Tag Archives: Mythology

Mapping The Troll Trek in Troll – Map-It

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TL;DR – We map the route the Troll took in Troll

The destruction of a house.

Mapping Troll –

Earlier today, we watched a genuinely delightful Kaiju film from Norway about a Troll being woken from its slumber and making its way down to the capital. We enjoyed the film, and you can read our full review HERE.

One of the things the film did so well was giving you an understanding of the geography involved with the travels, and after watching, I wondered – did that work in real life? You may think that is an odd question, but as a map in the future will show, that is not always the case.  

However, everything lines up here (even topographically if interested). With that in mind, I thought I would have a little fun and map it out for you. Of course, whenever I make a map of Scandinavia, I always forget about the fjords before I start, which is probably for the best because they would probably scare me off. Also, there are some spoilers for Troll, so view it at your own risk.   

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Three Thousand Years of Longing (3000 Years of Longing) – Movie Review

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TL;DR – While it might meander to the end, it shines when it delves into stories and vignettes of the past.    

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Disclosure – I paid to see this film.

Three Thousand Years of Longing the book.

Three Thousand Years of Longing Review –

Few films have ever captured my soul quite like Mad Max Fury Road, a movie that changed and shaped my engagement with cinema. It made such an impact that when I heard that the team behind the film, including director George Miller, were back for another ride. Well, I had to check that out on the opening day.

So to set the scene, once upon a time when humans flew through the skies on metal wings while pulling stories out of the air on their glass pads. A Narratologist called Alithea Binnie (Tilda Swinton) is making her annual trip from her gloomy home in England to a more exotic land in Istanbul to attend a conference of peers. But when she arrives, she starts to see things that are not quite right. Ignoring them as artifacts of her over-active imagination, she spends some time in Istanbul’s Grand Bazar, and she picks the one junk pile, in one of the rooms, in one of the thousands of shops and finds a glass jar whose life told a story. But she got more than what she wished for when in her hotel room, she decided to clean the jar up and inside was a powerful Djinn (Idris Elba) who gave her three wishes.   

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Moon Knight: The Goldfish Problem – TV Review

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TL;DR – An intriguing opening, more tease than substance, which could be a good sign for the future

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Disney+ subscription that viewed this series.

Moon Knight: The Goldfish Problem. Image Credit: Disney+

Moon Knight Review –

While I thought I had a reasonably good idea of the realms in the MCU and Marvel in general, as we get into the wilds of Phase Four, we are starting to get into areas that I do not know about. Today is an excellent example of this because coming into Moon Knight, I don’t think I had ever really heard of the character bar one or two comic stills of him being sassy that pop up as memes now and again. Meaning we are diving into the deep end this week.

So to set the scene, on all accounts, Steven Grant (Oscar Isaac) is a perfectly average person. He goes to work at the London Museum, has dinner out, enjoys that town, and loves ancient Egyptian history. The only issue is that he straps himself to his bed at night, puts sand around his bed, and seals the door multiple ways. Because Steven suffers from dissociative identity disorder, which manifests when he is asleep, leading to him waking up in random places. His steps at control are working, right up until one night he wakes up not in his bed but outside a castle somewhere in Europe, and everyone is shooting at him. Now from here, we will be looking at the episode as a whole, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.

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Hades – Video Game Review

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TL;DR – A game where the mechanics, story, music, and design all pulls you in, so you keep trying to escape your captivity run after run after run

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the game

Hades. Image Credit: Supergiant Games

Hades Review –

At the start of this year, I thought I would take some time to catch up on some of the things I might have missed last year, and I also wanted a bit of an escape from the current world around. With this in mind, several people I respect had Hades on their ‘Best Video Game of 2020’ lists so I thought that might be an excellent place to dive in and I was right.

