April 2021

Mortal Kombat

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Mortal Kombat (1995)
  • IMDb: link

Mortal Kombat movie reviewThrowback Thursday takes us back to 1995 to the first attempt to adapt the Mortal Kombat video game into a feature film. Director Paul W.S. Anderson‘s Mortal Kombat is a flawed, but nonetheless enjoyable, B-movie. The story involves former Shaolin monk Liu Kang (Robin Shou), Hollywood action star Johnny Cage (Linden Ashby), and Special Forces officer Sonya Blade (Bridgette Wilson) being chosen by Thunder God Lord Raiden (Christopher Lambert) to defend Earth against an evil dimension in a tournament known as Mortal Kombat.

Each fighter has a different purpose for entering the tournament. Cage wants to prove his ability as a fighter (in a secret tournament no one will know about?), Kang is after revenge for the death of his brother (Steven Ho), and Sonya is chasing another competitor in the mercenary Kano (Trevor Goddard). The story is simply a loose structure to fit the various fight sequences, locations, and set pieces. An unapologetic B-movie memorable for Lambert’s mugging and some not too shabby special effects for the time, the film works as a tribute to the video game series without anyone in front, or behind, the cameras, or in the audience, taking the very ridiculous premise seriously.

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Angel – Dear Boy

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Angel – Dear Boy
  • wiki: link

Angel - Dear Boy television review

Throwback Thursday takes us back to Los Angeles and the adventures of a vampire with a soul. The Second Season of Angel is fixated on Darla (Julie Benz) and the return of Angel’s sire. After being gaslit for several episodes, an already shaky Angel (David Boreanaz) discovers that not only is Darla alive but is human. We witness Wolfram & Hart’s plan to turn Angel evil by framing him as an unhinged obsessive responsible for the murder of Darla’s husband (an actor hired, and promptly killed by Wolfram & Hart). The crime leads to the return of Detective Kate Lockley (Elisabeth Röhm), a character that never quite worked and would exit the show just a few episodes later. “Dear Boy” also highlights Angel’s disgust at the seedier side of being a private investigator when he’s hired to spy on a cheating spouse supposedly abducted by aliens.

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Black Cat #5

/ / Comics

Black Cat #5 comic reviewTwo series worth of heists (and Marvel’s ridiculous need to reboot and restart numbering comics arbitrarily) has led us here. Over 17 issues, when not distracted by the world being attacked by some weird symbiotic entity, Black Cat has carefully chosen specific targets within the super-hero community to aquire the tools necessary to rob Odessa Drake and the New York branch of the Thieves Guild. However, it seems her mentor the Black Fox hasn’t told her everything about his plans.

Opening with a look back at Felicia and the Fox as student and mentor, then discovering the Fox has been keeping secrets from her, I half expected some kind of double-cross here. Instead, the Black Fox’s true motives are revealed to rob the Guild not of their jewels but the immortality they receive from their partnership with the Guilded Saint (an extradimensional creature) by offering the creature a prize like none other – the island of Manhattan.

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Suicide Squad #2

/ / Comics

Suicide Squad #2 comic reviewSuicide Squad #2 wraps up the opening two-part story “Assault on Arkham” as the Squad struggles to get out of Arkham Asylum with Talon. Although the mission is a success, not all the members make it back as the Squad drops two members to pick up one.

The issue is mostly the team fighting for their lives and the fallout of the mission in which Peacemaker and Superboy (who is quite different from the version recently seen in either Action Comics or Young Justice) go out it as the clone’s hero complex nearly gets the entire group killed.

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