Alienoid: Return to the Future

That phrase "return to the future” sure sounds like you could build a successful science fiction franchise around it, right? In fact, the first Alienoid was an entertainingly wild ride, incorporating superheroes, magic, time travel, and alien invasions. Like any aspiring franchise, it ended with a major cliffhanger, but nobody minded, because everything that led up to it was so cool. We will pick back up with Earth’s ragtag but superpowered defenders in 14^th Century Korea, where they must obtain the “Divine Sword” to save the present-day Earth in Choi Dong-hoon’s Alienoid: Return to the Future, which opens this Friday in theaters.

To save Earth in the future, the AI “Thunder” must regroup with little Ean in the past. It is sort of like “going home” for the girl, because Thunder and his humanoid counterpart “Guard” found her orphaned there some 600 years ago, while they were chasing a renegade time-traveling alien criminal.

You might want to revisit the review for the first film, other reviews, its wiki page, and any other resource you can think of, because there was a lot going on. Long story short, alien criminals have been imprisoned inside Earthlings. Ususually, neither the host or the captive are aware of the situation, but when the alien “wakens,” oh boy, is there ever trouble.

Back in our time, there is a full-scale alien uprising going on. They plan to takeover Earth by poisoning our atmosphere. The only off-switch is the Divine Sword that Ean is looking for in the past. She has grown up to be the mysterious “Girl Who Shoots Thunder,” who made such an impression on Murak, a clumsy but powerful Taoist Dosa magician.

In the first film, the modern-day scenes worked a lot better than those in the past, largely because of the dopiness of Murak and the shtickiness of Heug-seol and Cheong-woon, a couple of mage-grifters, who start out as Murak’s rivals, but become his allies. Fortunately, they will find two new allies, the Satoichi-like swordsman Nong-pa in the past, and his future descendant, Min Gae-in, a customs service investigator, who can bust the aliens for not paying their tariffs.

The first Alienoid was probably the best superhero movie of the last five-years, because it was a fresh and original alternative to the stale Marvel and DC worlds. Return to the Future is still fun, but it often feels like a Marvel movie, because it mostly consists of costumed characters fighting each other in a one crazy, confusing set piece after another.

Sri Asih: A New Indonesian Superhero Rises

She is like Wonder Woman, except she has a red scarf instead of a golden lasso—and her latest film doesn’t stink. Tired of the MCU and DCU movies? Who isn’t? The CGI is terrible, the writing is too woke, and everybody who isn’t a super-fan has to google all the meaningless character cameos. Indonesia is doing a much better job of superhero movies—and they too have two shared universes going. The Legend of Gatotkaca launched the Satria Dewa. Now we get the second film of the Bumilangit universe. However, you do not need to know anything about the first film to enjoy UPI (Avianto)’s Sri Asih: The Warrior, which releases tomorrow on DVD and VOD.

Alana always had a lot of fight in her, even in the orphanage, following her parents rather spectacular volcano-related deaths. Fortuitously, her mother happens to be the wealthy proprietor of an MMA gym. That was a convenient happenstance, but obviously, not really.

As a young woman, Alana is a contender. Unfortunately, that means she attracts the attention of crimelord Prayogo Adinegara’s wastrel son Mateo, who fancies himself a cage-fighter. He pressures Alana to take a dive, to stroke his ego. Reluctantly, she agrees for the sake of the gym, but his jerky behavior ignites her anger.

It turns out Alana has anger issues, straight from the goddess of anger, herself. That is because the sinister deity knows the goddess Asih has invested Alana with her own powers of righteousness. There are people who can help her master her powers, so she can defeat the rival goddess’s earthly host and foil a gruesome sacrifice.

There is a lot going on in Sri Asih, but it all boils down to G vs. E, good versus evil. That is why it works better than any recent American superhero movie. If you were cool with Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, you will be just as happy with Pevita Pearce as Alana/Sri Asih, if not slightly more so.

Fantasia ’23: Shin Kamen Rider

When it comes to rebooting established franchises, the Japanese film industry is much smarter than Hollywood. Just look at the “Shins,” or the “Shin Japan Heroes Universe” movies: Shin Godzilla and Shin Ultraman. They are all true to the spirit of the originals, but the effects have been modernized—and pretty much only the effects (although Shin Godzilla also savaged the supposed professionalism of government bureaucrats). Fans of the long-running motorcycle tokusatsu TV series might be surprised by the return to manga level of violence, but they will feel right at home with the rest of Hideaki Anno’s Shin Kamen Rider (or Shin Masked Rider), which screened at the 2023 Fantasia International Film Festival.

Poor innocent biker Takeshi Hongo was kidnapped by SHOCKER (a KAOS or THRUSH-like organization), who turned him into a grasshopper hybrid super-being. Ominously, they intend to use the augmented hybrids (“Augs”) like him to destroy humanity, because that will make Augs like them happy. In the long-run, they also think it is in our own best interest, since we are such a miserable species. Ruriko Midorikawa and her scientist father broke from SHOCKER, taking Hongo with them, so he can fight to save humanity. It is a family affair, since SHOCKER will be led by Ichiro Midorikawa, a butterfly-Aug, once he wakens from his cocoon.

Much to the mild mannered Hongo’s surprise, he can hardly control his killer instincts when he is suited up and using his Prana-fueled powers (prana being the rough equivalent of Chi in the Shin universe). In contrast, Ruriko Midorikawa is much more calculating and cold-blooded, but her powers are mostly those of the mental kind. She always prepares. Unfortunately, their only allies are the Anti-SHOCKER government agency, who are not particularly trust-worthy.

With all its stunt-driving, Shin Kamen Rider is sort of like a cross between Ultraman and Fast & Furious. While it is not as strong as the previous Shin films, it at least manages to tell an entirely self-contained story in a smidge over two hours, which is more than Fast X can say for itself.

