Lone Wolf and Cub: Omnibus Editions (2013-16)

LW+C: Omnibus Editions (2013-16)

Author: Kazuo Koike | Illustrator: Goseki Kojima | Page Count: LOTS! [1]

"Good fortune and ill, twisted together like a rope..."

Godzilla (2014) Video Game [PS3 and PS4]

Godzilla (2014) Video Game

aka Godzilla VS [Japan PS4 Version]

Genre: Fighting / Action | Players: 1 (Offline) or 2 (Online PS4 only) | Developer: Natsume Atari

The opening cinematic of the game teases action, with monsters going head to head, military responses, dramatic camera angles, and, of course, destruction on a grand scale.

The tutorial that follows is presented in a wonderfully apt way, with a grainy B+W hue that's reminiscent of the first Godzilla movie - and with Akira Ifukube's iconic music playing throughout, the tone is set in suitably dramatic fashion. All in all, it reinforces the notion that getting to play as Godzilla is going to be as good as many G fans thought it would be. [1]

But when reality hits, after just a couple of levels, it hits with a kaijū-sized thump. You may even feel your hopes crumble like a tiny model city during a giant creature brawl. I sure did.

Dredd: The Illustrated Script and Visuals (2014)

Dredd: The Illustrated Script and Visuals (2014)

Author: Alex Garland  |  Illustrator: Jock  |  Page Count: 240

"You were shit out of luck when you ran into the Ma-Ma clan."

If there'd been a poll asking what people would like to see in a book titled 'Illustrated Script and Visuals', everything that's already included would be on my list. As someone who enjoys reading Dredd comics, screenplays, and can happily waste an hour studying concept art, it seems almost tailor-made.

On the left hand pages is Garland's script, laid out in the usual format. It's also where you'll find trivia, concept art depicting various stages of evolution and full colour production stills, not all of which were used in the final version (unused hall of justice, judge badges, etc), with brief passages of text describing what each one is and how it fits into the overall structure. It's the 'Visuals' half of the book.

Assassin's Creed Unity (2014)

Assassin's Creed Unity (2014)

Genre: Action / Adventure | Players: 1 / Multi | Developer: Ubisoft Montreal

AC: Unity was the first of the Ass series to be released on the new (at the time) eighth generation of home consoles; the PS4, etc.

Not being a timely sort of person, I first played it eight years later, in 2022. I should say 'first' and 'last' time because it's bloody awful and I won't be trudging through its story ever again.

To add insult to injury, it came out on the very same day as Ass Creed Rogue came out on the previous generation of consoles. Rogue wasn't perfect, but it was infinitely more playable in comparison to the 'next generation' Unity.

I'm reminded of the proverb 'with great power comes great responsibility', except in Ubisoft's case it's more like 'with greater processing power comes greater catastrophe'. I usually leave my glitch report until after I've mentioned gameplay, etc, but Unity has nothing of value to relay, so the glitch report is all there is!

Ju-On: Films (2000-15)

Ju-On: Films (2000-15)

Dirs. Various

Ju-On's debut on screen was in 1998 as two short films created, written, and directed by Takashi Shimizu. Together they made up one half of a TV Movie named Gakkō no kaidan G (1998), but I'll be skipping those and going direct to the feature-length movies that followed. (The shorts are titled Katasumi and 4444444444, if you wish to research further.)

It might seem like the wrong approach to take, but it's not necessary to have seen them to enjoy what came after. Furthermore, the order below isn't even the one that I experienced them on first viewing, thanks to how they were released in the UK at the time. [1]

01. Ju-On: The Curse (2000 / Dir. Takashi Shimizu) was the first feature-length entry in the series. A straight-to-video (V-Cinema) release that came out two years before the more successful cinema-released film (#3 below). In general, the setting is a haunted house that makes 112 Ocean Avenue (Amityville) seem about as scary as a Wendy house. [2]

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: Manga (2010-14)

Episode 001: Section 9 (2010)

Author + Illustrator: Yu Kinutani | Page Count: 248

"[W]e've determined the contents of the brain are fake. So where's the real one?"

A number of cyborg Geishas have taken clients hostage, among them a high-ranking government official who at the time of his capture was engaging in some odd activities with the pretend ladies.

The Prime Minister summons the country's best counter-terrorist unit: Public Security Section 9. Led by the cybernetically enhanced Major Kusanagi, the team are called upon to not only resolve the situation, but to find out who's behind it, and why.

