers pass through after leaving Old New York is Eastern Fall Out Zone (formerly New Jersey).
0:15:01
Roofie
0:16:14 Frankenstein takes off his mask. This isn’t as big a deal as everyone in the film seems to think it is.
0:17:34
The Chairman keeps abreast of the situation
0:17:54
A sorry States
0:17:56
0:18:03 An update from ABE and his proxy, Dr. Von Creamer (Helen Loris).
Dr Creamer doesn’t turn on the car, it turns her on
0:18:50 A husband leaves his home to buy Mood Wizz for his wife, but Tammy the Terrorist cuts him off.
That man has guts!
0:20:34 Alexis Hamilton (Yancy Butler) makes an appearance. She’s left the belly of the beast (network programmer) to become the leader of a violent revolutionary squad that wants to finish the Death Race–for once and for all.
You know what the Dalai Lama said about committees? Oh, that’s right, he didn’t talk about committees…because he wasn’t a pussy!
Hamilton’s philosophy on the efficacy of committees
0:22:12 Minerva starts singing her hit single so that her fans gather in the street where she’ll be able to run them over and gain points. But before she can lay those tracks, Tammy cuts her off and eliminates them first, stealing Minerva’s points.
That run down feeling
Jihad Jimi Hendrix!
Tammy the Terrorist as she takes out Minerva’s crew
0:22:42
Dipped in the Milky Way
0:25:11
And it’s great to see so many of you Asian parents turn out today! You’re the lifeblood of every school.
School principal (David Smith) at Bieber Elementary
Elementary schooled
0:25:42 A fan messaged Frankenstein to inform him of an easy point opportunity. Yet, rather than run over the children in wheelchairs for high points, he instead veers off to kill their parents, for fewer points. Ergo, he’s pointless.
0:26:12
An uphill battle
[ Easter Egg: The name ‘Kirk Land’ is no doubt a reference to William Shatner, who played James T. Kirk in the original Star Trek series (and a handful of films), and whom producer Roger Corman directed in 1962’s The Intruder.]
0:27:08 ABE and its proxy, Dr. Von Creamer take a detour to collect points by hitting a homeless bloke. But then, surprise, he turns out to be bait. Members of the revolution ambush the car, so Dr. Von Creamer promotes my website!
She’s saying, “Watch the film!”
0:28:08 While rescuing the doctor, ABE becomes addicted to collecting points and loses control, going so far as to whip Creamer.
De-faced
0:29:45 I’m not sure when Death Race was filmed, but when Frankenstein makes jokes about the Chairman’s hair blowing in the breeze, it feels an awful lot like a jab at Donald Trump. I’ll check on this and get back to you.
Hair today, gone tomorrow…I hope
Update: I was right yet again! In the aforementioned email, when asked if it’s a Trump reference, Echternkamp explains, “Yes, definitely. Though wrote it a year before the election, so it seemed like a really silly idea at the time.”
0:31:16
Dry humour
0:32:53
Day 1 results
0:33:17
Meanwhile, frustration for Team Jefferson. “Drive Drive Kill Kill” may be making its way to the top of the charts, but today’s slow start may mean a 1-8-7 for Minerva’s chances for victory.
[N.B. ‘1-8-7‘ is the California penal code designation for murder, thus the announcer is saying her bad performance spells the death of her chances of winning.]
Making an ass of himself
0:35:18
I’ll drink your tears, Frankenstein. I’ll lick them off your handsome face.
Jed Perfectus taunting Frankenstein
I approve of the gay slant they’re giving Jed, it gives me hope, and something more.
0:35:26 Next stop: Washington D.C. (Formerly Dubai), at a fancy dinner in an underground car park.
Chairman: Jim, how many people have you got working for you? I’m talking about human people. How many? A dozen?
Jim: Less.
Like his grammar knowledge. #fewer
0:37:56 While in the shower, Annie tunes the shower heads and a hologram of Alexis Hamilton, the Leader of the Resistance, appears. She tells Annie, who is a revolutionary mole, to kill Frankenstein tonight as he’s an establishment figurehead. Maybe one of the reasons Annie seems so green as a proxy is that she’s a plant.
0:38:14 Annie works the toothed mouse trap up her popular channel. The plan is for her to seduce Frankenstein, so that when he initiates intercourse, she’ll be able to cut him off in his pass.
Penis Pulverizer 3000 AKA ‘marriage’
0:39:36 While Annie throws herself at Frankenstein, Eve is busy simulating sex loudly to perpetuate the myth that Jeb is a real man, not a man’s man.
0:42:18 With Frankenstein asleep and Jed’s preference for the back way, looks as though all the drivers but Tammy are going to bed less ridden than their motor cars–but just as driven.
Coveted ass
0:43:44 Continuing the satire, were informed that during Day 2, the drivers must navigate through America’s gun loving heartland, where the critics won’t be the only ones taking shots at them.
[N.B. The area is referred to as Red Zone Alley, as a nod to the “red states” in the U.S., those that traditionally vote conservative]
0:43:48 I can’t go a minute longer without acknowledging Gunter and Cindy Brown’s killer musical score!
0:44:33 Day 2 begins in Walmartinique (formerly Arkansas)
0:45:24
Playing hard to get, huh? I’ll take you from behind, old man!
Jed to Frankenstein while they jockey for position
0:46:01
Welcome to the Red Zone. It smells like barbecue sauce and bed sores.
Frankenstein describing the South of the United States
0:46:51
Split decision
0:48:18
Death and Texas
0:48:36
Selfie control
0:49:07 In Meatpackistan (formerly Kansas), Tammy the Terrorist holds a pre-death revival.
Who wants virgins? Who wants chicken wings? Everybody loves chicken wings! Well, guess what, y’all? The Almighty’s got a Hooters in the sky and it is time to martyr up!
0:50:22 But before Tammy can accept their sacrifices, Minerva comes asking and steals their offering.
They have to spell it out
0:50:46
You just pissed in the wrong pool.
Tammy swears revenge
0:54:42
A liberal point spread
0:56:08 One of Tammy’s suicide bombers exacts revenge [see 50:46] by killing Chi-Wapp (Pierre Paolo Goya Kobashigawa), Minerva’s proxy.
I don’t want to die sober.
Chi-Wapp
0:58:10
Three boobs
0:58:33 Annie, Frankenstein’s proxy and resistance fighter, leads him into a trap.
Resistance ninjas.
Frankenstein, after he defeats a flurry of them
He’s a ninja, hands down
1:01:39 Annie draws a gun on Frankenstein but is unable to pull the trigger before he can wrest it from her. He destroys it with his robot hand and instructs her to turn on her video feed while he punishes a revolutionary for being stupid enough to try and evade a car by running on a road.
1:02:10
Day 2 results
1:04:08
After fighting with Frankenstein in their hotel room (Annie wants him to care about something other than the race, he wants her to stop being a resistance movement sheep), Annie meets Minerva in the hotel bar, where they discuss something other than a man.
Minerva: To paraphrase the words of a wise man, “All evil comes from a single cause.”
Annie: Money?
Minerva: Man’s inability to sit still in a room.
Assure: Yeah. Who said that?
Minerva: Blaise Pascal. You didn’t think I spoke ghetto off camera, did you?
[Easter egg: The bar is called the Bechdel Bar in reference to the Bechdel test, “which asks whether a work of fiction features at least two women who talk to each other about something other than a man.” (Quote is from the linked Wiki article.)]
Alison Bechdel’s comic strip Dykes To Watch Out For
1:06:01 Jed watches an advert of himself promoting “Protein Perfectus”, which resembles closely another source of protein.
Your protein mega-load.
Slogan
Jed’s got a lot of spunk
1:06:29 Jed has a breakdown and sees himself as a ballerina in a wind-up toy, which tells him, “This is the real you.” I’d sure play with him.
Putting the ‘ball’ in ballerina
1:07:22 Jed searches out Frankenstein and they exchange fisticuffs in the hotel room to the sound of a good punk song, which is probably “Brummy Hi-ball” by the Cousin Lovers, but it doesn’t exist anywhere else outside the world of this film so I can’t be sure.
1:08:34 Before Jed can finish Frankenstein off (in the fisticuffs sense), Annie returns to the room and renders Jed unconscious. She’s a knock out.
1:10:01 The Chairman is waiting in bed for his date.
Hey, beautiful, get a move on. I’m going from blue chip to junk bond.
“I’m going from blue chip to blue balls.” #IfIWroteThisFilm
In a jamb
1:10:17 The Chairman’s date is the Alexis Hamilton, the head of the resistance movement. This to demonstrate all organised movements are in bed together.
[N.B. This reveal is foreshadowed at the dinner [see 35:26] when the Chairman declares Frankenstein must die, and in the very next scene, the Head of the Resistance orders the execution of Frankenstein.]
1:12:37 Day 3 Mormondia People Farms (formerly Utah)
1:16:18 Minerva seeks to destroy Tammy, who straps dynamite to her proxy (Junior Jain Taboada Palomino as Deacon Grogg) and forces him out of the moving vehicle. Swerving to avoid him, Minerva drives off a cliff, is thrown from her burning car, and dies. Tammy, looking on, is struck down by ABE, who is like Charlie Sheen in that he self-destructs.
Suicide mode of transportation
1:21:311 At the Bakersfield Retirement Community & Genetic Research Lab, there is a final showdown between the Resistance and Frankenstein. With Annie’s assistance, Frankenstein is able to prove he’s in the driver’s seat.
1:21:31
Loss Angeles
1:24:44 Frankenstein runs Jed off the road, so that the Perfectus mobile crashes through the roof of the studio, killing Jed and his proxy (Leslie Shaw as Eve). The announcers Gracie Tickle and JB die under a lot of pressure, as well, as the vehicle also crushes them.
1:26:58 Frankenstein runs over the Chairman to win both the race and the revolution. He then preaches to us through the medium of the VR camera.
You don’t need the Chairman. You don’t need Frankenstein. You have the power. Make the reality of your own race. Now, get up! Turn off those headsets and get into those cars! And may the best driver win.
Heading off
1:27:34 WTF!? The audience took this speech to mean have a riot? Those weren’t fighting words.
1:29:00
Kissing it goodbye
Roll credits
Tally Ho’
WTF!?’s: 2 passing ones.
When to Follow: Any time. All the time. This film is a thrill ride and can be enjoyed equally as much when you simply want some cheap entertainment to go with your beer or when you’re looking for a political comedy with sharp teeth. Day or night, tablet or TV, drunk or sober, no time is a bad time to watch Death Race 2050.
Where’s This Found:
Cutting to the chase, so to speak, I loved Death Race 2050 from its obscure beginnings to its bitter end. Not only that, I consider this film a great accomplishment that will find its way into in my Top Ten of the year 2017, and I’m ready and willing to defend this opinion to anyone. And I will have to defend it. Maybe a lot.
The film’s biggest problem is that I’m the single, solitary member of the target audience. The intelligent film goer (Enemy, Under the Skin…) will find Death Race too trash, and those who love trash (Sharkansas Women’s Prison Massacre and other Mockbusters) will find the cutting social commentary here too intelligent. Which is a tragedy because beneath the trashy makeup on the cheek with the tongue planted firmly in it, you’ll discover a cutting satire of organised religion, gun control, industrialisation, consumption, global warming, and corporate America. What’s even better is that, while attacking these subjects, G.J. Echternkamp never forgets he’s directing a trash, B-movie parody.
Were there any downsides? Well, the social satire worked impeccably, but, on the other hand, the philosophical side (individual freedom vs a need to belong) was not as well developed. Basically, Death Race 2050 could’ve used even more crazy gore and less meaning. But, if you thought Kung Fury was too short, Sharknadowasn’t political enough and the Star Wars Holiday Special lacked boobs, this film is for you. As for me, out of a possible 10, I have 8 solid F’s to give.
I shall be inspecting the Swiss Army Man, reporting on its Private Parts and addressing its General Information to determine if it’s a Major Victory or just rank. So read on only if you’ve already seen Swiss Army Man, or don’t plan to.
Fair warning: This was my favourite film of 2016, and to paraphrase Ron Burgundy, “If you don’t think this film is the greatest film ever, I will fight you.”
Hank gives Manny some pointers
0:01:22 During the opening credits, we are afforded views of flotsam and jetsam inscribed with SOS messages. Sort of a message on a bottle.
I can’t sea
0:01:44 Stranded on a deserted isle, Hank (Paul Dano) prepares to end his waiting at the end of a rope. Just as he’s about to step off the cooler, however, he spots a limp body (Daniel Radcliffe as Manny) washed up on the beach of his tiny islet. He’s dying to meet the bloke, and nearly does until the rope snaps.
[Easter Egg: Paul Dano’s character is called Hank Thompson, in a nod to Tom Hanks, who played a man also deserted on an island in the film Cast Away.]
Hank has some hang ups
0:03:36 While determining whether the drowned man is dead or alive, gas escapes the body in what sounds very much like a fart. Interesting side note, another word for “Fart” in the U.K. is “Trump”. Look it up.
0:08:30 Hank realises that Manny is expelling so much wind, that the corpse could be used as a flotation device to leave the tiny island. #watercrafty
Gas powered boat
Swiss Army Man use #1: Jet ski
0:09:44 After a nasty spill, Hank awakens on another, far larger beach, beside a bag of cheese puffs. This is where the film gets…cheesy.
0:11:28 Hank switches on his mobile (carried in a plastic sandwich bag to keep dry) but cannot get a signal. He does, however, get a look at his lock screen, which is a photo of Mary Elizabeth Winstead (whom we saw in 10 Cloverfield Lane and The Thing). This does not give him a signal but it does give him a charge.
0:12:02
When you can’t reach it but keep trying
0:14:06 While looking for civilisation with Manny tied to him like a rucksack, Hank comes across the detritus of an abandoned campsite, complete with an old Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue and a champagne cork. One is for letting things out, the other for keeping it in.
0:14:36
Man, it’s always the songs that you hate that get stuck in your head.
Hank traipsing through the forest with Manny, singing “Cotton-Eyed Joe”
[N.B. Co-director Daniel Kwan said in this interesting article that the song was chosen because it’s a terrible song that is elevated to something beautiful, which is the theme of the film.]
Manny isn’t spoiled, yet
[N.B. A shout out to Daniel Radcliffe’s commitment to this role and his craft in general. A dummy of Manny was made because Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, the directors, didn’t want to ask Harry Potter to lie about in the muck all day. Scheinert stated, “[Daniel] obviously had every right to not want to lie in the cold dirt for most of the day. But at the end he wanted to. He went, ‘If Paul’s going to be in the scene, I want to be in the scene.’” “It kind of set the tone for everyone,” said Kwan. “If Harry Potter is going to lie in the dirt for hours, I can’t say shit. Nothing I’m doing is worth complaining about. It was so much fun having him there in almost every scene. We only used the dummy when it looked like someone would die.” Source]
0:16:21
Crazy, I’m fucking crazy
Maybe just maybe, I’ll make it alone
Rescued, I thought I was rescued
But you’re just a dead dude, and I’m gonna die
Hank sings this to his dead friend when they’re huddled in a cave during a storm, because neither of them can sleep.
[N.B. This song is included on the playlist found at the bottom of the synopsis.]
0:19:02 After inadvertently knocking over his plastic cup of rainwater, Hank is ready to abandon Manny…until he discovers Manny has collected a great deal of rainwater himself. This proves that Manny is not just a drip.
Me drooling when someone says the pizza is on its way
Swiss Army Man use #2: Water fountain
0:20:34 Whilst trying to force more water from the cadaver, air wheezes through the corpse’s lungs, which sounds to Hank as though the chap is saying “Manny”. This is how Manny gets his name, and also when Hank begins to attribute the capacity to speak to the body. From here on out, the dead most definitely tell tales.