In terms of effects, the Shin-inized Kamen Rider represents a major upgrade from the early 1970s cult classic. Sosuke Ikematsu and Minami Hamabe are also very strong as the brooding Hongo and the detached and analytical Midorikawa. Mirai Moriyama is pretty creepy as Ichiro Midorikawa, but the most memorable villain is Spider-Aug, the first that Hongo fights.

Freaks vs. the Reich

The National Socialists had two weird obsessions: purity and the occult. It therefore rather follows that a group of super-heroic circus freaks would be their nemeses. Yet, an increasingly unhinged Nazi pianist has a mad dream of harnessing their powers to save the regime. That sounds like an unlikely Hail Mary scheme, but he knows Germany’s defeat is likely from his drug-induced visions of the future in Gabriele Mainetti’s dark superhero fantasy Freaks vs. the Reich (a.k.a. Freaks Out), which releases today in theaters and on-demand.

Fulvio is the wolfman, Mario is the magnetic clown, Cencio is an albino with an Aquaman-like power over bugs, and Matilde harnesses the power of electricity. She is the real deal, not like Rooney Mara in the inferior Nightmare Alley remake. In fact, all their powers are real, but hers are potentially the most powerful. However, she has issues when it comes to using them to their fullest extent. Her conductivity also somewhat alienates her from humanity, since her touch is potentially fatal. Nevertheless, Cencio still carries a torch for her, which is also creepy, given their apparent age differences.

Nevertheless, the four circus freaks regularly dazzle audiences for old Israel’s traveling sideshow, until the war intervenes. The Germans have invaded their former Italian allies, but at this point of the war, it is not going well for either nation. Franz desperately wants to turn it around for the Reich, but he is probably lucky to be alive, considering he has six fingers on either hand, making him a freak himself. Through liberal ether-huffing, Franz has seen images of the future. As a result, he is convinced only Matilde’s powers can save the Reich.

This is probably the weirdest circus film since Alex de la Iglesia’s The Last Circus (a.k.a. A Sad Trumpet Ballad), which Freaks also resembles in tone. It is far more macabre than most superhero movies, but that is its strength, whereas its weakness is Mainetti’s inclination to excess, especially the two-hour-and-twenty-minute running time.

Be that as it may, Mainetti and co-screenwriter Nicola Guaglianone earn a lot of points for originality, particularly for their distinctive villain, Franz. He is a sinister psychopath, but it is easy to understand how living with his conspicuous “deformity” in German society helped warp him into the monster we see in the film. Those predisposed to object the film uses him to represent the physically different should keep in mind there is also a band of war-amputee partisans in the woods, waging guerilla attacks against the Germans.

Quentin Dupieux’s Smoking Causes Coughing

Grown adults who wear spandex richly deserve to be mocked. Unfortunately, satire has been choked unconscious by woke social justice warriors, just as the superhero genre peaked. Hollywood no longer has defiantly rude satirists like Mel Brooks. The closest we can get is the post-modern bizarro wackiness of Quentin Dupieux, from France. Whenever a rubber-suited monster attacks, the Tobacco Force is there to stop them in Dupieux’s Smoking Causes Coughing, which releases this Friday in theaters and on-demand.

Usually, the fab five can rely on their marital arts skills to defeat the human-sized kaiju they fight. However, when all else fails, they can call on the carcinogenic compounds for which they are named, to give their foes an immediately fatal dose of cancer. Benzene is the oldest, so he considers himself the group’s leader. Mercury is a family man, whereas Menthanol is a luckless loser with the ladies. Ammonia is the baby of the team, whereas Nicotine carries a torch for their boss, Chief Didier, even though he is a human-sized rat, with greenish slime oozing from his mouth.

After their last rocky encounter. Chief Didier orders them off on a team-building retreat. As they pass the time, they tell a series of campfire stories that are meant to be scary, but are really just indescribably bizarre and random, very much like Dupieux’s films. Unfortunately, while the Tobacco Force cool their heels, their intergalactic nemesis, Lezardin, is planning Earth’s final destruction.

In this case, a comparison to Brooks is quite apt, because sometimes Dupieux’s gags are riotously funny and sometimes they fall excruciatingly flat, but he keeps blasting them at the audience with a scattergun, regardless.

The Legend of Gatotkaca

This is the first cinematic foray into the Indonesian “Satria Dewa” superhero universe—and probably the perfect time for it, considering how stale the Marvel and DC franchises are getting. At least this is something different, inspired the Mahabharata, albeit in a very modernized kind of way. Our hero still fights the Kaurava, but now they are more like an evil, genetic secret society in Hanung Bramantyo’s The Legend of Gatotkaca, which releases tomorrow on DVD.

Yuda’s mother Arimbi barely saved her son from a sinister supervillain, but the battle cost her memory. Since his teen years, Yuda has cared for her, dropping out of school to earn money. He therefore hoped to at least vicariously enjoy his well-heeled friend Erlangga’s graduation, but instead the valedictorian is mysteriously murdered on-stage.

Many of Jakarta’s best and brightest have recently fallen victim to a serial killer, who has the cops baffled. Of course, it is not really a mortal agent doing the killing. It is the Kaurava secret society, especially Beceng, their chief costumed assassin, who is knocking off those who carry the rival Pandava gene. Beceng also killed the father and brother of Dananjaya, who is sort of like the Hawkeye of the Satria Dewa universe. As Yuda starts asking questions, he meets the small band of Pandava resistance against the Kaurava cabal, led by Dananjaya.

Yuda also forges and alliance and perhaps something more with Agni, the daughter of Erlangga’s professor. With all their help, Yuda will unlock the secret of his mother’s mysterious heirloom, which holds the power of Gatotkaca, but he still has a lot of butt-kickings in-store for himself, at the hands of Beceng and the Kaurava.

