[EXPRESSO] Venom: The Last Dance (2024) | Knull In My Soup

Venom’s most likely uncanonical (for now anyway) adventures with his human host Eddie Brock come to an end in Venom The Last Dance, the third and final movie of the series, already prodiving something rarer than an unicorn for modern superhero films: closure.

Sure, they will most likely do some films about the Symbiotes or whatever later, but this one does actually close this storyline.

Speaking of which, we continue to follow Eddie and Venom’s escape from the authorities, now complicated by the army having captured the other Symbiotes in a hidden desert base, and especially by Knull, an imprisoned god that created the Symbiotes and is sending out monster aliens (called Xenophages) around the galaxy in order to find and retrieve the Codex, the only thing able to break him free.

That said, it’s a Venom film, meaning it’s a mess of garbage that somehow manages to work in spite of the many, many issues it has, and be entertaining enough, sporting a trashy 90s charm, and while The Last Dance’s plot feels more structured and focused (more than Let There Be Carnage), the humour is even worse (it’s funnier when it doesn’t mean to), the villain is easy to forget even exists, characters are prone to overconvenient bouts so the plot can continue, and while the new Symbiotes are cool, they don’t do much until the end.

On the flipside it’s not drawn out, it’s a film that goes by fast, maybe too fast, as it’s hard for anything of note to “sink in”, with the highlights being the Venom Horse and a hippie UFO believer than bring his family along for a road trip to Area 51, for what amounts to a somewhat generic ending to the series and about the same level of “quality” seen before.

The Callisto Protocol PS4 [REVIEW] | Ape Espace

When a beloved new IP is run into the ground and compromised by EA, that tried to squeeze Call Of Duty money out of a horror franchise and even had microtransactions inserted in the last mainline title…. seeing the publisher basically give up and do nothing with it for years is frustrating, even more so when the finale was followed up by a DLC retconning the ending.

And the inevitable homicide by EA of Visceral Games, after the routine danse macabre of shuffling them into developing completely different games of a completely different genre, lamenting how the star shaped peg doesn’t fit into the durian shaped hole, was the cherry on the corpse sundae.

So of course this leaves a specific hole in the market for “spiritual sequels” to fill, and mind you, this was announced before EA announced their own remake of the first Dead Space.

And on paper, The Callisto Protocol sounded exactly what fans of the series like me wanted, a “fuck you” to the vampiric publisher that wasn’t serving an audience starved for that action-horror sci fi dish, done outside of their control, with even some of the original creators of the series involved.

This is the kind of underdog story that we wanna see, as apparently everyone hates EA, and only EA for some stupid reasons, but alas this is not quite what actually happened.

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The Spooktacular Eight #18: The Dunwich Horror (1970)

We cover surprisingly little Lovecraft content, so let’s rectify that a bit with one of the earliest film adaptation of a popular tale of Mr. Racist, The Dunwich Horror, arguably one of the most well known stories of his and hence one of the most adapted alongside The Color Out Of Space, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, Herbert West- Reanimator, and obviously The Call Of Cthulu.

Speaking of official adaptation, at the very least, and even so this is just the second oldest film adaptation, as Roger Corman (whom also was an executive producer here) did a loose but credited adaptation in 1963’s The Haunted Palace, part of his Edgar Allan Poe series but in this case just borrowing the name from a poem later tied to Poe’s Fall Of The House Of Usher, in reality adapting The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward.

And loose adaptation of Lovecraft’ works was the name of the game at the time, which was when his work finally started gathering popularity and beginning his revival to a staple of horror and science fiction that is today.

So since this is the first properly marketed wide spread film adaptation, i’m willing to cut it some slack as the “first (proper) try” of adapting material that struggles to be adapted in audiovisual form, we’re already had the “cosmic horror is difficult to make on film” talk before (when talking of 2001’s Dagon by Brian Yuzna, if not mistaken), i’m not gonna repeat myself this time.

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[EXPRESSO] Earth Defense Force 6 PS4 | Back To The Futures

Earth Defense Force 6 is finally here, with the infinite struggle for every new entry to upstage the previous game, and somehow it still managed to up the ante following Earth Defense Force 5, where you try to arrest and then kill God.

Admittely, it does this by relying on EDF 5 not only for continuing its batshit insane story and somehow making thing crazier via time travel…. which is a baked-in story excuse for reusing a lot of assets from EDF 5, while graphics remain identical to make even more insane amounts of enemies come at you, regardless if it tanks the framerate (it often does) by how ludicrously huge the hordes can be, in order to increase the overall challenge.

