The Talos Principle Review

I love puzzles, and puzzle games, and count Portal and Portal 2 among my absolute favourites, considering the latter in particular a solid-gold masterpiece, so didn’t hesitate to take advantage of The Talos Principle being on sale, not least since I’d watched a stream VOD of a favourite Youtuber playing it, and it looked good. Unfortunately, it turned out to be, well, a bit of a mess.

Right from the off this game leans hard on spiritual and philosophical themes, with a portentous voice referring to you as their child, and terminals with snippets of philosophical treatises, and to be fair, those are themes I’ve no interest in, and in fact find offputting, which undoubtedly coloured my impressions. To me, it felt heavy-handed, especially when you find yourself debating the nature of consciousness with a capricious intelligence that seems to inhabit the library system the terminals can connect to. I thought all of it was, the debates especially, distracting, frustrating and annoying. Still, if the puzzles were good, the gameplay engaging enough, I could live with it.

Key to being a good puzzler, for me, is having a strong core concept. The Portal games have one of the strongest ever conceived of. Superliminal has a great one, that is dazzling and confounding and delightful in equal measure, even if it can’t maintain it’s momentum throughout the game, petering out somewhat at the end. Talos Principle…doesn’t really have one. It has a framework, get through a maze to collect a sigil, and a range of mechanics and devices, the latter unlocked one by one over the course of the game, but nothing that could be called a core concept, and nothing that truly compels. While it has its moments, some genuinely clever and satisfying puzzles, it mostly ranges from solid, to repetitive, to annoyingly obtuse. There are two main reasons for this.

One: poor communication of those mechanics and devices. Superliminal and the Portal games do a fantastic job of setting up their concepts, showing you how they work, what you have to do. There’s a clear, intelligent progression at play that means you’re never lost, you always know the parameters and goals. Talos Principle starts solidly, with a prologue introducing the basic goals and the first device, but after that it’s fuzzy. There’s fairly clearly an order you’re meant to tackle the puzzles of a given level in, but it’s not communicated, except maybe on signs in the hub world, which are easily overlooked. Thus I more than once found myself tackling a complicated puzzle involving a freshly unlocked device, only to then enter a simpler one obviously meant to introduce that device. The functions of the devices aren’t fully put across, either; for example, it took me an aggravatingly long time to realise the connector could connect more than two things.

Two: it’s overly familiar, and even derivative. The “navigate a maze to collect an item” routine is one of the oldest in video games, and for all its gloss, Talos Principle doesn’t do nearly enough to make that routine its own. Worse, its clearly aping better games, and even comes dangerously close to stealing. One of the commonest mechanics is directing lasers from emitters to receivers, which is straight out of Portal 2, except not done nearly as well. The recorder, a device that lets you record a series of actions, which then play back, so you can essentially co-operate with yourself to solve a puzzle, is a basic version of the puzzle mechanic in the Clank sections of Ratchet and Clank: A Crack In Time. That’s two elements that are basically half-hearted copies of ones from other, superior games, and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if there were more.

This undercooked feel extends to the graphics and environments and denizens of the world. The worlds are mostly pretty, lush recreations of Ancient Greece, Ancient Egypt, and Medieval Europe (the unengaging, generic future-industrial style of the hub world the exception) but sterile, no life or personality in them at all. There’s a hollowness to them, only made more so when you realise that under the superficial gloss, they’re structurally identical, something the game even highlights when a puzzle in the Egypt world is glitched to look like Greece, before it’s corrected. The player “character”, and every other “character” you meet in the game, are androids, robots, AI constructs even more generic than the hub world’s architecture. It all lacks spark, identity, individuality, personality.

Now, true, the game takes place in a digital, entirely artificial world, but given the themes of life, and what it means, it seems distinctly self-defeating for that world to have no life of its own. That, I think, is the crux of the issue. The game has Big Ideas, is straining to Mean Something, Something Deep And Important, and unfortunately, that overpowers pretty much everything else. Themes and ideas should come out of the characters and the story, organically, be a product of those, whereas in Talos Principle, the themes and Big Ideas are what everything else is in service of, compromising all of them, to the game’s serious detriment. That those Big Ideas, of philosophy and spirituality, are delivered, as alluded to earlier, almost entirely through documents on terminals, reams of often dense reading, a seriously clunky approach, only heightens the issue.

