Godzilla: King of the Monsters – 2019 Preview

Originally published on Set The Tape

Following the success of 2014’s Godzilla, directed by Gareth Edwards, Legendary Pictures quickly began work on a franchise set within the same universe. With the surprise inclusion of Kong: Skull Island and a post-credits scene that promised huge things to come, the excitement for Godzilla: King of the Monsters was huge even before the first details of the plot began to emerge.

With only a few months to go until the monster movie hits cinema screens and with a number of trailers having already been released, the hype for horror director/writer Michael Dougherty’s (Trick ‘r Treat, Krampus) ultimate creature-feature has reached fever-pitch.

Set a few years after the events of the first Godzilla film, Godzilla: King of the Monsters sees the shady kaiju-colossus-hunting government agency Monarch go up against a series of new giant creatures that begin to terrorise the world. The list of enemies will be well familiar to fans of the classic Godzilla films, including the likes of Mothra, Rodan, and King Ghidorah.

On the other less-CGI hand, the film’s human cast include Vera Farmiga, who plays Dr Emma Russel, a scientist who has figured out a way to communicate and possibly even control the giant Kaiju monsters. When she and her daughter Madison (Stranger Things‘s Millie Bobby Brown) are kidnapped by ‘a mysterious organisation with their own plans for the creatures,’ a rescue mission is mounted to bring them home. The cast also boasts the likes of Charles Dance, Sally Hawkins, Ken Watanabe and Ziyi Zhang.

The story details are still very thin on the ground. We don’t know if this mysterious organisation that kidnap Emma and Madison are Monarch or another group, but we do know that the film will be exploring the history of these creatures. The trailers and the film’s viral marketing have teased ancient temples where the monsters were once worshipped and how they may have helped to shape our own cultures.

Godzilla: King of the Monsters is the first time that many of these new Kaiju will be seen within the Legendary universe. The designs that have been revealed for the modern reinterpretations are absolutely stunning. Mothra looks beautiful and elegant and is the closest to a real-life moth that we’ve ever seen her. Rodan is stunning, covered in burning magma, his flight tearing cities apart in his wake. King Ghidorah, Godzilla’s greatest foe, is gigantic and terrifying.

We all know that the giant monster fights are the big reason why people tune into a Godzilla are the monster fights; and this film promises some of the biggest to ever appear on screen with Godzilla and Mothra fighting side by side once again to combat Ghidorah and Rodan, and possibly more. It is currently scheduled for release in the UK on 31 May 2019.


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Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 1×22 – ‘Beginning of the End’ – TV Rewind

Originally published on Set The Tape

Despite starting out in a somewhat rocky beginning the season finale of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. manages to wrap up multiple plot threads in a satisfying way, whilst setting up exciting new developments for the upcoming second season.

Following the shocking moment in the previous episode where Ward (Brett Dalton) ejected Fitz (Iain De Caestecker) and Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge) out of a moving plane into the sea it’s a surprise to find that the two of them are relatively unharmed, despite being stuck under the ocean. The scenes between the two of them, however, are some of the best in the episode and really show how far the two of them have come over the course of the season.

The relationship between Fitz and Simmons is one of the most earned and genuine, having seen them gone from best friends to two people who clearly have much stronger feelings for each other. Sadly, thanks to everything that has happened to the characters over the latter half of the season, neither one of them has been in a place where they could pursue these feelings. It doesn’t look good for them going forward with Fitz making a huge sacrifice to save the woman that he loves.

Whilst Fitz and Simmons lay stranded on the bottom of the ocean Coulson (Clark Gregg) and the rest of the team formulate a plan to finally put an end to the evil John Garrett (Bill Paxton) and former team-mate Ward.

The attack on the Cybertek facility feels surprisingly big in scale, despite the relatively small amount of people involved. The action is well paced and makes the most of both the actors strengths, and their limited budget constraints.

Teaming Coulson and Triplett (B.J. Britt) together is a great choice, further showcasing not only that Triplett is a fun and enjoyable addition to the cast, but that he works very well alongside Coulson thanks to the fact that they both love being secret agents, and the history behind S.H.I.E.L.D..

Coulson is later partnered up with Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) in order to face off against Garrett, a pairing that makes a lot of sense considering the history that the three characters share. Despite Marvel revealing before the episode aired that Fury would appear, the fact that he has multiple scenes is a pleasant surprise. It makes the episode feel more like a part of the bigger Marvel universe in ways that the series hadn’t with the past cameo appearances.

