REVIEW: The Kingdom (2007)

Here's the basic problems facing you if you're trying to make military-related action films in Hollywood. Firstly, the old wars are getting played out. Now that the post-Russert "You rule, grammy and grampy!" resurgence of WWII films is starting to crest, The Great War will have been revisited in every concievable way for awhile now. WWI isn't fast-paced enough, and even our SMART youngsters have trouble telling you what it was about. Ditto the Veitnam genre. The Civil War hasn't made for a great film in years (no, Ron Maxwell's crap doesn't count) and the Revolutionary War... well, "The Patriot" for better or worse is kinda hard to top.

Secondly, doing it "current" means engaging the thus-far rather uncinematic War on Terror. Seriously, all political thorniness aside, the current war as film fodder is problematic: "Us" the high-tech war machine as good guys versus gruff, cave-dwelling improvisors as the bad guys cuts hard against the good-guy/bad-guy grain of the last decade or so of action movies: WE'RE supposed to be John Rambo, making an arsenal out of sticks and mud while the bad guys are supposed to be all slick and heavily-armed. Nevermind the fact that too much of our polarized country is going to either see or demand to see any War on Terror film as some kind of referendum one way or the other on Iraq and the Bushies - no genuinely good movie will ever be anti-war enough for "liberals" or "pro-American" enough for "conservatives."

How, then, one makes a good War on Terror action film is a puzzle that "The Kingdom" sets out to solve and - surprise, surprise - it mostly succeeds. The key, it seems, is in taking a two-directional long view of the situation: Bush, Iraq and Red vs. Blue states loom large right now; but Islamic Fundamentalist terrorism and the world issues it drives/ties-into has been around and will continue to be around longer. It's this bigger picture (driven-home by a stunning pre-credit sequence encapsulating American/Saudi relations from the discovery of oil to 9-11 in bullet-point format) that drives the events of the story, and enables it to sidestep the murky territory of messages and moral lessons in favor of mining the circumstances for drama and suspense. As a result, we have the first really solid American "War on Terrorism" movie that won't feel dated once Iraq has (one way or another) concluded.

In many ways, the film plays out as though "CSI: Miami" and "24" had baby - and then sent it to Finishing School to curb it of (most) of it's baser instincts. It's a fish-out-of-water cop story with an international scope and a Secular West meets Islamic Middle-East hook, with a tight focus on what the culture-clash in question results-in as opposed to what it "means" or how it makes one "feel." A horrifically cruel series of terrorist attacks on the living-areas of American oil workers and their families in Saudi Arabia raises the ire of an FBI forensics team (Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman and Chris Cooper) when a mutual friend turns up among the victims. Despite stonewalling by superiors, they semi-legally slip into The Kingdom with a small window of time to try and get some answers and possibly seek out Abu-Hamza, the terror kingpin believed to have planned the attacks.

That's all easier said than done, of course, or there'd be no movie: As if the expected troubles of trying to process evidence under the auspices of the strict social and religious customs of the society (Garner's female-hood invites glares, Bateman's passport has an Israeli stamp, and how DO you perform an autopsy when a non-believer can't touch the body of a dead Muslim?) aren't enough, the investigation as a whole is initially hamstrung by the tricky political navigations the Saudi princes have to make in regards to their volatile citizenry. Luckily, the Americans have a sympathetic ally in Colonel Al-Ghazi, (Arab-Israeli actor Ashraf Barhom,) a tough and highly-intelligent Saudi police officer who wants to ice Abu-Hamza AND strains against the forces preventing him from doing so every bit as much as the Americans.

All the more impressive since he's working amid such a talented overall cast, let me echo the sentiments of just about everyone who's been to see this so far and state that Barhom just about walks off with the entire movie - he's a STAR. Equal parts calm, collected detective; reluctant-but-efficient beaurocrat and gunslinging action hero, Al Ghazi may just be the first great, fully-realized, three-dimensional Muslim good guy character of post-911 Hollywood. This is no ethnic sidekick, nor is he a politically correct "wise foreign sage" cliche. He's essentially the moral center of the movie: The guy who not only aims to do the right thing, but also to do it the right way.