I don’t honestly think a single aspect of The Talos Principle truly works. It’s all flawed to one degree or another, leaving the game feeling misjudged and misguided, a haphazard, ironically soulless, ham-fisted misfire that wearies and frustrates far more than it stimulates or engages. Fixating on Big Ideas to the extent all the other elements come across as neglected, like they weren’t really cared about, from the shallow environments to the often clumsy and frequently ill-defined puzzle mechanics to basic names for the devices to the cribbing from other games, does not make for a worthwhile experience.

It makes for a dispiritingly erratic one that left me wanting, one I just can’t recommend.

Learning From the Mistakes of Others

I have a number of books in my collection I either fell out of love with, or didn’t enjoy in the first place. I keep hold of them as, for me, they still have value, as examples of things to avoid, mistakes not to make, routes not to take. These are the most notable of an anthropomorphic bent, and as always, these are simply the opinions of one person, and there will be spoilers.

The Redwall Series by Brian Jacques

Feels a little weird to be including this series, considering reading Mossflower stoked the smouldering embers of my love for anthropomorphism into a full-blown fire, but I have to acknowledge they have problems For one, the simplistic characterisations of each species, that aren’t even consistently maintained; for example, when a hare is the hero in The Long Patrol, the what-ho gluttony that defined the species is nowhere to be seen, just a cookie-cutter earnest Jacques protagonist who merely happens to be a hare. There’s a persistent tonal issue in that he’s writing big battles in books for children, so has to sanitise the detail, resulting in priceless lines like “made a rat into two half-rats with his sword”, and yet there are still violent moments, like the time a pike is treated as a Jaws-style shark, complete with an enemy going down screaming as the water foams red. The biggest issue, though, is that the further I got into the series, the more I came to realise how formulaic the books are, to the point it felt like Jacques was checking items off on a list, which goes some way to explaining how he was reportedly able to write a three to four hundred page book every summer. That is ultimately why I fell out of love with Redwall, and didn’t complete the set; there didn’t seem a point to just collecting mild variations on an increasingly well-worn formula, and the books I have are a constant reminder not to slip into box-ticking myself.

The Deptford Mice Trilogies by Robin Jarvis

At the time of their release these books were marketed as spooky fun, but that was decidedly misleading, for while they are spooky, they aren’t really fun, because they’re actually tragedies in which hardly anything ends well, and things get quite a bit darker than you’d expect of kids’ books, “peeling” – skinning alive with a peeler, never seen but strongly hinted to several times – being the prime example of that. Jarvis’ one great strength is his characters, always vivid and engaging, and he’s certainly capable of exciting and moving the reader, but it’s all undone by the simple fact you always know it’ll end badly. The main Deptford trilogy lays the misery on with a trowel come the conclusion, with only one leavening aspect, which feels like a token gesture potentially mandated by agent or publisher. The second book of the Histories, The Oaken Throne, peaks in both his strengths and his flaws; with a fantastic moment of a battle stopped by a kiss between the heroes, than a frustrating moment of one of said heroes being poisoned to death in the ensuing feast, because of course someone has to die. The final prequel book, Thomas, I only read the first chapter of, as the knowledge that only one of the half-dozen great characters introduced was likely to survive put me off it completely. The operative word here is “predictable”, no surprises, no reason to invest when you know how it’ll turn out, especially if it’s a downer, and it’s definitely something to avoid.

The Volle Series by Kyell Gold

Getting much more specifically furry, this short run of erotic novels by fandom literary darling Gold is about as clear an example as you could wish for of the problem with crutches. To define, I mean an element the writer keeps coming back to, keeps leaning on to support the story. In the case of these books, unsurprisingly, it’s sex, as Gold can’t seem to go more than three chapters without throwing in something explicit, whether it makes sense or not. The frustrating thing is that the first book starts quite well, each encounter tailored to the character Volle is dallying with, and even managing to be charming in his patient, gentle wooing of a young male, but then a new character pops out of nowhere, commits public sex acts on Volle and his closest ally for no reason other than they felt like it, and everything derails. The young male vanishes without a trace, Volle fixates on the new arrival with only the flimsiest of prior setup or justification for it, and the already lightweight plot melts almost completely. The subsequent books, focusing on Volle then his near-indistinguishable son, just repeat the formula. Leaning so much on the crutch of sex, to the detriment of character and plot, means these don’t even really work as erotic fluff, because the explicit bits are too repetitive and arbitrary to work, and there’s nothing else to engage, either. In storytelling terms, at least, crutches tend to do more harm than good. To be fair to Gold, though, he has discarded his in at least one story, and I’d be interested to know if his writing improved as a result.