It's a manga adaptation of an anime TV series that was inspired by a film adaptation of a manga. If you're familiar with all of those things, then the book might be of interest to you, but know that it's the entire first episode of the GitS SAC anime in manga form - it's almost verbatim, except for some minor changes in the action scenes that don't alter the main storyline one bit. It's arguably less fun than watching the anime, so is probably best recommended for super-fans or folks who prefer manga, only.

Transporter: The Series: Season 2 (2014)

Transporter: The Series: Season 2 (2014)

12 episodes, approx 45 minutes each.

Much changed between Season One and Two and not all of it's good change. Frank's (Chris Vance) attitude toward his job is the same — he's still a practical, matter-of-fact guy with a plan that tends to go tits-up before the halfway point — but now he's more like James Bond in how he goes about things.

I suspect that behind the scenes someone actually said 'Let’s make him more James Bond,' and they did, sadly. The B-Movie charm that existed previously is compromised, replaced by a TV production with aspirations of being a secret agent movie.

There are personnel changes, too. Carla (Andrea Osvárt), the woman that functioned as a mysterious liaison between the transporter and the often shady customer, is replaced by Catarina Boldieu.

Catarina (Violante Placido) does a similar job, but she's more active than Carla was. Her multilingual skills are an asset to Frank, so he occasionally has a need for her to accompany him on jobs.

Dead Boy Detectives: Vols 01 and 02 (2014-15)

DBD: Vol 01: Schoolboy Terrors (2014)

Author: Toby Litt | Illustrators: Mark Buckingham / Gary Erskine | Page Count: 160

'He always treats us like royalty, it's just... sometimes it's the red carpet... and sometimes it's the guillotine.'

Of all The Sandman secondary characters that could've been revived for an ongoing series, Dead Boy Detectives wasn't high on my list, but Toby Litt changed that.

The previous incarnation (2001) is acknowledged and respected, but Litt has taken a different approach to the storytelling. He doesn't reinvent what's already in existence - he rejuvenates it, making everything feel more vital and a lot more entertaining.

The two boys, Charles Rowland and Edwin Paine, were born decades apart but share a passion for solving mysteries. And where there's a mystery, it follows that there's often danger; doubly so if the occult is involved.

Constantine: TV Series (2014-15)

Constantine: TV Series (2014-15)

Dirs. Various | Episodes: 13, approx 43 mins each.

A short-lived live action TV series based on the long-running Hellblazer comic book, but named after its main character, a spell-casting exorcist from Liverpool named John Constantine. It's more faithful to the source material than the 2005 US movie of the same name is, but does still do its own thing from time to time.

In addition to being an exorcist he's also a demonologist, an occult detective, and even a bit of a con-man, if the situation requires it.

On the surface he doesn't seem to be the kind of person it would be wise to put any trust in, but he's a humanitarian at heart. If someone is plagued by demons and they really don't deserve such attentions, he'll often go the extra mile to help them resolve the situation.

If he can smite a demon or two in the process, send them back to the hell that they crawled from, then that's all the better for John.

Critters: Films (1986–)

Critters: Films (1986–)

Of the shovel-load of horror B-Movies that the industry shat out during the 1980s, Critters (1986) directed Stephen Herek was one of the more entertaining ones. It arguably still is. It's basically a sci-fi/horror hybrid with some accidental laughs and some purposeful laughs.

The creatures are like vicious little bastard cousins of the Gremlins. They wreak havoc, as you'd expect, but what makes the film work so well is that the family is at the heart of it. The bitey things don't kill off dumb, screaming, sex-crazed teenagers one by one - they threaten something important, something that's worth fighting for. That makes all the difference.

Critters 2: The Main Course (1988) directed by Mick Garris is set two years after the fuzzy feckers went wild in Kansas. Life goes on for the survivors, but nothing's peaceful for long in B-Movie Land. The space porcupines are back for more, and their numbers have increased

Prey: Series One (2014)

Prey: Series One (2014)

Dir. Nick Murphy | 3 episodes, approx 47 mins each.

It kicks off with an overturned police vehicle on a public road and a subsequent prisoner escape, but that event isn't the start of the story. After the damage is assessed there, it jumps back three days to the life of DC Marcus Farrow (John Simm) of the Manchester Metropolitan Police, characterising him through his job, his friendships, and his relationship with his ex-wife and their two young children.

