I have no idea what just happened. I mean, I do. Higgins and Siegel are straightforward writers, even when they’re doing flashbacks and big reveals in quick sequence. But it has a strange plot development for the first issue of the back three. And while there are flashbacks to Earth, all of a sudden Reis’s art feels more claustrophobic. As the stakes raise for the characters finally, it’s like the book’s visually closing in. It’s a good issue with some excellent work from Reis.
Tunnel is a small scale disaster movie. It’s also not. It’s about a small scale response to a big disaster. Writer and director Kim takes some time introduce threads about craven reporters, craven government officials, craven capitalists, but most of the movie is lead Ha Jung-woo stuck in a tunnel. The first ninety minutes of the movie move real, real fast. Ha’s stuck in his car in a collapsed vehicular tunnel; it’s 2016 so he’s got a cellphone with some reception and he’s got some water so it’s mostly an unpleasant camping experience for the first act.
Then Kim starts introducing more drama, more tension. There’s the initial terrifying experience–a tunnel collapsing as Ha drives through–but the film quickly finds a rhythm. The cellphone helps; it lets Ha talk to wife Bae Doo-na and rescue chief Oh Dal-su. Because Tunnel’s not an actor’s film. Ha’s role is good, but he doesn’t have any amazing “man stranded under 200 kilometers of mountain” scenes. Kim’s more interested in keeping Tunnel moving, keeping it surprising in its relatively limited narrative space. Kim has some texture scenes in the second act, but the action never goes too far from the tunnel.
Bae does eventually get some great scenes. She never gets to take over the movie though. Kim’s direction, with a handful of character moments, is all about the drama, all about the gimmick. Man trapped in tunnel. And he does an excellent job with it. There’s enough tension inherent in the narrative itself, going down a rabbit hole with Ha or Bae is just going to distract. Instead, there are those great character moments and there’s also a lot gentle symbolism. Kim’s got to engage the audience’s sympathy quickly but he doesn’t want to be cheap about it. Tunnel’s deliberate pace, which gets positively exhausting in the third act, is one of Kim’s best contributions to the narrative. His direction of his script is spot-on.
But all of his direction is spot-on. Tunnel’s not sensational enough to push the limits of disaster movie (it’s anti-sensational) and it’s not introspective enough to be a character study. It’s an effects-filled, restrained disaster thriller.
Great photography from Kim Tae-Sung, especially fantastic editing from Kim Chang-ju. Director Kim makes a conscious choice to abandon Ha in the tunnel occasionally, even when his narrative might apparently be more compelling then the subplots; the pacing of everything has to be just right. And Kim Chang-ju’s editing makes it happen. There’s not just audience expectation, there’s the characters’ expectations too. The tension is insoluble, but still reasonably gentle.
Oh has a great time as the rescue chief. He doesn’t exactly get to be comic relief, but he gets closer than anyone else. But he’s also got to be the audience’s objective viewpoint. He’s got to be reliable. For both audience and characters. It’s kind of serious, kind of not. Oh excels at it.
And Bae is phenomenal towards the end of the picture. She sort of takes the protagonist role–as much as Tunnel has one–from Ha.
Good support from Nam Ji-hyun.
Maybe Tunnel could’ve gone further, but Kim’s ambitions are confidently realized where it goes. It’s just a thriller after all. We can’t always be worried about tunnels coming down….
Can we?
★★★
CREDITS
Written and directed by Kim Seong-hun; director of photography, Kim Tae-Sung; edited by Kim Kim Chang-ju; music by Mok Young-Jin; production designer, Lee Hwo-Kyoung; produced by Billy Acumen and Lee Taek-dong; released by Showbox.
Starring Ha Jung-woo (Lee Jung-soo), Bae Doo-na (Se-hyun), Oh Dal-su (Dae-kyung), and Nam Ji-hyun (Mi-na).