A Whisper of Wings and Fangs of Kaath by Paul Kidd

Another furry-specific entry, and quite a meaty one, at that. In my opinion, there are more problems with Kidd’s work than there are positives, and they mostly stem from his apparent belief that gushing hyperbole is an adequate substitute for hard graft. Both these books overflow with purple prose, to the point I was able to skim read Kaath without missing anything, including the fact that it and Wings share the same basic plot structure, down to the main antagonist having a second in command of the same gender who’s not-so-secretly in love with them, and who they entirely ignore. This latter is an example of some questionable aspects, others including the fact both “strong female leads” are transformed by having sex with a male – which notably has no such effect on said males – the male in Wings ends up in the care of an adolescent he eventually marries, and a supporting female character in Kaath ends up as a second wife to the new Rajah rather than deepening the bond she already had with another member of the old Rajah’s harem. It all has a faintly distasteful feel of heterosexual male self-indulgence, and overall these books ring pretty hollow. I’ve always believed hard graft, spade work, putting in the effort to earn your moments, matters greatly, as otherwise they just won’t satisfy, and these books only serve to reinforce that conviction.

Franky Furbo by William Wharton

Saving the worst, and weirdest, for last, with a book I fully expect no-one reading this to have heard of. Wharton was always a niche author, and this is easily his most niche work, a true curate’s egg that raises the brows so high they vanish into your hairline. It starts well, with two soldiers escaping the horrors of the battlefield into what proves to be a literal foxhole, home to the titular Franky. He’s charming, warm, friendly, eminently likeable, and when one of those soldiers, after the war, decides to try to learn more about Franky by talking with people with stories to tell of the fox, you’re right with him. Unfortunately, this is where it starts going off the rails. The first related tale starts with a vixen arriving at Franky’s home, triggering a dramatic change in personality and, I kid you not, twenty pages of foreplay building up to a classic fade-out as the sex finally begins, fade-back-in afterwards scenario. It’s confounding in many ways, not least in wondering how the tale-teller knew all this in the first place, but it’s only a taster of the real madness. It’s revealed towards the end that the soldier searching for Franky…is Franky. Let that sink in a moment. It seems he lost his memory, and all this was him recovering it, piece by piece, and I don’t recall how the foxhole scene at the start fits in with that. Revelation two: in the future, the humans are gone, and the Earth is ruled by anthro foxes, and in order to try and ensure that scenario comes about, two foxes are sent back in time, one being Franky, the other being the vixen, his mate, with the intention of having kids, who will have kids of their own with each other, and so on and so on until suddenly, vulpine master race. That inbreeding, and the resultant tiny gene pool, could only end in failure doesn’t occur to them, or Wharton; if this was an attempt at satire or subversion or something along those lines, it doesn’t work. At all. And, for one last dollop of crazy on top of the loony cake, they decide to obliquely warn the humans, through a seemingly fictional book, to be written by…William Wharton. This book is dizzying in its lunk-headed lunacy, and it all stems from a level of unrestrained self-indulgence rivalled only by Stephen King’s It. Writing is inherently self-indulgent, pandering to the urge to create, to tell tales, but taking it to this extent, indulging in every whim no matter how wild, can only lead to disaster, and this book stands as grandly deranged testament to that folly.

Considering Candyman

Yesterday I watched the recent (2021) follow-up to 1992 horror classic Candyman, and I have a lot of thoughts about it, so why not pour them into a blog? As always, these are merely the opinions of one person. And there will be spoilers for both films.

To start, let me note that I adore the original, a film that gets to me every time I watch it, and that will undoubtedly have coloured my reactions to the new film, as much as I tried to go in with an open mind. My initial response was very positive, the opening sequences feeling so much like the original I started to get the same deep tingling feeling. Unfortunately, it faded pretty quickly, and I was left with a distinctly hollow sensation, though it took me a while to work out why.

Candyman 2021 does a lot right. It’s fluidly directed, really well acted, expands on the mythos nicely, handles some social and political commentary quite well, and hits about the same level with the violence, mostly blood with little actual detail, and plenty of clever, subtle stylisation. It doesn’t have the same heightened, fever-dream mood and style as the original, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing; a more naturalistic approach could have worked.