Or something like that. Bramantyo and co-writer Rahabi Mandra lean into the series lore, presumably to please pre-existing franchise fans, but they often leave newcomers a bit confused. Regardless, if you consider the film a Sanskrit fusion of The X-Men and Underworld, you might generally get the idea. In fact, many of the Javanese elements make a refreshing change from the vanilla superhero movies Marvel and DC have been churning out (more Ant-Man and Shazam movies, really?).

The action is also pretty intense. Let’s put it this way, Yayan Ruhian (“Mad Dog” from The Raid) plays Beceng—and he hasn’t lost a single step. He definitely delivers in the fight scenes, making a spectacularly nasty bad guy.

Victor Vu’s Head Rush

Tam always kept a good head on his shoulders, until he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Now he keeps his head on the body of a murdered assassin, thanks to the breakthrough technology of “Uncle” Ma (who technically isn’t either). That muscle memory is a trip, but it will be awkward when the dead man’s nasty associates will come looking for him in Victor Vu’s Head Rush (a.k.a. Loi Bao), which releases today on VOD.

Like Condorman’s alter ego, Tam used his superhero graphic novels as his own wish fulfilment fantasies. He also wrote bizarrely tragic historical epics about fathers dying in battle that will be little comfort to his wife and pudgy son as they wrestle with his prognosis. However, Uncle Ma has the technology. He just needs a viable body, which very conveniently delivers itself, along with a hail of bullets from his murderers. It is a good thing Tam and Ma happened to be in the right forest at the right time, because they are able to sneak the body back to his lab for a head switcheroo.

Suddenly, Tam knows Kung Fu, but his hands need to relearn how to draw. He also might be getting flashes of the previous tenant’s memories, especially when he visits a pretty young emergency room doctor after some of his early heroics. Inevitably, Tam starts saving children from burning buildings and the like. He also does a lot of parkour. However, his new body won’t be so much fun when an organ trafficking gangster starts threatening Tam’s family.

Since Charlie Nguyen ran afoul of the government censors, Vu has assumed the responsibility of nearly single-handedly driving Vietnamese film industry. He has been working his way through the catalog of genres, so it was probably inevitable that he would give superheroes a go. Frankly, the action in Head Rush is pleasingly gritty compared to the films coming from the Hollywood legacy corporations, including quite a bit of slickly choreographed gunplay.

The biggest drawback is Vu’s predilection for melodrama, which remains undiminished in Head Rush. Like clockwork, the film comes to a screeching halt so Tam’s wife can lecture him about calling undue attention to himself or suspect him of getting up to some hanky-panky with Dr. Young-and-Available. Seriously, give us all a break. On the other hand, there are at least two wildly over-the-top third act revelations that perfectly reflect the spirit of superhero comic books.

Fantasia ’22: Shin Ultraman

Ultraman was the king of “tokusatsu” superhero television universes, years before either Marvel or DC had enough shows to claim such a title. There have literally been dozens of series about Ultraman, his colleagues, and the kaiju they battle. Often, they culminated with a theatrical feature film capstone, so Ultraman on the big screen is nothing new. The filmmakers behind Shin Godzilla got a rare opportunity to reboot the franchise outside the ongoing continuity. Wisely, director Shinji Higuchi and screenwriter Hideaki Anno still respected everything that made fans embrace the series through Shin Ultraman, which screens during the 2022 Fantasia International Film Festival.

Mysteriously, giant kaiju have been wreaking havoc on Japan (and only Japan), so logically the government formed the S-Class Species Suppression Protocol (SSSP) to hopefully figure out a way to stop them. Shinji Kaminaga was one of their officers, until he was accidentally killed by a friendly alien superhero, who arrived just in time to defeat an invisible, electricity-consuming monster. The giant red and silver humanoid code-named “Ultraman” fuses his consciousness with that of the late Kaminaga, bringing him back to life and continuing his work at SSSP.

Of course, his partner, Hiroki Asami, quickly grows suspicious of the way Kaminaga disappears like Clark Kent during times of crisis. Unfortunately, more dangerous and hostile alien entities are also on to Kaminaga’s secret identity.

Somewhat like what they did in Shin Godzilla, Higuchi and Anno spend a lot of time skewering the counter-productive infighting of Japan’s governmental bureaucracy. The kaiju always reach perilously close to the outskirts of Tokyo, by the time SSSP files the proper reports in triplicate. However, Shin Ultraman is not quite as incisive and it is much more episodic.

Fortunately, you will not hear accusations of “toxic fandom” with respects to Shin Godzilla, because Higuchi and Anno stay true to the classic spirit of Ultraman and employ a great deal of the traditional elements and motifs. This Ultraman looks exactly like the Ultraman fans have known since 1966. He is just a little shinier. Ultraman has similar crazy moves and the kaiju are as outlandish as ever.

Green Ghost and the Masters of the Stone

Usually, you have to be born into a family of superheroes, like the Incredibles. Charlie Clark was unofficially adopted. They wanted to keep the superpower stuff away from the gringo, because he is a bit of a screw-up, but somehow it rubs off anyway. Now, they’ll have to work together to save their Nana, the world, and pretty much everything in Michael D. Olmos’s Green Ghost and the Masters of the Stone, which releases today on VOD.

Eons ago, there were aliens, stargates, stones of power, and whatever. Cut to the chase, Nana is a keeper of the power stone and she invested her grandchildren Marco and Karina with its power. When Clark was a boy, Nana took him in, because his own family was a mess. Then one night, Nana protected him from her rogue sister, the Sauron figure after the stone. He assumed it was all a dream, but obviously it wasn’t.

He was also touched in the process. To save Nana, Marco and Karina need grown Clark to awaken his qi and join it with theirs, but he will need a lot of quick training from the “Masters.” Even though Clark has served for years as cage-fighting Marco’s masked luchador-ish sidekick, the “Green Ghost” (not “gringo”), he still hasn’t picked up many skills.