The refreshing no demonizing, no-idealizing, no-bullshit-PERIOD take extends to the film's overall approach to it's setting and it's indiginous culture: The 'differences' of Saudi Arabia are played, certainly, for exotica but not so much for outright shock or message-mongering. The callous scrutiny and sexism of the culture toward Garner's character is noted, depicted and (by Al Ghazi) lamented... but there's no showy speech about how wrong it is or about how we need to "respect other cultures" instead - it's there, she dislikes it, most of the audience will agree, but it's just an element of the plot. The film is more concerned with how this issue will impact the investigation than it is with the larger religious/political questions it raises. I still can't get over how pleasant it actually is to go see a terrorism movie that ISN'T just a longform essay on either the evils of Islam OR a conspiracy-piece about Big Oil and Halliburton.

Great cast playing great characters, interesting story in a fascinating setting, killer opening, smooth police-procedural second act, visceral action climax and a devastating final coda - this is one of the best action/dramas of the year. Yeah, if your a "conservative" hoping to see a kill-em-all campaign-commercial about the need to stay in Iraq OR if your a "liberal" hoping to see the evil imperialist/capitalist white-male-power-structure Americans 'get it;' you're probably not going to like it. But, then again, if you're THAT kinda crazy on either side, you're probably a pretty miserable person to begin with. Those of you with clear heads regardless of party affiliation who're aching for a DAMN GOOD actioner with brains to match? Get out there and see this.

FINAL RATING: 9/10

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September 24, 2007

On September 24, 2007, an evil man took the stage to speak at Columbia University. A psychopath. A thug. Leader of nation that murders dissidents, jails reporters and imposes the death penalty for 'impure' women's clothing or homosexuality. An enemy of the United States who supplies weapons to Iraqis used to kill American soldiers. Who has threatened to destroy the nation of Israel for reasons not exceeding the practice of it's citizens of the "incorrect" religion. Who subscribes to a strain of religious fundamentalism that dictates the need to jump-start worldwide Armageddon.

For days leading up to this, the "conservative" pundit class had been excoriating Columbia for inviting Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak. "Liberal college students!" "Traitors!" "America-Haters!" Then the actual event got under way...



...and everyone, from the university president on down, essentially stood Ahmadinejad up on the stage and threw tomatoes at him. The president called him a petty tyrant without the intellectual honesty to answer their questions. The assembled students laughed in his face. They made a fool of him, dressing him down in front of a worldwide audience.

Set aside the fact that the right-wing talking heads owe Columbia an appology, though they most certainly do. Something extraordinary may have happened here. We may have seen the first real sign of International Politics in the age of "The Daily Show." Faced with a figure of Hitlerian ambitions and outright evil, these kids did what years of Jedi Training under Steven Colbert, Jon Stewart, "Borat" and "South Park" had prepared them to do: They tore evil a new rhetorical asshole. They mocked him. Derrided him. They dealt him a punishing media-age blow by robbing him, violently, of that which all like him desire most: Respect and fear.

This guy stands at his podium and postures like a man who needs to be feared and revered, and a bunch of snarky American college kids told him, loudly, that he's not. You're a JOKE, and we are not afraid of you.

I love my country. This is why.

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REVIEW: Eastern Promises

Sometimes, honestly, it can get a bit bothersome to be "the movie guy" in your place of business, or circle of friends, or family gathering. Usually, these times involve those instances when a question about a movie becomes so automatic and ubiquitous that you already know it's about to be asked just based on who's asking and what the movie is.

So, in the spirit of that, to my female readers: YES, you can his penis. Will that be all? It will? Groovy. Moving on...

"Eastern Promises" is probably the leanest movie of actual substance to come along in some time. It's so efficient and to-the-point, but (thanks largely to it's actors) so fundamentally alive that the best descriptive I can find for it would be biomechanical, which given that the director is David Cronenberg seems entirely appropriate. There's not an ounce of fat on this - every scene moves the story ahead, every line reveals something of vital importance about the story or the people in it, every fact we hear is important, every character has a specific and important role to play, everything means something. There's no stopping to smell the roses, no larger or broader themes to explore, no loose threads to leave for interpretation. Even a fairly "wowzer" third-act twist that anywhere else would be the key to blowing open a whole other "grander" level to the proceedings is here just a part of the machinery: It makes sense, fits perfectly with what we've already seen, and propels the story ahead to the next point.