Unfortunately, it has one big issue that undermines pretty much everything: poor characterisation. The original, every moment, every beat of it, is entirely driven by two characters, Helen Lyle and the Candyman himself, their relationship, their conflict, their wants and needs. The new one has no real character core, just a shallow protagonist things happen to, and equally shallow supporting characters. It hits very similar beats of interest becoming obsession, but without the character drive it feels almost perfunctory.

The titular spectre suffers, too. In the original he was a fully fledged being, by turns monstrous, tragic and even sympathetic, and a powerful presence felt even when not on the screen; he pervaded the film. In the new one, he’s little more than a generic silent killer, no voice, little presence, basically a hook-handed plot device spilling blood on cue. He’s also where the political and social commentary falters somewhat, the theme of him being the embodiment of black anger at their treatment not really meshing with his largely standard issue slasher depiction. It comes across almost as two films not entirely successfully meshed together.

The frustrating thing is that the new film itself provides a means for a superb character core, and it honestly confounds me it wasn’t used. Near the end it’s revealed the protagonist is the baby Helen saved at the climax of the original film, clearly meant to add some depth to things, but instead feeling like a twist for the sake of it (although, as this detail was widely known in the run-up to the film, it’s not much of one). I can’t help thinking it would have been far better for this to be revealed at the start, and then used as a catalyst for his interest, and artistic explorations, giving them, and his ultimate fate, whether tragic or redemptive, much greater personal stakes and weight. It would also strengthen Candyman himself, through him more proactively engaging with the protagonist, like he did with Helen: “If you want to know me, then become me”. Not so much “be my victim” as “be my vessel”.

The other issue with the film, a lesser, rather subjective one, but still felt, has to do with the iconography. One of the big difficulties of revists/remakes/reimaginings of popular IPs is the famous trappings thereof, and how to handle them. This film is sparing with the iconography of the first film, a bee here, a quiet snippet of Music Box there, a wander around what little is left of the original Cabrini Green, a hole in a wall, but it, for me, doesn’t work. They’re faint, unsatisfying echoes of a much better film, glimpses of texture amongst the sterile, gentrified contemporary setting and too-glossy presentation. The score is particularly underwhelming, very minimal, with only one decent rhythm, serving mostly to make me yearn for the mesmerically brilliant Philip Glass soundtrack of the original.

Overall, Candyman 2021 is a good, well-made film, but doesn’t really work as either a follow-up to the original, eschewing most of what made the latter so memorable, or as a new take on the concept, mostly thanks to its almost rudimentary character work. While not as bad as the 2018 Halloween, it still serves as proof of how hard it is to bottle lighting twice.

Film Review: Cats

Yes, Cats gets a review all to itself, because my oh my there’s a lot to talk about. For starters, a personal qualifier: I love the stage musical. I own the specially filmed 1998 version on special edition DVD, and had the immense pleasure of seeing the show live at the Bristol Hippodrome a while back, a magical theatrical experience topped only by the out-of-this-world tour de force that was The Lion King. This is likely a big reason why I didn’t react nearly as violently as most to the original trailer for this film; I was a little taken aback, but intrigued, and willing to see where they were going. Now, finally, I have, and fair to say I have very mixed feelings about it.

Let’s deal with the main issue first, the thing that triggered the violent reactions to the trailer: the character designs. I don’t think there’s much doubt the idea was simply to make the stage characters real, to take that distinctive look and push it a whole lot further. It’s an interesting and quite bold approach, but really, really difficult to pull off. The stage makeup is heightened and stylised, almost impressionistic in a way, with feline touches throughout, especially the noses and the mouths. The film seemed to be going the same way, albeit with widely varying degrees of success, but then decided to pull back, have the faces be almost entirely human with feline around the outside. My impression is of ambition outstripping time and resources, and an unwillingness to fully commit to the approach – somewhat understandable after the reaction to the trailer – and the result is many different levels of uncanny valley discomfort, from the faint – Gus is actually pretty decent, and Victoria is reasonable – to the almost impossible to look at, like Bustopher Jones and the mice. It’s far and away the biggest misjudgement of the film, and seriously to its detriment.

It’s not the only one, either. The Jennyanydots sequence is dotted with jarring moments, most notably her snacking on the human-faced cockroaches, and the unzipping of her fur to reveal a costume underneath that’s disturbingly close to skinning. Nothing at all about Bustopher Jones works. The Rum Tum Tugger is lacking much of his rock ‘n’ roll swagger, and features a lot less than he does in the stage version. Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer are thoroughly undermined by a take on their song that has little shape or substance. Grizabella isn’t the presence she needs to be, and the singing of Memory is a little shouty. It’s a long succession of off notes that collectively contribute to the second-biggest problem with Cats: the tone.