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Shin Godzilla is the story of hard-working bureaucrats responding successfully to a national crisis. When the giant monsters invade, you can’t do better than the able public servants of Shin Godzilla.
And for most of the film, directors Higuchi and Anno pull it off. The first act of the film, with the introduction of the unlikely new Godzilla, races–Anno edits with Sato Atsuki and they don’t slow down until it’s time for a full stop. There’s a lot of humor to Shin Godzilla, but it’s entirely for the viewer. The characters don’t get a break or a laugh or even regular smiling. They stoically battle the apocalypse, whether it’s a giant monster or the U.S. government externally unwanted pressure on Japan.
Shin Godzilla avoids politics. Way too much. But it does have this steady mistrust of the United States. It’s too bad too, because the U.S. shows up in the second act with all sorts of Godzilla info and those information dumps are a mess. On one hand, Anno doesn’t want to take the kaiju thing too seriously. He knows he’s got disbelief suspended by this time, so why not rush through some really silly origin stuff. There’s a portents to Shin Godzilla, which the directors pull off (thanks to the actors, thanks to the editing), but Anno doesn’t have a sense of humor about it. After the almost goofy first act–which transitions masterfully into the second act through montage–it seems like Shin is going to be something special.
Except it never gets there. For two hours, the movie keeps promising something more in a few minutes, delivering an almost perfect moment here and there, but always dragging it out. The second act is lead Hasegawa Hiroki dragging the cast of hundreds through the clumsy introduction of new ideas, new mutations, new characters.
Shin Godzilla has a hundred speaking parts. Maybe. It has a lot. It’s this rapid fire political thriller thing, only instead of a nuclear war, they’re fighting this giant monster. Every once in a while, there’s a “Godzilla moment” with the giant monster and the film seems to be moving more towards something to do with Godzilla symbolically. Even self-referentially. Anno and Higuchi use some classic Godzilla music, but they don’t do much else referential. The locations, sure, but it’s supposed to be scary. Godzilla’s supposed to be dangerous.
And Godzilla does do some serious damage, which the film completely ignores in terms of human casualties. There’s maybe one tragic scene, early on, when it seems like Shin Godzilla still might go somewhere else–into the cellphone footage, into the lives of the displaced–but then it doesn’t.
Instead, the film introduces Ishihara Satomi. Ishihara is the half-Japanese, half-white American daughter of a U.S. senator who’s on her way up the ladder in Washington. She’s also a bit of a party girl, because she’s rich. Ishihara does okay with some of the part. She’s bad at the English deliveries, which immediately kills the cinema verite the directors try to keep going. She’s got too much character for the movie and nothing to do with it. If Ishihara were better, the character not be such a drag. But Ishihara’s just fine, not phenomenal. Again, she gets no help from the directors. Maybe one of them told her to play flirty with Hasegawa and the other said not to play flirty with him.
As for Hasegawa, he’s a great lead. His character is a young, bright, impetuous staffer who just wants to do good. He wants to be Justin Trudeau. Ishihara wants to be Hillary. Except to change political analogies, Ishihara’s character is more the Mandy Hampton part.
Everyone else is great because they aren’t in it too much. If the performance is broad, the actor is gone pretty soon. By the time they’re back, they’re now a familiar face and they’re welcome. It perpetuates. It’s a very well made film. Until the third act, at least. The sludge second act seems like it’s building, through monotony maybe, but definitely intensifying. Because it’s so well-made. Then it collapses and Shin Godzilla just gets heavier and heavier.
Anno, in the script, tries to keep it light. He tries to play up the characters as familiar to the audience, but the film’s lost its teeth. If you’re going to deus ex machina, put it in the right spot and don’t try to drag it out two weeks in the present action. Because the directors break Shin Godzilla. For a better part of its runtime, it could’ve gone somewhere. But Anno and Higuchi don’t want to take it anywhere.
Except as a politician positivity message.