It is easy to see Green Ghost was an ultra-microbudget DIY affair, but its energy level is infectious. You can practically envision co-screenwriter Clark, who plays a somewhat fictionalized version of himself (in terms adoptive family relationships) yelling out: “you guys, lets make this movie ourselves.” The thing is, they did and the generous helpings of martial arts action are not half-bad. In fact, they somehow recruited Chilean martial arts star Marko Zorar to play Drake, the champion warrior of the forces of darkness (and to sign-on as a producer).

Corrective Measures, on Tubi

In comic books, when super-villains break out of prison, superheroes just catch them and stick them back in again. They finally built a better mousetrap, San Tiburon, a facility in an undisclosed location, fully loaded with super-power nullifiers. However, the big dangerous supervillains still have their natural strength and in the case of “The Lobe,” his advanced intelligence. A new inmate finds himself caught in the crossfire of an ongoing power-struggle in Sean Patrick O’Reilly’s Corrective Measures, based on Grant Chastain’s graphic novel, which starts streaming this Friday on Tubi.

According to the derivative backstory, San Tiburon is operated by a company very much like Vogt in The Boys. They may or may not have been responsible for the string of natural disasters that also somehow caused the development of diverse superpowers in select individuals. By law, anyone convicted of a crime who is known to have powers must be incarcerated in San Tiburon. Unfortunately, that includes Diego Diaz, a mere empath. Basically, he is a super-Bill Clinton, who feels your pain, acutely.

San Tiburon should be a potentially fatal experience for him, but he catches a break when he stops the super-vigilante Payback from murdering the Lobe in the infirmary. Basically, the Lobe is a Professor X-like supervillain, who amassed a fortune through telepathic mind-control. The inmates revere him, so they cut Diaz some slack. However, Warden Devlin, make that Overseer Devlin, intends to extort the Lobe’s fortune from him, before his impending retirement, using threats of lobotomies and the like. Somehow, Diaz might figure in the Lobe’s counter-plans.

It is kind of awkward to review Bruce Willis film after the recent announcement of his diagnosis. Although many of his VOD films have been tarred with a broad brush, Willis has actually been pretty good in some of them, like American Siege and Acts of Violence. In this case, let’s just say he is miscast as the Lobe, a role that really requires the sort of sneering scenery-chewing John Malkovich could have brought to the table.

Pyun at HIFF ’21: Captain America (1990)

The Spiderman movie notorious wheeler-dealers Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus tried to produce at Cannon is easily one of the most famous unmade movies ever, up there with Jodorowsky’s Dune. However, Golan eventually realized his Marvel superhero ambitions when he took the rights to Captain America to his 21^st Century Film Corporation. Who did he turn to bring Cap to the big-screen? It was Hawaii’s own Albert Pyun, who directed Van Damme’s second film, Cyborg. Quite fittingly, Pyun’s Captain America screens online as part of the Hawaii International Film Festival’s Pyun filmmaker-in-focus sidebar.

To atone for her unwilling role in the creation of the super-fascist villain, the Red Skull, defector Dr. Maria Vaselli oversees the U.S. Super Soldier program that transforms Steve Rogers into Captain America. Unfortunately, her double-secret process dies with her when she is assassinated by an Axis mole. Therefore, Rogers will be the only Super Soldier deployed to stop the Red Skull’s missile attack on the White House. He succeeds, but cruel fate consequently freezes him in suspended animation for decades.

Once Rogers revives, old school journalist Sam Kolawetz eagerly seeks him out, hoping to gain insight into the Red Skull’s identity. Of course, agents of the super-villain are also on his trail. Meanwhile, the fascist mastermind is hatching an evil scheme to brainwash and enslave Pres. Tom Kimball (from Springfield, Ohio).

Admittedly, the special effects are totally cheesy in the 1990 Captain America, but that also makes it feel human. In all honesty, it represents the sort of grungy Marvel adaptations Gen X grew up with and still love nostalgically. Despite the superior effects of the films, Nicholas Hammond’s TV Spiderman is the one we love in our heart of hearts. When it comes to guilty favorites, Dolph Lundgren’s Punisher is tough to beat. Pyun’s Captain America shares a kinship with both.

Matt Salinger certainly looked the clean-cut part of Captain America and his unflagging earnestness is sort of refreshing (you really don’t see that in Marvel movies anymore). Ronny Cox (Robo Cop, Total Recall) and Ned Beatty (Network, etc.) are totally great as Kimball and Kolawetz, who happen to be old childhood friends, with a contrived (but in a likably old fashioned and outlandish way) connection to Captain America.

Scott Paulin is respectably villainous as the Red Skull, but his Euro super-model hench-women have no personality and are obviously linguistically challenged. Frustratingly, the great Darren McGavin is wastefully under-employed as traitorous Gen. Fleming and the character is an annoying defamation of the American military.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, on Disney+

Serious question: did Disney/Marvel accidentally hire the wrong Tony Leung? They were quite distressed when their first martial arts film was not granted a coveted release slot for Chinese theaters, despite their profuse, prostrating apologies for the original comic book licensing Sax Rohmer’s notoriously stereotyped villain Fu Manchu, way back in the 1970s. Yet, it is worth noting Tony Leung Chiu Wai had issued statements in support of Umbrella protestors, whereas Tony Leung Ka-fai publicly backed the abusive HK police. (Also, it was partly filmed in Australia, a nation the CCP has been particularly belligerent towards.) Regardless, it seems Hollywood has been hellbent on selling its soul to a devil it does not understand. There is still no Mainland release date for Destin Daniel Cretton’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, but it finally starts streaming on Disney+ this Friday.