The stage version is light on its feet, shot through with knowing, playful, self-aware humour; it never takes itself too seriously. The film, however, certainly does, straining so hard to be grand and sweeping and majestic it weighs itself down, a problem it shares with director Tom Hooper’s other big film musical, Les Miserable, a prime candidate for another overrated movies list. It also flattens itself out, with little variation in mood or pacing or energy, and no room for expressions of personality, and means the attempts at humour mostly fail. It just rolls steadily from one set piece to another, with no opportunities to really drink in the world or the characters, and no real spark or spirit, wasting all the positive things.

Yes, there are positive things. Using Victoria as the spine of the story, a way into and through the world of the Jellicle Cats, was a good, solid choice. Mr Mistoffelees being clumsy and lacking confidence was a charming take on him, and the use of his song to find that belief in himself, with help from Victoria and the bond they form, is nice. There are enjoyable performances, such as Idris Elba’s as Macavity and Ian McKellen’s as Gus. There’s plenty of gorgeous singing, and stunning dancing. The cinematography and sets are superb. There are genuinely things to enjoy about this movie, it’s just hard to enjoy them, really hard, with all the things it does wrong.

And therein lies the rub. Why Cats was made into a film is no mystery, as it’s one of the most successful stage musicals of all time. It’s also, however, one of the most unusual stage musicals of all time, and that presented a huge challenge the makers of the film simply weren’t equal to. It’s impossible not to think about the maybes – maybe animation would have worked better, maybe fully anthropomorphic characters driven by motion capture, maybe Tom Hooper was the wrong choice to direct – and that only adds to the frustrating truth: there’s the basis for a good movie here, the kernel of one, but it’s lost beneath a welter of really poor choices. One of the biggest missed opportunities I’ve ever watched.

4/10

Film Reviews

Vivo: Heart’s in the right place, songs are fun, well animated, but a little hollow, and has one big issue in Gabi, a consistently irritating character who practically embodies trying too hard, right down to her messy, too-much-going-on, faintly 90s ‘edgy game mascot’ character design. Add to the ever-growing list of flawed SPA films. 6/10

Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings: This one could be added to my Overrated Movies blog. Looks good, well directed with some arresting camerawork, always good to see a different culture being represented (the abundance of Mandarin dialogue is an especially welcome touch) and briskly enjoyable to a degree, but still very much a formula Marvel movie, complete with one of their least engaging heroes. Awkwafina enlivens things, not least in getting to be the first to say ‘vagina’ in a Marvel movie, and so does a returning character from an earlier Marvel film, but overall unengaging. 7/10

Night at the Museum trilogy: I recall watching the first in the series when it came out, and finding it a little lacklustre, a Hollywood family film by numbers. Rewatching it, I discovered it’s actually quite a bit better than that, managing to be funny and clever and engaging with only one lapse into cheap humour. The sequels are even better, with again only one lapse in the last, and some touches that border on the subversive, like their treatment of General Custer. Really good fun throughout. 8/10

Red Notice: Glossy and slick and stylish, and sporadically amusing, but self-satisfied, and not nearly as clever as it thinks it is. Both Reynolds and Johnson are basically coasting on their usual film personas. Gadot is good but not given enough, and is a little undercut come the end. There’s a glib touch of the frat boy in its attitude, too, seen most clearly in a Reynolds line about ‘adult virgins’. Hard to know if this was meant as a homage to classic heist movies, or a parody of them; either way, it’s unsatisfying. 5/10

Wonder Park: The first film I’ve ever seen to have no Director credit, the result of the person originally in the post being fired for inappropriate behaviour, and no-one else wanting the credit. The latter is no surprise, as while its a gorgeous-looking film, it really lacks in the story and character department, and no amount of straining, on-the-nose sentiment, reaching a peak at the climax when the park is rebuilding and the main character feels the need to breathlessly exclaim as much, can overcome that. Tonally awry, insincere, and empty. 4/10

Uglydolls: Familiar themes, and it owes a lot to the Toy Story films, but has plenty of energy, great visuals, not least in the textures of the titular dolls, and good, catchy songs. Enjoyable enough while it lasts. 7/10