Of the three things mentioned, the most notable for the viewer seems to be the job, specifically regarding the discovery of a body on the moors. But things thereafter don't go the way that most investigative TV procedural dramas usually do, it takes a left turn into a man-on-the-run conspiracy thriller. The body is important, but the main drive of the series is that of an innocent man (the 'prey' of the title) trying desperately to find the real killer so he can clear his name - all the while unsure of who he can trust.

Jonathan Creek: Series V (2014)

Jonathan Creek: Series V (2014)

3 episodes, approx 58 minutes each.

Note: the following review contains spoilers for the previous JC outing, The Clue of the Savant's Thumb (2013). If you're as sensitive to spoilers as I am and haven’t watched the Savant's Thumb episode, it would be advisable to not read beyond this sentence.

The fifth series of the show is unusual for a number of reasons. Firstly, while there are a significant number of minor mysteries in need of solving, there's no mysterious deaths in any of the episodes, in a locked room or otherwise. Speaking of episodes, there's only three of them, not the usual six. And finally, at no point does Jonathan wear his trademark duffel coat, which is like asking us to accept Columbo without his raincoat, or Sherlock without his pipe.

If all of that wasn't bad enough, he's married still to Polly (Sarah Alexander). Not only does Polly's pissy attitude stand in the way of his doing what he does best, but the duo have zero chemistry. One wonders why they're together at all. There's no feeling of love or even affection. It's like a marriage of convenience, most of which is hers. When the character interjects it's usually to belittle or dissuade Jonathan (Alan Davies) from getting involved. She deadens the narrative flat.

The Unwritten: Volume 10 (2014)

War Stories (2014)

Author: Mike Carey | Illustrator: Peter Gross | Page Count: 144

"Every dream is true, and every truth is broken. I tell the story, and I will not cease from telling it."

A relaunch of the series that underhandedly claimed to be a 'perfect jumping-on point' for new readers. But it's categorically not - it's a direct continuation of what came before (see Vol 09). To reinforce the chicanery the series got a slight name change (The Unwritten: Apocalypse) and had its numbering reset to 01. The collected editions continue the proper numbering, though, thankfully.

It's business as usual, which is to say that the journey towards repairing the damage done to the physical world after the fight with Leviathan continues down paths of strangeness and around corners of consequence. The Christ-like parallel in the 'fourteenth' Tommy Taylor™ novel (Vol 03) springs to mind, with fictional Tommy's real-world reflection, Tom Taylor, reborn and renewed.

The Unwritten: Volume 09 (2014)

The Unwritten FABLES (2014)

Authors: Mike Carey / Bill Willingham | Illustrator: Peter Gross | Page Count: 144

"Thank you, dear. We're all done with the exposition now. It's time to make a leap of faith."

The Unwritten celebrated its 50th issue by having a crossover with Fables, another Vertigo title. The story is credited to both Carey and Bill Willingham, the latter being the chief writer on Fables. It's a series that I've not read; I wanted to for a long time, but some of its many TPBs are expensive to buy, so rather than have half I prefer to have none. And if the full series is anything like what features herein, I feel I can live happily without it.

The basic premise of Fables is a standard 'what if...' scenario: what if the characters and creatures from folklore and fairy-tales, such as Rose Red, Pinocchio, Ozma, etc, were real and living together in a community. But the deeper concerns of the individuals and of the group is something that I've no prior knowledge of.

The Unwritten: Volume 08 (2014)

Orpheus in the Underworld  (2014)

Author: Mike Carey | Illustrator: Peter Gross | Page Count: 176

"He writes the words that he was written by."

The idiom 'nature abhors a vacuum' is attributed to Aristotle (as 'horror vacui'). I can understand the feeling, to a degree, because when confronted with a blank wall in someone's house, I feel that it needs a canvas. But, unfortunately for the world of The Unwritten, nature is less choosy about what it fills its vacuum with, including the space left after Tom's encounter with Leviathan.

Aristotle also taught — in his Poetics (c. 335 BC), a philosophical work looking at dramatic theory and its applications — that acts of creation, in its many guises, including storytelling, are fundamentally acts of mimesis, with each act varying by its medium and its manner.

It may seem like I've gone off on a tangent, but I see every part of what's written above as having relevance to the multi-faceted approach that Carey took with the series. Poetics is a short work, but an understanding of the basic principles that Aristotle was postulating will enrich a reading of Orpheus in the Underworld; and, if it's not already apparent, familiarity with the Orpheus myth will help also.