★★
CREDITS
Directed by Higuchi Shinji and Anno Hideaki; written by Anno; director of photography, Yamada Kosuke; edited by Anno and Sato Atsuki; music by Sagisu Shiro; produced by Satô Yoshihiro, Shibusawa Masaya, Ueda Taichi, and Wadakura Kazutoshi; released by Toho Company Ltd.
Starring Hasegawa Hiroki (Yaguchi), Takenouchi Yutaka (Akasaka), Ishihara Satomi (Kayoko Ann Patterson), Ôsugi Ren (Prime Minister Okochi), Emoto Akira (Azuma), Kôra Kengo (Shimura, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary), Ichikawa Mikako (Ogashira, Deputy Director of Nature Conservation Bureau), Kunimura Jun (Zaizen, Integrated Chief of Staff), Pierre Taki (Saigo, Combat Leader), Shimada Kyûsaku (Katayama, Minister of Foreign Affairs), and Mitsuishi Ken (Kozuka, Governor of Tokyo).
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The first half of 13th is didactic–well, except when the film makes fun of interviewee Grover Norquist. There are three or four capital C Conservatives interviewees; Norquist and Gingrich are present because they’re such trolls they think they’re convincing. Gingrich is during his Black Lives Matter phase (the documentary is pre–2016 election, but still very 2016, which I need to talk about), but Norquist is just a chump. Everyone knows it and the film embraces it, maybe the only time 13th lets you have the hint of a smile.
Getting it out of the way, the other Conservative interviewees are just unknown chumps. Or worms. The sad part of reality is director DuVernay isn’t hunting down worms or chumps for these interviews (except Norquist and Gingrich, though, again, Gingrich seems to be present with a different, pre-Trump agenda); they’re just the right guys to be interviewed. Evil organizations out to ruin the United States are actually staffed with the Conservative geek out of a late nineties teen movie.
Norquist being more in line with what happens with a John Hughes bro grows up.
Anyway. I think I have that fervor out.
The first half of 13th is extremely didactic. DuVernay is guiding the film through a certain number of interviewees, through a certain bit of history. She’s also making an argument–the 13th amendment to the Constitution has been used through white supremacy to fuck up the lives of people of color, specifically Black people. And, you know, she’s right. She wins that argument the second Angela Davis comes back as an interviewee after being shown in historical footage. DuVernay doesn’t introduce Davis as a former firebrand, she’s a professor. Even if you know Angela Davis, she goes from being this beauteously interviewed academic to someone who outsmarted some significant bad guys of history in this raw historical footage.
DuVernay does a lot with historical footage, whether it’s from the teens, fifties, sixties, eighties, nineties. It’s one of 13th’s few sticking points. The footage isn’t up-converted correctly. Or it is and DuVernay is obscuring history and making memory this permeable thing, but I think it’s just not up-converted well enough.
So that first half is didactic. It’s a history lesson. It’s a thesis statement, it’s a persuasive essay. DuVernay covers 149 years of history, with more and more focus on the last fifty years as the film progresses. It has a natural narrative flow and then it stops in 2012. And DuVernay tells the audience to now apply that history to what’s going on right now. Starting with Trayvon Martin, continuing into Black Lives Matter, finishing with Trump.
Now, 13th is pre-election, another of its sticking points. Certain aspects of it feel a tad ephemeral. That first half is a lot of historical fact. Learning history, even critically thinking about that history as it affects modernity, it’s ephemeral. Film viewing is an ephemeral act. But since DuVernay’s already proved the thesis, before getting to the present day, what’s 13th doing now? It’s no longer a persuasive documentary or a didactic one. It doesn’t have a narrative. Or, is DuVernay’s narrative distance such the narrative is the viewer’s.
13th is an excellent documentary for the first ninety percent. I even enjoyed the camera manipulation in the interview after a certain point. 13th’s very accessible; DuVernay is looking at the impossibly grim, but she keeps it accessible. With profile interview shots for emphasis. It’s fine.
