[EXPRESSO] Lee Cronin’s The Mummy (2026) | Sacrifice Unto Sebek

As the title implies, this isn’t really a remake of the classic 1932 Universal film, nor a reboot of the 1999 Frasier starring film (which is actually coming in a couple years, because we live in the past permanently in the future), but more of a new retelling of the mummy and its mythology.

Set in modern days, we have a family that – while briefly living in Cairo – suffers the disappearance of the youngest daughter, Katie, by a mysterious woman.

8 years later, the family is still heartbroken but had to somewhat moved on, until they receive the news from Egyptian authorities of Katie being found in a 3000 years old sarcophagus, which itself somehow survived a deadly plane crash.

Even stranger, Katie is found, heavily scarred, wounded, in a catatonic state but alive, so she is brought back into the family, but soon her behaviour becomes even more worrying and strange events afflict the family…

Lee Cronin’s take on the classic monster has some nice ideas to make it distinct and not just a rehash of the old mummy myth, modernizing with a touch of folk horror and some creepy ambience, but it’s not fully realized as it relies a bit too much on other horror cliches, to the point it basically pivots to be just another exorcism film with an Egyptian flavor topping.

Props for it actually taking place a lot in Egypt and involve actively egyptian characters (instead of just having scenes in Cairo at the beginning), plus there is some good gore, but it never becomes properly scary, nor it manages to escape some overdone trapping with exorcism/possession films, the good acting helps as the characters ain’t much more than functional, and the script could have used some trimming, as the runtime feels bloated.

Paws Of Fury: Samurai Academy PS5 [REVIEW] | Dogurai Defense

My first impression was “the fuck is this?” when stumbling upon it on Amazon.

Then i looked at the cover and a stupid memory emerged, that yes, i recognize these characters, they’re from that middling and unexplicable animated kids film remake of Mel Brook’s Blazing Saddles, The Legend Of Hank: Paws Of Fury, which i reviewed last month.

Problem is, that came out in 2022, and i’m fairly sure most people do not even know it exists or already forgot, but apparently it didn’t do nowhere as bad as one would assume in terms of box office and streaming revenue (though according to Wikipedia it didn’t even break even), yet i wonder why a tie-in videogame its coming out 3 years after the film it “tie-ing” into released?

Even more, now dropping the “Legend Of Hank” subtitle and feeling even more like a rejected Bubsy pitch?

This seems like some primo kusoge beef, if you will. It has the stank all over it.

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Platformation Time Again #8: Yoshi’s Story N64

HISTORY

While nowadays the Yoshi Island subseries has mixed reception, the original sequel to Super Mario World was indeed (and still is) a classic, peculiar spin-off of the Mario formula, and Yoshi Story was the first follow up/sequel of sort to reiterate on the formula, developed by pretty much all the original team for the original Yoshi’s Island, minus Shigeru Miyamoto, here just supervisor instead of producer or director, that here being Hideki Konno, whose portfolio already included the original Yoshi’s Island and Super Mario Kart.

This one doesn’t have much in terms of production history or weird tidbits about its inception.

It was originally just called Yoshi Island 64 and meant for the ill-fated Japan only N64DD peripheral, the game – like many others – was moved from the floppy drive format to cartridge, and when revealed it was meant to also “flex” the 3D capabilities of the N64 alongside its 2D craft, which was peculiar of a stance to take when 3D was the new fangled tech and the industry was more than happy to join on the bandwagon of immediatly shaming the previous tech as obsolete junk in favour of “the future”, regardless the fact that in this case 3D turned out to be the future.

Also yes, you might remember this one in how Nintendo made the soundtrack available on a CD shaped like Yoshi’s face, similar to the one for Diddy Kong Racing.

While i possess a copy of its Virtual Console rerelease back on the Wii, i have used the version included in the N64 Nintendo Classics catalogue for Switch and Switch 2 (which requires to also have the Expansion Pak tier subscription), and yes, it was also available on the chinese N64-based IQue Player.

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[EXPRESSO] The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (2026) | Starbound and Bible Black

While i (mostly) stand by my review of the first Super Mario animated film by Illumination… i do wanna stress out i didn’t mean it was great (i even said “considering it’s from Illumination”), but i found it to be pretty fun regardless even if it was trying to basically be a big nostalgia trip and advertisment vehicle.