Free Guy: A serious surprise. Rides high in pretty much every aspect, with noticeably less crudity, violence and language than most PG-13 blockbusters (a jarring f-bomb aside; Hollywood really needs to learn that just because you can have one in your PG-13 movie, doesn’t mean you have to have one, even if it’s apparently written into Ryan Reynolds’ contract). Funny, sharp, with genuine heart, and serious fun from start to finish. 8/10

Storks: Rewatched it for the first time since it came out, and it’s still a delight. Zany, pin sharp, laugh-out-loud funny, and plenty of heart. The wolves are a particular highlight, subverting the usual tropes in all kinds of gleefully silly ways. Grin-inducingly good. 8/10

Tomorrowland: Here’s a first – an underwhelming Brad Bird movie. For all its technical pizazz and ambition, it’s weak in the last areas you’d expect a Brad Bird film to be weak: plot and character. There simply isn’t enough substance to connect, so it’s pretty, but oddly inert, and almost entirely without the usual Bird spirit. 6/10

Pokemon: Detective Pikachu: a solid, well-made, consistently engaging family film, with that extremely rare thing, a sincere Ryan Reynolds performance. I especially appreciate the total absence of crude humour. 7/10

Jigsaw Review

Brand: Puzzelman

Title: Gouda Sint-Janskerk (Willem van Oranje)

Piece Count: 1000

Price New: No longer available

I Paid: £0.99 for a second-hand one from a charity shop

Box: Pretty solid, decent design, but possibly a little too compact given the chunky pieces.

Image: An unusual one, of a portion of a stained-glass window depicting William of Orange, which with its strong colours and clear delineations would normally make for a good puzzle. In this instance, however, it’s entirely wasted.

Pieces: Very thick, at least as thick as Gibsons and possibly a little thicker, with a snug fit. Fairly sturdy, but not enough so to entirely avoid damage when separating stuck together ones, which you’ll be doing a lot. Don’t feel very nice to handle, especially on the coarse, rather gritty underside, and even second-hand are shedding puzzle dust. Modest shape variety, on par with Blatz/Schmidt Spiele, but so uniformly grid-cut it’s far too easy to put pieces in the wrong place. By far the worst aspect, though, is the picture quality, which is so dire – just blurry, slightly pixelated vagueness, as of a photo that’s been blown up far beyond its natural resolution – I actually gave up for fear of straining my eyes.

Overall: There are a couple of good aspects, and several less-than good ones, but this puzzle is rendered pretty much unbuildable by the horrid image quality. It’s notable there’s no manufacturer details on the box, just the brand name, a brand name you should be very sure to avoid. One of the worst puzzles I’ve ever encountered.

Rating: 3/10

Thoughts on the Lord of the Rings Film Trilogy

I figured I might as well write down my thoughts on the three films adapting JRR Tolkien’s fantasy masterwork. For reference, I saw the films in the cinema when they were first released, own the Extended Edition DVDs, but only fairly recently read the novel; I’d owned it for years, but always been rather daunted by it. As per usual, these are only the opinions of one person.

The Fellowship of the Ring – I’ve heard it said that this is the best of the three films, and on consideration I tend to agree. It captures the feel of the book the best, not least thanks to having the least action and combat, and especially so in the extended edition, with many quieter, character moments restored. This film is genuinely a marvel on many levels, from the direction to the technical feats to the uniformly impeccable acting to Howard Shore’s sublime symphonic score, but it’s not entirely without flaws. Not every CG effect works fully, or has aged that well, and Jackson’s splatter roots do show through at times, especially in the final battle between Aragorn and the lead Uruk-Hai, which is a prime example of just how much violence you can get away with in a PG so long as the blood’s not red, and the victim not human. The very Hollywood emphasis on combat and violence doesn’t sit too well, but more on that later.

The Two Towers – This is only the second-best film by the slimmest of margins, with all the strengths of the first, as well as one of the best battle scenes ever committed to film in Helm’s Deep, and the greatest character of the entire series, Gollum/Smeagol. However, the flaws are also a little more pronounced. The warg attack doesn’t stand up that well, the CG animals looking a little floaty and disconnected, and Jackson’s gorehound tendencies mar the battle a bit, not least in a jarringly brutal moment involving an elf; for comparison, Tolkien wrote his battles with nary a trace of overt violence, and they’re every bit as compelling, if not even more so. Lastly, a new thread is added to Helm’s Deep, of young boys being armed and armoured and conscripted into the defence effort, and it’s played pretty strongly, not least in a moment with Aragorn talking to one of them, yet come the actual battle they completely vanish, never to be seen again. Why go to such effort with a thread, only to drop it entirely, never take it anywhere? Strange.

