Rise Of Kong: Skull Island PS4 [REVIEW] | Unfinished Ape Works

It says something when, with 2023 almost finished and with the Daedelic Games developed Gollum game set to win pretty much all “Worst Games Of Year” lists, GameMill reminded the populace that they could be the bigger fiend, and live up to their name….not that it would take them much to achieve that since they pumped out a lot of Nickelodeon licensed titles, including 3 kart racers in the span of 4 years.

And of course, Big Rigs, as they did release the legendary western kusoge of “racing” decades earlier under their previous handle, Gamemill Publishing.

(Strap in, this is gonna be a LONG one, fellas)

This one is surprising in many ways, not because it pretty much signified the return of the licensed tie-in showelware tier garbage (they also released a Walking Dead game some months after, and it was about as good as you’d expect), giving us a whiff of how these games still used to exist in droves up until the late 2000s, but because the license itself sound a little too good for this type of publisher, i mean, the Monsterverse movies revived Kong to have him fight Godzilla.

So, how the fuck did GameMill got hold of the license for King Kong?

Continua a leggere

[EXPRESSO] Ape VS Monster (2021) | Cranky Kong VS Zilla

Maybe it’s the pandemic and all, but i kinda missed having the Asylum pop-up to do their mockbuster version of whatever Hollywood blockbuster came out.

There’s something oddly comforting, almost reassuring in that.

And given how much Godzilla VS Kong was delayed even before the pandemic, you’d think they would have used this unexpected advantage to make the mockbuster come out earlier, but nope, so only now it’s time for the off-brand, million times cheaper Asylum offering, with Ape VS Monster.

In mockbuster tradition, the plot actually doesn’t have much to do with the movie/s “mockbustered”, and this time it’s about an ape that comes back to earth from a space pod launched decades before, crashing and releasing an alien substance, accidentally making the ape itself and a passing Gila monster grow into giant size. Eventually they fight, after the faffing about of the human characters, mostly good for old Cold War cliches, and so Eric Roberts doesn’t have to leave his war desk too much, while the main protagonist tries to save the simian, Abraham, whom she shares a special bond with.

Of course they copied that here too.

Considering everything, like not having the backing of the Monsterverse narratives, the budget, and… The Asylum being The Asylum….i will admit they really tried with this one, even if the monsters – mostly – looks about as “good” as you would expect, the production values are slightly better than i expected (cinematography is also a tad better), and there’s a bit more to the plot and to the characters (mostly), direction is fine, making for an entertaining 90 minutes low budget flick.

I have more to say (and we’ll talk about this one in more detail eventually), but for what it is, it’s actually alright, honestly surprised it ain’t worse.

[EXPRESSO] Godzilla VS Kong (2021) | MONSTERS, FIGHT!

This review is out only now because we didn’t fuckin get the movie (officially, anyway) here in Italy until now. Streaming only, due to cinemas just now preparing to re-open in some capacity.

So, after some delays and a wait that consumed me, the monster RE-match of the millennium has finally happened, as part of Legendary’s Monsterverse.

And it delivers, it does, even though there are caveats, ones that most people already know and are willing to ignore, especially because Godzilla II: King of The Monsters already had these issues.

Plot sees Godzilla rampage in New York for unknown reasons, and the Monarch company is basically engaged to use Kong as a guide to reach his ancestral home located inside the “Hollow Earth”, supposedly common origin to all the giant monsters. This because they sensed a huge energy source there and plan to use it in order to power up a weapon capable of stopping Godzilla.

The effects are top notch, the monster fights incredibly satisfying, there’s actually a bit of personality to the monsters (even if Godzilla – by Toho’s strict decree – doesn’t talk in any way) the Hollow Earth scenario is actually quite a spectacle and interesting, even if the plot is a bit there to justify the monster fighting and not the other way around, combined with the human characters really being… just kinda there to be there, mostly coming off as annoying, stupid or a bit douchy.

And i’m “sorry”, but we spend a lot of time with them as well, they’re played by good actors, we can have better scripts and better human characters for monster movies, even by just looking at MonsterVerse’s own Kong: Skull Island.

Could have been better, but overall it’s still a blast to see, especially on the big screen.