If nothing else, the Super Mario Galaxy Movie is a follow up that clearly knows it doesn’t have to put any effort in terms of plot, as the first movie did set up the characters and the world, so this one instead quadruples down on nostalgic Nintendo references to any of their Mario or non-Mario related franchise, including a certain starbound, Thunderbirds inspired woodland creature whose presence leaked days before release.

To be fair, the plot isn’t really that thinner than the previous movie, and adapting Galaxy’s story – with a splash of Sunshine’s via Bowser Jr. – isn’t a bad choice, but since they did establish the world in the first film, they decided to use this as an excuse to pump in even more characters and references instead of actually giving anything (like the romantic subplot) some space to breathe, beside the main focus, as in, Bowser Jr. launching a scheme to free his dad via Rosalina’s powers.

As a result it’s even more than the first movie an ensemble of things just happening, as the screenwriters just throw scenes and characters, all Mario (and non-Mario) things all into the pot, regardless… which the previous film did, but not to this degree, and the short runtime futhers exacerbates the matter.

I will admit it’s still very well animated, very cute, and the actions scenes (especially the various fights) are well done, making for a decent animated kids film. It’s okay.

Super Mario Adventures [MANGA REVIEW] | Peach Power

Since i’ve run out of older Mario films to review, time to look at some of the manga about the plumbering bros and its magical mushroom world of pipes and princesses.

At least one of the mangas, as we’ll do Super Mario-Kun some other times.

Thankfully italian publisher JPOP did collect all of the more known Mario manga series, simply called Super Mario Adventures, all in one volume, at least for the italian release, the american one is handled by VIZ Media, so you’ll have to check availability for your region or whatever.

Story is by Kentaro Takekuma, mostly known for this and Even A Monkey Can Draw Manga/Saruman series that parodies instructional works about making manga and the industry as well, and received itself a sequel series, Saruman 2.0, back in 2007.

Art is by Charlie Nozawa, whom surprisingly isn’t credited to anything else… at least under that name, a pseudonym for Tamakichi Sakura, whom worked as a character designer for some old Enix games like Dungeon Land and other titles like Pikiinia!, the Sansara Naga series and Tower Dream, all that never left Japan, but he also has other works as a manga artist, as he’s behind Shiawase No Kaitachi (Figures Of Happiness) and Oyaji No Wakusei (Planet Of The Father).

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Space Monster Wangmagwi (1967) [REVIEW] | #giantmonstermarch

Digging deep into the kaiju fishin’ hole of mid ’70s to late ’80s with this one, which i’m quite sure none of you has even heard of, Space Monster Wangmagwi.

And i can’t blame you because it was basically unheard of outside of South Korea until its 2022 international screening at the Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal, and released on home video in 2023… for US home video, but it’s something.

Ailing from South Korea and actually being the earliest surviving South Korean giant monster movie (as the original 1962 Pulgasari is considered lost, just its script surviving as part of the Korean Film Archive), being made during the later child-friendly phase of Godzilla’s Showa era, actually the same year of the second Toho produced King Kong film, King Kong Escapes.

It’s also kinda surprisingly cheap, right away it gives off that aura as it’s a late ’60s films… in black and white and with production values that make me think Prince Of Space didn’t look that bad, though the laughable “tin can suits” the aliens (which show very human eyes through the eyehole-visor part of their suits) wear doesn’t help, as does the very cheap look of the ships dials and obvious old school phones and shower caps covered in kitchen tinfoil.

Still better than the “airplane cockpit cum shover privacy curtain” of Plan 9, but with that opening scene setting the bar for the special effects pretty low, i was expecting the scubagorilla from Robot Monster to be the kaiju the aliens would unleash…. you’d wish.

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[EXPRESSO] The Last Viking (2025) | Brother Pepper

One thing i didn’t quite expected from cinema in the future is to spawn a “Beatles-borne/like” kind of subgenre, and i’m not even talking about the 4 upcoming films about the band by Sam Mendes, or Across The Universe. i’m talking about having the Beatles be the instrumental catalysts of unrelated films, for example Danny Boyle’s 2019 film, Yesterday, where a mediocre singer found himself isekai’d into a world where the Beatles never existed, while he does remember their songs.

Again, it’s a Doofenschirmz situation, it is weird it happened at least twice, this time for the sake of crime comedy, the Norwegian-Danish The Last Viking.