0:23:52 At this point, Hank collects the refuse left behind by previous campers and uses it to teach Manny about life. #trashy
25:54
Planting an idea
0:25:38
Manny: How did you get so far away from home?
Hank: I – I ran away, but that’s – It doesn’t matter.
Except it totally does.
0:27:01
Hank [to Manny]: You’ve got something in there. You’re like the multi-purpose tool guy.
Hence the name of the film. Manny is like a Swiss army knife, though a man, so he’s a Swiss army man.
0:27:54 Hank reprimands Manny for calling him trash: broken, empty, and dirty and smelly and useless and old.
Hank: You can’t just say everything that comes into your head. That’s bad talking.
So is that.
0:29:26 Hank tries to teach Manny about sex by showing him photos in an old Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue.
Before the Internet, every girl was a lot more special.
Paging a swimsuit model
0:31:03 Hank teaches Manny about fantasising by creating a fantasy life around Manny and the girl in the swimsuit photo, whom he dubs “Jessie”. His description of Manny’s life with Jessie (which is in reality, Hank’s own fantasy), gets a rise out of Manny.
Heads up
0:33:02 Hank becomes convinced that Manny’s erection is like a divining rod, pointing the way home. That’s using your head!
Swiss Army Man use #3: Compass
0:35:28 Hank explains that when his father caught him masturbating, he said the act would shorten Hank’s lifespan. Hank began crying at this, so, in order to make him feel better, his mother said that if he masturbated enough, he could catch up to her age and they could die together. Since then, Hank can’t straighten the noodle without thinking of his mum, so he doesn’t do it much. But when he does, it’s the mother of all orgasms.
0:37:09 Manny says he’ll think of Hank’s mum when he masturbates so that Hank doesn’t feel weird about being different. This awkward gesture angers Hank and a dispute ensues.
Manny: Should I just go back to being dead?
Hank: Yes, you should. Die in a fire.
Dying in a fire is cold.
0:39:32 After Hank steps in deep shite, the two lads fall down a ravine whilst escaping the beast that made said shite. They’ve really hit bottom.
0:40:08 Manny falls in love with the photo of the girl (Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Sarah) on Hank’s phone lock screen. WTF!? Manny believes Hank’s mobile is his for some strange reason. Probably the plot.
0:43:13 Because they can’t switch on the phone and drain the battery, Hank dresses up as Sarah to please Manny. Manny’s reaction demonstrates the dead have feelings.
Me, undressing for a lover
0:44:40 Hoping that exciting Manny will somehow result in their finding help (and WTF!?), Hank uses Manny to build a bus interior, to replicate the photo of Sarah on what Manny mistakenly believes to be his mobile. Manny is quite a tool!
A cutting remark
Swiss Army Man use #4: Scissors
Swiss Army Man use #5: Razor (by using Manny’s teeth)
Swiss Army Man use #6: Hammer – that’s using his head!
0:46:51 Manny, pretending to be listening to music on the bus, begins singing along with Cotton Eyed Joe [see 14:36]. Cadavers can’t sing because they’re tone death.
Manny’s listening to deadbeats
0:48:35 This exchange, while Hank recreates the bus rides where he worships Sarah from afar (and where Manny doesn’t realize he’s simply a stand-in for Hank’s melodrama), sums up brilliantly the entire subplot of “I’m too afraid to talk to her”. I know this because I’ve written an entire novel about this exact thing.
Manny: I want this to stop!
Hank: It’s not working?
Manny: No. She’s too beautiful. I can’t talk to her now. What if i say something stupid? I’ll just want to die.
Hank: She’s right there! You’re not going to do anything?
Manny: What would you do?
Hank: I would… I would probably wait, and watch her get off the bus and go home and eat a whole box of pizza by myself.
This works for me, as I love pizza more than most people.
0:51:27 Manny remembers the surname of the girl Hank is obsessed with, when Hank has never said it? How would Manny know? And, more importantly, WTF!? Or, perhaps Hank is attributing the information to Manny, much in the way a ventriloquist’s dummy echoes the puppeteer. I keep forgetting that Manny is dead, and that’s the film’s fault, not mine.
0:51:44 While loosening Manny’s grip on his hand, Hank discovers that by pulling the dead man’s thumb and forefinger apart and then letting go, the friction of their reconnecting creates sparks. Hank isn’t the only thing fired up. #popcorn
It’s a snap
Swiss Army Man use #7: Lighter
0:52:02 Hank makes popcorn with the fire and produces shadow theatre of classic movies when he (as Sarah) and Manny are on a date. Judging from Manny’s condition, the films are to die for.
What films are reproduced here? Leave your guesses in the comments!
0:52:22 Manny, the dead bloke, chokes on popcorn and I call WTF!? because the dead don’t breathe. When Hank squeezes Manny to clear the popcorn, the object shoots out like a bullet. Manny has been fired.
Swiss Army Man use #8: Gun
0:52:45 Manny shoots a handmade grappling hook which allows the duo to climb out of the chasm they were trapped in. It also kicks off a song which goes something like this:
Now we killed a raccoon
We are using your body
Like it’s a machine gun
Now we are shooting some fish
Head shot
Our friendship is blossoming
Let’s eat the stuff we killed
Now we started a fire
I have to admit
I’m enjoying your company
Are we falling in love?
All. We. Ever. Need. Is. A. Montaaaaaage!
0:53:08 As explained in the song, Hank is able to use Many as a machine gun by filling him with pellets and stones and squeezing. In the ensuing montage, the lads cook their catch in an ersatz restaurant with dancing, and Hank dressed as Sarah. Speaking of good catches…
0:53:16
A one-corpse meal
0:53:38 Hank discovers he can dislocate Manny’s limbs in such a way they snap back like a karate chop. Manny is such an action figure.
Swiss Army Man use #9: Axe
0:54:02 Hank takes a shower by filling Manny with water, elevating him and then pulling on his arm to release a spray. It’s either kinky or disgusting, you choose!
Iron Pyrites Shower (i.e. almost golden)
Swiss Army Man use #10: Shower
1:00:02 Manny addresses the elephant in the room, which is disguised as Hank feeling uncomfortable because when he was drunk he felt a sexual attraction to his dead friend. Not only does Hank need to decide if he’s gay or not, he also must take a stance on necrophilia.
Water under the bridge over troubled water
1:01:38 After the pair fall from the pipeline they were using to traverse the river, Hank decides not to abandon Manny and save himself, but instead swims deeper to rescue the cadaver. And at the bottom of the river, they kiss.
Hank embraces the elephant in the room
1:03:06 Once they hit bottom, Manny’s cork pops out and his gasses escape so strongly, the two men are launched to shore. Their relationship isn’t the only thing up in the air.
1:04:04 Hank confides that he and his father have grown apart with time and their main form of communication is automated birthday cards. They are such e-males.
1:04:40
Welcome to the dark side
1:06:32 While talking next to the campfire, the lads fantasise about living in the forest together, lost forever. Immediately after this agreement, Hank goes to urinate and realises he’s hit the open road…with his pee.
1:07:06 Hank tries his mobile once again and has a signal. It’s obvious from Sarah’s Instagram feed that her boyfriend is neither Hank nor Manny, meaning Manny may be a dreamer but Hank is just a stalker.
Nothing personal
1:08:08 Hank comes clean on all the dirt.
…this is my phone, Manny, not yours. And Sarah is a girl I saw on the bus every day, but I never had the courage to even talk to her. I didn’t think someone like her would ever wanna be with me. I didn’t even wanna be with me.
1:08:57 A bear approaches the camp! Hank loads up Manny as a machine gun, but Manny sees Sarah’s Instagram post with another man and can no longer shoot. #PerformanceAnxiety
Autopselfie
1:10:12 After the bear bites Hank’s ankle, he lights Manny’s fart so that the two might lift off and land a safe distance away. After crashing through tree branches, they are let down.
1:11:24 Yes, so this is a major theme of the film distilled into one pithy statement.
If my best friend keeps his farts from me, what else is he hiding from me?
That stinks!
If Manny wore Crocs, maybe he died of shame
1:13:41 While the bear is dragging Hank away…
Manny: Like maybe your brain invented me to distract you from the fact that eventually your eyes are gonna stop blinking and your mouth will stop chewing and your blood will stop pumping…and then you’re gonna shit yourself. And that’s it.
Hank: No. No, that’s not it. Because then my organs are gonna shit themselves.
Manny: And then your cells will shit themselves, and then all your shit’s gonna get mixed in with everyone else’s shit ‘til there’s nothing left of you, and then that’s it.
Hank: I don’t know, man. That sounds kinda nice, everyone’s shit mixing, because then someday some of your shit is gonna meet up with some of my shit, and we’ll have something to look forward to, you know?
This exchange also sums up the theme in a nice little brown package.
1:16:17 Manny comes back to real life enough to fall from the tree and light himself on fire to chase the bear away. Turns out Daniel Radcliffe is a flamer.
1:17:42 Manny carries Hank to civilisation, which also happens to be Sarah’s back garden. Manny’s gaining after death experience.
When your mate talks about your weekend…to your parents
1:18:41 Hank and Manny meet Sarah’s little girl, Crissie (Antonia Ribero).
Back door men
1:21:28 Manny weirds Sarah out when she comes to look after her daughter, so when she takes Crissie inside and calls for help, Manny decides to drop dead. For real, this time.
1:22:26 The EMTs arrive to take care of Hank and examine Manny, who they decide is probably a “bridge jumper” due to the discoloration on his abdomen. Manny and Hank have so much in common.
1:24:07 The investigating police assume the mobile was Manny’s, so they phone the number of who they believe is Manny’s father (Richard Gross) to come and identify the body. Once on site, the father doesn’t want to see the body, not knowing the phone was Hank’s, and that Hank is alive. Hank decides to hide from his father for the moment, meaning he’s mum to his dad.
1:25:48 During an interview with the local news, Hank confesses he’s not Manny. Sarah uncomfortably realises Hank had many pictures of her on his phone. Then, his father espies him and tells him to leave Manny (who’s on a stretcher in a body bag) alone, because what would Hank’s mother think? Sometimes you wish you were dead, and your best friend beats you to it.
Easter Egg: The bloke playing the cameraman is Andrew Hull, the film’s musical composer.
1:26:51 Hank makes like a 1970s sci-fi horror film and snatches the body. He takes it to the river and floats it to the sea while everyone chases him like beer after a shot of whiskey.
1:27:16 The group stumble upon the camp, and all of the secrets the two men shared. Sarah realises they were dressing up as her, so it truly was a camp sight. [Stay with that one until you get it.]
Hank is seeing Manny
1:28:04
Hank speaks to the dead
1:29:14 Hank passes wind in front of Manny [see 1:11:24] and the police officer behind him promotes my website!
He means, “Watch The Film”
1:31:09 Manny comes back to the living dead to become a gas powered boat once again.
1:31:23
Sarah promotes my site!
Roll credits
Tally Ho’
WTF!?’s: 4 Major ones
When to Follow: This is a film for those days you wish you were dead.
Where’s This Found: As stated at the top of this synopsis, Swiss Army Man was my favourite film of 2016. I find the balance of humour and poetry mixed with the off-beat premise have made this film unique in all the right places. Watch this film with someone who knows you very well…and loves you anyway. Out of a possible 10, I have 9 F’s to give
What To Feedback: In addition to listing the films referenced in the collage [see 52:02], here’s a poll for you:
I shall be analysing The Sand, sifting through its grit and surveying its grounds to to see if it’s fine or a dirty bomb. So read on only if you’ve already seen The Sand, or don’t plan to.
A big thank you to thoughtful reader David M, who spotted this shite and immediately thought of me! He emailed to suggest I write it up, and I must admit this is the most fun I’ve had with a synopsis since Posiedon Rex.
0:00:27 Apparently, The Sand is also called Killer Beach. You know you’re in for a good watch when the film itself is so embarrassed it uses a fake name!
The sequel will be “Son of a Beach”
0:00:44 Poor filming reveals that the “massive beach party” is, in fact, no more crowded than the Lady’s toilets at a Danzig concert.
In this film, three really is a crowd
0:01:52 A forlorn blonde slapper (Brooke Butleras Kaylee) decides beer is more important than her up and coming finals. Maybe she’s preparing for a pelvic exam.
0:02:04 Still in the beach party montage, a bloke in a t-shirt convinced every attendee to place their mobile phone in a pillow case. Sadly, I suspect this won’t be the most unbelievable part of this film.
0:02:44 A touch of gratuitous nudity to beleaguer the point the teens are becoming inebriated. They’re beating a dead horse, as are many young lads watching this movie. [NSFW screenshot of Nikki Leigh as Marsha]
0:03:07 WTF!? Two drunken party goers (Cleo Berryand Dean Geyer as Gilbert and Jonah) carry a giant, gooey lump of purple goop to the campfire. It looks like a giant brain, but this film won’t have anything like that in it.
And here I thought this film was going to be mindless
0:04:22 Spliced into the party montage are images of the morning after. This young lass is loose enough to sleep naked, yet prudish enough to cover herself up when she does.
0:08:54 Their special effects budget was dirt cheap.
What a sand attack looks like. Seriously.
0:09:57
Another victim…of the low budget
0:10:49 We get some bad CGI, finally!
Keeping an eye on the sand
0:11:26
Cynthia Murell as Ronnie: The sand ate him! It devoured him! It was chemicals.
Jonah: What?
Ronnie: Chemicals. There was a spill or something, like oil or something.
Jonah: That’s bullshit! Oil does not do that or the fucking Quicky Lube guy would make more than fucking minimum wage.
Ronnie: It was the government.
Meagan Holder as Chanda: So, it was the government oil chemicals that killed Vance!
And Marsha!? WTF!? Are they ignoring her because she showed her boobs?
0:11:58 The group realises all of the mobile phones are in the boot of the car, thus inaccessible. The characters are stuck, like the actors in this film…and you, watching it.
0:13:02 The car’s battery is as dead as everyone’s careers.
0:14:02 Gilbert wakes up in a dust bin and I only want to know how he could fall asleep there.
Trashed
0:14:05
How Gilbert got the nickname “Dickhead”
0:17:04 The definition of “boring” is a film about people waiting in silence for sand not to attack them.
0:17:17 In two hours, the blonde has written 4 lines of her goodbye letter to her mother. She’s a woman of few words…because that’s all she knows.
0:18:58
If we’d fucked, I’d know.
Kaylee
Things blondes say.
0:20:04 The group realise everyone who passed out on the beach after the party was certainly eaten during the night. They spend a heartfelt minute mourning the the loss, which is far more than they did for Marsha, whom they actually watched die right in front of them. #RememberMarsha
0:22:42 The giant brain egg hatched at some point during the evening and its contents are no doubt responsible for this debacle. Well, that and the producers.
Over Easy, unlike this film
0:29:02 In a break from all of this non-action, we learn Kaylee is Jonah’s ex girlfriend, but this apparently matters more now than it did when he was snogging Chanda. I think I preferred it when nothing was happening.
0:30:48 While walking over surfboards he places on the ground, Jonah finds himself trapped between a picnic table and a board. The tentacles come up from the beach to get some of that.
Feel me up
0:34:14
Jonah can’t stomach this
0:36:19 Lol, Jonah rifles through a tote bag and finds a Pepsi shop.
0:44:56 Nearly ten minutes are wasted on a sequence where Ronnie tries to stand on the rear bumper of the car to open the boot and retrieve the mobile phones. You’ll tell me the entire 80 minutes of the film is wasted, and I’d find it difficult to disagree.