Ruined Heart (2014)

Ruined Heart: Another Love Story Between a Criminal and a Whore (2014)

Dir. Khavn De La Cruz

I don't know how it is for other folks, whether they be professional reviewer, amateur, or otherwise, but, speaking as a simple hobbyist, when it comes to putting together words to describe a viewing some are easy, some are more challenging, and a special few, like Ruined Heart, are damn near impossible to do justice to.

One of the problems from a reviewing perspective is that it has a dreamlike quality — not in a colourful and floaty way, but in how it moves from scene to scene, from emotive event to artistic intent — and attempting to put that sense of free-form structure into words without sounding pretentious and gob-shitey is difficult.

But before I even make the attempt, below the cut is the film's 'story' as described by the printed blurb on the back of the TWF Blu-ray box:

Shakespeare Stories + More Shakespeare Stories (2014)

Shakespeare Stories (2014)

Author: Andrew Matthews | Illustrator: Tony Ross | Page Count: 256

"Come to me, Powers of Darkness! Fill me with cruelty, so I may teach my husband how to be ruthless!"

A convenient collection of four of Andrew Matthews' retold Shakespeare works gathered together into one B-format sized volume. As far as I know there were sixteen plays similarity retold, available singly or in an attractive slipcase format; if so, then this first volume of '4 Books in One' is a generous quarter of the total number. The plays included in the collection are:

●  Macbeth
●  Romeo and Juliet
●  Twelfth Night
●  Anthony and Cleopatra

In each case, they're in a form that a younger audience will more easily understand and be able to engage with.

Pretty Deadly: Vol 1: The Shrike (2014)

Pretty Deadly: Vol 1: The Shrike (2014)

Author: Kelly Sue DeConnick  |  Illustrator: Emma Ríos  |  Page Count: 120

"This world ain't been kind to me. I say let it burn."

Taking place in a traditional American Western setting with an accompanying fable-esque slant, Volume 1 of Pretty Deadly is centred on a small handful of enigmatic but arguably well-written characters, each of whom has a murky past that they're either aware of, are attempting to hide from others, or are simply oblivious to.

It's difficult to tell at this early stage which of the cast is going to be most important to the ongoing narrative, or even who will be most profitable to sympathise with, but two of them seem to stand out from the rest.

The first is named Sissy, a young girl with two different coloured eyes and an unusual and frightening destiny.

The second candidate is Ginny, a woman on a mission. Ginny is a yellow-eyed violent force within an already violent world. She has a skull mark on her face but it's not just for show - it has a deeper meaning. That meaning is revealed when author Kelly Sue DeConnick's darkly poetic prose hits its triumphant stride.

Cilla (2014)

Cilla (2014)

Dir. Paul Whittington | 3 episodes, approx 45 minutes each.

I was born in the decade after the swinging sixties had swung their last, so my experience of Cilla Black while growing up was primarily as the red-headed woman on TV who said "lorra lorra laughs," and "Here's our Graham with a quick reminder..."

I knew her musically for having performed the emotionally stirring theme song to the film Alfie (1966), the UK version at least, but I knew nothing of how she rose from being a music fan to embracing fame as an actual singer, so watching the miniseries was a real eye-opener. It's also damn good; although that ought not to be too surprising given that it's from the same writer, producer and director team that made Mrs Biggs (2012).

It begins in 1960, Liverpool, the same year and location in which The Beatles formed. Cilla's own evolution runs parallel to theirs and even overlaps on occasion. As you'd expect, almost everyone speaks in a Liverpudlian accent. The hard 'g' and '–ckk' sounds are better performed by some of the cast than by others, but everyone is easily identifiable as being Scouse.

The Girl with All the Gifts (2014)

The Girl with All the Gifts (2014)

Author: M.R. Carey  |  Page Count: 460

'Sometimes he cries, and says he's sorry – not to the children, but to someone else who isn't really there, and whose name keeps changing.'

I stumbled upon TGwAtG in the autumn of 2014, before the promotion surrounding the movie adaptation made me more aware of what it was actually about. The only thing I knew regarding the novel prior to picking it up was that the author, M.R. Carey, was a pen name of Mike Carey. Because I'm a huge fan of Carey's work in comics, I bought it. I didn't even read the blurb on the back cover, not that it would've helped much anyhow.

Furthermore, if I'd known at the time of my stumbling what genre the novel was a part of, then I'd maybe have placed it quietly back on the shelf and continued toward the music section of the store, which was my original destination before deciding to check out the book aisle. But if I'd did that then I'd have missed out on a novel with solid worldbuilding and some interesting characters that had more to say than it seemed at first.