But then in the last ten minutes or so, DuVernay brings 13th into reality. Immediate, clear, HD reality. Everything comes together. Not just all the subjects, but the visual style of the infographics. DuVernay’s the first person I’ve ever seen the use infographics so starkly. It’s almost a rejection of the effect.
Fine photography from Hans Charles and Kira Kelly. Editor, co-producer, and co-writer Spencer Averick is best at the writing and producing. Even if the cuts to profile weren’t his idea, they’re inappropriately jarring. There’s no nuance to the cuts–good guys and bad get the same cutting. It’s off-putting. Editing is very important.
Nicely, DuVernay doesn’t use that device much in the second half so it’s win-win. She does quite a bit with the documentary medium to get the film right. 13th is outstanding.
★★★½
CREDITS
Directed by Ava DuVernay; written by DuVernay and Spencer Averick; directors of photography, Hans Charles and Kira Kelly; edited by Averick; music by Jason Moran; produced by DuVernay, Averick, and Howard Barish; released by Netflix.
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Literal Bohemian Rhapsody is the filler footage for a bad music video for the Queen song, Bohemian Rhapsody. It’s literal, so Jeff Schine is actually running around telling his mother things and shooting people and whatever.
Except he doesn’t shoot the guy right. Because a lot of Literal is just stock footage.
It might work better as an actual commercial for the stock footage place, actually. As its own adaptation of the song, it’s severely lacking. There’s creative enthusiasm from directors Gorski and Pueringer, but it’s simultaneously truncated and stuck. Everything in Literal is about the gimmick. So it doesn’t matter if Schine and Deborah Ramaglia (playing, you know, “Mama”) aren’t good. Though Ramaglia is fine. Schine isn’t, but who knows if it’s his fault or it’s just because it’s a cute, bad idea.
Once Gorski and Pueringer reveal the second setting, it’s all kind of pointless. Sure, they can do it. So what. If it were part of a demo reel, if Beelzebub actually showed up, if it had a Wayne’s World reference, it might be something. Instead, it’s proof of concept. Magnifico-o-o-o-o.
Not Recommended
CREDITS
Directed by Sam Gorski and Niko Pueringer; screenplay by Gorski and Pueringer, based on the song by Freddie Mercury; produced by Gorski, Pueringer, and Jake Watson; released by Corridor Digital.
Starring Jeff Schine (Freddie) and Deborah Ramaglia (Mama).
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Demonic has enough ideas in it for another twelve issues. Writer Christopher Sebela has six issues and he pretty much gives every couple issues their own subplot. But that subplot is distinct not because of its content but because of how Sebela writes it, how artist Nico Walter visualizes it, or a combination of the two.
For instance, the first couple issues are about a cop and his demon, with a whole bunch of exposition from every single person in the issues. Everyone does an information dump every time they show up. Except Walter’s got this fast, rough pace and he keeps it going. While Sebela’s banter between protagonist Scott and the various women in his life–whether its his wife, partner, or internal demon–it’s always lame. Sebela seems to think Scott’s charming when he’s really just kind of annoying, which helps. Not caring about the protagonist too much when the writing is bumpy isn’t a bad thing, because then you fall back on the art and Walter delivers.
Demonic is a crazy book. The first couple issues look like a strange Cloak and Dagger take, with Scott’s vigilante gear basically Cloak but with Freddy Krueger gloves. And his demon is a busty blonde, at least until he feeds her enough souls and then she gets a scarier form. The first issue is so beautifully paced–even though Sebela is exposition heavy, Walter makes all that information dumping work–and the rest of the comic is just watching how Walter is going to handle the next thing and the next thing.
So after it’s Scott and his demon, it’s Scott the cop trying to bring down the cult who raised him and put a demon inside him (there aren’t any Rosemary’s Baby references, which is kind of disappointing, actually). Walter does great stuff with the investigating, counting little visual devices through from the first couple issues, just using them in different ways. Demonic develops visually, which is cool. Walter never disappoints. It’s always visceral, always affecting.