Shaun is not merely a laid-back valet attendant. He is really the son of powerful crime-lord Xu Wenwu, a.k.a. “The Mandarin,” but absolutely, positively not Dr. Fu Manchu. He came to America to break ties with his father’s organization, but they inevitably come looking for him. Fortunately, he manages to fend of his father’s unnaturally enhanced henchmen, much to the surprise of his hard-drinking platonic bestie, Katy. Fearing Xiu will next come after his estranged sister Xu Xialing, they rush off to Macau to warn her.

Now the leader of a rival Triad, Xu is less than thrilled to reconnect with Shang-Chi, but their father’s assassins essentially force them into a truce. The reunion with Dad is even more awkward, but eventually they get a warmer reception from their Aunt Ying Nan, a mystical guardian of the legendary city Ta Lo. They will help her protect their late mother’s idyllic home from Xu’s army and the power of the titular ten rings that keep him looking so youthful.

From the CCP’s perspective (and maybe Marvel’s) Tony Leung Chiu Wai might have been the wrong Tony, but for anyone who believes in principles like freedom of expression, democratic governance, human rights, and free enterprise, he is the right Tony—and he is indeed terrific in Ten Rings. Despite the plentiful CGI, his training for The Grandmaster clearly did not go to waste. More importantly, he truly humanizes the super-villain, while brooding like nobody’s business. Twenty years from now Ten Rings will probably be programmed alongside In the Mood for Love and 2046 during “Little Tony” Leung retrospectives.

Leung makes the movie, but Simu Liu holds up his end as the action lead. He also has winning chemistry with Awkwafina, providing non-cringy comic relief as Katy. You can sort of see her coaxing Liu out of his dramatic shell, just as her character draws his out socially. As Xialing, Meng’er Zhang matches Liu step-for-step in their fight scenes. Yet, nothing can match the thrill of seeing the great Michelle Yeoh continue to command the screen as Ying Nan. It is also fun to see Benedict Wong briefly turn up as Wong from Dr. Strange. However, Sir Ben Kingsley inspires face-palms with his shticky sad clown routine as Trevor Slattery, the woeful actor set-up to be the Mandarin’s fall guy (and supply a link back to Iron Man 3).

Adam Egypt Mortimer’s Archenemy

If Earth and Krypton had the same color of sun, Superman would not have had superpowers here. However, since he arrived as an infant, he still could have had a successful career in journalism. It is a harder transition for Max Fist, a former superhero from a different world. Powerless and friendless, Fist became a mean drunk, but its still sort of a superpower the way he does it. He will need all his beer muscles when he starts fighting crime again in director-screenwriter Adam Egypt Mortimer’s SpectreVision-produced Archenemy, which opens tomorrow in theaters and on-demand.

As the Fist will tell anyone willing to buy him a drink, he was once the heroic guardian of the futuristic city Chromium, but when he smashed the dimension-destroying device invented by his archenemy, Cleo, he was inadvertently pulled through into our world. Inconveniently, the source of his powers does not exist here, so he is just an average, swiftly aging dude. Yet, he is still a minor skid-row celebrity, especially when Hamster, an aspiring neighborhood vlogger starts posting videos of his angry exploits.

Hamster’s sister Indigo always thought she was the responsible one, hustling for the dealer known as “The Manager” to support them. Yet, she risks both their lives when she makes a spectacularly ill-advised play. They will need a hero, but Hamster happens to know one who is willing to step-up. Of course, he must adapt to his mortal circumstances, even though he is still tormented by memories and visions of Cleo (who’s referenced right there in the title, so she must be important).

Archenemy is the best superhero movie since Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and probably the grungiest one ever (even grungier than American Hero). Mortimer takes all the classic superhero elements and gives them a brutally realistic twist. The Boys will probably be a lazy point of comparison for a lot of critics, because the two darkly rendered superhero worlds are nearly as violent, but Archenemy clearly has real love for the genre it subverts.

Ultraman Movies: Orb & Geed

The Ultraman franchise is as Japanese as Godzilla or Gamera, but these guardians of galaxy save the world instead of destroying it. When a kaiju attacks, you better pray there is an Ultraman patrolling our universe. Ultraman Orb is one of the best of Ultra brotherhood. Geed, not so much. As part of their ambitious Ultraman BluRay program, Mill Creek Entertainment has recently released Ultraman Orb: The Movie—Let Me Borrow the Power of Bonds and Ultraman Geed: The Movie—Connect the Wishes.

You have to love the awkward secondary titles. In fact, many viewers will enjoy the nostalgia of revisiting the superhero series they loved as kids. Many might be surprised to know it is still a going concern in Japan, where they continue to launch new series and films focusing on particularly Ultraman heroes. Typically, a relatively self-contained motion picture is released as a capper to each Ultraman sub-series. The payoff is probably richer for fans who followed the series, but the general premise is never hard to understand: superhero fights kaiju.

Ultraman Orb is definitely the better of the two film, in large measure because Orb and his human alter-ego Gai Kurenai (who walks the Earth in leather dusters, like Caine in Kung Fu) inspires more confidence. In Borrow the Power, directed by Kiyotaka Taguchi, he returns to Japan just in time. There are space monsters massing for some sort of attack. Apparently, the nexus of the nefarious business is a creepy mansion that suddenly appeared on the outskirts of town.

Orb will have to investigate single-handedly, since Ultraman X has been confined to a handheld device called the X Devizer. Rather ominously, the Ultra’s old pseudo-nemesis Jugglus Juggler works as the Lurch-like butler in the strange manor that serves as some kind of portal between dimensions and universes. Orb will not be able to defeat the forces of evil on his own, even after borrowing the powers of other Ultramen. Fortunately, an all-time fan-favorite from the early series makes a rousing cameo to save the day. Even if you never watched the franchise before, Taguchi makes his significance and steely presence immediately clear.