Which, all told, makes it kind of a pain in the neck to review. I mean, c'mon David... think of us critics. We NEED extraneous digressions, vauge open-to-interpretation loose ends and subtle, small-detail hints to give us something to write all flowery and academic about. Why, you go and make something so bullshit-free and efficient all we can really do is tell the people what it's about and whether or not we think it's any good. Hmph! You're just a mean ol' Canadian spoilsport, is what you are :)

The story involves transplanted Russian immigrants and their families in London. Hospital midwife Anna (Naomi Watts) has placed in her care the newborn baby of dead, drugged-addicted Russian girl who's diary reveals (after Anna has it translated, as she doesn't speak Russian herself) that she was involved in the human-smuggling operations of the Vor v Zakone; a dangerous branch of the Russian mafia. This places the child, Anna and her family in danger - especially since, while seeking translators, Anna has unknowingly already gotten dangerously close to the local Vor leadership: Deceptively-gentle restauranture Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl) and his psychotic son Kirill (Vincent Cassell.) She's also caught the attention of the enigmatic Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen) Kirill's chauffer/bodyguard - and he's caught her's.

This all unspools with, as mentioned previously, a certain mechanical innevitability. Save for one significant reveal, there's never any question as to what's going on, what the stakes are and what eventually has to happen - it's all a matter of when and how. Credit Cronenberg for understanding how to wring all that can be wrung in terms of drama and suspense from material that isn't about to offer up "extras" on anything - there's no room for loligagging, but he knows just when to end a scene and when to draw one out to the maximum. The result: Not a single scene of dialogue or exposition goes on a fraction longer than it needs to, while other sequences like two decidedly un-slick throat-slitting murders (violent sawing instead of kung-fu-quick slice n' go) and a brutal knife/fist/wrestling fight between Nikolai and two attackers in a bathhouse become hugely-memorable setpieces. The bathhouse fight, in particular, is one of the most visceral and exciting brawls to hit screens all year, a (literal) knockout scene that makes the overrated "realism" of the "Bourne" series' action scenes look like so much shakycam'd flailing.

Credit also the actors, who may be in a no-frills crime picture but committ to their roles as though they're in a nothing-but-breathing-room character peice. These are fully-developed, richly-characterized beings who carry the full implication of lives and experiences outside the frame - even if the film-proper isn't at all interested in exploring them. Take notice, folks: It's work like this, not talking-head fests, where acting from the inside out really pays off.

Um... yeah. Like I said, not much else to be said beyond that. Russian Mob movie. Well made. Well acted. Go see it.

FINAL RATING: 9/10

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REVIEW: Resident Evil: Extinction

That the "Resident Evil" movies are actually getting BETTER as it goes on is kind of quaint and alarming at the same time - alarming because you realize that "Extinction," a mostly-solid 'not bad' had two LESSER entries still make enough money to justify it's existence; but quaint simply for the notion that a mini-tentpole action franchise is still being executed at a workmanlike level where trial-and-error/learning-from-mistakes growth is going on organically between sequels. The original entry was simply dreafully, the second hugely entertaining but largely because of it's "whatever" vibe of startling-ineptitude... and now here's number three, a competently-made action/horror/scifi hybrid B-movie in it's own right. If they keep this pace up, in a few more sequels they'll make an entirely good movie.

Loosely following the broad plot-outlines of a long-running series of survival-horror video games, the series revolves around the sinister machinations of The Umbrella Corporation; a biotech conglomerate apparently powerful enough to build massive underground cities for research and keep private satellites in orbit even though the only thing we've been shown that they sell (in jokey ads for the second sequel) are high-tech anti-aging drugs. A chemical component of said drugs called the T-Virus, ostensibly designed to revive dead tissue, wound up doing it's job so well that it's caused a standard-issue Romero-esque zombie outbreak.

The living-dead and other assorted mutants ALSO unleashed by Umbrella's cavalier research overran a subteranean city in #1, a whole city in #2, and now in #3 they've taken over the planet and (somehow) turned it into "Mad Max" land in the span of a few years. Pockets of humanity roam the deserts looking for supplies and trying not to get eaten, while what's left of Umbrella toils safely in their underground shelter as the wicked Dr. Isaacs tries to find a "cure" for zombie-dom - or, rather, since it's Umbrella after all he's mostly trying to "domesticate" them in order to create a slave-race. Umbrella, evidently, got it's biotech feet wet in the conversion of lemons to lemonade. Give it credit where credit is due for finding SOME fresh material in the drained Zombie genre by focusing on the death of a humanity-deprived planet as opposed to the undead hordes.