The last bit is a showdown with the cult. There’s other stuff, bringing back the demon–now no longer a busty blonde but a Gigeresque winged she-devil–resolving the subplot with the family, which gets a lot of initial attention but then just becomes a place for Sebela to do the same character development scenes over and over again.
It’s a cool book to read because of what Walter does with the art, but Demonic is decidedly pedestrian otherwise. Sebela can’t write villains–he couldn’t write that banter–he does a little better with the cult flashbacks, but he abandons them right after setting them up. He’s got zero insight into his protagonist, cult-surviving cop turned demonically fueled vigilante and bad husband Scott. Everyone else–except the wife, who has no character whatsoever even though she’s supposedly Scott’s confidant (there’s first person narration for a bit)–but everyone else gets these kitchen sink back stories in order to always give them something to do. So they can always be active.
It’s annoying as hell, frankly. Sebela isn’t interested in his characters, he’s interested in his plot, but he’s also interested in facilitating Walter’s art. There’s a certain mercenary selflessness to Sebela’s script, which is work for hire. Robert Kirkman and Mark Silvestri created Demonic, not Sebela and Walter. Crazy good art to get out of someone when it’s not their property.
Does the plot get Demonic through the six issues? Well, it definitely could’ve run five. Especially given how Sebela and Walter show off their summarization skills in the first issue. It doesn’t need six. Most of protagonist Scott’s stuff in the last couple issue is just being a bad family man, but in ways his wife just can’t understand are for her benefit. Lame character turns are worse than no character turns at all, but it fills the pages so Sebela goes for it.
The protagonist’s partner is a lazy device more than a character. There was an affair, but it’s now forgotten even though she still wants to make fun of the wife–because no one in Demonic is actually nice enough to care about. So she’s around to play a morality card, which Sebela never integrates well. There’s no question about Scott the vigilante’s morality. Sebela doesn’t chicken out of asking, it doesn’t even occur to him. It’s like everyone was waiting for a demonically powered Batman-type to appear.
Because they are. Because evil cults and science demons or whatever. The stuff Sebela never gets around to explaining. He overdoes every other explanation but never does the ones potentially interesting one. The cop stuff is background, which is actually a problem, but it still eventually gets smoothed out in exposition. Or Sebela’s equivalent of smoothing out in exposition. He’s not particularly good at it.
And talking heads isn’t Walter’s thing. He rushes to get through them. He needs movement. So, while Walter saves Demonic, he doesn’t really save Sebela’s writing. Not a lot of synchronicity on this one.
By the end, after Demonic has gotten more obvious than it needed to get, the book feels a little too light. Good ideas weakly executed. Bad ideas weakly executed too. The villain is incredibly lame. And the absence of the protagonist’s demon just causes more problems then having her absent solves. Demonic is rushed. Sebela does get a lot in, but it’s still overpacked and he’s still missing better opportunities along the way. It’s overwhelming how much ground situation there needs to be to get anything to make sense. None of the reveals are simple, but none of them are insightful or worthwhile either. Because there’s no one to care about. Not even the kid, because she’s basically being protected by a demon so she’s safe.
But it’s all about Walter’s art. The art’s where Demonic succeeds.
Three is about a dirty cop (Louis Koo), a determined doctor (Zhao Wei), and an injured criminal (Wallace Chung). It’s not real time, but its present action is probably seven hours–in an under ninety minute runtime–so it’s close. Zhao is supposed to be getting more and more tired because she refuses to go home from work. Koo’s getting fed up, Chung should be suffering effects from the bullet lodged in his skull. There should be a lot of tension.
And there isn’t. Even when the script goes out of its way to foreshadow tense sequences, it’s never tense. Director To puts so little time into the performances, it’s impossible to emphasize even superficially with any of the cast. And it’s set in a hospital. There are sick people who should be likable. But To never puts anything into the characters. He’s all about this artificial sense of place. Three’s hospital isn’t nitty gritty or pragmatic and functional. It’s often CG. The ultra wide-angle shots, where the actors all stand around and pretend to be intense, hint at some possibility, but To’s either checked out or just doing a bad job.