Gameplay offers some incremental QoL features that improve the experience, and they did address some issues, like better controls, there are some new locations, a good amount of new enemies and a better distribution of those… even though it’s almost made moot by the usual asset recycle and the campaign being the biggest yet, with nearly 150 missions in the base game alone; it’s still a budget game, despite D3/Namco Bandai selling it at 60 bucks, or 90 for the deluxe edition that includes Hololive EN decoy launcher weapons (which have better graphics than anything else in the game XD).

But at the core it’s EDF, mainline EDF, with all its issues, but still incredibly fun, arguably the best it ever has been, thanks to more enemy types, more flexible customization for the builds, new absurd weapons, and some welcome QoL features, like subtitles for the hilarious campy dialogue.

Not too many, as it’s a formula that ironically would fall apart if you try to “fix it”, and honestly there is still nothing quite it.

THE EDF DEPLOYS!!

[EXPRESSO] Alien: Romulus (2024) | Karmacomalion

After the…something that Alien Covenant was, the series is back, with Fede Alvarez (Don’t Breathe, Evil Dead 2013) in the directing chair, though not with a direct sequel to Alien Covenant, since this one is set between Alien and Aliens.

The plot concerns a group of young adults living on a miner colony controlled by the Wayland-Utani corporation that learn of a dismissed, apparently abandoned cargo ship floating just above their planet, and try to board it so they can raid of resources in order to reach a new, more liveable planet and escape their fate of dying in the mines for the company.

The abandoned spaceship (divived into twins modules named after the legendary founders of Rome, the bothers Romulus and Remus) hides more than precious resource, as in some really hostile – and disgusting – form of alien life…

It’s basically a back to basics affair, but it’s executed incredibly well, especially as it manages to blend elements not only from the first two Alien films, but also from all the others ones, with some notable elegance and in a way that feels (and is) familiar, yes, but in a good way, as in this is what people know and want from an Alien film, and Romulus delivers in spades, with excellent effects, creepy ambiancè, disgusting and fearsome alien creatures, explosive action setpieces, likeable characters you’ve grown attached to, graphic gore, amazing set design, etc..

There’s technically nothing really new, nothing to “push forward” (whatever that means in this case) the series, if you will, but if you’re interested more in having a good-great movie, one that – as a nice “bonus”- actually knows what it wants to be, then Alien Romulus is just that.

Honestly might be the best movie in the series since Alien and Aliens.

Super Summer Hiatus: Triple Deluxe

So, the summer hiatus for the blog starts today, but due to university woes and cramming exams, i will be taking a couple of extra weeks off, so we’ll resume on the 15th of September instead of the 1st, and as a form of “compensation” we’ll have a review up every 3 days instead of weekly.

As usual, the hiatus will not apply for the EXPRESSO rubric.

Happy holidays!

[One Piece: Side Pieces | Retrospective] Dream 9: One Piece X Toriko X Dragon Ball Z Super Collaboration Special (2013) [REVIEW]

Oh yes, this one, i held back on tackling it while i covered the One Piece TV Specials also because i never read nor did know much about Toriko as a series… that has changed, as i’m almost halfway through and quite liking it, and yes, i’m aware of Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro “canon event” that happened in 2002, but unlike Oda’s other acquaitance, Watsuki, an actual pedophile that had terabytes of child pornography (and suffered for it just a hiatus for its Rurouni Kenshin follow-up series, after the charges in 2018, which is even more insulting since recently the author of The Apothecary Diaries got punished far worse for tax evasion), it seems to have been a mistake he owned up to, he really paid for it in terms of being ostracized by the industry, actual consequences of his actions, plus it been 22 years, so i feel it’s pointless to still hold it over the man.

Had to get this over with because i didn’t want to talk about, you didn’t want to learn about that for a review of a special crossover about 3 popular Jump anime series (which already appared together in some of the Jump crossover videogames but not in anime form) colliding in a TV special, many couldn’t care less either way, but some might not have known or still held some incorrect info on the matter (like i did myself), so i had to make things clear(er) and to address the question.

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[EXPRESSO] Borderlands (2024) | Money does grow on trees

Despite “Randy BoBandy” reminds us this thing was actually coming along and not going the way of the Bioshock film….i kinda wish it did, as it’s hard to believe this thing actually exists, not helped by lack of any real promotion for a 100 millions budgeted movie with actors like Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart and Jamie Lee Curtis.

