Thor - God of Thunder (2022)

Over here in the UK, the rebranded SyFy Channel - now the much more palatable Sky Sci-Fi - christened its late night Asylum Movie Slot in 2022 with the latest from the mockbuster factory: Thor - God of Thunder.

Like the majority of The Asylum's output it's not great, but I've seen far worse and, as I've come to expect with this particular genre of film, it has some interesting Asylum-style twists on established mythology and fables.

Thor: God of Thunder opens with some deceptively decent CGI of an aerial Asgard, clearly "inspired" by the version we know from the Marvel movies, but as soon as it cuts to inside we're back on more familiar Asylum turf, resplendent as it is with amdram levels of set decoration and acting.

Loki (Daniel O'Reilly) escapes imprisonment, stabs Odin (Vernon G. Wells), steals some trinkets and flees to Earth, with the aim of freeing the giant wolf-god Fenrir.

Sadly, in hi-def, Loki's staff - clearly made of cardboard and gold-painted gaffer tape - looks rather cheap and nasty.

The god, who may be Thor's brother or uncle, wants Fenrir to destroy Yggdrasil - The Tree of the Nine Realms - so he can plant a new one and shape the universe to his own designs.

Summoned by his dying father, the titular god of thunder, Thor (Myrom Kingery), follows Loki to Earth and arrives at an archaeological excavation in California.

Grace Choi (Vaune Suitt), the site manager, had believed they were excavating an Indigenous Native American grave, but - just moments before the pair of Norse gods show up - she begins to suspect that the cave system is something more, possibly a prison for Fenrir.

The wolf-god is freed and it's now up to Thor and a handful of humans to stop Loki's schemes before the Earth shakes itself to pieces and a new world is born in the image of the trickster god.

On one - very large - hand, Steve Doucette's script, under Noah Luke's direction, is riddled with weak dialogue and plot holes, but on the other the impressive thing about Asylum films is there is usually no unnecessary padding and they don’t tend to hang around.

Thor: God of Thunder makes great use of its 87-minute run time, with enough momentum and action that - unless you're deliberately hate-watching this - will buoy you along with a wry smile on your face.

Sure, some of the CGI is naff and a lot of the acting is overacting; for instance, Vernon G. Wells (possibly best known as Wez from 1981's Mad Max II: The Road Warrior) has clearly been taking lessons from the William Shatner School of Acting, cranking up the mid-sentence dramatic pause to 11.

And while initially I was disappointed that Myrom Kingery's Thor lacked the golden locks we're accustomed to from the old Norse myths and Marvel Universe, he had the physicality of a Viking and his portrayal grew on me through the movie.

Even if every time he cried out for Odin all I could picture was this scene of the brilliant Matt Berry from The IT Crowd :

But for all the slack I'm cutting Thor: God Of Thunder, there was one scene that was simultaneously pure Asylum and possibly a new low.

At one point, towards the climax of the film, Thor is "rowing" a Viking ship across the sea and absolutely no effort is made to suggest that he is actually anywhere near water, it's almost as if Myrom Kingery is simply waving a paddle around in the air.

Honestly, the film is almost worth watching for that scene alone, even if you're not traditionally a fan of The Asylum's unique oeuvre.

I'm also surprised - and I suspect it's due to the lack of budget, which probably also explains the absence of decent wig work - that The Asylum, when mockbusting a Marvel movie (this one's clearly targeted at the Thor: Love and Thunder audience),  don't employ the classic mid- or post-credit scene, potentially setting up a sequel.

Grace even asks Thor: "Will we see you again?"

And I half-expected him to look to camera and say: "That depends on how well this film does!"

However, no matter how much Myrom Kingery's Thor grew on me, I also think it's a shame that The Asylum didn't get back Cody Deal - who played the character for them in 2011's Almighty Thor - as, at the time, he'd said he was up for a sequel.

If they'd also brought back Loki from that flick, Richard Grieco, and Kevin Nash as Odin, it would have gone a long way towards establishing some degree of continuity for their own "Asylum'Verse".

Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)

Honestly, it's next to impossible to summarise what's going on in the mind-bending Everything Everywhere All At Once without attempting to spell out every single moment of this gorgeously crafted movie.

Michelle Yeoh is Evelyn Wang, a middle-aged Chinese immigrant buckling under the pressure of running a launderette, filing her taxes, and coping with family drama.

Unbeknownst to her, her gentle husband Waymond Wang (Ke Huy Quan) wants to divorce her, but first they must report to the Internal Revenue Service for an audit by the officious Deirdre Beaubeirdre (Jamie Lee Curtis).

However, that's also when Evelyn unexpectedly learns of the existence of the multiverse and the fact that she's the only hope for saving all of reality from erasure... by drawing upon the unique skills of other versions of herself from across the infinite planes of existence.

Written and directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (as Daniels), Everything Everywhere All At Once is simultaneously unlike anything you've seen before and yet comfortably familiar to genre fans.

Superficially it is The Matrix meets Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness with a shot of Rick and Morty thrown in for good measure.

But mix in talking rocks and apocalyptic bagels amidst the frenetic wuxia martial arts and reality-bending and suddenly Everything Everywhere All At Once is also a cerebral art house flick as well.

Once the action begins, it's pretty much non-stop (I couldn't help but be reminded of Mad Max: Fury Road in that respect) with a visual assault of chaotic images that often comes at you faster than your brain can process, almost certainly necessitating a repeat viewing.

Yet, for all the cosmic, existential, threats, at its heart this is a film about family, handled in a way that rings true without getting overly mushy.