In any case, Isaacs believes that the key to his 'cure' is the unique blood of series-heroine Alice, (still-stunning Milla Jovovich, again securing her crown as THE queen of B-movie action heroines,) who has been turned into a telekinetic superhuman by Umbrella meddling and now stalks the wasteland doing telekinetic superhuman stuff. When she hooks up with a convoy of human survivors in the ruins of Las Vegas, it puts her back on Umbrella's radar and sets up a confrontation between the good guys, an Umbrella-loosed hit-squad of Barry Bonds juiced zombies and eventually Dr. Isaacs himself - who seems to be going mad(er) with power.

Bad news first: Sorry, game fans, Alice is once again the prime focus and game heroes like Claire Redfield (Ali Larter) do the supporting gig. Things still look a bit on the cheap side, at least for a theatrical film. Mike Epps' annoying, ebonics-spewing caricature from #2 is still hanging around. "Tyrant" isn't nearly as much fun a monster as "Nemesis" was. Someone has made the (baffling) decision that Jovovich's closeups required digital-airbrushing, resulting in odd-looking shifts from shot-to-shot where she switches from being an insanely-gorgeous human to an insanely-gorgeous digital manequin.

Good news: As movies about spectacular-looking women kicking the tar out of zombies go, it doesn't get much better than this. Underrated genre veteran Russell Mulcahy ("Highlander," "Razorback," "The Shadow") is easily the most talented filmmaker to tackle the franchise yet. Larter holds her own and looks great doing it. Oded Fehr, the mas-macho Israeli action guy from "The Mummy" and "Sleeper Cell") is back in an expanded role. "Tyrant" LOOKS a lot less cheezy than "Nemesis" did.

Yes, fine, this is at best a goofy diversion of a movie, "best of the series" and all. Yes, you're going to get a more intellectually-uplifting, spiritually-satisfying experience going to "Eastern Promises" or "In The Valley of Elah." But if diversion of junk-food fun are what strikes your fancy, and you're perhaps not QUITE after the dizzying, mainling-pure-caffeine high of "Dragon Wars" (or you already saw it) this'll probably do it for you.

FINAL RATING: 6/10

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Michael Bay's "Legend of Zelda"

Yes, I DID in fact think the first gag was good enough to warrant a sequel. Enjoy!

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REVIEW: The Brave One (2007)

A brief rundown of the sights and sounds awaiting you in "The Brave One:"

"I WANT MY DOG BACK!!!!!" BLAM!! (Yup! Somehow STILL in the movie despite being such a laugh-generator in the trailers.)

Jodie Foster, upon being told she "doesn't have the right" to vigilantism: "YES I DOOOOOOO!!!"

Terrance Howard, in a performance that suggests someone has dared him to try and do his "solemn, stoic dude tryin' hard not to cry" vocal bit for an entire movie.

BLAM!! "WHO'S THE BITCH NOOOOOOWWWWWW!!!!????"

Foster-as-vigilante's only confidant, an older African woman, imparts sage-like wisdom about how "they give the children guns" in the old country. Because in bad "important" movies, every single person from Africa PERSONALLY experienced horrible violence, which has turned them into Gandalf and filled them with the singular desire to act as deeply-accented consciences to white people.

"You shouldn't smoke, it'll kill you." "I don't care." "Lots of ways to die. YOU gotta find a way to LIVE."

Jodie Foster stalking the neon-lit streets of New York after dark, hunting down scum to blow away while reading from Emily Dickinson in voiceover.

Yeesh.

If nothing else, you've gotta hand it to director Neil Jordan: When he's shoveling bullshit, he's using both hands. "The Brave One" a deathly-dull, horribly formulaic Lifetime-level script that slogs across the screen with all the energy and visual stimulant of a Z-grade "Law & Order" imitator. Every cliche of the revenge genre is mined and put to use, but drained of all life and vigor. Foster either looks like she's sleepwalking (it's supposed to pass for PTSD "numbness") or she's bellowing in over the top ACTING!!! moments so hysterical they'd get you thrown off of an Uwe Boll movie. The overall vibe, that of an attempted deconstruction of the "Death Wish" model, would reek of pretention if it weren't so hollow as to negate even an EFFORT toward pretense. Guys, listen: Making a lifeless clone of an "unserious" movie and plugging a take-this-movie-seriously actress into the lead isn't "deconstruction" - it's just making a bad movie. In this case, it's making one of the worst "serious" films of the year.