0:47:27 Beach patrol officer Alex (Jamie Kennedy) arrives to investigate. As he’s wearing rubber soled boots, the tendrils can’t immediately reach him, and he assumes the entire group is on drugs. This joke gets as old as quickly as Justin Bieber in a senior strip club.
0:50:58 The patrolman drops his keys in the sand, and when he goes to fetch them, the sand attacks. Fortunately, he’s able to use his pepper spray on the sand to quell the tendrils, but the beach has already eaten his forearm. Like a bad poker player, he lost that hand.
Farewell to arm
0:53:52 Mitch falls from the lifeguard stand trying to catch a towel and is no more. Life’s a beach and then you die.
A hairy situation
0:54:12
Holey-er than thou
0:56:32 Kaylee leaps from the lifeguard station to the car and immediately proceeds to punch Chanda for having screwed Jonah, her boyfriend. With this film, Jonah’s not the only one who got screwed.
0:57:10
WTF!? 5 o’clock shadow on his cleavage?
0:58:38 This is the dialogue when Chanda pulls Ronnie’s fingers from the boot:
Hey, hey, hey! You’re okay. You’re okay. Come here. Come here. Look at me. Look at me. You’re okay. You’re okay. You’re okay. Please, just look at me. Look at me. Look at me.
That’s a lot of echo for a beach.
1:04:06 While walking from the car to the picnic table where Jonah lay dying, Ronnie falls from the board she was balancing on and is swallowed by the sand. She’s grounded.
1:06:21 Gilbert feeds the monsters.
Dumpster diving
1:07:54 WTF!? Chanda, who’d run to the Park officer’s vehicle, decides to stand on the bonnet until the monsters shake the car and she falls, knocking herself unconscious. This seems to satisfy the tentacles, who disappear. After several hours of nothing, Kaylee patiently waits until night settles in to start screaming.
1:13:06 After Jonah (who apparently was not as injured as we’d been led to believe), Kaylee and Chanda make their way to the ranger’s car, Kaylee lights the tentacle on fire with jeep petrol. The jeep, like the director’s future, goes up in flames.
All fired up
1:17:12 The next morning, a surfer approaches the car where the girls are asleep and Jonah woke up dead. Kaylee states the monster is dead and leaves the car with Chanda, while the dumbfounded surfer wonders why they don’t care about the dead body in the passenger seat. He’s not alone.
1:18:28 The monster is shown swimming towards a crowded pier and the threat of a sequel is the scariest part of this entire film.
Roll credits
1:20:42 WTF!? “While this picture is suggested by actual events…”!? Since when is smoking too much ganja considered an “actual event”?
A mercifully incomplete playlist:
Tally Ho’
WTF!?’s: 6 for shore!
When to Follow: Watch this in place of your Saturday morning cartoons, especially if you have a hangover, as you won’t have to change the channels as often.
Where’s This Found: As stated above, Brooke Butler stars in both The Sand and All Cheerleaders Die, and the difference between these two films illustrates perfectly the chasm between an indie film and a b-movie — and budget has nothing to do with it. Whereas All Cheerleaders… had stylish directing, a script with subplots and wanted in its soul to be loved by the viewer, The Sand is a money grab with bikinis on the cover and “horror” on the label and wants to trick the viewer into renting it–then, once it has your money, won’t care if you like it or not. I would, of course, never encourage anyone to download a film without paying for it, but if I ever did, this ‘movie’ would deserve it. Out of a possible 10, I have 2 F’s to give.
I shall be sampling Raw, cutting it into sections and examining its taste to determine if it’s rare, well done or rotten. So read on only if you’ve already seen Raw, or don’t plan to.
When they pulled the plug on the human tampon convention
0:02:32 A lass on a deserted road leaps out in front of a passing car to get that run down feeling, while the automobile crashes into a tree. The young lady in question rises from the road and approaches the vehicle which is more smashed than English kids on Saturday night. Like maths and puberty, we’ll understand this eventually.
0:03:22 After the opening credits, a young vegetarian (Garance Marillier as Justine) with her parents at a rest stop restaurant finds a meatball in her mashed potatoes. The mother freaks out enough for the both of them. We will soon learn there is a good reason her mother doesn’t want her to have a ball.
This is hard to swallow
0:05:38 The family arrive at a uni dormitory where they’re unable to reach Justine’s older sister (who’s also a student at the school), so the parents abandon the younger daughter with her suitcase in the car park. She must be at the school of hard knocks.
0:06:46 In the middle of the night, amid a loud ruckus, an angry young man (the very hot Rabah Nait Oufella as Adrien), bursts into Justine’s room and announces he’s her roommate.
Justine: I asked for a girl roommate!
Adrien: They gave you a fag, it’s the same thing for them.
0:08:18 The senior students enter all of the freshman rooms, throw all of the belongings – mattresses included – out of the windows, and then march the newbies in their pajamas through the building. It’s a hazing ritual which comforts me about not being smart enough to go to a French school, or English school, or even charm school.
0:09:36
A crawl space
0:09:58 They arrive at a massive underground rave where one of the older students promotes this site!
He’s got a head for websites
[N.B. The song playing at the party is The Dø – Despair, Hangover & Ecstasy. This song, along with other songs from the film, can be found on a playlist at the bottom of this post.]
0:10:04 At the party, some girls like to grin and bare it. [This photo is NSFW!]
0:12:12 At the rave, Justine finally finds her sister, Alexia (Ella Rumpf), who is drunker than a cheap pint at a uni pub.
0:14:16 Alex shows her younger sister an old photo of their parents, who also went through similar hazing when they were at the same veterinarian school. Apparently, animals run in their family.
0:17:08 As part of the hazing, the new students have animal blood dumped on them. A little blood the first time is nothing to worry about…
All the blood went to her head
0:17:39
Boy, is her face red!
0:19:06 As part of the hazing ritual, Justine must eat a rabbit kidney. As she’s a vegetarian, she protests, but her older sister forces her to eat it.
Alexia: I ate mine last year. That’s why I’m here now.
That’s a mouthful.
She likes her meat like her makeup: bloody
0:21:28 During lunch at the school canteen, Justine draws the ire of some of her classmates by saying that a monkey who’s been raped feels as bad as a woman who’s been raped. She’s surprised by her classmates’ judgement, after all they’re in vet school because they love animals, right? And not just for dinner…
[N.B. Justine’s love for animals is a major subplot I’ll not really explore in this synopsis, though there are several reminders throughout, especially when she looks upon the animals being treated in the vet school labs.]
0:22:32 Justine awakes in the middle of the night with an adverse reaction to the meat. She thinks it’s difficult now, but she’s just scratching the surface.
Itching for a cure
0:26:11 Justine pays a visit to the school nurse for her skin problem. It’s a rash decision.
Justine: I’m always hungry, though. My stomach always feels empty.
This is a clue to the deepening of her desires of the flesh.
0:31:33
Adrien’s friends like eating meat, too
0:32:54 Justine gets caught nicking a Salisbury steak from the canteen buffet by slipping it into the pocket of her lab coat. Adrien is certainly more adept at slipping in the beef.
[N.B. A note about how the writing in the film is more subtle than mine on this site… Before stealing the meat, Justine points out to Adrien, whom she assumes is Muslim, that the sandwich he’s chosen from the buffet contains pork, and is thus against his religion. He simply asks, “So what?” and continues on. His rejection of a dietary restriction is what makes it easier for Justine to then reject her vegetarianism by taking the steak.]
A blood test
0:33:47 While in a bus, Adrien and Justine come across the scene of an accident where a car has crashed into a tree…in the exact same location as the crash we saw at the beginning of the film. [See 2:32.] That stretch of road is more dangerous than an American president. Jk, !
0:36:02 They order food a petrol station counter and Justine devours her doner kebab. It’s her first time eating meat willingly, but it’s a habit she picks up as easily as the sandwich.
0:36:51 Justine wakes up in the middle of the night to gobble a raw chicken breast. If that’s not sick, she surely will be.
Sushi chicken
0:37:37 While a professor demonstrates his antipathy towards her scholastic excellence, Justine nibbles on her own hair. It may not be chicken, but I’d wager it tastes better raw.
0:37:58 Justine vomits the all the hair she’s been munching and looks like every cat for which I’ve ever sat.
Hair of the Dog
0:39:10
“I’ve had it up to here with your shite!”
0:40:28 After Justine and Alex get pissed and bond over a few beers on a rooftop, Alex teaches her sister how to wee like a man, except Justine wees like a drunken 3-year-old.
0:41:28 While staying at Alexia’s, Justine finds the same sort of liniment the nurse gave her to fight the rash. Meaning Alexia had the same reaction Justine did when she ate animal protein, and it had the same effect. We’re getting to the meat of the problem.
0:42:10
Breakfast in bed
0:43:22 Alexia wants to give her sister a Brazilian wax but is unable to pull it off.
Things get a little hairy
0:43:51 While Alexia tries to remove the excess wax with scissors, Justine kicks her and causes Alexia to cut off her own finger. In other words, Alexia gave Justine the finger.
Alexia’s been fingered
0:46:16 While waiting for the ambulance, Justine gives in to her urges and begins nibbling at the finger as though it were a barbecue chicken wing.
Finger food
0:47:31 Alexia comes out of her swoon to find her sister devouring her finger. Justine may not be an accountant, but she’s good at crunching digits.
0:50:12 At the hospital, Alexia claims the dog ate her finger. Justine’s father (Laurent Lucas as The Father) explains their dog will have to be put down because once an animal has tasted human flesh, it’s no longer safe. This scene is beautifully ironic in that 1) Justine loves animals but her lie is responsible for killing her pet and 2) now that she’s tasted human flesh, she’s no longer safe.
Justine hated politics but her nose was running
0:51:16 After the parents leave, Alexia tells Justine they need to talk and takes her to the same place at the roadside where the accidents [see 2:32 and 33:47] have been taking place. Alexia, we will see, wants dinner “to go”.
0:53:37 Alexia rises from the road and makes her way over the crashed vehicle. After a short dispute with Justine, Alexia begins eating the head of the young male passenger. He’s got a good head on his shoulders, or at least Alexia seems to think so.
Food for thought
0:53:58 Justine refuses to eat the victims, despite Alexia’s insistence on the fact that she “need[s] to learn”. Justine finds cannibalism in poor taste.
0:56:48 Justine develops a carnal interest in Adrien, and ogles him while he plays football with the lads. She’s already confessed to being a virgin [during her doctor’s visit, see 26:11], so it’s hard to determine what type of meat she’s hungry for.
[Raw could be interpreted as a metaphor for a young girl’s sexual awakening. The virgin lives with her parents and so is prevented from having a sexual experience, but when she leaves for uni she has a taste of physical pleasure with her experienced sister’s finger on a night they’re both drunk, and then develops a craving for the “pleasures of the flesh”, literally.]
0:57:44
On Tap
0:58:23 That one scene where Justine revels in her sexuality to the dark eroticism of ORTIES’ “Plus putes que toutes les putes” [which is on the playlist at the bottom of this post.]
1:00:58 Justine discovers her sister is in Adrien’s room and becomes jealous. She tells Alexia he’s off limits. There’s at least one finger she won’t lay on him.
1:04:34 Arriving at a party on her floor, Justine is doused by a can of blue paint. A senior in a ski mask pairs her up with a male newbie covered in yellow paint and locks then in the toilets, forbidding them from coming out until they’re green. Pretty colourful language.
Justine didn’t go but the colours ran
1:05:58 While the two are snogging, Justine gives in to her compulsion and bites off part of the boy’s lower lip. At least the cat hasn’t got his tongue.
Fortunately, it wasn’t a French kiss
1:08:48 Afterwards, Justine takes a shower to wash off the paint and the piece of meat she pulls from her teeth only to re-eat it. She has a chat with Adrien, then says she’s going to bed and he begins pleasuring himself to gay porn, when she returns and says…
It’s serious.
[N.B. The original French line is “C’est grave”, which is worth noting because “Grave” is the original French title of the film. It’s interesting because her line could be translated as, “I’ve got it bad”, which is both a reference to her sexual desire for her roommate and her case of cannibalism, and explains how director Julia Ducournau chose that name for her film.]
1:10:11 During their sex scene, Adrien has to go so far as to hold Justine’s head back by her hair to keep her from biting him. Gives new meaning to the term “dinner date”.
Putting the ‘ate’ in ‘consummate’
1:12:14 In the middle of a group study session, Justine becomes irate upon learning that her sister has Adrien’s number. After their spat, Adrien storms out insisting he’s gay. Justine’s virginity might beg to differ.
1:12:44 At a party…
Must be a teacher because she’s kissing a pupil
1:12:56
Justine takes a licking
1:13:08
[N.B. The song at the party is “It’s Getting Boring By The Sea” by Blood Red Shoes. This song is on the playlist at the bottom of the post.]
1:17:56 The next day, everyone treats Justine like a pariah. Adrien shows her why: there’s a video of her drunk at a party behaving like a dog while her sister teases her with a dead man’s dangling arm.
1:19:20 Justine, furious, seeks out her sister on the campus and attacks her.
You taste like shit.
Alexia to Justine after she takes bite of her sister’s cheek
Justine has shitty taste.
Cheeky
1:20:58 After embarrassing themselves in front of the entire school, the girls retreat to Alexia’s room where they reconcile and Alexia tends to her sister’s facial wound. They’re making up and making up.
1:23:10 The following morning is the ceremony which officially ends the hazing period. Thus, it’s not only the sisters who come out of the haze.
[The song playing while the students unite is “Ma Che Freddo Fa” by Nada, and is on the playlist at the bottom of this post.]
1:23:56 Justine wakes up bedside Adrien, their night was as rough as her face.
Justine can’t face it
1:24:37 When she moves in to spoon, she discovers half of his leg is missing. Gives “eating someone out” an entirely new meaning.
Who ordered the drumstick?
1:26:24 Rising from the bed, Justine realises ’tis not she but Alexia who is the guilty party. She finds her older sister sitting on the kitchen floor absently playing a video game. Probably Pacman.
1:28:56 Justine drags her nearly comatose sister into the shower where she cleans the blood of of both of them. Blood may well be thicker than water, but water washes it off superbly.
The girls are washed up
1:29:39 Flash forward, the family go to visit Alexia in prison. Alexia must like it there as there’s fresh meat in the “cooler”. [Oh please, you would’ve said it too, had you thought of it.]
Giving her the finger – twice
1:31:56 Back at the house, Justine’s father tells the story of meeting his wife /Justine’s mother at vet school.
Father: Your mom was tough at first. Kept saying I was her best friend at school. It drove me nuts. It’s not like she had a boyfriend, either. And then we had our first kiss. And I understood.
And so does Justine and so do we because as he says this, he caresses what we’d assumed was a cleft lip scar with his thumb. But it’s not a cleft lip scar…
He gave her some lip
1:32:33 He opens his shirt to show Justine the massive amount of scarring on his chest where his wife tried to eat his heart out.
He often took his cannibal wife out for a bite
[We understand that the girls’ affliction was passed down to them through their mother. They were safe from the ‘disease’ until they had their first taste of meat, but after that they became ravenous, just like their mother. This was why she was so adamant at the beginning of the film that Justine remain vegetarian. Once Alexia tasted meat at her hazing (the year before the events f this film take place), she became an active cannibal and learned how to cause automobile accidents to feed off of the victims. Then, a year later, when Justine arrived at the same school, history repeated itself.]