The script isn’t good. It goes on and on to get to the big events, whether it’s a shootout or Chung revealing himself to be a genius against Koo’s less and less competent cop. Making Koo corrupt–and his entire character motivation built around it–is one of the lamer aspects of the script. It turns Koo’s character into something of a dope and gives Koo, as an actor, almost nothing to do. Chung’s better because the part–manic, superviolent, supersmart criminal–is better. Chung’s character is the trope too, which is just another problem with the script. Writers Yau Nai-hoi, Lau Ho-leung, and Mak Tin-shu are terrible with the character stuff. They’re not much better planning out the reveals, but they’re worse with the character stuff.
Yet, To’s good enough at keeping it moving he’s able to move Three over the more glaring problems. Zhao’s unlikable evil doctor–she’s not just an uncaring woman doctor, she’s also an overambitious country girl–is reduced to this absurd, derisive point. The script gives her bad material and then makes it worse. She functions in the film as the scapegoat. And because she’s an ambitious woman it’s even worse.
Watching Three, especially in the third act, really felt like watching something from the early nineties. The slow motion action sequences–which all have something flipping over in the air–and the weak music choices (and score). It wastes a compelling hook–they’re all trapped in a hospital after all–but keeps promising it eventually won’t waste it. Then it does. Watching the movie, you see it run out of steam. Everything catches up and drags it down.
Cheng Siu-Keung’s photography is occasionally great, occasionally not. It’s usually competent and able to keep up with To when it seems like he’s building to some kind of visual pace. He never gets to one. David Richardson’s editing is mundane but competent.
It’s a rather depressing seventy-five minutes; fifteen in is about where it’s clear Three isn’t going to work out. But it’s not clear until the very end just how disappointing it’s going to turn out. And To still does do some interesting things–those wide shots, for example–but it doesn’t matter. The rest of his work is either disinterested or just bad. Three’s a stinker.
★
CREDITS
Directed by Johnnie To; written by Yau Nai-hoi, Lau Ho-leung, and Mak Tin-shu; director of photography, Cheng Siu-keung; edited by David Richardson; music by Xavier Jamaux; production designer, Cheung Siu-hong; produced by To and Yau; released by Media Asia Film.
Starring Zhao Wei (Dr. Tong), Louis Koo (Chief Inspector Ken), Wallace Chung (Shun), Lo Hoi-pang (Chung), Cheung Siu-fai (Dr. Fok), and Lam Suet (Fatty).
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Lake of Fire is thoughtful high concept genre material. It dabbles in genre. It never really engages it. Writer (and colorist and letterer) Nathan Fairbairn does a lot more with the history aspect of Lake of Fire than anything else.
So, real quick. Lake of Fire is a story about some knights of the real history Albigensian Crusade (1209–29) who fight aliens. These aliens are bugs, which is gross, but gives Fairbairn and artist Matt Smith to do a queen. I mean, it’s not really an Aliens reference, but Lake of Fire is very much a product of pop culture. It’s just a really good way of being a pop culturally accessible product. Fairbairn leverages the history–which is kind of pitch perfect for being culturally relevant today, at least teasingly, because Fairbairn gets to have a female action hero. A historically accurate one.
But Fairbairn does still make a religious judgment. It’s very strange, because there’s a lot of obviously bad religious stuff. There’s an obnoxious, evil friar out to burn the female action hero–who’s even got a cool sounding name, Goodwoman Bernadette, and then a cool sounding title, prefect–and Lake of Fire sort of comes down in the middle between the theologies. And it never questions that center space. It’s just a comic about knights versus aliens; that absence is a simultaneously a subtle weakness for Fairbairn and a strength. His characterizations of his extremes are fantastic.