The plot follows the one of the first Borderlands but also borrows some characters from the sequel, with a bounty hunter, Lilith, tasked by the CEO of the Atlas corporation to get back his daughter, Tina, lastly seen on Pandora, a wasteland planet overrun by thugs, monsters and mercenaries, where is said to reisde Vault, a fabled crypt that allegedly contains the artifacts of a long lost, technologically advanced civilization.

Lilith then inadvertly becomes a Vault Hunter and is forced to team up with a gaggle of renegades, weirdos and psychos, including a robot unit called “Claptrap”.

Having played up to Borderlands 2 and some of its expansions, i will say that at least the Borderlands movie looks the part, and this might be one of the more apt videogames to film adaptations… shame the source material was not really good to draw inspiration for an action comedy film, given the puerile, meme-ridden and often more annoying than charming “sense of humour” the games had, which was tolerable at the time and didn’t quite age great…but heck, even the games were funnier, overall, thanks to their “throw shit at the wall” approach.

It’s a movie 10 years too late, and for an Eli Roth directed film based on a hyper violent videogame series, it’s a PG-13 affair, but the main issue it’s the movie just being a boring, unfunny, honestly kinda lethargic romp, where the weirdly casted A-listers half-ass it big time.

Earth Defense Force 4.1: The Shadow Of New Despair PS4 [REVIEW] | #summerofedf

2017 passed, and the alien menace was repelled… for 8 years, as in 2025 the Ravagers returned with a vengeance, striking from within the depths of Mother’s Earth crevices.

I’m cheating a bit as i’m not reviewing the original PS3/X360 release of EDF 4, called Earth Defence Force 2025 in the west since EDF 3 was retitled as EDF 2017, and not randomly as this is a direct sequel of the storyline in EDF 3/2017, which – as we learned by now – the series does every 2 mainline titles before rebooting itself.

Which also means it’s also a remake of sort of EDF 2/Global Defence Force, aside from bringing back some enemies from that entry (and introduces some the very same way in some missions), it also features very similar key plot beats, like the mothership being destroyed halfway through after being teased as the final boss to introduce the actual new, bigger menace.

The B-movie storyline is as fun as ever, as are the hilarious dubbing and insane dialogues shouted by the soldiers, or by some utterly cuckoo operator or scientist that almost orgasms when an air raid is carried out, as somehow this series manages to have even more ridiculous and batshit hilarious exchanges and plot points every entry, as it’s basically not really competing with anything else on the market, but itself, so – as already said by a very peculiar medical student/gaming Youtuber – it has to push the kaiju-alien ants-robots-alien robots-ufo consommè of B-movie delirium even further, and as EDF 5 later managed to, so did EDF 4/4.1 in upping its predecessor.

I’m not gonna spoil how, because the dialogues are really a trashy treat of over the top voice acting and really evoke the old 70s english dub jobs of kung fu films, just for a 50/60s sci fi style romp about aliens that might be ants, robots, both, none, and might be working in tandem.

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Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon PS3 [REVIEW] | #summerofedf

The EDF wasn’t quite new to spin-offs, as EDF 2 got a tactical turn based spin-off, developed by thinkarts and released westward as a PAL only release under the Global Defence Force: Tactics title, but it’s fair to say this is the more well known one, as it released globally after EDF 2017 as a sort of “fail safe” title, just in case the mainline titles were too niche and “japanesy”, here’s another more tailored to western gamers of the time, developed by now defunct Vicious Cycle Software (Robotech: Battlecry, Puzzle Quest: Challenge Of The Warlords, Dead Head Fred – which i really should review, it’s an interesting little game – The Matt Hazard games, the Pac Man and The Ghostly Adventure duology, alongside a dozen or so of licensed and-or tie-in games about kid oriented IPs like Ben 10, Flushed Away and actually ended their run on a Kung Fu Panda licensed title).

Basically EDF 2017: USA Edition, as willed by D3, which i can’t blame them for, not in retrospective, as it the late 2000s-early 2010s saw basically a giant racist crusade against anything gaming related coming from Japan sweeping the industry, i lived through it and remember too well, so yeah, not surprised D3 went for this option just to be sure it got some footing for EDF.

That aside, the premise is basically EDF: USA in terms of plot as well, very B-movie stuff as expected and desired: aliens, bringing in tow robots and giant insects (and giant robots, which also include giant robot insects) invade the city of New Detroit, and is up to the Strike Force Lightning, a team of elite soldier from the Earth Defense Force, to blast them aliens bastards to bits and save the day.

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