Ultimately, though, no mere words can do it justice. Everything Everywhere All At Once is a film that has been to seen - experienced - rather than read about.

Howard The Duck (1986)

When I discovered the allure of DVDs in the 1990's, I made a short list of films I just had to own in that format.

One was a definitive cut of Blade Runner and the other was Howard The Duck which, to be honest, I thought might never see the light of day.

I'm a massive fan of the late Steve Gerber's original Howard The Duck comic book run - which I discovered as an impressionable youngster through black and white reprints in the back of some humour magazine in the style of Mad - but not so much of the newer stuff (where he looks more like an emaciated human in a duck mask rather than an anthropomorphic duck).

Many a duck appeared in my early games of Dungeons & Dragons (including more than a few "masters of quack-fu"), although normally as non-player characters, and so imagine my excitement as I turned 20 and a film was made about Howard... by the guy who did Star Wars!

I saw it at the cinema, loved it, read the novelization, bought the soundtrack and... and... nothing. It just seemed to vanish, buried under an avalanche of unfair criticism (much fuelled, I am sure, by a backlash against Lucas for his Star Wars success).

I eagerly snatched up the VHS release when it came out, but as the years went on and technologies changed it looked as though Howard The Duck would not be making an appearance in the 21st Century.

Then in February, 2008, I caught sight of a briefly snarky preview in some film magazine and I realised my wait was over.

Viewed from a contemporary perspective, I reckon the film stands the test of time; the only elements that really look dated are the horrendous 1980s street fashions which appear to be wardrobe rejects from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.

ILM's special effects - particularly those surrounding Jeffrey Jones' Dr Jenning and his gradual transformation into the Dark Overlord of The Universe are still pretty neat (although the Dark Overlord himself looks like he wouldn't have been out of place on the set of Men In Black... but then again I said that about the monster in Cloverfield!).

The script is genuinely quite chucklesome, Lea Thompson is as yummy as 'love interest' Beverly as I remember her and I still enjoy Chip Zien's voice for Howard himself, although Tim Robbins is more than a bit annoying as nerdy lab assistant Phil.

Where the film has issues is its inability to judge its target audience, the script has the leaps of logic you'd expect from a kids' film, but throws in some distinctly adult themes and ideas (from Howard's part-time job in a bath house/brothel to his cross-species relationship with Beverly; funny in the comics, but slightly uncomfortable in live action!).

There's also the rather preposterous and overlong microlite chase that segues the second act into the third, and just smacks of the kind of silliness that George Lucas seems to love (see the Ewok movies, various 'comedy' moments in the Star Wars Prequels, the mine cart chase in Temple of Doom etc for further evidence of this). 

But the '80s music in Howard The Duck still rocks!

Logan (2017)

It's 2029 and mutants are an endangered species, with no new mutants being born. Logan (Hugh Jackman) is making a living as a chauffeur in El Paso, Texas, keeping his head down and nursemaiding a 90-year-old Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart).

Both men are well-past their prime, sickly, and losing control of the abilities that made them such key members of The X-Men.

Charles is battling dementia, meaning that his mental powers go out of control when he fails to take his medicine and has a seizure, while Logan finds his healing power is not what it was.

The world isn't exactly post-apocalyptic, it's just bleak and run down. Like the film's protagonist.

Thrust into this mix is a young mutant, Laura (Dafne Keen), whose talents seem very similar to Logan's.

And she is being pursued by the paramilitary Reavers, led by Donald Pierce (Boyd Holbrook), the head of security for biotech company Alkali-Transigen.

It turns out that Transigen has been creating clones from the DNA of known mutants, to be trained as soldiers, only the children had no interest in fighting.

One of the nurses at the company's research facility managed to spirit Laura away before any further harm could be done to her.

But Transigen wants its "property" back.

Beyond just the strong language and graphic violence, Logan is unlike the majority of mainstream comic book superhero movies.

Director James Mangold has a singular vision for this unique take on the genre. There are no superhero costumes, everything is very down-and-dirty, tired and almost drained of colour.

The world isn't going out with a bang, it's just running out of steam... unless a new generation can be found to get things going again.

There is, as you would expect, plenty of action in Logan, and some grand special effects sequences, but this is a more contemplative and cerebral movie, examining such themes as the power of mythology and labels, for good or ill; the consequences of violence; the ravages of time.

It's a road movie crossed with a contemporary Western, set against a desert backdrop, stirring up echoes of Unforgiven, Shane (which is acknowledged in the film), Badlands, Mad Max (particularly Fury Road and Beyond Thunderdome) and others.

Interwoven with this is the family dynamic of Logan, his "daughter", Laura, and his father(figure) Charles, coming to terms with the reality of their situation, their places in this new world, and their destinies.

Given the size of these personalities, the villains of the piece (Pierce and his boss, evil scientist Rice, played by Richard E Grant) play a distant second fiddle to the protagonists, but that doesn't really matter.

It's all about closing a major chapter in the cinematic world of The X-Men in the most visually elegiac and lyrical way possible.

Logan is a live-action encapsulation of a Johnny Cash song (which is why his The Man Comes Around over the end credits works so well).

James Howlett, aka Logan, isn't the Wolverine we know from the earlier X-Men films, age is finally catching up with him and he no longer feels indestructible, but this gives Hugh Jackman the opportunity to give the character everything he's got.

This is a magnificent, and tonally perfect, heart-breaking yet optimistic, send-off for the superhero that he has played since 2000, and will - forever - be associated with him.