In fact, Taguchi generally does a nice job of keeping things lively. Hideo Ishiguro is satisfyingly cool as Orb/Kurenai, while Takaya Aoyagi chews some serious scenery as Juggler. Plus, Miyabi Matsuura is appealingly wide-eyed and shows some decent action chops as Naomi Yumeno, the leader of SSP, a student group dedicated to aiding Ultraman, who are a bit like Nancy Drew and her friends.

PSIFF ’19: Supa Modo

Fortunately, the so-called “Dark Age” of comics never reached Kenya. Jo is a young fan who does not need her superheroes to die, grow bitter, or turn evil. She could use some of their invincibility, as she faces her mortality in Likarion Wainaina’s Supa Modo (trailer here), Kenya’s official foreign language Academy Award submission, which screens during this year’s Palm Springs International Film Festival.

Nine-year-old Jo and her friends in the children’s ward love superheroes and martial arts stars, thanks in part to the screenings arranged by Mike, a local wedding videographer and budding Tarantino-style filmmaker. Unfortunately, the latest prognosis is so serious, her mother has taken her home to spend her final weeks with family. However, Jo’s older sister Mwix is honest enough to understand Jo might have been happier back in the hospital with her friends and their movies. To keep her spirits up, Mwix concocts several elaborate charades, placing Jo in the position of a real-life superhero: “Supa Modo.” Frankly, her schemes start to go a bit too far, but she is able to re-focus her efforts on one last project Jo has in mind.

No doubt about it, Supa Modo jerks the tears like nobody’s business. It shares many common themes and motifs with Ian Fitzgibbon’s underappreciated Death of a Superhero, but Supa Modo manages to be considerable brighter, more colorful, and ultimately more upbeat—even with a considerably younger ailing protagonist. In fact, it is a sweet valentine to geek culture that will leave even the most jaded viewers misty-eyed, at the least.

Supa Modo is also consistently polished, featuring a professional-grade ensemble. Banish your skepticism, because this is nothing like the high-energy, ultra-low-budget weirdness churned out by Nollywood and Ugawood (Nigeria and Uganda). This is a heartfelt work of quality cinema, boasting some terrific performances. Stycie Waweru is so earnest and charming as Jo, it makes her later scenes especially devastating. Nyawara Ndambia is also a real standout as the sensitive sister, Mwix.

The lazy takeaway from Supa Modo is the whole “it takes a village” thing, but you could also say it takes a Justice League or Jackie Chan. Jo gets her strength from their examples, as well as the support of her family. It is all quite sweet and sad, leaving viewers emotionally wrecked. Recommended for superhero fans in the mood for something a little more real and grounded, Supa Modo screens this morning (1/5) and Monday (1/7), as part of the 2019 Palm Springs International Film Festival.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse—Marvel Animated

You have to give Marvel credit for not playing it safe with their first theatrical animated feature. For starters, they revisit the “Ultimate Marvel” continuity universe that they essentially put on indefinite hiatus in 2015. It also prominently features Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham (he’s a pig, get it?), whom Time magazine dubbed one of the “Ten Oddest Marvel Characters,” not without justification. Yet, all the unlikely elements combine into a rather inspired whole: Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, and Rodney Rothman’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (trailer here), which opens this Friday nationwide.

Miles Morales is a bright prep school scholarship kid from Brooklyn, who is pushed hard by his police officer father. Most of the time, he feels like his black sheep Uncle Aaron understands him better, especially when it comes to his passion for graffiti art. Then one day, he is bitten by a radioactive spider. You know how that works. In fact, screenwriter Phil Lord frequently revisits that familiar origin story throughout Spider-Verse, for sly comedic effect.

Young Morales has trouble mastering his new powers, but he soon comes mask-to-mask with a potential tutor. That would be Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man. Thanks to a rift in the multiverse caused by the recklessness of Wilson Fisk (a.k.a. The Kingpin), several more alternate Spider-Beings cross over. Most of Morales’ lessons will come from Peter B. Parker, who is a lot like the Parker we know, but slightly schlubbier. He is not perfect, but the black-and-white, tough-talking Spider-Man Noir is not exactly the mentoring type and it would be embarrassing to get schooled by Spider-Ham.

It is usually a bad sign when comic book companies resort to reboots and alternate continuities, but Marvel has repurposed the Ultimate experiment quite shrewdly. Waste not, want not. Visually, Spider-Verse is a trip and a half, incorporating elements of the entire history of comic books, including manga—as represented by Peni Parker—all of which is rendered in a unique style of CGI animation, with traditional hand-drawn elements layered on-top.

Spider-Verse looks terrific, but what really distinguishes the film is the quality of the writing. Morales and his family are all fully developed characters, who have very real issues to deal with. Morales also has a smartly developed relationship with an alternate Gwen Stacy, a.k.a. Spider-Woman, a.k.a. Spider-Gwen (not to be confused with the deceased and resurrected Jessica Drew Spider-Woman). Frankly, there are some shockingly poignant moments in Spider-Verse, especially for viewers who are or ever have been Marvel fans.

Marvel really tempted the fates by enlisting Nic Cage, who nearly played Superman in Tim Burton’s never-realized Superman Lives, to give voice to Spider-Man Noir, but once again their gamble paid off with some fantastic hardboiled voice-over work. The rest of the voice cast is quite strong as well, particularly Hailee Steinfeld as Spider-Woman and Brian Tyree Henry as Morales’ father, Jefferson Davis (is that irony intentional?).

Regardless, all superhero movies should be as well-written as Spider-Verse. The animators produced some striking cityscapes and a truly dynamic sense of motion. Watching their work recaptures the feeling of seeing the first two Sam Raimi live-action Spider-Man movies and being blown away by how good the web-slinging looked. Even if you love GKIDS and Studio Ghibli, you will be impressed by what the filmmakers have done here. Very highly recommended, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse opens this Friday (12/14) across the country, including the AMC Empire in New York.