Roll credits
Tally Ho’
WTF!?’s: 0 biting ones
When to Follow: Not a first date movie or even a third date flick, but definitely a must-see. Try watching it alone one Saturday evening when you’re feeling a touch peckish.
Where’s This Found: I occasionally receive criticism on this website for telling the truth and mercilessly tearing films to shreds with my snark. The reason I do this (other than wealth and fame, obviously) is films like Raw. If I say every film I’ve seen is brilliant, then it takes the shine away from those rare films that are original, well-acted and deftly directly. If I claim that every piece of rehashed cliché that’s thrown up on the screen to make Hollywood a quick buck is great, then how am I to distinguish them from films that truly are great? Films that stand out from the pack? Films that earn your money and deserve your praise? Well, Raw, is one of those movies. It may be a little rough around the edges, but at least it has an edge, and it’s sincere, honest and entirely captivating. It’s certainly not a film for everyone, but if you like your meat like your movies: dark and raw, then this is the film for you. Out of a possible 10, I have 9 F’s to give.
I shall be opening up Berlin Syndrome, unlocking its secrets and freeing its intentions to judge if it’s liberating or should never have been released. So read on only if you’ve already seen Berlin Syndrome, or don’t plan to.
0:01:13 Australian traveler Clare (Teresa Palmer) arrives alone at the Kotbusser Tor station in Berlin. She looks as lost as all hope.
When you have a genuine Louis Vuitton in public transport
0:03:21 On the rooftop of some youth hostel, she accepts an invitation to party with a group of strangers. Either she’s trying to get kidnapped, or she’s never seen a horror film in her life…like Hostel.
0:05:46 At dawn, everyone leaves and she takes pictures of the sunrise to overcome her sadness at still being free.
[7:38 The song playing in the background is Petula Clark singing a German version of her hit ‘Downtown’ (on the playlist at the end of this article). This song will come up again at 1:37:16.]
Cell hunting
0:08:22 Leaving a bookstore (in which no one scolded her for sitting on the floor and reading an entire book on Klimt rather than buy it — WTF!?), a German man (Max Riemelt as Andi) lets drop a stack of books beside her. She helps him collect them and it’s victim at first sight.
0:10:34 He takes her to an area filled with small gardens called a schrebergarten, which is German for “growing anxiety”.
Role reversal
[11:18 N.B. Here, Andi says, “I always come here to complicate life.” Clare chuckles and corrects him, “Uhm, I think you mean to, er, you’d say ‘contemplate‘.” Andi will use this pickup strategy again, later in the film. Stay tuned…]
0:14:22 After spending the day together, Andi drops Clare off at the hostel. She invites him up but he refuses, saying he has to meet someone, but he still gives her an orgasm by touching her chin. WTF!?
Andi knows how to keep her chin up
[N.B. He cannot go with her because he still has his current victim, Natalie, of whom he must dispose before snatching Clare.]
0:15:14 Looking at her camera while in bed that evening, Clare spots Andi in the background of a photo she took before she met him. She smiles, either because she knows she’s going to be kidnapped soon or because she’s too stupid to know she’s going to be kidnapped soon.
0:16:02 The next day, she checks out of the hostel and, instead of moving on to Dresden as she’d said, she scours the city looking for him. Surely she knows she’s looking for trouble.
Prices are high in Germany
0:16:54 She finds him in the bookshop she’d visited the previous day. He’s reading the same Klimt coffee table book she did. This excites her even more than chin touching — she likes it when men stimulate her Klimt.
0:18:24 They chat at a cafe and he pretends to choke her during a language lesson. As she evidently wants to be choked, she’s got him exactly where she wants him.
0:18:27 After choking her, he finds a wedding ring with a cross on a necklace around her neck. She tells him it’s an insurance policy from her mum, so that if she ever has an emergency, she can pawn it and return home. Her mum assumes Clare can recognise an emergency.
Too bad the ring doesn’t mean Andi is “committed”
0:19:26 Andi takes her to his flat in an abandoned squat, and the only red flags that she sees are decals on a rotting door.
She’s as flaky as the walls
0:20:58 While she explores his flat she discovers that his windows are sealed shut, and yet the only alarm bells that go off are ones in her clock back in Australia.
She’s even more excited now, knowing she need not worry about someone rescuing her.
0:26:46
Franka (Emma Bading): He feels a little shame about himself… He says he is finding himself but he’s just…[aside to classmate] Flichten
School chap: Escaping
Franka: …he’s just escaping.
Young schoolgirl in Andi’s English class describing a literary character
Andi is quite the character.
Brace yourself
0:27:28 The next morning, while Andi is at work, Clare packs to leave but discovers the front door is locked and she doesn’t have a key to open it. She’s more stuck than I when playing trivial pursuit in a pub.
0:29:56 When Andi returns…
Clare: Did you lock me in?
Andi: Yes, sure. But next time I’ll tie you to the bed.
At this point, does she still really believe he’s joking? Frankly, with her naivete, I’m surprised this is the first time she’s been kidnapped.
Clare still doesn’t get the picture
0:30:48 They go out that evening, but then return to his flat because she’s got no other plans than be his prisoner.
[N.B. This is the last chance, for a while, that Clare will have to escape. Thus, it is also the cutoff point for my poll at the bottom of the article: At what point would you have fled Andi?]
0:32:14 The next morning, he says he’s leaving her the key and he takes off for work. In his absence, she discovers the key doesn’t fit the lock, he’s stolen her necklace, and that he’s written“meine” on her shoulder. When did he do this and why didn’t she notice? It may be the German word for ”mine”, but is it also German for “WTF!?”
She’s got him under her skin
0:33:06 After all of this, she still only realises she’s more screwed than a carpenter with wood when she discovers he’s taken her SIM card.
[N.B. This is also a WTF, because emergency numbers can still be dialed without a SIM card.]
0:34:11 After trying to break the window with a chair, Clare is shocked to find a second pane of unbreakable plastic behind the glass. But does she know this is a good way to reduce heating bills?
0:36:57
People say all sorts of things in bed. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything.
Clare to Andi
When Andi comes home, Clare tries to leave but Andi won’t let her. She understands for the third time that she’s being held captive. Andi reminds her that she could have gone to Dresden but said she wanted to stay. I understand his confusion. Clare is sending mixed signals because until now, she’s behaved as someone looking to be kidnapped.
A captive audience
0:40:28 Andi has dinner with his father, a uni professor. He tells him that he’s got a new girlfriend, an Australian named Clare. When asked, he says that Natalie, his ex, has moved back to Canada, which must be German for “unmarked grave”.
0:43:36 Andi comes home and unties Clare from the mattress, where she’s soiled herself and the plastic covering the bed. He also mentions he texted Clare’s mum, and personally, I hope he wrote Clare couldn’t text because she was “tied up”.
Clare is up in arm
0:44:12 In the shower, Clare finds a clump of blonde hair in the drain and becomes quite distraught: perhaps she thought Andi cleaned better than this.
0:49:01 While they work on a jigsaw puzzle together, she stabs his hand so hard with a screwdriver that he’s stuck to the table. She grabs the keys and flees, but doesn’t lock the door after her in order to lock him in. She wants to be free, but not that free. WTF!?
He’s handy with tools
0:49:44 He catches her, obviously, and fractures her fingers as a punishment. Well, at least she’s finally caught a break.
0:55:21 While teaching his high school gym class, he ogles Franka so much it’s in slow motion.
Franka has to split
0:56:28 Clare tries to open a door with a paperclip as a lock pick but instead she breaks the metal off in the lock. She really is the ideal prisoner.
1:00:51 Franka pops by to flirt with her teacher, but he threatens to report her to get her to leave. She does notice a naked Australian slapper in the flat but Andi tells her it’s his girlfriend. And, it probably is, as Clare makes no effort to get Franka’s attention.
1:02:18 The door with the blocked key hole won’t open, meaning Andi can’t take the Polaroids and hair clippings to his secret storage room. Just as he begins accusing Clare, the door cedes and the tension is as anticlimactic as the rest of the film.
“That’s a wrap!”
1:02:58 Clare is reading a book of poems by Ted Hughes, because when you’re trapped, nothing goes down quite like reading the man that made Sylvia Plath kill herself.
1:06:21 Andi is at his father’s and Clare is alone in the flat when the snow begins to fall and the power goes out. The apartment is now as dim as she is.
1:06:35
Clare is a pane
1:07:44 Andi, still at his father’s, comes down stairs to find his dad has died. That’s life!
1:09:56 Andi stays at his father’s home and doesn’t return to the flat for several days. In his absence, Clare begins to take nude Polaroids of herself. She’s a “model” prisoner. [Screenshot NSFW]
1:11:42 In Andi’s absence, Clare finds a ballpoint pen from the Calgary Tower. She realises it’s from Natalie, the girl before her, and can now be used to write missives for the dead letter office.
1:13:32 They cry together when Andi returns to the flat. He over his dead father and she with relief as she thought he was never going to come back. Then she seduces him and comes down with a nasty case of Stockholm Syndrome. [TLDR The Stockholm Syndrome is when you’ve been a victim so long you begin to appreciate your captor. It’s also known as “a Trump supporter”.]
Tag your friends
1:15:38 At a sad Christmas celebration, he gives her 2 books, Raymond Carver’s short story collection Cathedral, and W. G. Sebald‘s novel Austerlitz. The latter is because he’s not finished torturing her.
1:18:04 When Clare tries to explain what cicadas are by imitating the sounds they make, we understand she’s gone a little buggy.
[Honestly, Teresa Palmer does an amazing job showing Clare’s descent into madness.]
Has a drinking problem: she doesn’t know how to
1:19:42 Andi then gives Clare his dead dad’s dog, Lotte, as in “a lotte shite to process”.
1:21:31 Andi takes Clare to the forest to chop her up but just as he’s raising the ax, a child stumbles and cries out. Other people’s kids…make good ritual sacrifices.
“I’ve always wanted a choker!”
1:22:08 Clare tells the injured child’s sibling to call the police because Andi is a bad man, but she’s chosen the only German child in the world who can’t speak English.
1:22:52 Hansel and Gretel’s mum comes along but Clare doesn’t say anything to her about calling the cops because how bad does she want to leave really?
1:24:52 Andi comes home from walking the dog and tells Clare Lotte had run away. #LuckyDog
1:27:02 While Andi is at a New Year’s Eve party, Clare breaks into the locked room find finds a photo album of her naked Polaroids. Like a naturalist in winter, she learns it’s bare-able.
1:28:32 Beside his masturbation chair, Clare discovers another photo album containing snaps of Andi as a wee lad and also photos of Natalie, his previous victim. Clare seems upset, but perhaps it’s because Natalie’s album is closest to the masturbation chair.
“Is that another captive I smell on your breath!?”
1:29:26 To make her leave him alone, Andi insults one of his colleagues at the soiree in a way that would require subtitles to fully comprehend. [Basically, he accuses her of throwing herself at him and she asks him out…of the flat.]
1:30:54
Andi: On New Year’s Eve, isn’t it important to compensate your life?
Girl: What? I think you mean ‘contemplate’.
Outside the party, and flirts with a girl by making the same ‘endearing’ English mistake that he made with Clare back at the schrebergarten [see 11:18]. If bad English is endearing, my mates are the most handsome blokes on earth.
1:31:27 Driving home, Andi looks out of his car, seeking a new victim. #windowshopping
“How can I get a hold of you?”
1:32:44 A homeless man with a torch appears in a window across the courtyard from Clare. She makes a scene with pans to draw his attention, and it seems to wok.
1:33:42 Andi returns while the Samaritan is trying to open the door, and Clare has a front row seat while she watches through the peephole as Andi kills the stranger. Andi just wanted piece of mind.
Andi’s a headbanger
1:35:48 Andi forces a distraught Clare to help him clean up after the murder, and she’s so confused that she pities both Andi and the man he killed.
Get a hold of yourselves
[N.B. One thing this film does extremely well is to analyse the complex relationship that’s set in between Clare and her captor.]
1:37:16
When you’re alone, and life is making you lonely You can always go Downtown
Clare singing ironically
After roasting the homeless man (and not in the “joke telling” sense), Andi covers the windows with boards while Clare sings about going Downtown. [The song is “Downtown”, made famous by Petula Clark. See the playlist at the bottom of this synposis.]
1:38:00 Andi finds an article about Clare in the local paper. He then tells Clare to pack bags because he’s having the flat fumigated the following day, but in fact there’s only one pest he wants eliminated.
Miss Me?
1:39:38 Clare notices Andi’s marking his students’ notebooks, so she burns her hand on the cooker, forcing him to go to the loo to get the cream. Whilst he’s in the toilets, she purloin’s a pupil’s notebook to give it a note of her own.
1:41:14 The next day, at dawn, he takes her rucksack and stashes it in a cellar with Natalie’s rucksack (we know it’s hers from the Canadian flag patch sewn on it). He then proceeds to cut off the water because he knows people cannot live longer than 3 days without water. Even I know the Survival Rule of 3s (people will die after 3 minutes without air, 3 hours without shelter, 3 days without water and 3 weeks without food) and I’m not even a serial killer…you think.
Natalie was a bag lady
1:41:42 In Andi’s class at school, Franka opens her notebook and finds a photo of Clare bound for pleasure, just not her own.
1:42:04 Franka asks to be excused but drops the Polaroid on her way out. She’s a bright girl, but that’s just her braces.
1:42:36
Show & Tell just got interesting
1:43:14 Andi finds his class ogling the photo and understands now why Franka left. He takes off after her in his car, while she was on a bicycle. He hopes to beat her, and not just in the race.
1:44:11 Arriving at the apartment building, Andi sees the discarded lockbox that held the key to his flat, meaning Franka found the key and freed Clare. His only hope now is that Franka doesn’t know what a mobile phone is and that the girls are too stupid to leave the building and get help, but instead just hide and wait for him to return and hunt them down. But no one’s that stupid, right?
Clare had some “pent up” aggression
1:44:47 Wrong! The girls become confused and instead of running downstairs to freedom, Franka turns around, runs upstairs and traps herself. WTF!? #freedumb
1:47:58 While Franka is upstairs, Clare returns to the flat and lures Andi in. Once he’s entered, she magically sneaks past him and locks him in, getting her revenge in a burst of completely and totally anticlimactic irony.
On her way to the vet’s
1:50:48 Taking her passport and emergency necklace, she hops in a taxi and rides away. This means Andi will die of dehydration and the police will never know what happened or what happened to Natalie because evidently Franka has decided not to tell anyone, either. WTF!?
Roll credits
Tally Ho’
WTF!?’s: 9 terminal ones
When to Follow: Teresa Palmer’s moving performance is wasted on this film. She truly gives it her all and the payoff is visible on the screen, unfortunately, she is far better than the story, which never rises above the mundane. While, on the surface, the script is obviously based on the concept of the Stockholm Syndrome, there is another level here linked more closely with the title. The films is called Berlin Syndrome in reference to the split personality of the city, meaning Berlin’s history as a city divided between the GDR East German communists and the West German capitalist sections. While this may have worked more successfully in the novel upon which the script is based, here it isn’t developed enough to be interesting, which is logical because no one watching a suspense / thriller cares anyway. As it is, Berlin Syndrome is a string of cliches that form a tired cautionary tale. That said, I hated it less after a second watch. How many times would I have to watch it to actually like it?
Where’s This Found: Out of a possible 10, I have 4 F’s to give
Andi has a wrap for dinner“Guess what the ‘special sauce’ was…”
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WTF!? do you meme?
