[EXPRESSO] The Running Man (2025) | Twitch Rage

In this era of remakes and reboot, this is one that makes some sense, especially since the older film adaptation of the Stephen King novel (originally published under the “ Richard Bachman” pseudonym) was a fun 80s slice of “Golden Age Schwarzenegger” beefcake action, more heady than the actor usual fare, but not much so, as its revels in being the very kind of thing its supposedly satirizes, with by the plot’s premise of a far future dystopia where a fascist state pacifies the masses via a reality tv bloodsport, The Running Man.

Here indesiderables and anyone that doesn’t obey is labeled a criminal and terrorist, pitted against a gaggle of chasing units, with the task of surviving as long as they can, while there is a “snitches get riches” for civilians reporting – or killing yo’ ass, with a billion dollars prize money for “runner” surviving against all odds and hunting units sent after them, all live on national television.

This version has the protagonist being an enraged father that has been blacklisted from most workplaces for trying to have justice and unionization, signing up for the Running Man show so he can rack up money needed to cure his daughter, and maybe even give his family a better life outside the slums.

It’s a more faithful adaptation of the story, and honestly it’s just a far better film, actually timely in this moment where the dystopian sci-fi futures are pretty much undistinguishable from reality, flying cars aside, with what were once charicatures being plausible, while still delivering lots of bombastic blockbuster action, stylish use of “oldies” for the soundtrack and embodiying the current – and apt- sentiment of “fuck you all, let it burn”, with an ending that might feel like a cop out but isn’t necessarily such.

The Spooktacular Eight #27: Possessor (2020)

While unearthing gems or trash champions of yore is fun, i also want to cover more modern films in this rubric, and today we remedy that by reviewing a film that i feel somehow was ignored or put to the sides, more due to its unfortunate release timing than anything else.

I mean, if 2020 didn’t hit the world with a pandemic, maybe this and the Invisible Man remake/reboot would be better known, not that they’re “obscure” or were treated as pariahs by the press.

“This” being Possessor, a sci-fi horrot thriller by Brandon Cronenberg, yes, the son of body horror maestro David Cronenberg, who’s still making movies of varying quality, like the more recent The Shrouds (and the 2022 Crimes Of The Future movie that isn’t actually a remake of his older film of the same name).

The premise is immediatly gripping, set in a cyberpunk-ish future where an assassin, Tasya Vos, carries over her murderous assignment by possessing other people bodies, but finds herself fighting for control of her lastest host body, belonging to a man named Colin, the boyfriend of a wealthy CEO’s daughter, whom is also being forced at his data mining company in a menial role.

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[EXPRESSO] The Creator (2023) | We Are The Robots

Somehow managed to see this one in theathers, despite its last minute marketing that made it feel like it kinda came out of nowhere, odd for a mid-to-high budget sci-fi epic from director Gareth Edwards (Monsters, Godzilla 2014, Rogue One).

Though i can see why as the trailer, the first way most people likely even learnt of this movie existing, literally tells you the first big reveal, which doesn’t really make this look or sound particularly original or impressive, a sentiment that’s ultimately correct but it’s not entirely “fair”.

The plot of The Creator deals with a future where humans and “IA humans” coexist in peace, until a nuke goes off, starting a war between the US based NOMAD military and the robots. An ex-NOMAD agent tasked to retrieve the superweapon developed from the “IA front”, only to find that the “weapon” is actually an IA/robot child.

There’s clearly ambition and scope, but for something that sets out to be a big budget sci-fi that wants to bring something new to familiar themes and subjects…. it doesn’t really manage that, comes close but ultimately will just remind you of other sci-fi movies that it takes inspiration from, especially Children Of Men via District 9 with a Vietnam movie style narrative.

Especially as it doesn’t really invent anything than hasn’t been done before (and better) with its themes and concepts, there are some clever ideas but don’t amount to much of real substance, not helped by somewhat uninteristing characters and repetitive action.

It’s still a decent watch, the acting is solid, direction is good and this is NOT an uninspired film, but it’s such a case where its various elements never fully come together as they could and it never really lives up to its own ambition, despite obvious genuine effort.