It’s just his “leads” who have problems. Maybe because no one is going to find them interesting. There’s either a slight hint of romantic interest or young French knights in the thirteenth century kissed each other’s cheeks. I don’t know. It’s actually kind of frustrating, because it’d change the story a little if there were some kind of romantic interest between the leads. Anyway, those leads are teenagers Theo and Hugh. Theo is a bland, blond rich hipster bro. And probably historically accurate (enough). He’s going to be a lord someday but he wants to be a knight before then so he runs off to join the Crusade. Hugh’s his sidekick. He’s the smart one, who sees the good in Theo where everyone else sees a callow fool.
Except they’re only the leads for the first half of the first issue of Lake of Fire. Once Goodwoman Bernadette and Baron Raymond Mondragon arrive, it’s basically over for Theo and Hugh. They’re still around, but they’ve lost all agency.
Baron Raymond Mondragon, besides sounding like a Bond villain when you type out the full name, is the jaded, drunken old Crusader who gets stuck babysitting Theo, Hugh, and the aforementioned friar. There are some more people on their field trip, but they’re inconsequential. Fairbairn uses the supporting cast mostly for texture. Texture and exposition. Textured exposition.
Mondragon’s an okay de facto protagonist. He starts out as a deglamorization of knighthood, then ends up being a relic–regardless of the theological dismissal, Fairbairn loves writing Goodwoman Bernadette, so there’s a lot of hard banter between the two characters. Baron Raymond Mondragon’s gritty, Goodwoman Bernadette’s pure, but they both know the aliens are the real enemy.
But, even with that double-sized, almost entirely expository first issue, Lake of Fire ends up being an action comic. It’s a knights versus alien bugs action comic. Smith does a great all action issue, he does all the talking heads with the same frantic energy though. The comic opens with spaceship meets medieval farmer and the first issue and a half have a very jaunty pacing. Fairbairn’s doing big repetition beats and it’s like Smith is just trying to keep things going smooth. It works out, it’s just a surprise when Smith finally gets to that smoother pace in the script and lets loose on his layouts. Smith loves expression and relies heavy on it to move between panels. It’s great; cinematic and detailed but still nimble thanks to cartoon influences. And those influences aren’t just in a lack of realism, it’s in how Smith composes those panels too. It’s awesome art.
The aliens are a red herring. Them being bugs is a bit of a red herring too. It could be considered a narrative shortcut, but Fairbairn really wants to keep things mysterious. The opening spaceship could’ve been cut and they easily would’ve gotten away with the “demons are actually aliens but the knights don’t know about spaceships” moment. Fairbairn’s got a good distance with the characters, but not as much with the reader. You lose the coy privilege when you do knights versus aliens, which Smith seems to get. Hence the inherently humorous, thoughtful, deliberate facial expressions.
And, to be fair–maybe Lake of Fire is meant more as a showcase for Matt Smith’s art. He gets top billing on the credits page (not the cover, but the credits page, which is more imposing).
Anyway, Smith makes Lake of Fire, but Fairbairn’s attention to historical detail and thoughtful application of it–along with the somewhat topical setting–makes it a lot more. Comics do these genre Blizzards better than any other medium, especially the historical ones.
Arclight isn’t just back, Arclight is back and pretty great. There’s a lot of content, thanks to how Marian Churchland paces and composes the art. And Brandon Graham’s terse exposition is fantastic. It feels magical and dangerous and big. Churchland’s art is perfect for big, empty, and dangerous. Graham’s strange organic, magic creatures are imaginative and always used measuredly. It’s almost reassuring in its excellence.
While Dead Inside doesn’t reinvent the wheel–the protagonist is a divorced, hard-drinking female detective who can’t get anyone (male or female) to listen to her about a suspicious death and possible conspiracy–it’s solidly executed. John Arcudi’s script moves things around, has some surprises. Toni Fejzula’s art style is different–the mundane is visually disturbing. It works out well enough.