Fantasia ’18: Loi Bao

Tam always kept a good head on his shoulders, until he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Now he keeps his head on the body of a murdered assassin, thanks to the breakthrough technology of “Uncle” Ma (who technically isn’t either). That muscle memory is a trip, but it will be awkward when the dead man’s nasty associates will come looking for him in Victor Vu’s Loi Bao (trailer here), which screened during the 2018 Fantasia International Film Festival.

Like Condorman’s alter ego, Tam used his superhero graphic novels as his own wish fulfilment fantasies. He also wrote bizarrely tragic historical epics about fathers dying in battle that will be little comfort to his wife and pudgy son as they wrestle with his prognosis. However, Uncle Ma has the technology. He just needs a viable body, which very conveniently delivers itself, along with a hail of bullets from his murderers. It is a good thing Tam and Ma happened to be in the right forest at the right time, because they are able to sneak the body back to his lab for a head switcheroo.

Suddenly, Tam knows Kung Fu, but his hands need to relearn how to draw. He also might be getting flashes of the previous tenant’s memories, especially when he visits a pretty young emergency room doctor after some of his early heroics. Inevitably, Tam starts saving children from burning buildings and the like. He also does a lot of parkour. However, his new body won’t be so much fun when an organ trafficking gangster starts threatening Tam’s family.

Since Charlie Nguyen ran afoul of the government censors, Vu has become a veritable one-man Vietnamese film industry. He has been working his way through the catalog of genres, so it was probably inevitable that he would give superheroes a go. Frankly, the action in Loi Bao is pleasingly gritty compared to the films coming from the Mouse House and Bugs Bunny’s corporate masters, including quite a bit of slickly choreographed gunplay.

The biggest drawback is Vu’s predilection for melodrama, which remains undiminished in Loi Bao. Like clockwork, the film comes to a screeching halt so Tam’s wife can lecture him about calling undue attention to himself or suspect him of getting up to some hanky-panky with Dr. Young-and-Available. Seriously, give us all a break. On the other hand, there are at least two wildly over-the-top third act revelations that perfectly reflect the spirit of superhero comic books.

Cuong Seven is just okay as Tam, but he is definitely at his best performing action director Vincent Wang’s fight scenes. The entire ensemble is rather uneven, but Ngoc Anh Vu is the clear, unchallenged standout as Dr. Temptation.

The action scenes are crisp and clean—and so is Nguyen K’linh’s cinematography. In fact, it is rather interesting to see a superhero tale in a Vietnamese setting, where sleek, affluent homes lay nestled not far from grimy back alleys, at least judging the Hanoi Vu depicts. Regardless, few superhero movies have a body-count this high so you have to give Loi Bao credit. Recommended for fans of superheroes, martial arts, and parkour films, Loi Bao had it North American premiere at this year’s Fantasia.

NYAFF ’18: Inuyashiki

Spiderman tells us: “with great power comes great responsibility.” A put-upon salaryman like Ichiro Inuyashiki knows plenty about responsibility, but not so much about power. However, a mysterious explosion turns the late middle-aged family man into a mecha-style superhero. He uses his new powers to cure kids in cancer wards—a noble application indeed—but he was not the only person at that fateful explosion site. Great power also corrupts in Shinsuke Sato’s live action manga-adaptation, Inuyashiki (trailer here), which screens today during the 2018 New York Asian Film Festival.

Poor Inuyashiki gets no respect in the office and even shabbier treatment at home, from his wife, son, and daughter. Nobody will even stop to listen when he is diagnosed with cancer. While out walking the abandoned dog his wife won’t let him keep, Inuyashiki is engulfed in some kind of alien energy. When he wakes, he is a cyborg with a low tolerance for sodium.

Hiro Shishigami was there too. He was not a bad kid. Shishigami loves his mother and does his best to protect his childhood friend Ando from bullies. Unfortunately, he has been embittered by a series of disappointments, starting with his parents’ divorce. Soon, his reckless use of powers turns into full-fledged serial killing and terrorism. Of course, as a lifelong video-game player, Shishigami immediately takes to the new powers, whereas Inuyashiki is like Ralph Hinkley in The Greatest American Hero.

In fact, Inuyashiki could be considered a cross between the classic Stephen J. Cannell TV show and the Death Note movies, especially considering how adept Shishigami becomes at killing from great distances.  In some ways, this film definitely feels familiar, but Noritake Kinashi keeps it fresh with his lead performance as Inuyashiki. It is hard to make such a woeful doormat character so engaging, but he pulls it off. He and Sato are also unusually consistent in their portrayal of the salaryman cyborg. He remains pretty much the same deferential dufus, instead of suddenly morphing into a confident, flashy-dressing ladies man, just because he can fly.

Takeru Satoh is undeniably creepy and cold-blooded as Shishigami, but he is so much like Tatsuya Fujiwara’s Light Yagami in the Death Note movies, fans could get flashbacks. Regardless, the women around him are terrific. Yuki Saito is quite poignant as his mother Yuko and Fumi Nikaido is a heartbreaking wonder as Shion Watanabe, possibly the last person who is able to reach Shishigami. It is a comparatively small part for Nikaido, but she elevates it into something serious and rather meaningful.

Inuyashiki is far more character-driven than most super-hero movies, but the large-scale Shinjuku climax still delivers plenty of spectacle. As far as strict logic goes, it doesn’t make much sense, but it is big and suitably apocalyptic. All things considered, it is a nice alternative to the super-slick Marvel and DC movies. After watching Inuyashiki, a lot of viewers might find themselves looking for Joey Scarbury’s “Believe It or Not” on YouTube. Recommended for its humanity, Inuyashiki screens today (7/15) at the SVA Theatre, as part of this year’s NYAFF.