The Return of the King – In the cinema, I was enthralled with this film, absolutely blown away by the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, thinking it one of the greatest things I’d ever seen on the big screen. The friend I was with, however, was markedly less impressed, though to my recollection he never expressed why, and I have to say that now…I agree with him. Yes, the sheer scale is stupendous, with many huge shots that take the breath away, and the ebb and flow as fresh allies and enemies arrive is impressive, but it also has two big issues that weaken it quite a bit. For one, it’s largely static; at Helm’s Deep, there was a clear narrative and visual thrust, the massed Uruk-Hai pressing relentlessly to overwhelm the fortress, but here Sauron’s elite orcs mostly stand outside Minas Tirith in formation, only a small portion actually attacking the city, and you almost feel a disconnect between them and the bulk of the forces. For two, there’s a strong element of contrivance, that Jackson actually acknowledges in the commentary, which focuses on the Mumakil: in order to have you hate the giant elephants enough to accept them being killed, not least by Legolas in the grand finale to a faintly troubling thread I’ll detail later, Jackson has them step on horses, lots and lots of horses, to the point it’s distracting and even a little counter-productive. It’s also notable how much less emotive weight this battle has than Helm’s Deep, how much less you feel the loss and the cost. I’m guessing Jackson was keen to avoid a sense of ‘exactly the same, just bigger’, but unfortunately ended up with ‘mostly the same, just bigger, less dynamic and more forced’, and it undermines a film that in every other department soars just as high as the rest.

Overall – I’ve already touched on a couple of these overarching niggles. The first is that, despite being made in New Zealand, the trilogy isn’t entirely immune to Hollywood sensibilities, the battles and combat played up far more than they are in the book, to the detriment of other elements, especially in the theatrical versions; this is exacerbated by Jackson’s moments of splatterhouse self-indulgence. An added element in the second and third films – I certainly don’t recall it in the book – that I find, as noted above, a little troubling, is Legolas and Gimli competing to rack up the highest body counts, an apparent attempt at adding a touch of lightness in dark, intense situations that, for me, doesn’t really work; it’s tonally dubious. Lastly, there’s a thread lost from the book, which undercuts the story a little, and the character it focuses on quite a bit: I refer to Frodo’s merciful, pacifistic nature, key to how he resists the pull of the One Ring for so long. I fully understand why the scouring of the Shire was removed in the films – the way they were structured, it wouldn’t have worked – but the unfortunate side effect of that was the loss of the culmination of Frodo’s journey, the moment he realises he no longer belongs in a world turned so violent, as personified by the militarisation of Merry and Pippin, and the newfound aggression of his fellow Hobbits. The films make gestures toward the idea, not least in him sparing Gollum, but no more, and his retirement to the Grey Havens feels a little hollow as a result, likely contributing to the impression some people have of too many endings that go on too long. To be fair, the book undercuts it slightly with the Ring-immune, momentum-killing anomaly that is Faramir – the one thing the films arguably do better – but I do still wish the films had found a way to keep Frodo’s personal journey intact.

Summary – These three films are, unquestionably, immense achievements, capturing the scope and the mood and the characters of the book far better than you’d normally expect of a Hollywood production, and have to rank as some of the best fantasy films ever made. However, especially having read the book, a masterpiece through and through, I can’t ignore the issues, the elements that jar, that don’t quite work, that are missing. It’s probably best personified by the absence of Tom Bombadil: the whimsy and the music and the soul are lessened, in order to beef up the conflict and the brutality, and that’s a shame. As much as I love these films, I’ll always quietly wonder what could have been.

Jigsaw Review

Brand: Crown W (became Express Gifts)

Title: Historical Map of London

Piece Count: 1500

Price New: No longer available

I Paid: £5.00 (plus £5.10 P&P) for a second-hand one from Gumtree

Box: Thin and quite flimsy, especially the base, but the design’s pretty decent, and the huge, unobstructed image that takes up almost all of the top is a definite plus.

Image: As you can see from the photo, it’s pretty spectacular, and jam-packed with historical detail and interest that can educate and, in my case, creatively inspire. If you’re a detail nerd like me, this is about as good as a map image can get, and in the top tier of jigsaw images in general.

Pieces: Thin, but impressively sturdy, with a pleasantly smooth feel to the image side, and the image reproduction is as vivid and sharp as I’ve ever seen. A nice variety of shapes, and overlaps and offsets throughout. As has become a theme with the last few puzzles, the pieces rarely hold together, but at least it’s a neat enough fit that the image dominates rather than the seams.

