DanTheMan2150AD

Tina Romero knows she can't outrun her father's lurching legacy, and she's too smart to try. It's legitimately exciting that another Romero is here picking up the torch to deliver more zombie horror, but Queens of the Dead's disinterest in using the genre as an outlet for further commentary is odd. Missing the boat entirely on satirising the idiotic political assertions of its community in a way that would have made George proud, it feels way too heavy-handed and on the nose. Just way too shallow and clichéd, lacking in any form of depth, edge and nuance. I admire the intentions, but a film cannot coast along on those alone. Especially when it stars possibly the most annoying group of characters and performances to ever populate a Romero film, with the sole exception of Katy O'Brian and her biceps, they are constantly throwing shade at each other with some truly dire one-liners, which doesn't make for the best company in the world. Although I did appreciate the Tom Savini cameo. That being said, Tina's style works well enough; it's an energetic and visually engaging debut, but along with the whimsical musical score, it can't tighten the film's already uneven tone and glacial pacing. Unapologetically loud and severely lacking in laughs, tension and zombie mayhem, there's a veneer to Queens of the Dead that should make it far more enthralling, but it just runs out of steam by the end.

Despite setting the bar high with an incredible prologue, the rest of Ninja Assassin barely manages to live up to the potential it initially sets up, priding itself on inventing new ways to savagely dice up the human body rather than delivering anything else worthy of note. For a film about silent assassins, it's phenomenally noisy. While this would have honestly made for a great entry in the Tenchu series, it's so overly serious that it veers into unintentional comedy; any endearing charm in its B-movie aesthetics is lost amid the hard-to-see fight scenes and harder-to-swallow dialogue. You can tell the Wachowski siblings had a hand in this, and not in a good way. Alternating heavily between humdrum sequences of investigatory nonsense, relentless flashbacks and long, gore-soaked brawls, so much of the film feels rushed, incoherent, nonsensical and, for lack of a better word, just plain stupid, lacking any self-awareness. It's a shame because James McTeigue is so clearly capable of better, but his style is unfortunately lost underneath a smattering of cheap CGI and incompetent editing. Rain isn't given much room to display his acting chops because, you know, his character is an emotionless ninja; Naomie Harris keeps the film going as an affable leading lady, but the biggest saving grace for me, at least, was undoubtedly Sho Kosugi as the skin-crawlingly evil Ozunu. It's so nice to see that even after decades away from the silver screen, the man's still got it. While I can certainly appreciate the inherent ambition behind Ninja Assassin's attempt at bringing ninjutsu back to an older audience after a smattering of kid-friendly offerings in the '90s, any sense of excitement and intrigue has been thoroughly beaten out of it by some truly questionable filmmaking choices. A hyperkinetic gorefest that should have remained in the shadows.

Substantially less bloodthirsty than the more traditional Pray for Death, exchanging the brutality for a lighter touch. Complete with the action, espionage and globe-trotting adventure of a James Bond-style thriller, all the while keeping the Ninja flavour that Kosugi was known for. The action comes at a breakneck pace with a lovely sense of inventiveness, wit and just the right amount of cheese, although director Gordon Hessler doesn't hone in on the martial arts action as much. Most of it is upstaged by a high quotient of explosions, flips and car stunts, the vast majority performed by the always fantastic Kosugi. He moves onscreen with such confidence and specificity that each flip, kick, and leap is impressive and practical, never showy and superfluous, even if the circumstances are. He is very much the star of the show, and it's a shame the supporting cast isn't really on the same level, although Lewis Van Bergen is a wonderfully over-the-top villain. Complimented by a gloriously goofy score by Stelvio Cipriani and a hilarious, overwrought but catchy theme song, Rage of Honor is a beautiful, chaotic relic of gloriously overcaffeinated mayhem.