What to Follow Up
WTF of another bad film with female nudityWTF Review of another Teresa Palmer effortWTF of a far better thrillerFernby Films review of a Teresa Palmer classic
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I shall be picking up Colossal, raising some questions and taking in it’s scope to determine if it’s tremendous or to be looked down on. So read on only if you’ve already seen Colossal, or don’t plan to.
0:01:41 A girl child in Japan, walking through a park at night with her mother, stops to look for a lost doll. Just after she finds it, a giant monster (Kaijū (怪獣, in Japanese) strolls past amongst the buildings. The little girl screams, which may not seem like much, yet is more than her mum does.
A hair raising experience
0:01:41
25 Years Later
Like a statute of limitations, this will be important later
0:01:54
Better than the Old York
0:05:07 Gloria (Anne Hathaway) arrives at her flat still drunk, and lies to her boyfriend, Tim (the ever loving Dan Stevens) about what she’d been doing. As this is not the first time–and she’s only using him for his money so she doesn’t have to work–he politely asks her to leave. Yet he will eventually be labelled the bad guy, which is a massive WTF, and I’m not even saying that just because he’s hot as sin on Sunday and she’s got the most horrible bangs since Imogen Poots in Green Room.
0:05:24 Wait, he’s the demon for asking her to leave, but she’s the one who told her friends to hide until after he’d left so they could continue to party in his flat while he’s at work paying for the booze they’re drinking? WTF!? That said, I’ve never seen one person look so fresh after partying all night, let alone five.
All nighters in the movies v All nighters in real life
0:06:24 Gloria’s got a lot of baggage As she’s thrown out on the street, Gloria finds herself forced to move back into a beautiful suburban two-storey house, aka “white homeless”.
A fixer-upper, and I don’t mean the house
[N.B. The song playing as she enters the house is “Shake Sugaree”, by Elizabeth Cotten. This song, as well as the others in the film, are on the playlist found at the bottom of this article.]
0:07:42 The next morning, she’s returning home from the local Five & Dime with a heavy box in a pillow case (we will learn much later it’s an air mattress still in its box), when she bumps into an old, childhood friend Oscar (Jason Sudeikis) whom she hasn’t seen in ages. They’re the kind of close where she forgets she went to his mother’s funeral.
[N.B. The song playing he drives her to the bar he owns is “The Great American Shakedown” by Oil Boom. Check out this song and the others from the soundtrack on the playlist at the bottom of this piece.]
0:10:41 Gloria explores Oscar’s bar while he prepares to open.
Gloria: [looking at upturned pallets with faerie lights that block off part of the pub] Hey, didn’t this use to be bigger?
Oscar: Yeah, good memory! I just ended up shutting that half down, you know. Didn’t need it. The people and everything…
This blocked off section of the pub represents the part of his aggression / childhood that closed down when Gloria left Maidenhead. And now that she’s returned, it’s only right that she opens that part up again. She’s literally getting him to open up.
Family night slide shows
0:12:14 That evening, still at the bar, Gloria meets two regulars, young Joel (Austin Stowell) and weird Garth (Tim Blake Nelson). While Oscar’s mates pub babble, Gloria decides to take the plunge…into a beer. She’s been hesitating about drinking all evening (because it was the drink that landed her in trouble with her ex in New York City), but eventually gulps at a PBR after this exchange.
Joel: What do you think of Maidenhead? Has it changed a lot?
Gloria: To tell you the truth, I have no fucking idea.
Which I usually wait to say until after I’m drunk.
[N.B. The film is set in Maidenhead, New Jersey, but the actual filming location is Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.]
Like the bottle, she’s getting drunk
[35:28 N.B. For those keeping score, the ‘M’ on her wrist is the only genuine bad Anne Hathaway tattoo in the film.]
0:13:24 In the unused part of the bar, after closing, with the three blokes and Gloria…
Gloria [alone with Joel at a table]: Why do they always do that?
Joel: What?
Gloria: They always introduce you to all the guys except the good looking ones. [She rises to walk away.] One.
That’s going to come back and bite her in the ass Joel’s looking at.
An ass in jeans, and a blurry shot of Anne Hathaway’s bum
0:13:41
Gloria: Ah! It’s like a fucking Wes Anderson movie in here, Oscar. I love it!
Gloria is referring to the back room’s decor and the resemblance it bears to indie film director Wes Anderson’s sets, which often have a retro chic vibe. Or like heaven, because Wes Anderson is a directing God.
[N.B. The song they’re listening to in the bar as the sun comes up is Dory Previn’s “The Lady with the Braid”. See playlist at the end of this post.]
0:14:44 While BSing with the group, Oscar lets slip that, when they were in elementary school, Gloria won all of the short story competitions. When she claims they were terrible, Oscar responds, “Apparently they were better than mine, so…” This is important because he’s in competition, not love, with her.
It’s on the tip of her tongue
0:14:54 Joel makes a move to kiss Gloria in front of Oscar (because of when she flirted with him earlier). The moment is as uncomfortable as a sundial shoved up that place where the sun doesn’t shine.
0:16:21 On her way home from the bar, Gloria sees children on their way to school as she passes through a playground in a park. The tots may be on their way to school, but Gloria is about to learn a lesson.
0:18:04 Nine hours later, after passing out on the living room floor, Gloria receives a call from her friend Isis, who tells her the shocking news. Gloria goes online and sees that a giant monster materialised and walked through Seoul, South Korea, causing as much damage as a drunk girl in people’s lives.
Just saw her bangs
[18:26 N.B. The tattoo on her finger is not a real Anne Hathaway official tattoo, but was added for the film. Does anyone know what it is or symbolises?]
0:19:11 Gloria calls Tim to talk about the event, only to learn that it happened 9 hours ago and she’s been passed out the entire time. Damn Tim for realising this, too, because it’s clearly his fault somehow.
[N.B. Clearly the theme of drinking and alcoholism is central to the film’s story.]
0:22:20 After drinking all night, Gloria stumbles to the park and passes out on the bench. Upon waking and still drunk, she calls Tim while walking onto the playground and scratching her head. This is important because she doesn’t have lice.
Itching to talk
0:24:01 Oscar brings over a telly Gloria doesn’t remember asking for. Looks like the screen isn’t the only thing that’s blacked out.
0:24:18 Oscar tells Gloria that the monster returned to Seoul again, exactly at 8:05, just like 25 years ago. Gloria never heard about that, which feels a little WTF to me, but then again, it’s fresh in our memory from 1:41.
0:26:49 Gloria also doesn’t remember getting a job working at the bar, though when Oscar reminds her, she agrees on the condition that he open up the ”western side”. It’s room to grow, I guess.
Anne is feeling a little horse
0:27:18 Gloria sees the monster imitating her tic from 22:20 and understands she’s a monster.
0:28:01 As she works behind the bar that evening, she watches the pub’s big screen telly where the monster copies her actions of checking the mobile phone and then chucking it, which she did. She’s even more convinced that she’s the monster. And that she needs a new phone.
From scratch
0:28:38 Later, she verifies the video of the first appearance and realises the monster is holding her arms just as Gloria had when carrying the air mattress in a pillow case.
0:30:37 Gloria maps out the park playground and the city of Seoul so she knows her way around, because when she steps out on the town, she steps out – on the town.
A walk on the town
0:31:58 At exactly 8:05 in the a.m., she enters the playground, lifts one arm, then both arms, and returns to her house. She immediately turns on the TV and sees the monster has reappeared and made the exact same gestures. Thus, she has confirmation she’s a monster, and not just for the way she treats Tim.
0:34:28 WTF!? She’s been waiting to get back with Tim for ages and when he finally facetimes and is even more decent to her than she deserves, she completely forgets him in the middle of their conversing so she can open the door and let Oscar and Joel bring her a sofa. So, not only is she selfish and self absorbed, she’s also a bad person.
0:35:11
She’s a better ad rep than a server
0:35:34 She ignores a call from Tim and looks contemplatively at her bottle. Looks as though she’s going to quit both.
[N.B. If you’re interested in doing the magic trick where Garth lights a teabag on fire to make it fly, you came to the right place.]
0:40:32 After a night of drinking, Gloria takes the lads to the park at 8:05 and proves that she’s the monster by imitating a dance Garth did of Oscar pointing at his ‘entertainment centre’. When the locals, however, begin attacking her, she accidentally knocks a helicopter out of the sky, killing the pilot and crew, and then falls down, causing as much destruction in their Seoul as Gloria in hers.
As the Nike dancers say, “Just Duet!”
0:40:48
Rest her Seoul
0:42:32 While Gloria pleads with Oscar to tell her how many people she killed, he shows her how he appeared beside her as a robot. I’m pretty sure that’s not the answer to her question.
[N.B. The choices of their avatars isn’t random. She’s a monster because of how she behaves when she’s drunk, and he’s a robot because–spoiler alert–he has no heart.]
0:44:26 Gloria tries to force a flashback to where she was 25 years ago, at the monsters original sighting. She can only come up with a couple seconds of walking towards a school bus and some flashback music.
Homeless dating: Your bench or mine?
[N.B. While Oscar and Gloria sit on the park bench and discuss their predicament, he confesses that he followed her progress after he left Maidenhead. This is placed here as evidence they’re engaged…in competition, and she didn’t even know it.]
0:45:28 Gloria has Oscar get a text translated into Korean. We don’t know what it reads, yet, but I’m guessing it’s not a “Seoul Survivor” pun. #sadly
0:49:12
Like metal, she’s a good conductor
0:50:01 Gloria/The monster kneels down and writes out, “I’m sorry. It was a mistake. It won’t happen again.” This is such a basic sentence for me that I can say it in 5 languages and put it on a cake.
0:53:02 Gloria sneaks over to Joel’s place so they can hook up, and I don’t mean his cable.
0:54:08 The next morning, as she’s leaving his place, she catches sight of the telly, where Oscar / the robot is ‘taunting’ Seoul’s business district. The market isn’t the only thing that’s crashing.
Dance Machine
0:54:37 When Joel drives Gloria to the playground to intervene, Oscar realises Joel put his monster in Gloria’s Seoul (#euphemism) and Oscar takes it far worse than she did last night (#amirite?).
0:56:04 Gloria tells him to leave but Oscar insults her by telling her she’s the one who killed a lot of people, and not him. She slaps him, which draws audible cheers from TV viewers, and just when it seems as though he’s gong to hit her back, he acquiesces and leaves the playground. Still, he’s like a J. J. Abrams film: Bad Robot.
0:56:26
Transformhurts
1:00:04
Oscar: Have a beer.
Gloria: I haven’t had a beer since Sunday. Or any drink, really.
Oscar: Why?
Gloria: Because I don’t want to do anything stupid.
More proof that this is a very subtle film against alcoholism. And stupidity.
1:01:44 Drunk Oscar insults Garth, throws Garth out of the bar, then pressures Gloria to drink by blackmailing her (‘Drink this beer or I’ll crush your Seoul’). But you know who the real asshole is? Joel, because he simply sits there and defends neither his friend nor his girlfriend. With friends like Joel, who needs Nazi collaborators?
[N.B. The character of ‘Joel’ represents ‘people’ (friends, acquaintances, strangers…). They participate passively in all your drama but do absolutely nothing to get involved.]
1:03:24 After Gloria pours the beer out on the ground, Oscar storms out and hops in his pickup truck (with a silently complicit Joel beside him). Gloria blocks the vehicle so Oscar insults her until she moves out of the way. If I were Oscar, I’d simply put the vehicle in reverse gear. WTF!?
Alcohol abuse
1:05:22 Gloria and Oscar have a fight on the playground where she slaps and punches him and he wrestles her to the ground. Joel watches the scene on his tablet, where the giant versions of the pair act out the scene in Seoul. He’s passive-aggressive, minus the aggressive.
1:06:02 Oscar tells Gloria that if she quits her job, he’ll destroy an entire neighbourhood, and then tells her he’s through playing ‘Mr. Nice Guy’ and knocks her to the ground. He’s pretty pushy, in fact. There’s the ‘aggressive’.
1:07:41 Later that morning, Joel arrives at Gloria’s house with a van full of furniture from Oscar. He’s trying to say he’s sorry, but it looks more like trash talk.
1:08:26 She runs over to his house to question him, and when he invites her in, she sees he’s as dirty as my mind.
Filthy rich–without the ‘rich’
1:09:48 He apologises for hurting her, and she accepts on the condition that he ceases to drink after hours, to which he agrees.
Gloria: I’m no stranger to fucking up when drunk. It’s o.k., we’re good.
Gloria drives home the theme of the film in a big, obvious bus headed straight for Obvious Town.
1:19:54 Gloria takes Tim (who’s arrived in town ostensibly for work) to the bar, where Oscar lights firecrackers so illegal the bar catches on fire. The reason?
Oscar: I just did the most irresponsible thing you could do in this bar. You know what? Even so, Gloria’s not going to leave with you.
There’s an implicit threat that of she leaves, Oscar will destroy Seoul, so she stays. He’s got her where he wants her–well, the second place he wants her.
Old flames
1:23:18 Oscar surprises Gloria in her house in the middle of the night, which causes Gloria to flashback to the origin of the incident.
They’ve got the whole world in their hands
A strong wind carries her project aloft, over a fence and into a spare lot, which is now the playground. Oscar scales the fence to rescue the project, Gloria thinks, but then she secretly watches while he places it in the ground and smashes it with his feet. Turns out he is the robot, but the monster, as well.
[N.B. He destroys her project for the same reason he’s fighting with her now: he’s jealous of her success.]
1:25:48 While Gloria seethes with anger, a lightning bolt slowly snakes down from the sky and strikes the place in her head where she scratches when upset. It is precisely at this moment that she first appears as the monster in Korea, where the little girl looking for her doll becomes the Seoul survivor. [See 1:41.]
She’s bright
1:26:06 When both children are knocked to the ground by the lightning, a monster figurine falls out of little Gloria’s backpack and a toy robot falls from Oscar’s. Obviously, the lightning strike and young Gloria’s rage generate a force strong enough to create alternate beings based on their toys that co-exist in the park where they fall and in the Korea of which Gloria has created a model. These dolls are not to be toyed with.
Living dolls
1:27:26 Gloria tells Oscar the reason he’s a knob isn’t because he wants to possess her, but because he hates his tiny life. She then proceeds to call Tim and tell him she’s going to join him. If looks could kill, Oscar’s gaze would already be arrested.
1:30:21 At that moment, the sirens start on the live feed from Seoul, meaning it’s 8:05 a.m. and the time window is open for the monsters. Oscar and Gloria get into a physical fight, he to reach the playground and she to stop him. At the playground, he knocks her to the dirt with a hard slap. Like a randy duchess, she’s down for the count.
1:30:52 Oscar tells Gloria that every day she’s away, he’s going to destroy Seoul. When it comes to destroying cities, Oscar puts his foot down.
Step on it
1:33:51 Gloria jets off to Korea that night and arrives while Oscar, who’s bitter because he knows she left, is still drinking beer and waiting for 8:05. He knows she took off, but didn’t know it was literally.
1:34:54 She calls Tim and says, “You kicked me out of your flat because I was out of control and now I’m more out of control than ever.” What she means is, “I treated you like shite for years and then you called me on it so fuck you.” If a woman jettisoned an alcoholic man from her life and then he called her and insulted her, I doubt many of us would be cheering him on. WTF!?
1:34:23
That phone has a lot of hang ups
1:33:56 8:05 The sirens go off and I can’t help but wonder if there’s mass destruction and large scale dying taking place in this part of Seoul on a regular basis, why don’t they evacuate it instead of filling it with cars and people at the exact hour the mayhem commences. WTF!?
1:37:01 WTF!? Joel watches from a neighborhood bar like he didn’t know who the monster is and where he’s at? Oscar may be marching in the sand, but Joel’s buried his head in it.