However, the best part of the episode has to be the confrontation between Ward and May (Ming-Na Wen), as she finally gets to work out the frustrations of having slept with a Hydra agent. It’s a great fight, one that helps to remind the viewers that even in a group of brilliant fighters May is head and shoulders above them (she was described as being as good as Black Widow earlier in the season).

The season finale of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. feels very far removed from the start of the series, not just because the characters have grown so much, but because the series itself has finally figured out what it wants to be. The destruction of S.H.I.E.L.D. may not have been the disaster that viewers thought it would be for the series, with the team working so much better as a group of outlaws on the run, trying to do good and take down the bad guys without a huge support network. Hopefully this will be a trend that will continue into the shows second season.


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Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 1×21 – ‘Ragtag’ – TV Rewind

Originally published on Set The Tape

Since the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier things have just been going from strength to strength for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. as the titular organisation has fallen apart, reducing our heroes to a lone band of agents with no resources or back-up. This reaches its peak in ‘Ragtag’ as Coulson (Clark Gregg) and his team are left planning a secret op from a motel room using a case of 1950’s spy gadgets.

The addition of Agent Triplett (B.J. Britt) to the team really comes to life in this episode. Whilst before he hasn’t stood out much as having brought anything new to the group other than replacing Ward (Brett Dalton) this episode has him bonding in wonderful ways with Coulson as the two of them geek out over his grandfather’s old Howling Commandos kit of classic spy gear.

We’ve known for a long while that Coulson loves history, particularly that of the S.H.I.E.L.D. organisation, so watching him act like an excited school boy over laser cigarettes, EMP joy-buzzers, and hand held hypno-beam. It finally feels like Triplett has his place on the team, he’s the super agent who is actually fun and friendly and gets on well with the team, which is a big breath of fresh air from the Ward we had at the start of the season.

The low tech and retro gadgets are a fun change for the show, ditching the hologram tables and computer hacking. The mission where Coulson and May (Ming-Na Wen) have to infiltrate the Cybertek facility in order to steal files becomes much more enjoyable when you realise that the files aren’t on a computer. The ‘large file transfer’ moment is honestly one of the best jokes in the season to date and feels well earned.

A large portion of the episode is given over to a series of flashbacks that reveal a lot of the backstory for Ward, showing how Garrett (Bill Paxton) recruited him from a youth offenders prison and moulded him into a Hydra agent, or at least someone loyal to Garrett; as Ward has said more than once that his loyalty is to Garrett over Hydra.

Despite these flashbacks explaining a lot of why Ward feels like he is in the man’s debt, I can’t help but feel like there’s something missing from the relationship, something that would instil complete loyalty in the man. I kept expecting a moment where Ward’s life would be saved by Garrett, or some kind of big moment like that, but alas not.

We also get to learn a little more about Garrett in this episode too, particularly the fact that he is the very first Deathlok prototype. Whilst his character in the comics has no connection to Deathlok he was a cyborg, so combining those two here actually makes a loot of sense as it keeps things connected to the main story without adding the complications of a second completely unconnected cyborg.

The highlight of the episode, however, has to be the confrontation between Fitz (Iain De Caestecker) and Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge) and Ward. After attacking Garrett with with an EMP Fitz and Simmons are locked in a storage unit on board the Bus, at which point Garrett orders Ward to kill them.

Whilst I never thought that Ward would simply shoot them in the head, as Garrett wanted, but the two of them being dropped out of a moving plane into the ocean is a shocking moment. Yes, it’s not an instant death and there’s a chance that they could survive they’re not safe by any means, and even is they live there’s a good chance that there will be serious consequences from this action. It also completely puts to bed the notion that Ward may not be completely evil, truly cementing him as a villain.

The series has a lot that it needs to resolve moving into it’s final episode, but the show has more than proven that not only is it a great comic book show worth the time to watch, but that it can more than just survive without the S.H.I.E.L.D. organisation, but it’s been thriving.


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Shazam! – 2019 Preview

Originally published on Set The Tape

It seems 2019 will be a good year for comic book movies, especially for fans of heroes called ‘Captain Marvel’. Or, as is the case with this DC Comics character, one whose name was finally officially changed from ‘Captain Marvel’ – not to be confused with Marvel’s Captain Marvel – to ‘Shazam’ with the release of DC’s New 52 comics line in 2012.