So to set the scene, you are Zagreus (Darren Korb) the son of Hades (Logan Cunningham) and Prince of the Underworld.  However, a prince he may be, but in reality, he is trapped, a prisoner to his father’s wishes and demands. When he discovers that Nyx (Jamie Landrum) The God of Night is not his birth mother, Zagreus takes on himself to escape from the Underworld, even if that means fighting his way through Tartarus, Asphodel, and Elysium to get there.

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Mulan (2020) – Movie Review

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TL;DR – A film that is desperately trying to differentiate itself from the past while still hitting all the same story points.     

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Mulan. Image Credit: Disney.

Mulan Review –

When I was growing up, I was at the perfect age for the original animated Mulan. It was this joyous riot of humour with music that I can still repeat verbatim today. However, it is also one of those films that as you grow up and the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia start to fade you begin to see it is not a film without its issues. With that in mind, this was one of the only Disney remakes that I was interested to see remade in live-action, but I am not sure it got to where it wanted to go.

So to set the scene, along the Northern Silk Road, a witch Xianniang (Gong Li) is helping a Rouran warlord Böri Khan (Jason Scott Lee) attack garrisons of the Imperial Chinese Empire. To respond to this threat, the Emperor (Jet Li) signs an edict that one man from each household must be conscripted into the army to fight the menace. This is a dilemma for one family because the only man is Hua Zhou (Tzi Ma) who badly injured his leg in the last war and has only daughters. Being called up to the army would be a death sentence for him, something his wife Hua Li (Rosalind Chao) sees. Seeing the inevitable outcome, Zhou’s daughter Mulan (Yifei Liu) takes his place even though it would mean her death if she is found out.

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Movie Review – Artemis Fowl

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TL;DR – There is a lot of promise here that unfortunately falls flat at every turn.    

Score – 2 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Artemis Fowl. Image Credit: Disney.

Review – Some genres really excite me when I get to see them, and one of those is when you crash fantasy and science fiction together. It is a delicate balance to get right, but when you do, it is grand. So a story where all the tales of fairies and such are real and they still live, but in high-tech cities under the Earth, well you have me intrigued. But you need to do something more than just intrigue, which is where we fall flat from almost the start.     

So to set the scene, we open in on Fowl Manor in Ireland, who is currently under siege, by the press and police. As the police arrest a Mulch Diggums (Josh Gad) and take him to a black site for integration, he speaks of magic as it is real, to the amusement of everyone. However, as he continues he lets everyone know, it is not Artemis Fowl Sr (Colin Farrell) they should be concerned with, but his son Artemis Fowl (Ferdia Shaw). Artemis is just a kid, a brilliant kid, what threat could he be? Because isn’t it the father, the thief, that is the real threat, or is there something darker at play?    

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Movie Review – The 9th Precinct (局分九第)

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TL;DR – An interesting look at the barrier between life and death but takes some short cuts to get there    

Score – 3 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – There is a mid-credit scene

The 9th Precinct (局分九第). Image Credit: Netflix.

Review –

Generally, the time we get films about what goes bump in the night it is around Halloween and not Christmas. So, it was a nice change of pace to get a film that explores the darker side of the world and what happens after death. With this in mind, today we explore a film that looks at that bridge between the living and the dead and what happens when you start playing with that fixed barrier.

So to set the scene, Chen Chia-Hao (Roy Chiu) works as a police officer for the Houli Police Agency. However, he has always led a special life because he can see the undead. This has led to him only rising to the rank of traffic cop even though he shows exemplary skill. One day while on patrol he finds a killer but during the arrest, his partner is shot and killed. He would have been killed too but a ghost stepped in and saved him. He refuses to change his report about a ghost and is fired but on his way out he is grabbed by the mysterious Mr Chang (Chia-Chia Peng) and given an offer to continue working for the police as a member of the secretive 9th Precinct, the ghost crimes bureau.

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TV Review – Wu Assassins: Season 1

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TL;DR – A good start to a season however it struggles to keep the momentum moving in the back half of the season.

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

Wu Assassins. Image Credit: Netflix.