1:39:47 Brilliant! Gloria flew to Seoul and, when the robot appears, she marches straight at him…because, just as New Jersey Oscar & Gloria are robots and monsters in Seoul, so is Korea Gloria a monster in New Jersey! What goes around comes around like a poor relative.
Feels a monster headache coming on
1:40:29 Gloria in Korea is a monster in New Jersey and she gets a hold of human Oscar there, and I don’t mean on the phone.
How does that grab you?
1:41:38 She throws puny Oscar up in the air as far as she can, which is quite far, as she has a lot of practice throwing things up.
1:44:25 While all of Seoul celebrates, Gloria walks into an empty bar [and why would she do this?] and asks the bartender if she wants to hear a story. The bartender agrees and asks Gloria if she’d like a drink. Gloria sighs because she apparently didn’t expect this question in a pub.
Roll credits
Tally Ho’
WTF!?’s: 9 colossal ones
When to Follow: It’d be a good watch during a drunken date night.
Where’s This Found: A fun, quirky, art film with solid performances by Anne Hathaway and Jason Sudeikis. The story is intriguing with an intellectual twist, yet the metaphors are accessible, thus fun to explore. Director Nacho Vigalondo turns in a good movie and I’m looking forward to seeing more from him.Out of a possible 10, I have 8 F’s to give, which makes it a strong recommend in my blog.
What To Feedback: First, do you have any idea what her tattoos mean? I can’t seem to get a straight answer from Nacho Vigalondo. Secondly, I honestly don’t get all the hate concerning Anne Hathaway. Perhaps it’s down to the fact that I’m a gay man and she’s played a princess and been in a musical, but I don’t see what’s so bad about her. What about you?
I shall be digging deep and exhuming all of mother!, so don’t read any further unless you’re ready to see mother! completely naked.
Note
This post is simply a crib sheet to the film. I shall do a proper review when the DVD release date approaches, but I sense there are a lot of readers with many questions on this film, so I thought I’d address them here. Much of my analysis was gleaned from Collider, Vanity Fair, The Telegraph U.K., and Time, though I’ve also added my own 2 pence as concerns the ending. I haven’t seen this perspective mentioned elsewhere, so I thought I’d publish it here.
Established symbolism
The General Idea: The film is about the Bible, especially Genesis and bits of the New Testament. Him (Javier Bardem) plays the poet/creator, and Jennifer Lawrence plays Mother, meaning Mother Earth.
The Initial Guests: Man (Ed Harris) represents Adam and Woman (Michelle Pfeiffer) represents Eve. They arrive in the Garden but partake of the forbidden fruit (by breaking the crystal) and so are thrown out of the house. Before they can be exiled, however, the Oldest Son (Domhnall Gleeson) kills his Younger Brother (Brian Gleeson) in a retelling of the tale in Genesis when Cain kills his younger brother Abel.
The Bloody Floorboard: The earth is a living being, not an object. When she’s hurt, she bleeds.
The Sink: The sink that collapses represents the flood. Humans are mucking about and not doing as they’re told, so a flood is sent to clear them all out of the earth.
The Basement: The hidden room in the basement represents the entrance to Hell.
The Poem: After the Flood has cleared everyone away, the Creator makes a new creation which is idolized by the world. Unfortunately, the creation is so beautiful that everyone comes to the house and destroy it by their sheer number, greed and selfishness.
The Baby: The Baby is Jesus, and is sacrificed by the adoring masses and then eaten in a parallel to the Communion, where Christians eat the body and drink the blood of Christ.
The Yellow Powder / Liquid: No clue. Please leave a comment explaining what it is. [In the comments, one reader (thank you, John), points out that the powder is a sort of elixir to calm her shattered nerves. I’m just wondering if there isn’t a more allegorical meaning. What would the planet earth take if it were feeling stressed?]
The Crystal: The crystal represents Love. In the final sequence, the Poet desperately asks if she’s still in love with him and she begrudgingly admits that she does. Then he asks her for one more thing before she goes and she says she only has one thing left to give. Following that, he reaches into her chest and pulls the crystal from where her heart would be. [A shout out to Simon, who explained this in the comments!]
The Ending: [What follows is my personal interpretation] I think that Darren Aronofsky strays from his initial outline in the third act. Rather than continuing to focus on the Biblical aspect of the film, he opens it up to include aspects of his own, personal story in the movie.
Aronofsky sees himself as God, in a sense and, as he’s an atheist, this doesn’t trouble him all that much. After all, God and film directors are both creators who are looking to please the masses. Aronofsky realizes here that he’s drawn to the adoration of fans, to the point where he unwittingly lets them distract him from his personal life. Like the Poet in the film, he finds it difficult to turn away admirers, even when they are invading his privacy.
That adoration can be more important to a creator than the love of a partner. After all, what is the logical outcome when presented with a choice between the love of one or the love of many? For someone who craves love and attention, that choice is an easy one.
When the creator turns his back on the person who loves him the most, she then destroys the relationship between them. She’s the one who demolishes the house, not the others. That she leaves saddens him, but also prepares the way for a new relationship where he’ll continue to make the same mistakes. My personal take on the ending of the film, then, is that it’s autobiographical. Aronofsky recognizes his own need for attention and admiration can interfere with his personal relationships, going so far as causing some of them to end. Yet he doesn’t learn from this, because when one relationship ends, he simply moves on to the next.
That’s it then! What do you think of my analysis? Do you have any questions about the symbolism? Does my interpretation of the ending ring true? Please feel to leave a comment with any questions or observations of your own! I’d love to hear what you think!
Also, if you know somebody who has seen or might want to see the film, please consider sharing it on Facebook or other social media! The more of us there are, the merrier it will be when we decipher the entire movie!
I shall be dissecting Wonder Woman, poring over her outline and examining her body of work to identify if she’s solid or dead meat. So read on only if you’ve already seen Wonder Woman, or don’t plan to.
0:01:24 The film begins with Diana Prince (Gal Godot), a curator at Paris’s Louvre museum, talking about how difficult it is to save the world, and if mankind should be saved. If she’d met my mates she’d, unfortunately, have her answer to that.
[N.B. This question, ‘is humanity worth saving and do we deserve Wonder Woman’, is the central theme to this film.]
0:01:28
Subtle as a truck
[EXCLUSIVE Easter Egg: Is it just me, or is the Wayne Company Logo as good a disguise as Clark Kent’s glasses? I’ve super-imposed a slightly altered Batman logo beside that of Wayne Enterprises so that you can judge. Also worth noting is that the license plate on the truck begins with ‘JL’, an obvious reference to the Justice League.]
0:02:20 Bruce sends Diana (who works in the antiquities department), an original glass plate negative of her with her crew in World War I. It’s like the original Snapchat.
[N.B. This photo is first referenced in Batman v Superman, where Diana Prince is looking for it because it’s proof that she doesn’t age. In my synopsis, it’s at 1:40:07.]
0:02:44 Fade from Diana’s face in the etching into her face as a little girl, scampering about Island. Maybe she’s running from the question as to how these women age until they suddenly stop, at different ages. WTF!?
Like what you hold at a craps table in Las Vegas: a Paradise
0:03:38
“I call it my…lesbian erection.”
[ Easter egg: Here we see Antiope (Robin Wright) together with Menalippe (Lisa Loven Kongsli) for the first time. I adore the implied lesbian relationship between these two women. ️]
0:04:06 Diana is fleeing her babysitter to snoop on the Amazon’s well-choreographed training. Patty Jenkins (the director) uses slow motion to good effect, reminiscent of 300. This scene is as well executed as a murderer in a guillotine.
[N.B. The Mail Online published this interesting article about the women who make up the Amazons.]
Fighting for equal rights
0:04:28 Diana’s mother (Connie Nielsen as Hippolyta) catches her child and scolds her for both eluding her tutor and wanting to learn how to fight. Antiope, Diana’s aunt (her mother’s sister) as head of the army, argues in Diana’s favour. Hippolyta shoots her down like a fighter plane over the ocean.
0:05:08 Rather than discussing Diana’s training, shouldn’t they be discussing why they choose to speak heavily accented English together instead of their native language? Or, if English is their native language, why they have strong, Slavic accents? WTF!?
“I can’t wait until we’re the same age, Mommy!”
0:05:44
Diana, you are the most precious thing in the world to me. I wished for you so much so, I sculpted you from clay myself, and beg begged Zeus to give you life.
Hippolyta to Diana at bedtime
Alternative facts…of life.
0:06:10
Woman’s Cave
0:06:58 For a bedtime story, Diana’s mum tells the wee child how Zeus created man, but his son Ares was jealous. As a result, Ares poisoned mankind with negativity so that they would war with each other. Thus, the gods created the Amazons nowhere near the Amazon (unless that’s where they were ordered from) to restore peace to the earth. I don’t know about Diana, but the story certainly is putting me to sleep.
0:07:18
The Amazons are washed up
0:07:37 Diana sneaks out at night and is secretly trained by Antiope. This lack of supervision explains why there aren’t more children on The Mascara, which is their secret island, and a bit of a sexist name too, I might add. [Oh stop it, of course I realise the island is really called Themyscira!]
0:07:42 Antiope continues the story, explaining that Hippolyta led a revolt against “enslavement” by some mystery enslavers and that Zeus aided the Amazons. But Ares, the God of War, killed everyone Zeus sent, so Zeus used the last of his power to stop Ares. Still, as Zeus knew Ares would return with more war, Zeus left the Amazons with a weapon that could kill a God. (No, it’s not “intellect”, but I’ll accept that answer.)
“Hello, mum. Love your nest eggs.”
0:08:40 With his dying breath (WTF!?, Zeus must’ve tested the weapon on himself, first), Zeus created The Mascara (Themyscira) to hide the Amazons from the outside world, where Ares wouldn’t look. It’s under a cloud, basically, because men won’t move anything when they look for something.
0:09:31
Zeus’s other name must be CGI, because that’s what made this
0:09:52
Remember when Diana thought the God Killer was a sword?Remember when we thought the God Killer was a sword?
0:10:39 Teenager Diana (Emily Carey) trains with Antiope and we’re reminded Diana is the only Amazon who gets birthday parties, as she’s the only one who ages.
0:12:04 Hippolyta catches Antiope training Diana, and in the ensuing argument, Antiope implies that Diana was born to be a warrior and not just in the sense that most teenagers are. [N.B. This is because Antiope is aware of Diana’s origin and destiny.]
Even her horse is looking down on you
0:12:22 In voice over, Hippolyta acquiesces and tells Antiope to train Diana harder than any Amazon, but not to tell her the truth of who she is or how she came to be. We are introduced to adult Diana for the first time, who still must be freaking out that she’s the only one in the island who ages.
0:12:26 & 57, 14:11
Wonder Women
0:13:08 At the peak of her training, Diana defeats Philippus (Ann Ogbomo), who was refered to as the fiercest Amazon warrior during the training scene [see 4:06]. Let’s call her Amazon Prime.
0:13:58 To finish her training, Diana defeats Antiope but when she looks to her mum for validation, Antiope launches a sneak attack that surprises Diana so much, she puts her wrists together and goes ballistic.
Diana is a knock out
0:15:23 While everyone realises she’s a superhero, Diana runs off to pout. In mid-sulk, she happens to witness an airplane poke a hole in the sky and crash into the ocean. The pilot no longer has his head in the clouds.
0:16:38 Diana cliff dives into the sea to rescue Captain Steve Trevor (Chris Pine), who is in over his head.
Diana finally meets a Son of a Beach
0:17:28 The Germans, looking for Captain Trevor, sail into the bubble around Themyscira, too. It would seem the island is not as well hidden as everyone thought.
0:18:09
You’re a man.
After resuscitating Trevor, Diana makes this remark upon seeing the first male of her life. That’s below the belt!
0:18:50
A See Change
0:19:01
They’re in the same boat
[Easter Egg: ‘Schwaben’ is a reference to the dreadnought battleship ‘SMS Schwaben’ that served in World War I and also replaced the SMS Mars, which is the Roman name for the god…Ares.]
0:18:55
They have guns, right?
Steve Trevor seeing the Amazons intend to use bows and arrows against the invading army
0:19:22
Amazons are swingers
0:20:21 A very well-filmed battle scene between the Amazonians and the Germans, compete with original choreography and slow motion in all the right places.
0:21:30 Using her girlfriend’s shield as a platform, Antiope leaps over the heads of three enemy soldiers to shoot them unawares. Steve is so impressed by this display he’ll steal it later.
Antiope takes a bow
0:21:48 Antiope takes a bullet that has Diana’s name all over it and dies. Diana is broken up, but not as much as she would be if Antiope hadn’t taken the bullet. [N.B. Antiope’s girlfriend is the gal who runs screaming Noooooo! at the corpse.]
0:23:10
I don’t know if it’s the loo, but they call it the Throne Room
0:23:36 Wrapped in the Golden Lasso of Hestia (the Lasso of Truth), Captain Trevor gives up more secrets than a drunk teen playing Truth or Dare.
[Easter Egg: William Moulton Marston — also known by the pen name Charles Moulton — not only created the character of Wonder Woman, he also invented the prototype of the lie detector test. #LassoOfTruth]
He can’t come now because he’s a little tied up
0:24:48 He explains in a flashback that he’s a spy who went undercover to investigate bad General Ludendorff (Danny Huston), where he learned the Germans had a secret factory where they made secret bombs and nasty weapons created by “Chief Psychopath” Dr. Isabel Maru (Elena Anaya), who only had half a face and lots of –literal– plastic surgery.
“Your kisses taste like Pinocchio.”
[Easter Egg: General Erich Ludendorf really existed and once said that in war “…the entire physical and moral forces of the nation should be mobilized, because peace (is) merely an interval between wars.”]
0:24:56 Doctor Maru’s nickname is ‘Dr Poison’, which probably makes it hard for her to get a date.
She’s two-faced
0:25:24 We learn why people call her Doctor Poison, and it’s not because she’s a fan of 80’s hair-metal.
Poison-us
0:26:04 Trevor steals her notebook with all her poison gas recipes and escapes into the present, where he tells the Amazons he needs to get Maru’s notes to the allies to finish the War to End All Wars (the first one).
0:28:57 Diana asks her mum if she can go win the war but her mum says no. Parents never let you do anything fun.
When you ask your mum for money in front of your squad
0:29:21 The island doctor removes a bandage on Diana’s arm, where her wound has already healed. This the doctor finds strange, but not the whole ageing/not ageing conundrum.
[N.B. This scene exists to show us Wonder Woman can recover quickly from her injuries.]
“Steve, I’d like you to meet my dad.”
0:30:34 The Mascara Island has a hot tub (Fountain of Youth?) and Diana bursts in uninvited to ogle Steve’s member and his family member’s heirloom watch.
You let this little thing tell you what to do?
I’m not sure she’s talking about the watch.
0:34:49 Diana decides to leap from a cliff across a chasm onto a small eave which breaks, resulting in a fall which she must recover from by digging her hands into a stone wall and climbing. That’s a lot of effort to avoid using the door she used as a younger girl. [N.B. In fact, it’s a device used to demonstrate her super strength.]
Everything is phallic when you live on an island of women
0:35:22 She nicks the special sword, shield and Lasso of Truth and goes to run away with Steve Trevor in order to stop the war. She probably took the lasso because she already suspects men lie like dirty rugs.
0:36:37 Her mum catches her but lets her go anyway. I suspect Hippolyta wants to turn Diana’s room into a den.
A not-so-good luck charm
0:37:48 To complete her costume, Hippolyta gives Diana the headband that belonged to Antiope, like a badass tiara.