Maybe it wouldn't read quite as bad had we not already seen a vastly superior "Death Wish" reworking in the criminally-underpraised "Death Sentence" earlier this year. That film actually succeeded in finding new life in the genre by ripping out any semblance of sociology or "message" and focusing on the breakdown of a lead character's psyche - following Kevin Bacon's collapsing sanity into the darkest abyss... and then beyond it. With "The Brave One," sadly, we're right back to square one with Foster (in her default mode of seething semi-tomboyish indignance) filling the creaky genre-mandatory role of the naive "liberal" forced to confront grim "reality." This year's model: Erica Bain ("BAIN?" We're goin' there? Really?) the host of an NPR-style radio show in which she loving pines for "the good old days" of edgy, ugly/beautiful pre-Giuliani cleanup New York.

The business surrounding Erica's show, for the record, is the closest the film ever comes to establishing a coherent or even interesting theme: That of a bitter-raised middle finger to the romanticizing of war-zone era NYC. It's thusly meant to carry some note of irony when, after another day of waxing nostalgiac for the days of Punk Club scuzz and "Eloise," Erica and her fiancee have a horrific encounter with a very "old New York" element: Jumped by a gang of thugs (one of whom is recording the attack with a video camera to help add chaos to the editing - way to think outside the box, huh?) during a midnight park walk, both are savagely beaten and the fiancee winds up dead.

Suddenly, Erica's beloved city is feeling mighty dark and unsafe, and it's not long (in fact, it's quick enough to strain believability) before she's buying herself an illegal handgun ("30 days? I WON'T SURVIVE 30 DAYS!!!!") and morphing into a steely-eyed urban crimefighter. She starts out blowing away burglars and muggers, then quickly moves up to rapists and organized-crime kingpins before remebering to track down her initial attackers so that the film can stage one of the goofiest endings since "The Village."

She can have her dog... I want my MONEY back.

FINAL RATING: 3/10

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REVIEW: Dragon Wars

Assigning a numerical rating is the hardest part of writing any one of these reviews, and even harder to explain. That's why, when an example comes along that offers an easy insight as to how I arrive at these numbers, I feel a certain obligation to reveal it. So, then: "Dragon Wars," a hugely successful Korean-made (but American-set and English-speaking) giant-monster blockbuster, features a sequence in which a gigantic monster serpent easily the size of several city blocks coils it's way up a skyscraper and does battle with a fleet of armed Apache attack choppers - NO MOVIE WHERE THAT HAPPENS CAN GO BELOW A "5." It's that simple. There could be NOTHING else of value or worth in the entire enterprise and it would STILL be at least average, because it has a giant snake wrapped around a building fighting helicopters.

There's a period in the 2nd act when "Dragon Wars" achieves, if only for a brief time, a kind of transcendant greatness that some overall "better" films can only dream of: Buraki, the above-mentioned giant snake, wraps himself around the above-mentioned Los Angeles skyscraper. Down below in the streets, a combined force of SWAT troops, LAPD cops, Army troops and a squad of tanks engaged in a pitched battle with the Atrox Warriors - Buraki-worshipping evil soldiers clad in gleaming silver armor, astride dinosaur-like steeds and backed up by waves of lumbering slug/lizard behemoths with cannons mounted on their backs. Above, a flock of winged, dragon-like Bulcos engage in dizzying dogfights with attack-choppers. Fireballs are spewed. Giant monsters throw rows of cars about like piles of dry leaves. Swords clash with bullets. Monster-launched missiles tear through concrete.

It is, all by itself, instantly one of the single greatest scenes of monsters attacking a major city in motion picture history - fit to be displayed alongside "King Kong's" New York rampage, "Godzilla's" first seige of Tokyo or the genre-defining attack of "The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms" Rhedosaurus. It's a revelation, a symphony of sights genre fans have been waiting to see for as long as they've BEEN genre fans. "Transformers," a far, FAR less delightful offering of giant-creatures tearing up urbania, WISHES it could be this portion of "Dragon Wars." If the rest of the film was able to measure up to this one glorious stretch of it's running time, we'd be looking at a modern classic right now.