Review –

Sometimes in life, it is the simple things that really work. For me, that is a show with a well-crafted story, strong characters, clear action, and with the fundamentals of filmmaking down pact. Now, once you have that, if you want to spice it up with some deep lore, building upon some grand mythology, I am also here for it. Today we look at a series that has the characters, has the action, and the filmmaking, but does not quite nail that story component.   

So to set the scene, we open in on San Francisco and Kai Jin (Iko Uwais) who works as a chef at his friend Tommy’s (Lawrence Kao) place (well actually his friend’s sister Jenny’s (Li Jun Li) place but it is complicated). Tommy is throwing a party for his Triad friends and when something goes wrong Kai steps in to stop one of the cooks getting attacked. This means that the Triad has to respond, attacking Kai while he works in a food truck. As he is escaping he hits a woman, instead of finding someone injured on the street, he finds a woman (Celia Au) who gives him the power of 1000 monks to fight an oncoming storm. So let’s break the Wu Assassins down, using those four categories we mention in the introduction.  Now from here, we will be looking at the season as a whole, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.

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TV Review – Jinn Season 1

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TL;DR – It has an interesting premise that sucks you in, great cast, great locations, but the story was a bit hit and miss at times.   

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

Jinn. Image Credit: Netflix.

Review –

In a world full of stories you can use to draw inspiration from, it is surprising that more shows don’t make use of the mythology and stories from the Arabian Peninsula. It feels like it starts and stops with Aladdin at times, at least in shows that make it to the west. But there are such a variety of narratives that you could draw from to tell interesting stories. Today we are looking at a TV series that is taking that opportunity with Jinn.

So to set the scene, we open in on Amman, Jorden as a school group gets ready for a bus ride to Petra. You have the usual clicks appearing, you have Tarek (Abd Alrazzaq Jarkas), Omar (Mohammad Hindieh), and Nasser (Mohammad Nizar) who are part of the popular crowd and who are happy to torment Yassin (Sultan Alkhail) who they think is telling on them to the teacher Ms Ola (Hana Chamoun). You have the power couple in Mira (Salma Malhas) and Fahed (Yasser Al Hadi), the mythology nerd Hassan (Zaid Zoubi) that just won’t shut up about Jinn. When they get to Petra they start messing around and Tarek takes pleasure in tormenting Yassin, but later that night after a few drinks tragedy strikes when Tarek falls down a canyon wall. However, the question remains, did he fall, or was he pushed, and if he was, what or who pushed him? Now from here, we will be looking at the season as a whole so there will be [SPOILERS] ahead.

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Movie Review – The Kid Who Would Be King

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TL;DR – It has a good message, and I give it full props for trying something new even if it does not all completely come together

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

The Kid Who Would Be King. Image Credit: 20th Century Fox.

Review –

Due to the vagaries of international copyright law, there are some stories that you will see over and over again because they have had the good grace to enter the public domain, which is becoming more and more difficult to do. This means that anyone can make a film based around the King Arthur mythology, and there have been a lot of them, including King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (see review) from a couple of years ago, which I really liked, but I think I was alone in that. Well, today we get a new film based around this mythology, which is trying to do something a little different, even if it doesn’t all quite come together.

So to set the scene, we open with a really well designed animated sequence that gives you in a couple of minutes a quick overview of this particular film’s take on the Arthurian mythology. With Arthur banishing Morgana (Rebecca Ferguson) under the Earth, but in a last act of defiance, she cursed the world that one day when the country was leaderless she should return and take what is hers. Flash forward to 2019 and England is just as she predicted … looks at today’s news … yikes they really timed this film well. Well out in Britain there is still but a hope because one Alex Elliot (Louis Ashbourne Serkis) runs into a construction yard after being chased by some bullies and finds a rock with a sword in it … yes, that sword … and like all true and noble heroes, he is able to pull it from the rock. This puts in motion a series of events because in four days there will be a total solar eclipse and Morgana will rise.    

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