Batman Ninja: Holy Warring States, Batman

When word got out Scott Adkins was in the running to be the new Batman, we briefly thought we might see a Dark Knight with legit martial arts chops. Alas, our hopes were soon dashed with the announcement Ben Affleck had been cast. How did that work out for you, DC? We can maybe get a hint of the martial arts Batman that could have been when the Caped Crusader and just about all of Gotham super-villains are sent back in time to Sengoku Era Japan in Jumpei Mizusaki’s Batman Ninja (trailer here), which releases today on DVD and BluRay.

Blame the gorilla. Gorilla Grodd’s time machine was supposed to whisk away Batman and all the costumed villains he has assembled for a phony summit meeting, leaving Gotham ripe for his picking. Instead, everyone was swept off to feudal Japan, including himself, Cat Woman, Robin, Nightwing, Red Robin, Red Hood, and even Alfred Pennyworth, who happened to be in the Bat Mobile at the time, even though that really doesn’t make any sense. Frankly, only Commissioner Gordon is left out, but at least he should have some peace and quiet for a change.

The time warp works differently for everyone, so by the time Batman arrives, the villains have already set themselves up as Daimyos jockeying for power. Of course, the Joker is the one most likely to successful unify his hold over the entire nation. Batman will lose a lot of his gadgetry trying to stop him, but he will find a surprising ally in the Bat Ninja Clan, whose prophecies have foretold his arrival.

Frankly, Batman Ninja would have been better if it were more grounded and martial arts focused. Instead, the film misleadingly promises to go back to basics, but doubles down on the mecha. This film should have been all about Batman kicking butt with the Bat Clan, but instead, it spends a great deal of time watching the super-villains bash each other’s mechanized fortresses.

Still, there is no denying Mizusaki’s impressive eye for visuals. In fact, the striking high point of the film (a provocative scene in which Red Hood menaces a couple of serfs who may or may not be Joker and Harley Quinn in disguise) is rendered in a style that deliberately evokes Japanese landscape watercolors. Plus, the character design work of Afro-Samurai’s Takashi Okazaki is pretty cool, except for maybe Sumo Bane.

In the English dub, it is also easy to hear why Roger Craig Smith’s commanding voice has become a fan favorite for both Batman and Captain America. As the Joker, Tony Hale is nearly as manic as Robin Williams in Aladdin, which is good for the energy level but bad for the film’s long-term wear-and-tear.

Of course, the Social Justice Warrior Thought Police will object to Batman Ninja on principle, because they have decided racially segregating books and film is the progressive thing to do. If we consider Batman a “white savior,” it should also be noted all the villains are white too (seriously, who’s whiter than the Joker?). Yet, the fact remains this is almost entirely a Japanese production. In fact, there is a long tradition of placing Batman in different historical settings (in Paul Pope’s story “Berlin Batman,” the Weimar Dark Knight saves the library of Ludwig von Mises from the National Socialists), so to place Warring States era Japan off limits would be discriminatory, by definition.

Batman Ninja should have been better, by more fully embracing the hack-and-slash and hand-to-hand action promised by the “Ninja” title. Nevertheless, it is a richly rendered work of animation that often pays homage to Japanese artistic traditions, even including a hat-tip to Hokusai’s Great Wave Off Kanagawa. Generally entertaining, but not the transcendent cross-over we were hoping for, Batman Ninja is recommended for established fans of the animated features, now that it is available on DVD And BluRay.

RFW-London ’17: The Guardians

In Red Prometheus, Dolores L. Augustine’s invaluable history of East German engineering, many retired researchers complained the DDR constantly demanded they reverse-engineer the latest breakthroughs imported from the West. However, by doing so, they guaranteed East German technology would never leap-frog the West. Apparently, the practice still goes on, because this Russian superhero movie is transparently reverse-engineered from The Avengers and The X-Men. It is the same general formula, but the execution is much cheesier throughout Sarik Andreasyan’s The Guardians (trailer here), which screens as part this year’s Russian Film Week in London.

During the Cold War, the super-secret SHIELD-like organization Patriot, commenced a Super-soldier project of its own. The results were initially promising, but squabbling between the project director and his Magneto-like rival August Kuratov led to the project’s closure. Forty or fifty years later, the revived Patriot agency must track-down and re-recruit their ageless test subjects to foil Kuratov’s mad scheme for world domination.

Ler is now living as a modern day Stylite in an abandoned Armenian monastery, but his powers of telekinesis remain undiminished. Khan the Kazakh has Flash-like speed, but the blades he wields make him far deadlier. The Russian Kseniya works in some kind of Cirque de Soleil show, because she has the power to turn invisible in water and to regulate her body temperature (except when she can’t), which makes her a cross between Sue Richards, the Invisible Girl and Ethel Merman. Arsus turns into a bear (sort of like Marvel’s Ursa Major).

Eventually, Major Elena Larina, the hot Nick Fury, assembles the Guardians to take on Kuratov, now decked out looking like Bane, but unfortunately, three of them are captured shortly thereafter, while poor battered Ler is left for dead. Don’t worry true believers, they still have some fight left in them, but they were never much for brains.

Andreasyan has some American credits to his name, so he has presumably seen a Marvel film or ten. Sometimes the crude Russofication is almost comical, but there is no denying the best thing about Guardians is the badass bear. Frankly, the special effects are way better than you would expect, but the script is even worse the you can imagine—except in one respect. Andreasyan and screenwriter Andrey Gavrilov wrap it up in just under ninety minutes, so spasibo for that.

This film is almost always laughable, but at least it keeps moving along. Sebastien Sisak is probably the best at doing actual acting stuff as Ler, while Sanjar Madi shows off some nice moves as Khan and Alina Lanina’s Kseniya looks a lot like Scarlett Johansson. Fortunately, Anton Pamposhnyy is often in bear-form, at least from the neck up. Frankly, The Guardians is a perfect example of why reverse-engineering guarantees you will always fall short of the targeted original. Recommended only as a cornball lark, The Guardians screens this Tuesday (11/21) during this year’s Russian Film Week in London.