A criminal, Anker, after having paid his 15 years sentence for a bank heist, he comes home, planning to retrieve the loot as he had his autistic brother Mandred hide the money underground in a place they knew… problem is Manfred now believes himself to be John Lennon (among other things), so Anker has to deal with this and try to play along, travelling together to some childhood places of theirs in order to eventually make him remember where he hid the money.

Which might mean having to get the “Beatles” back together.

Obviously this leads Anker to confront his rooted family traumas and his difficult relationship with his brother Manfred, and the movie to tackle the themes of mental health, happiness, perception,, but also – and especially – acceptance of one self, finding solace in our own “madness” in face of a delusional reach for complete, unrealistic “real sanity” , through a lot of surreal bizarre characters, grotesque situations, and plenty of dark comedy.

And i do mean dark comedy, it’s funny and hearthwarming in the end, but even for a Nordic black comedy it can get so bleak to be almost depressing.

Giant Monster March is a-ready to go-go once more

FIY i also had a hands on ramble about the Virtual Boy accessory for Switch 1 and 2 that i planned to release earlier, but didn’t due to having to tie some uni knots, that article will still come out, for now we’re once again about to begin the now staple rubric of the blog, Giant Monster March, which will have some “obvious” picks alongside some a lot more obscure pulls this year.

I really wanted to make it extra this year but couldn’t due to the aforementioned universitary education business taking a lot of my time, but after all, the new Monsterverse Godzilla film is scheduled for 2027, so..

[EXPRESSO] Rental Family (2025) | Gacha Gaijin

Brendan Frasier is back in Hikari’s second feature lenght (the first being 37 Seconds), Rental Family, playing an american actor, Phillip Vandarplough, that has been living in Japan for a lot but now, despite some of his old commercials being very successful, struggles to find work and so takes on menial side roles in various shows and auditions for basically everything.

One day he finds himself hitched to play a role… at a funeral.

Where even the dead isn’t actually dead, just there in classic japanese funeral clothes, happy as a clam.

Turns out he accepted a bit part for an agency called Rental Family, that basically offers actors to impersonate a family member or friend by request, “renting” them for occasional performances, which of course sounds strange to Philipp, but has become a market niche in Japan due to various cultural reasons, including stigmatization of mental illness, meaning instead of going to teraphy, sometimes someone will hire you to be their granpa or soothe their shut-in life by calling you over as a friend to play videogames, among other things.

The company boss, Shinji, invites him on board, as they need a “gaijin” for the catalogue, and Philipp, more out of desperation than curiosity, decides to join them. After an almost botched first job, he gets the hang of it, but when he has to play the father of a japanese-american girl, Mia, for 3 weeks so she can get in a good school, Philipp does find himself more emotionally involved than the “farce” requires…

It’s a canned expression to say “the feel good film of”, but Rental Family does perfectly succeed in that, being inspiring, funny, emotional, and also properly tackle a modern, real problem, the evergrowing societal “loneliness epidemic”, without going for an unrealistic, overly positive ending.

[EXPRESSO] 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (2026) | Charity Zombies

Second part of the 28 Years Later trilogy, The Bone Temple follows up the honestly incredible ending of 28 Years Later, which revealed the “Jimmy” name written on corpses and houses as the namesake for – basically – a posse of cultish killers, like if the droogs from Clockwork Orange were based on reviled UK media personality Jimmy Saville.

This sequel follows up on them, but it’s also quite focused about the character of Dr. Kelso, which makes sense since he was the best part of previous film, as he tries to experiment on a specific “alpha zombie” he dubs Samson, while Spike is forced to enter the “Jimmies”…

it’s an interesting sequel, in the sense it does capitalize on the more interesting and unique parts of the previous films, Kelso’s “bone temple” and the “Jimmy gang”, as director Nia DaCosta (Candyman 2021, The Marvels) leans further with the juggling of different tones, with a scene that borders on being a Rob Zombie-esque delirium, and almost feels “out of place” , even if conceptually on the same vibe of “smoking a morphine joint with my zombie broski”.

This comes at the cost of somewhat downplaying the zombies, in a way, and a film that somehow feels a bit safer than the previous one, even though it arguably has a better pacing and could be argued it’s better than 28 Years Later.

It also feels like what it indeed is, the second part of 28 Years Later “part 1”, as the two films do indeed complete each other, making me wonder if the third and final entry (with a returning character appearing here at the end) will indeed feel as such.

Regardless, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple it’s still quite good, even with some questionable choices, i absolutely recommend it.