Well... it doesn't, and so we're not. Truth be told, there are HUGE parts to the film that are laughably goofy, much of it borne from a palpable language barrier between the Korean filmmakers and their primarily American cast. It's labyrinthine, destiny-centered, flashback-ladden plot makes only the barest semblance of sense. And so we're presented in-whole a kind of raw-chaos mashup of elements: One-part gloriously-realized fantasy-infused creature feature, one-part unintentional-camp train wreck resembling nothing so much as one of the lesser "Highlander" installments. And yet, like some strange accident of evolution, the ridiculous result WORKS. It darts back and forth between hillariously-awful action-movie stock scenes and jaw-droppingly awesome giant-monster action, and BOTH paths are hugely entertaining in their own way - go for the dragons, stay for the howler dialogue and mind-bending exposition.

Some six full years in the making by Korean comedy icon turned FX-film groundbreaker Hyung Rae Shim (late of the far inferior "Yongarry" remake years ago,) the film does feature an interesting (if insanely over-complicated) setup. The central plot revolves around ancient Korea and The Imoogi, a species of king-sized snake monsters who wish to evolve into proper Dragons (of the flying, ribbon-shaped Asian variety) and can only do so via the sacrifice of specially-destined young virgins. There's also an evil Imoogi, Buraki, who wants to devour the gal and claim Dragon-hood for himself and has enlisted an army of followers to help him out (exactly WHY a seemingly-immortal super-serpent NEEDS help is a little vauge.) The whole operation hit a snag 500 years ago when a warrior fell in love with his sacrifice-to-be charge, and the two did themselves in rather than submit to the attacking Buraki. They've both been reincarnated as 20-somethings in modern day L.A., and right around the time destiny rears it's head again Buraki and Company are already about the business of tearing the place apart looking for The Girl. Most of this information is imparted to us by Robert Forster (!!!) as a reincarnated, shape-shifting Korean warrior monk who owns an antique shop. Really.

Despite the central presence of the big-bad Buraki, "Dragon Wars" has less in common with Godzilla than it does with the kitchen-sink lunacy of the Ray Harryhausen "Sinbad" films - right down the dizzying menagerie of beasties and the one-damn-thing-after-another plotting. In a way, it's somewhat unfortunate that the bulk of "Dragon Wars" media blitz has focused on older audiences. While it's true that grownup monster geeks and fans of "what the HELL??" moviemaking will likely find a new guilty pleasure here, the real proper audience for this is kids. Fast-paced, not terribly gruesome and stuffed to the gills with monsters and magic, this film will be MANA to any young lover of monsters/dragons/dinosaurs for whom wooden acting and psyche-melting dialogue are infinitely forgivable in the face of colossal monster battles or armored, dragon-riding baddies charging against a phalanx of tanks.

Had this film existed when I was around 7, no force on Earth could've kept me from watching it into memorization. To the current generation of film geeks this will be an instant "camp" cult hit... but for the NEXT generation it's going to be a seminal title - non-monster-related parts that don't hold up notwithstanding. At the showing I attended, a pair of young boys sat a few rows ahead of me along with an older woman (probably a grandmother to one one or both of them); and while the grownups (myself included) were laughing like hyenas for much of it, these kids were enraptured. Got a kid in your family that collects toy Dinosaurs or seeks out Godzilla flicks on TV? Take him or her to see this, you'll be their hero.

Folks, I'll be honest. I've had a massive downer of a week. Crappy time at work. Rainy weather. Just a big long "man does adulthood tend to SUCK" time... and "Dragon Wars" was exactly the tonic I needed. A huge-scale giant-monster B-movie complete with MST3K-worthy acting for laughs and extended sequences of fantasy/creature warfare for genuine thrills. I was laughing, I was applauding and, at times, I may as well have been ten years old again, amazed to be seeing Monster Movie scenes that I thought would only ever exist in my dreams. I'm not sure (though I'd hope) if director Shim's human characters would be less spectacularly dopey when his crew speaks the same language as his cast, but he's proven himself a prodigy at arranging sequences of giant monster carnage - and he gave me MORE than I wanted and EXACTLY what I needed.

FINAL RATING: 6/10

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