Overall: A poor quality box belies the fantastic jigsaw inside. The sheer scale and complexity may be off-putting to some, but for the jigsaw fanatic this is many hours of deeply engrossing puzzling, and a finished article so good I’m honestly tempted, for the first time, to glue it together and frame it. Quite possibly the best jigsaw I’ve ever built.

Rating: 9/10

Jigsaw Review

Brand: Marks & Spencer (made in Germany)

Title: Historic London

Artist: Brian Eden

Piece Count: 1000

Price New: £12 (no longer available, so estimate based on website prices for current jigsaws)

I Paid: £5.49 (free P&P) for a second-hand one from eBay

Box: Fairly compact, really sturdy, with a decent design.

Image: Rich, colourful and thoroughly engrossing; one of the best I’ve built so far.

Pieces: Strong, pretty thick, really nice to handle, with clear and bright image reproduction. A small issue is a little glare; a bigger one’s a fit so loose it barely counts as a fit at all, the pieces not lying even or holding together.

Overall: Does so well in so many areas, but is let down by the very loose fit that compromises the image a little, and means it’s all too easy to dislodge or scatter pieces. A mostly wonderful puzzle experience, but not without its frustrations.

Rating: 8/10

Film Reviews

An Extremely Goofy Movie – This is a bit of a curious one. For some reason, it completely ignores much of the original Goofy Movie, partly through repeating the same core conflict, partly through entirely omitting Max’s girlfriend, and partly through entirely forgetting his musical aspirations, for now he, and his two friends, are extreme sports enthusiasts, and extremely good at them. If you can look past these strange choices, there’s a good, fun film, here. Fluidly animated, especially in the sports sequences and a standout dance sequence featuring the ever-lovable Goofy himself and his engaging love interest, refreshingly subversive in its positive treatment of Max’s two friends, expanding both beyond the base archetypes, and possessed of a great spirit throughout, it has a lot to offer. 7/10

The Wild – Add another film to the list of those unfairly put down by critics for its surface resemblance to another, popular movie. In this film’s case, it was dismissed as a cheap Madagascar knock-off, because it revolves around the same conceit: a group of animals escaping from a New York zoo. That the same base story can be told in different ways, or that the same root device can lead in different directions, seemed entirely lost on many critics. Here, in contrast to Madagascar‘s typical Dreamworks snarky, faintly cynical, wannabe streetwise shtick, we have a freewheeling, knockabout, even goofy tone, with plenty of warmth, heart and fun. The voice cast is really strong throughout, William Shatner’s turn as the zealot of a villain especially effective (he was clearly paying attention to Ricardo Montalban in Wrath of Khan), and Patrick Warburton as delightful as ever. The motivations, plot and characters are all very different to Madagascar, and, if you can deal with the slightly strange, realistic only to a point look of the film, you’ll find it to be just as good, if not ever-so-slightly better. 7/10

Dog Gone Trouble – From the trailer, this didn’t look promising, just another box-ticking Netflix animated film, but I decided to give it a try, and was actually pretty glad I did. The voice acting isn’t the best, and it reuses pretty much every cheap dog gag you can think of, and the plot’s familiar and fairly light, but it’s refreshingly simple and straightforward in its direction, nicely animated, the music’s really good, and it has a charming sincerity and spirit about it. A decent, unpretentious little diversion. 6/10

Raya and the Last Dragon – I’ll be honest: the trailer had me a little worried about this one. Raya seemed flat and unengaging as a character, and the modern parlance in a fantasy setting jarred for me. I thought this would be Disney going through the motions a little. I was wrong; very, very wrong. This is a flat-out fantastic film: sumptuous visuals, vibrant animation, impeccable voice acting, strong, strong characters – Raya herself is distinctive and rich and compelling – a wonderful absence of toilet humour, thrilling fight sequences, James Newton Howard in his usual sterling musical form, and a beautifully-worked core theme of trust that culminates in soaring jubilation, and an emotional, happy-tears catharsis that’s Disney at its absolute best. The beating heart of all this is Sisu, the Last Dragon of the title; a gorgeous design, equally gorgeous and endlessly expressive animation, and Awkwafina’s irresistible voice work combine to create, for me, one of the very best characters in recent Disney animated history, if not all its history; she’s just spectacular. A film so, so good, the moment it was over, I wanted to watch it again. 10/10