Ape vs Mecha Ape (2023)

After the surprisingly enjoyable nonsense of Ape vs Monster, I'm delighted that The Asylum decided to return to that particular well with an even wilder sequel, Ape vs Mecha Ape.

Nearly two years after the events of the original movie, the American government has been working on a Mecha Ape program (for reasons).

The film opens with the Pentagon taking its giant robot for a test drive in the Eastern European country of Vololodrezjk (aka The Great Sovereignty), where it flattened an illicit chemical weapons factory (along with all the troops guarding it).

Understandably miffed by this, a rogue cadre of elite Vololodrezjkan Foreign Intelligence Division operatives - husband and wife Arnott (Xander Bailey) and Pavla Oalk (Iris Svis), along with hacker Blanka (Lindsey Marie Wilson), Florien (Sady Diallo), and Zara (Eugenia Kuzmina) - head to the States, with the aim of hijacking the Mecha Ape so it will steal a nuclear warhead and detonate it in Chicago.

Meanwhile, our old friend Abraham, the 45-foot tall giant ape with alien DNA in his blood, is about to be moved from his secure location, much to the concern of his main handler, Sloane (Asylum regular Anna Telfer), who has developed a canny method for communicating with the oversized primate using different coloured lights.

However, once Mecha Ape starts his out-of-control rampage (and Sloane ends up trapped inside him!), the American government decides the only course of action is to release Abraham... so he can destroy the Mecha Ape before it has a chance to set off the 1.2 megaton nuclear bomb.

Even though none of the human stars of the original movie return for this sequel, Ape vs Mecha Ape crashes ahead with such gusto that you soon forget about that and are drawn into the unfolding chaos.

The script from writer/director Marc Gottlieb (another familiar name from Asylum credits) does a great job of foreshadowing useful plot twists and - as with the original - distracting from the fact that the two giant creatures don't actually appear onscreen as much as perhaps we would have hoped (although there are plenty of shots of people looking up or reacting to sounds from off-screen).

Obfuscation of plot holes and budgetary deficiencies is handled with deft dollops of technobabble again and extended scenes of people doing anything but interacting directly with the giant ape or towering robot.

However, it's the climactic fight in the streets of Chicago between Abraham and Mecha Ape that we paid the £7 cost of the DVD for and that delivers, once it arrives. Sure, it doesn't last long but the kaiju-scale property damage is still impressive.

I realise the financial limits of an Asylum budget mean the CGI content has to be carefully shepherded but why don't they take a leaf out of the classic Toho playbook and put some stunt people in rubber suits and have them crash around on a model city?

While I don't think Abraham has quite the cachet of a Sharknado just yet, I really hope The Asylum continues this entertainingly silly franchise (although some returning human characters would be a nice, and useful, touch for continuity).

And I want to know more about the Vololodrezjkans! From just the titbits we heard about it here, I reckon that fictional country is prime real estate for a whole cavalcade of Asylum movies.

Venom (2018)

Stretching the limits of my "only Marvel movies at the cinema" rule, I bought my ticket to Venom (on the strength of Tom Hardy) before the reviews started to appear.

Then I got a bit concerned, not that I give too much weight to professional critics' opinions as, generally, I don't see them as the target audience for superhero movies.

Therefore I am sadly disappointed to say they were right.

Venom is a dreadful film. Not so bad that I wished I wasn't there, but there's a language and structure to cinema - from Sharknado to Citizen Kane - that Venom just didn't seem to grasp.

Feeling like a throwback to the bad old days of superhero cinema - pre-MCU - it took an age to get going and then suddenly, almost without warning, was into its final act.

You catch yourself thinking: this seems like the climax of the movie, but surely it can't be the end yet? But it is.

The fault lays squarely at the feet of those behind the camera, from the writers (Jeff Pinkner, Scott Rosenberg, and Kelly Marcel) to the director (Ruben Fleischer), the editors, and - almost certainly - some suits at Sony who must have stuck their oar in at one point or another.

Since the first shockingly poor - Venom-free - trailer, it's been clear that things could be going seriously wrong with this film, but given the talent in front of the camera I had hopes that something might have been salvageable.

Even though his character is wildly inconsistent as the story unfolds, Tom Hardy is clearly enjoying himself as Eddie Brock, the investigative journalist, who becomes the unwilling host for the alien parasite known as Venom.

Thankfully, he isn't actually using his strange parody of Christopher Walken's voice that provides the voice-over in some of the trailers, but instead, for Hardy, is using a remarkably 'generic' (and easy to understand) American accent.

But nowhere is the crass stupidity of the script more evident than in Venom's sudden switch from a head-chomping monster to would-be saviour of the human race, with no convincing rhyme nor reason for the major change of heart.

Then again, internal logic is not this film's strong point (you have to love a conquering alien species that blurts out its fatal weaknesses when asked!), which is a shame because there are moments of great fun and even humour along the way (although you might find yourself thinking you've seen 90 per cent of them in the trailers).

Michelle Williams is rather wasted, phoning it in as Eddie's ex-girlfriend, who doesn't really contribute much to the story, except as Eddie's initial "in" to the corrupt world of businessman Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed).

It's Drake's attempts at private space exploration that discover a nest of alien symbiotes on a comet and bring them back to Earth.

Unfortunately, one escapes containment, causing the space shuttle to crash in Malaysia.

The free alien, Riot, then takes six months to work its way back to San Francisco, where its siblings are being held and experimented on by Drake. Arriving at exactly the right time for the story.

The simplistic plot culminates with Riot, on his own host, fighting Venom - a mass of black jelly entangled with a second mass of black jelly - as a new shuttle is about to be launched to retrieve a whole army of symbiotes to return for an all-you-can-eat buffet.

An unadulterated mess, Venom's never boring, and it's certainly action-packed and stupid fun all the way, it's just structurally the film doesn't hold up.

Venom, himself, is an impressively imposing monster, but not enough is done - especially for those not au fait with the source material - to differentiate the various symbiotes from each other or explain why Riot's ability to produce certain weapons was any different from everything that Venom could do.

More cheesy sci-fi than true superhero film, I traditionally have a problem with stories that promote murderous villains as the protagonists, but I was swayed by the prospect of seeing Tom Hardy do his thang in a comic book movie.

And, to be honest, it's his performance - as unconvincing as his character is written - that makes Venom worth seeing.

If you don't want to be spoiled, don't read on...

As is fashionable these days, the film has a brace of credit scenes.

The one mid-credit one is clearly setting up a potential sequel, and features a big name scenery-chewing cameo.

However, the post-credit scene is brazenly not even from the same movie, but an advert for another Sony film that could cheekily be taken as a possible hint that Venom is supposed to be set within the wider Spider-verse.

Given that Venom was originally a Spider-Man villain - and his appearance clearly apes that of the traditional Spider-costume - this was an audacious move.

* This review was based upon my first viewing of Venom, actually upon its release in the cinema.