0:38:35
Clearance Sail
0:39:04 After that ship has sailed:
Menalippe: You should have told her. Hippolyta: The more she knows, the sooner he’ll find her.
Here, Menalippe tells Hippolyta that she should have let Diana know that she — and not the sword — is the real God Killer. Hippolyta explains that if she had, Ares would’ve been able to locate her that much sooner.
You Are Here
0:43:18 Whilst on the boat:
Diana: I’ve read all 12 volumes of Clio’s Treatise on Bodily Pleasure. Steve: All 12, huh? … Did you bring any of those with you? Diana: You would not enjoy them. Steve: I don’t know. Maybe. Diana: No, you wouldn’t. Steve: Why not? Diana: They came to the conclusion that men are essential for procreation, but when it comes to pleasure…unnecessary.
“Steve! I feel like a piece of shite — because we’re floating in a toilet!”
0:45:40 The second act begins with General Ludendorff giving Dr. Maru a pep talk about gassing people. To thank him, she gives him a sort of gaseous cocaine that gets his rock hard and, more importantly, triggers her memory about the recipe for her famous homemade poison.
[N.B. Actually, there’s a breeze which rustles the balled up formulae on her desk, and pushes the correct one to her. In the film’s climax, we see a flashback in which Ares is, in fact, the wind that returns the correct calculation to Dr. Maru.]
She gets under his skin
0:46:50 After sailing 10 minutes, they arrive in England. This means that top-secret The Mascara Island is probably in the neighbourhood of Slough.
London hasn’t changed
0:48:54 Before dropping off Dr Poison’s secret plans at HQ, Steve must take Diana to buy some proper clothes. In the shop, Diana meets Etta Candy (Lucy Davis), Steve’s secretary.
Diana: What is a secretary? Etta: Well, I do everything! I go where he tells me to go and I do what he tells me to do. Diana: Well, where I’m from, that’s called ‘slavery’. Etta (to Steve): I really like her!
“Hey, Etta, my hand is up here.”
0:50:28
Steve: Etta? Where is she?
Etta: Well, she’s trying on outfit two hundred and twenty-six.
0:52:12 One can tell it’s the early 20th century because Londoners are shocked to see someone carrying a broadsword in public.
Getting ready to split the difference
0:53:22 Trevor and Diana are accosted by evil agents and, to general surprise, Diana defeats them soundly. Even she seems shocked when she deflects bullets with her bracelets, or perhaps she’s checking them for scratches as they’re still under guarantee.
[Easter Egg: The scene where Diana catches a bullet to protect Steve is a tribute to Superman (1978), where Clark Kent does the exact same thing for Lois Lane.]
0:56:18 Diana meets Sir Patrick Morgan (David Thewlis) while Trevor fashions her a new name, Diana Prince, as she’s about to introduce herself as Diana Princess of Themyscira. No doubt because no one can pronounce ‘Themyscira’.
0:59:02 Diana, the smartest demigod in the room, deciphers Dr. Poison’s notes and discovers Maru’s created a ‘mustard’ gas that’s hydrogen based and thus will render gas masks inutile. Which, if it’s anything like French mustard, I completely understand.
Dr Maru is comical
[Easter Egg: Dr Maru first appeared as an enemy for Wonder Woman in 1942. Of that incarnation, Patty Jenkins kept only the green lab coat in tribute.]
1:01:57 Having decided to ignore his orders to not attack the gas factory, Trevor takes Diana to a local pub in order to recruit a team with whom Wonder Woman can take a photo. [see 2:20]
Sameer (dit Sammy, played by Saïd Taghmaoui): Moroccan ‘undercover operative’, i.e. ‘con man’.
Charlie (played by Ewen Bremner): Scottish sniper who, because of PTSD, sings better than he snipes — and he’s a terrible singer.
Chief (played by Eugene Brave Rock): A native American smuggler who’s as useless as Charlie on this mission.
“I know you just had the salad, but we’re still splitting the bill four ways.”
1:04:15 Etta arrives with Sir Patrick, who knows Trevor is disobeying orders and has come to help fund the excursion. He offers to let Etta run the operation from his office. The real reason for his generosity is that he wants to keep tabs on the mission as it unfolds. Because he’s as evil as I suspected he was when I first saw the film in the cinema.
When your mum and dad meet your flatmate for the first time
1:06:08 Steve buys Diana an ice cream and she, upon finding the treat quite delicious, remarks to the vendor, “You should be very proud.” Wait til she tries pizza.
[Easter Egg: This same exchange took place in both the comic book Justice League: Origins and cartoon film Justice League: Avengers.]
1:08:51 General Ludendorff storms into a meeting of the German elite, who are preparing their surrender. Ludendorff disagrees with this strategy, so he throws a gas grenade into the room and locks the door. The high command die atrociously, reminding me never to host a beans and chili party in the winter.
That party is a gas
1:09:48 Diana, Steve and their merry band meet up with The Chief (Eugene Brave Rock), a profiteer who’s lost faith in humanity and will make them pay for it. In cash.
1:10:08
May we get what we want, may we get what we need, but may we never get what we deserve.
Toast at the camp
1:12:23
Up in smoke
1:13:014 In the trenches, Diana meets a bereaved and dispossessed woman with her infant child. She tells Diana that the Germans burned their houses and enslaved those who weren’t killed. This is where Diana draws a front line.
1:13:32
This is No Man’s Land, Diana. That means no man can cross it.
Wait, Diana’s not man…
Her sword just cut the strap of her Wonder bra
1:14:05 Wonder Woman crossing No Man’s Land is the best scene in the film. Diane lets her hair down, slips out of her coat and becomes Wonder Woman for the first time.
This is why they couldn’t call it “No Woman’s Land”.
1:17:24 Wonder Woman storms into the occupied town of Vled, Belgium and accomplishes more single-handedly than a one-armed compulsive masturbator.
Party Crasher
1:18:16 The fight scene in the enemy headquarters is perfectly filmed with slick moves spread across the screen in slow motion.
He’s kicked out
1:18:52
Getting high
1:20:01 Just when they think they’ve got the upper hand, a sniper in the church steeple starts picking off the natives one at a time. Charlie, who’s not really served any purpose up until this point, stays true to form and doesn’t do anything here, either. [In fact, he’s traumatised from all of the killing he’s done in his life so suffers from performance anxiety: he can’t keep the tip up to shoot.]
1:20:36 Recalling the jumping manoeuvre he saw on the beach [see 21:30], Steve and the boys use a vehicle door to assist Wonder Woman in leaping to the sniper’s nest. It brings the house down, or at least the church.
Getting the jump on the sniper
[N.B. This sniper in the church tower is very reminiscent of the sniper in the bell tower film within a film used in Inglourious Basterds, which of course was based on the fact that many snipers preferred high perches, from their point of view.]
1:21:34 The taking of the famous picture that Bruce Wayne sends the negative of to Diana Prince at the start of the film. #posers #HiddenFigures
This is supposed to be Snyder, on paper
[Easter Egg: Jack Snyder has a cameo in this photo, according to Screen Rant. He’s the bloke on the side, apparently, though I’d never have known it without reading the article.]
1:23:44 Trevor learns that Ludendorff and Doctor Maru will be at a gala event at the German High Command, in a conveniently nearby castle. Wonder Woman draws the conclusion that Ludendorff is Ares, while Steve draws the conclusion that she’s nuttier than a squirrel’s balls.
1:24:41
Bottoms Up, and soon it will be
1:26:28 While the town celebrates and Steve teaches Diana how to dance and fall in love, the snow begins to gently fall. Charlie, heartened by the victory, plays piano and sings for the first time in years. This is obvious, judging by how badly he sings.
1:28:40 Steve takes Diana up to his room. Before she was Wonder Woman, now he’s going to make just a woman out of her.
“But Steve, it does look like a condom on your head.”
1:32:16 Chief steals a motorcar for Trevor to use to ride into the gala, with Sammy as the chauffeur. The native American’s a thief and the North African’s a slave… And you thought there were no Nazis in this film.
1:33:18 As they enter the castle where the gala is taking place, Steve notices chairs being placed along a parapet. These are the front row seats to the destruction of Veld, so the guests can witness the gassing of the town. Apparently fireworks weren’t available.
Theatre of Operations
1:34:01 A true WWTF (Wonder Woman The F…) moment. Steve tells Diana she can’t enter the soiree with him so… An elderly woman whose car is blocked decides to exit her vehicle and walk into the forest for no apparent reason other than to be ambushed by Wonder Woman who we can only assume renders her unconscious and steals her clothes, leaving the old biddy unconscious and naked in the woods. Not the shiniest moment in Wonder Woman’s illustrious career.
“I’m sorry! Batwoman isn’t sexier!”
[Easter Egg: The woman from whom Wonder Woman steals the blue dress is credited as ‘Fausta Grables’, who was also the Nazi agent famously featured in an episode of Lynda Carter’s Wonder Woman series, ‘Fausta: The Nazi Wonder Woman’]
1:34:38
“These are for me. The waiter’s over there if you’re thirsty.”
Steve Trevor: Excuse me, would you like a drink? Dr. Isabel “Poison” Maru: I don’t drink. I can’t drink.
1:36:48 Steve tries flirting with Dr. Maru to trick her into giving up her secrets, but when he sees Diana enter the party, his rising, penetrating interest convinces Maru that she herself is a dog who won’t get that Trevor bone.
1:36:57
She has a stabbing pain in her back
1:38:52 After Trevor prevents Diana from killing the mood and Ludendorff at the party, she sees that rounds of the deadly gas are being fired from the castle and aimed at Veld. She takes off, and her dress too, for beneath it is her Wonder Woman costume, though where she hid that under her backless dress is anyone’s guess.
1:40:42 Wonder Woman, who is immune to the gas, enters the town to see all of the villagers dead. She blames Trevor because he didn’t let her kill Ludendorff, and she might be right. If she’d killed him, the party might have ended before the attack. Or perhaps it would’ve changed nothing. I know I’ve often suffered gas attacks after parties.
“This is what war is like? Why the hell did I wear a swim suit?”
1:41:04 The Chief follows Ludendorff and sends smoke signals to indicate to Trevor and Wonder Woman where the general is preparing more gas. Either that or those at the party are smoking up some signals of their own.
1:42:12 Wonder Woman arrives at the airport where Ludendorff is preparing his massive attack by following smoke signals in the dark. WTF!?
Looks like he put his medals on himself. In the dark. When he was drunk.
1:43:24 Wonder Woman does some close-quarters fighting with Ludendorff, who’s hopped up on drugs, to give him the strength he needs to hold his own against her (not a euphemism).
1:43:32 Let me take this opportunity to say how pleasantly surprised I was to see a fight sequence where I could actually see the fight sequence. So many directors hide poorly choreographed fight sequences with quick cuts, extreme closeups, and blur effects.
Wonder Woman gets her kicks
1:44:11
She’s as high as a kite
1:45:22 Wonder Woman kills Ludendorff, believing she’s killed Ares. But then she espies the soldiers continuing to lead the planes with dirty bombs and is shocked. I think we were meant to be surprised as well but, just as if we were asking Patty Jenkins for a loan, she’s not giving us any credit.
1:47:50 When Steve arrives and begs her to help him even if humans–himself included–don’t deserve it, she acts like she’s at a party with me and my mates and says she’s too good for us. ‘For us’, I’m not sure, but she is quite good.
Wonder Woman likes it on top
1:49:04 WTF!? Just when she’s given up and ready to head back to The Mascara island, Sir Patrick arrives and confesses what we’ve known since the first moment that we saw him: He’s Ares. But if he’d only shut up for a moment longer, she would’ve fecked off and he could’ve won the war easily! Why does he needlessly reveal himself here? I’m beginning to think he’s a closet exhibitionist in addition to being the closet God of War.
1:49:24 Btw, while Wonder Woman takes ages to understand what’s happening with Sir Patrick / Ares, Steve and the team are surreptitiously entering the tarmac where the gas bombs are being loaded. They’re wearing gas masks as a disguise, but this is a WTF because they’re the only ones in the whole airport wearing gas masks, thus they look very suspicious. Or perhaps they’re disguised as praying mantises and no one notices because the soldiers used to being bugged by the allies.
Looking pretty fly
1:50:44 Ares tries to convince Wonder Woman that his father’s (Zeus) creation (us humans) merit annihilation. This is a major theme in the film, and in my life whenever I switch on the news.
Ares beats the God Killer hands down
1:51:06
Wonder Woman [upon seeing her sword crumble]: The God Killer! Ares: My dear child, that is not the God Killer. You are.
So is education. #justsaying
1:51:16
Ares: Only a God can kill another God. Zeus left the child he had with the Queen of the Amazons as a weapon to use against me.
So not only was Wonder Woman not made of clay, she’s a bastard.
Wonder Woman is a dirty movie
1:55:42 The fight between Ares and Wonder Woman is so mundane, I wonder if they’re married.
1:56:10 Meanwhile, Steve’s team continues is terrible struggle to remain totally useless. No one can do anything to stop the bombs (they’re on a timer, so if the plane is grounded the bombs will destroy the countryside where they’re at, and if the plane is shot down, the gas dispersion would be even worse), especially his friends. They’re called a ‘crack unit’ because that’s what they smoke.
Steve is apartment hunting
1:57:14 In what will be their last date, Wonder Woman is slightly concussed from some grenades and Steve is in his way to catch the gas biplane but they meet in the middle of the runway and Steve tells her things she cannot hear (her ears were affected by the grenades) but that she’ll remember later. WTF!?
1:57:50 Ares, standing in the niche of a fire, attracts molten metal shards to him like armor in WWI version of Iron Man.
Ares is pretty hot
2:00:11 The team are out of ammo, Steve is on the plane and Wonder Woman is wrapped up in a tank tread but, not to worry, things are often darkest before the end of the film.
2:01:02 Steve commits suicide by blowing up the plane with the poison gas while he’s piloting it. Turns out he’s nothing but hot air in the end. Good thing he didn’t book a return ticket.
2:01:14 Fortunately the enemy and Ares wait for WW to grieve, giving her time to turn on the super force field attack she’d already used once, way back at 13:58, against Antiope. This force is her gift from Zeus and is what makes her a God Killer. She gets it from her father.
2:01:41
When your deodorant fails
2:02:36
Dr. Maru could use a facial
2:02:54 Ares tries to convince WW to kill Dr. Maru, but she’s interrupted mid-squash by memories of what Steve said when she couldn’t hear him. Maru and Ares are nice enough to wait for her to remember everything before the doctor escapes and Ares attacks.
Almost as strong as her antiperspirant
2:04:46
Up in arms
2:05:21
Ares: They do not deserve your protection! WW: It’s not about ‘deserve’, it’s about what you believe. And I believe in love.
With Steve dead, she better believe she loves solitude.
The comic version of Ares and his real life twin
2:05:04
Goodbye, brother.
Wonder Woman as she’s about to rain hell down on Ares
She calls him “brother” because, as they are both children of Zeus, he’s her half-brother. Talk about sibling rivalry!
2:05:58 Wonder Woman attacks Ares with super lightning, which she gets from her father, Zeus. She got his lightning but didn’t steal his thunder.
She gets tingly when she’s with her big brother
2:06:17 “Super hero landing! Wait for it. Whoo! Super hero landing! You know, that’s really hard on your knees. Totally impractical. They all do it.” (Deadpool)
Wonder Woman takes a kneeDeadpool was the first to comment on the Super Her Landing (Click on the photo for the review)
2:06:32
She went nuclear on his ass
2:07:08 As Ares is now dead, all of the German soldiers suddenly wonder what they’re doing fighting a war. Maybe it’s just me, but this seems a little over-simplistic. Besides, if this were the case and Germans really didn’t want to start World War I, then Diana really has no reason to give up on humanity — it was her brother’s fault, after all.