Shazam! will follow streetwise teenage orphan Billy Batson (Asher Angel) who can turn into an adult superhero just by shouting the magic word. Batson bounces from one foster home to another until he eventually ends up in Philadelphia with the Vasquez family.

While protecting his foster brother Freddy Freeman (Jack Dylan Grazer) from some bullies, Billy is transported into a strange realm by an ancient wizard who imbues him with fantastic powers whenever he speaks the wizard’s name, Shazam. The now super-powered Billy (Zachary Levi) works together with Freddy to discover the extent of his newfound abilities, whilst also contending with the mysterious villain Dr Thaddeus Sivana (Mark Strong).

What immediately sets Shazam apart from other superheroes is the fact that Billy transforms from a teenage boy into a super-powered man. This isn’t a film about a billionaire who makes himself a suit, or a displaced alien, a super-soldier, or someone with mutant abilities. Billy is a kid, not too much unlike any other child, chosen by the wizard to receive his powers for his bravery and kindness. Shazam appeals to younger audiences because anyone could be like him.

Despite this broad appeal, it’s hard to believe it’s taken so long for the him to appear in a live action film, with the character not having been portrayed in cinema since 1941. Thankfully, with the popularity of DC characters outside of Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman increasing – thanks in part to the DC Extended Universe movies like Aquaman and CW television shows such as Arrow and The Flash – audiences seem ready for a more fun and lighthearted hero to follow.

Shazam! has been in the works for years and in various stages of development since the early 2000s, but finally seems to be have turned into a film that’s packed with the fun, charm and wonder of the comics if the trailer is anything to go by.

The magical hero is one of the oldest existing characters in DC’s publication history, having first made it to the page in the 1940s, created by the (now defunct) Fawcett Comics. Ironically, DC threatened Fawcett with legal action over then Captain Marvel’s similarity to Superman. While he lay dormant in the 1960s, a certain rival publisher saw fit to create a hero of their own using that same name and had the wherewithal to trademark it. Cue a rebrand from DC in the 1970s (who now owned the rights to the original Captain Marvel) and thus Shazam! was (re)born.

Ergo, there is a wealth of stories and a gallery of characters for DC Comics to draw upon from the series’ history. This upcoming adventure film could be the beginning of an exciting new franchise for DC Comics, especially with Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson rumoured to be attached as Shazam’s iconic foe Black Adam.

Shazam! is set for release in April next year, just a few weeks before Avengers: Endgame hits cinemas. It could be a defining month for both studios and their superhero franchises.


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My Favourite Murder – 12 Days of Podmas

Originally published on Set The Tape

Let’s be honest, we all have an interest in true crime. Whether it’s enjoying episodes of police procedurals, watching documentaries about serial killers, or delving into books on the topic; we all have something of a morbid curiosity when it comes to the darker side of human nature and what drives people to act upon the darkest of all impulses.

Hosted by comedians Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark, each episode of My Favourite Murder takes the audience through stories of murder, crime and survivor tales with the aim of educating the audience on the subject. But what sets My Favourite Murder apart from other true crime podcasts is that the hosts aim to try to shine a light on problematic themes that are often a part of true crime reporting, such as how people with mental health conditions are demonised by both the press and police, how crimes against women and minorities are treated as less serious, and how even to this day sex workers are treated as if being murdered is simply a hazard of their job.

The show not only talks about these issues, but it empathises with the people involved. Georgia and Karen feel for the people they talk about and you can tell that they care deeply for the victims. They also draw upon their own life experiences to imagine themselves being in similar scenarios, with both of them talking openly and frankly about their own mental health issues and history of addiction.

My Favourite Murder began as a show with two true crime lovers talking about their secret passion, but has transformed over time to become a passionate and caring community. The listeners have become a part of the show, sending in their own ‘hometown stories’ and coming out en mass to attend live shows. But it’s the times when their hometown stories bring the hosts to tears, or when the subject of a survivor story comes to their show to thank them for telling their story, that makes the podcast so special.

You’ll be drawn into amazing stories, made to laugh out loud, and even moved to tears. True crime can leave you horrified, it can show you the darkest of human nature, but My Favourite Murder will also leave you feeling awed at the strength of humanity, people’s ability to survive against the impossible, and it will let you know that if you ever feel like you’re not normal for being fascinated by the topic you are far, far from being alone.


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