[EXPRESSO] Paradise (2023) | Ripe Ripe Fruit

Another dip into Netflix fresh batch, this time a German sci-fi thriller about aging that tries to mesh In Time and Children Of Men, with the plot set in a dystopian future where people can “donate their time” in order to receive big money (without the big prizes), the years taken converted into a serum that transfers the “timespan” to the receiver, often rich people.

Basically a more boring sci-fi version/application of the Soul Soul Devil Fruit eaten by Big Mom, but whatever, i can roll with it.

When the protagonist wife has to pay her debts with personal belongings that include 40 years (due to their insurance not covering the apartment accidentally catching fire), her husband swears to take them back, eventualling bumping into Aeon, the terroristic organization that opposes this controversial procedure, especially the rich gaming the system in their favour.

It sounds interesting enough on paper, but this is undeed the textbook example of “surface deep” sci-fi thriller that wants to touch upon heavy themes… as in, just “touch” and never really explore anything to any degree of nuance, or flesh out its worldbuilding, so it can focus on its basic “employee of evil megacorp is wronged and then turns against it for revenge” plot.

it’s also a 2 hours filmwith a slow pacing and characters that are mostly cliched, like the corpos villains that are evil because the narrative demands it, not that the heroes are any better.

The frustratingly open ending further grounds Paradise into disappointing mediocrity, direction is solid and makes for a movie that’s not boring, but has untapped potential as the script overdoses on clichès instead of attempting any nuanced exploration of the subjects its plot brings up, itself constructed with ideas borrowed from better films.

Still, watchable, at the very least.

Pinocchi-O-Rama #7: Gepetto (Manwha)

If we’re talking about comics, we all known where Pinocchio comes to mind, though indirectly, as “The God Of Manga” Osamu Tezuka was inspired by Disney’s adaptation of Carlo Collodi’s book, and wanted to create a “reverse 21^th Centhury Pinocchio”, a robotic boy already created to be as close as possible to perfection. I really don’t need to introduce Astro Boy, do i?

Tezuka would eventually do his own manga adaptation of Pinocchio, which would be interesting, but maybe too obvious, so we’re not reviewing that or Astro Boy.

Nope, we’re going for something far more recent, and pay visit to what i feel it’s an underestimated country in terms of comics, South Korea, that while it did get inspired by Japan’s anime/manga style and legacy, managed to create something distinct or similar but possessing its own personality and soul, dubbed as “manwha” for shorthand.

Though one could be forgiven to think that mostly it’s a matter of where its coming from instead of the content itself, given we had many distincly “manga” series come out from european or non-japanese artists (an easy example is Tony Valente’s Radiant), and the more successful/publicized often are aimed to the same age demographic as shonen mangas, or belong to popular genre trends.

But for each “God Of High School”, we have more unique work, like Hyung Min-woo’s western horror themed Priest, inspired by Monolith Productions FPS game BLOOD.

While a number of manwha series were and are given print editions in many countries (including Italy and France), the most common way to consume and access manwha in both its country of origin and international is “the internetz” and sites like Webtoon.

And indeed one can read the entire manwha we’re talking about today, Gepetto by Jewon Yeon, english translated on Webtoon, for free.

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Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex 2045 (Season Two) [REVIEW] | To Doublethink Outside The Cage

Yeah, let’s tackle something a bit more challenging before we once again dip our toes in braindead killer animal exploitation crap.

When i reviewed the first season of this new Ghost In The Shell series back in 2020, i wasn’t expecting it would take 2 years before the second part/season would finally air, not because these projects aren’t time consuming (they are), but the general lack of interest in this new 3D CG iteration of the franchise shown by fans and the lack of much news at all almost made wonder if Netflix didn’t consider cancelling.

But then again, in the meantime we saw that it would take a gargantuan dumpster fire such as the live action Cowboy Bebop to make the streaming giant go and actively go “yeah, we’re gonna make more of this trash but we actually decided not to”.

A rare move, given WHAT this company is usually okay with greenlighting in excess, while killing stuff people actually likes.

Still, after a while it became clear this second season wasn’t exactly making anime fans go in the streets to demand it big time. Riots were not made for SAC 2045 Part 2, that much is undeniable.

Eventually, in late May 2022 the second season dropped on Netflix, preceded by a compilation film of the first season, called – fittingly so – GITS SAC 2045: Sustainable Warfare, which we talked about in its EXPRESSO review, and overall served as a good refresher since 2 years had passed.

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