2:07:30
A major plot hole
2:07:38 The bloke on the poster is not 1918 Justin Bieber but George V, the king of England at the time. The difference between you and him is that when he screws up, he does it royally.
The King is so 2-dimensional
2:08:08 The whole team reunite at the victory celebration in London. It’s all fun and games, until Diana espies a photo of Steve Trevor on a statue with photos of others killed in the war. There are fewer than I would’ve thought for a World War.
2:08:29
Steve’s so plane
2:09:26 Fade back to the present where Diana Prince explains how she stayed in the real world to fight and give because only love can save the world. WTF!? This doesn’t make as much sense as she thinks it does.
2:10:12 She finishes her email thanking Bruce Wayne for the photo because she hears sirens announcing the beginning of Justice League and she wants to suit up before it starts.
2:10:31 WTF!?
Who needs an invisible jet?
2:13:21 Song in the credits is “To Be Human”, by Sia featuring Labrinth. You can check it out in the playlist below.
2:19:44
In memory of Captain William T. Jenkins
Credits dedication
Capt Jenkins is director Patty Jenkin’s father and was a fighter pilot in the United States Air Force. She gives him some credit, is what I’m saying.
Tally Ho’
WTF!?’s: 10 that left me wondering
When to Follow: Perfect film for any time and with anyone (not from the German Empire).
Where’s This Found: One of the best films in the DC Cinematic Universe (not including Suicide Squad, and yes, I’m still standing up / for / beside and behind that film because it was just that good). Wonder Woman is one of those all-too-rare examples when the right actor meets the right part under the eye of the right director. Despite a couple of PG-13 moments, Wonder Woman proves she’s at least as strong as any of her male counterparts. Out of a possible 10, I have 8 F’s to give
Going to shave her armpits againWhen you fall asleep in heaven and wake up in LondonDiana demonstrates for Etta how the Amazons spent their eveningsWonder Woman learns about men at ChippendalesGetting a grip“There seems to be a misunderstanding. I love vintage clothes — I’m the God of Wore.”Proving the Amazon is nowhere near ThemysciraWonder Woman has the runs“70 is 69 plus this finger” / When Wonder Woman discovered a use for men / How many times this review made him laughThe lesser known sport of ‘box’ huntingTwo blokes horsing aroundShe’s on her high horseStoogy McStooge: 0 kills in combat thus far“Who are you calling a ‘plastic’ surgeon?”When you’re at prom and your underwear rides up your crackHer bracelets may be stolen, because they’re certainly hotIs she deflecting bullets or hiding her boobs?
Prints suitable for reposting!
WTF!? did they say?
WTF!? do you meme?
What to Follow Up
WTF Review
WTF review of Batman vs Superman: Dawn of JusticeWTF Review of Captain America: Civil War
Bar None Review
Bar None review of Ant-Man
366 Weird Movies
Weird Review of “I’m a Cyborg, but that’s ok” [Saibogujiman Kwenchana]
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I shall be breaking down Fifty Shades Freed, pulling apart its scenes and delivering a punishing analysis to see if it comes out on top or ends up on the bottom. So read on only if you’ve already seen Fifty Shades Freed, or don’t plan to.
Fifty Shades Freed (The Final Chapter): It’s always a bad sign when the film’s title assures you there won’t be any more sequels.
0:00:51 While I reviewed the first Fifty Shades, I missed the second. This one begins with Anastasia (why do I always think her surname is ‘Boudoir’?) preparing to marry Mr. Grey. Meaning neither of the characters died in the second film, unlike the careers of the actors portraying them.
0:01:06 At the wedding ceremony Anastasia (Dakota Johnson) and Christian (Jamie Dornan) exchange vows. For this couple, these are a new sort of ‘ties that bind’.
Careful with that ring, you don’t know where her finger’s been
0:01:28 The subtitles that came with my copy are going to be my favourite part of this film.
The actual line was “To love you unconditionally”.
0:03:52 Immediately following their wedding, the couple jet off to Paris and… attend an opera. So, it would seem that torture is still very much a part of their relationship.
[The song accompanying their bliss montage is Hailee Steinfeld, ‘Capital Letters’. The entire playlist is at the end of this synopsis.]
0:06:08 Christian tells her her bikini is too revealing, which exposes the plot line of jealousy as clearly as a tan line. Uh-oh, trouble in paradise. Or at least in Nice.
She won’t take that lying down
0:06:56 Meanwhile, in Grey’s publishing company, a man with a visitor’s pass can use utility closets where he can change into workers clothes and can use an obvious electronic box to visibly access the computer room and can attach a huge bomb to the server. Grey’s company is as secure as a starlet’s Icloud account.
0:08:51 Anna’s safe word it’s ‘red’. Easy to remember, it’s the colour of my face while I watch this embarrassing sex scene.
[ The song serenading them while they bdsm is ‘Sacrifice’ by Black Atlass, featuring Jessie Reyez. It’s on the playlist at the end of this post.]
0:10:16
She will take this lying down
0:11:11 On the video surveillance footage, Anastasia recognises her old boss as the culprit who stole data and set fire to the mainframe. His name is Jack Hyde, and with a name like that, why did they need to investigate?
0:14:06 Anna insists that the maid leave so that she can cook dinner herself.
Christian: I could get used to this. Anna: Well, we’re kind of married so you might have to. Christian: I mean, you in my kitchen. Anna: You mean, barefoot and pregnant?
WTF!? Again, she insisted on cooking dinner herself. I see the torture scene is continuing. What’s his safe word? ‘Divorce’?
[The song playing in the background is David Bowie’s ‘Young Americans’, which is not on the official playlist but is on mine.]
0:14:32 Because this film is about the inconveniences of marriage and domestic spats, Anna and Christian are now squabbling about wanting children. Turns out she wants one and he is one.
She’s fed up, but he isn’t yet
0:17:08 Anna returns to work and learns she received a promotion in her absence. Apparently, she works better when she’s not there. Of course, there is the jealous office mate (Amy Price-Francis as Liz), which makes sense because if my boss’s boss’s boss robbed me of a promotion for his sex partner who didn’t even go to work, his arse would be Fifty Shades of Sued. Obviously, Liz is going to try and get revenge later because this movie isn’t a steamy sexual drama, it’s an overlong episode of Sex and the City.
0:18:12 Oh yes, I forgot to tell you… There’s going to be more bickering over the fact that Anastasia wants to keep her maiden name, ‘Steele’. That’s why I refer to this movie as Fifty Shades of Married.
[The song playing while he refuses to let her drive his car because she’s a girl is ‘Big Spender’, by Kiana Ledé feat. Prince Charlez.]
0:21:41 Introduce Gia Matteo (Arielle Kebbel), an architect who wants to destroy Anastasia and her dream house, and seduce Christian while Anna watches.
Gia’s very handy
0:23:42 Wow, Anna’s stance on her last name didn’t last long. Now she insists the architect call her ‘Mrs Grey’, because the only real reason for a woman to take her husband’s name is to wear it like a cattle brand around the other heifers.
The original text is, “I’m sorry, Mrs Grey, I’ve never…”
[The song playing while Anna loses the SUV tailing them is ‘The Wolf’, by The Spencer Band.]
0:28:14 Anna gets so excited eluding her pursuers that she has sex with Christian in an outdoor car park. I wonder if she got rear-ended…
Driving stick
0:31:08 While looking for the haircut shears he keeps in his desk (WTF!?), Anastasia finds a loaded gun. I’m surprised she’s surprised, besides the gun is for close shaves.
[The song playing while Anna gives Christian a sex haircut is ‘High’ by Whethan (& Dua Lipa).]
0:32:01
She doesn’t give a sheet
0:38:26 Mr. Hyde holds Anastasia at knife point after surprising her in her flat (there is apparently no security in the U.S. for rich people, judging by how easy it is to access Christian Grey). Her security detail take him then but have nothing with which to restrain him, so Anna says,
We do. Uh…we…I mean, I think I can find something.
Yes, but maybe your body guards mean something without fur.
0:40:04 Christian pouts like a 4-year-old not because Anna was almost killed, but because she’d told him she was going straight home the night before, though changed her mind and had drinks with a friend instead. Want a little ‘passive’ with that ‘aggressive’, Christian?
[The song during the sex scene in the torture room at 43:21 is Bishop Briggs’ remake of the INXS ballad, ‘Never Tear Us Apart’.]
0:45:12 Christian pretends he wants to make love to Anna but really it’s just revenge torture. She’s all put out, as though she didn’t know that’s what marriage is. [Fifty Shades of Married]
0:48:52 Christian rich-person surprises Anastasia by jetting all of her friends to their new house in the forest. Rich people don’t have makeup sex, they have makeup success.
[The song Christian plays on the piano is the Paul McCartney song ‘Maybe I’m Amazed’ as covered by Jamie Dornan (Christian Grey). It’s on the playlist after this synopsis, as is the (far superior) original version.]
0:49:38
“You haven’t mentioned the poster I bought for the tub.”
0:50:58 After bath-gossip with Christian about how his brother’s a slut, Anna dreams Mr. Hyde kisses her in the Versailles Palace. If she tells Christian about it, maybe he’ll buy it for her. That would be one way for them to get a little class in their lives.
0:52:16 Anna and Christian have sex with ice cream and we understand now why they’re so frigid.
Looks like someone’s having a nice cream
[The song playing while Anna and Christian do disgusting things with food is ‘Heaven’, by Julia Michaels. See the playlist.]
0:57:28 While shopping in town, Anna sees her brother-in-law acting friendly with Gia the architect and assumes it means he’s sleeping with her, thus cheating on his fiancée and Anna’s friend, Kate. Of course, I’m sure he’s just preparing some sort of surprise for Kate with Gia’s help, but first there had to be a huge to-do because this film is basically a Friends’ episode, only not as funny, interesting or even as sexy.
[N.B. Even worse…nothing ever comes from this scene, making us wonder why they included it in the first place.]
0:58:20
If that’s the sound you’re making, she’s doing something wrong
0:59:06
When the only moves he knows are with funds
[The song playing while they’re falling asleep in the club (or maybe it’s just me) is ‘Come on Back’, by Shungudzo. It’s on the playlist.]
1:00:48
Dakota Johnson does me watching this film
1:01:41
[The song playing when Christian tells Anna to get the biggest dildo is Jessie J, ‘I Got You (I Feel Good)’.]
1:04:12
Dakota does another impression of me watching this film
1:05:04 Anna’s gynecologist informs Anna that she’s pregnant. Apparently she wasn’t throwing up simply because she was in this movie.
1:06:28 Fair play to the film, Anna tells Christian about the baby right away rather than keeping that bun in the oven for a more dramatic moment.
[The song playing while Christian pouts this time is Sia’s ‘Deer in Headlights’. On the playlist.]
1:09:52 Christian storms out and returns drunk. He passes out so Anna goes through his phone [Fifty Shades of Married] and finds a text from an ‘Elena’: “Good to see you tonight. I’m here for you, anytime.” I wouldn’t worry if I were Anna, there are no “Elena’s” in the cast.
[Easter egg: Kim Basinger was meant to reprise her role as the mature woman who introduced younger Christian to sex, but all of her scenes were cut from the final version.]
1:10:54 Anastasia is so upset she sleeps in the Red Room. I guess this means she’s torturing herself.
1:15:27 Big fight over the baby and the fact he left the night before to get drunk with his ex [Fifty Shades of Married]. Obviously, if there’s a sequel they’re going to call it Fifty Shades Breed.
1:17:43 While Anna’s at work feeling sorry for herself, she gets a call from Mr. Hyde who’s kidnapped Anna’s friend Mia to use her phone. He may not have free time, but he does have free minutes.
She’s pretty…tied up
1:20:45 Mr. Hyde calls Anastasia and tells her to pack a lot of bags for the 5 million dollar ransom. She’s packing more than that.
Not a good wardrobe choice when you’re going to the bank
1:22:02 Anna Grey runs into a bank with a gun in her waistband and tells the manager she needs $5,000,000 in cash stuffed into bags and she doesn’t have time to wait for procedures. The bank manager’s response?
Bank Manager (John Emmet Tracy as Troy Whelan): Do you have identification?
WTF!? It’s clear she’s Mrs. Grey and not Black.
1:25:04 This scene is meant to be suspenseful but the WTF keeps getting in the way. She calls the kidnapper because Christian and all the bodyguards are on their way to the bank (the bank called Christian about the withdrawal). Hyde tells her there’s a car parked for her in the alley. Not only did Hyde hide a car there the day he was released from prison on bail, he also had the money to buy it and knows exactly which body guards are storming the bank while he’s hiding under a bridge. If Hyde doesn’t get the ransom, he could start a career as a psychic.
1:26:02 Ah, things are clearer. He had help arranging this. Who? Remember back at 17:08 when I said Liz would do something to get revenge on being skipped over for promotion? She decided to cast lots with Hyde. It would seem HR does a shite job in Grey Publishing, as everyone they hire is a psychopath.
1:26:38 Knowing they were going to ask her to ditch her phone, Anna had borrowed the bank manager’s so that was the one she dropped out of the window when Liz told her to. That way, she kept her own phone and Christian can follow her with his stalking app.
1:27:44
She always wanted a choker
1:28:32 While waiting for the approaching cops, Anastasia decides to shoot Hyde in the leg. She hated the idea of leaving the flat with a gun and not using it.
1:28:42 She pretends to be unconscious when the police arrive 30 seconds later. She’s had a lot of practice faking things.
Knocked up, down, and out
1:31:46 Because she ‘almost died’, Christian decides he wants the baby. If that’s what it takes for him to agree with her, Anastasia’s future is looking pretty grim.
1:33:57 Big surprise! While Christian is cooking dinner, they look at photos from a detective and it shows that Hyde and Grey were in the same foster family! Unbelievable! Christian is cooking dinner!?
Boys will be boys…while that girl will be a woman
1:35:37 Because they don’t want the torture to end just yet, Christian also learns who his mother is and he goes with Anna to see her grave. They can’t see her rolling over in it.
1:36:12
[The song playing while they leave the graveyard is Ellie Goulding’s ‘Love Me Like You Do’, which has a fairly necrophiliac edge to it in a cemetery.]
1:36:18 The song continues into a montage of their relationship and I’m thinking how much time we all could’ve been saved if we’d only watched this instead.
1:38:44 Anna throws Christian a pity party in the Red Room and the theme is ‘Come quickly’!
To remind us only masochists watch this film until the end
Roll credits
1:39:04 [Credits scene] We see Christian playing with their son [Theodore Raymond Grey, according to the IMDb trivia page], while Anna sits on the ground, pregnant with their daughter Phoebe. Or maybe it’s just from too much rich food.
The baby wants to be more than Fifty Shades of Freed
[The song playing while the baby runs is ‘For You’, by Liam Payne and Rita Ora]
Tally Ho’
WTF!?’s: 12 free ones
When to Follow: When you want to know what it feels like to be a masochist.
Where’s This Found: I’ve seen more interesting drama in Twitter streams and better sex scenes in my wet dreams. This film isn’t just bad, it’s bad by Fifty Shades of Grey standards. Out of a possible 10, I have 2 F’s to give.
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And you thought there were no Nazis in this film.
The song accompanying their bliss montage is Hailee Steinfeld, ‘Capital Letters’. The entire playlist is at the end of this synopsis.]
Easter egg: 
