This show is obviously inspired by Dungeons & Dragons, D&D boxed sets mixed with some AD&D, down to having monsters that can't be named, cause Beholders are copyrighted.

The main character's concept is what you get when your Ranger picks goblinoids as his favoured enemy. Every. Time. He's obsessed, he's ruthlessly tactical, he's the Punisher (Ennis's) in a fantasy setting.

I'm probably nostalgic about the good ole days of discovering the game and playing low-level chars, which may affect my judgment.
The story is simple, before domain-level play. Think red box.
On the other hand, it lacks complexity and an overall direction. Which is fitting: the chars go through the modules as you manage to get your hands on them.

Of note, this show attracted controversy for "featuring rape of females".
In short, yes. Although brief and not exactly explicit. Not for the younger crowd, but D&D isn't anyway.
The first episode opens with a level 1 party wipe. So, yeah, bloody and rapey. Because D&D is essentialist: goblins are evil, they commit evil deeds. Also, they start eating their victims _before_ they die.
But the pearl-clutching, eternally outraged crowd focused on 1 second of implied rape. What is wrong with them?
Well, they do choose the bear, and bears also eat their preys alive, so I don't know.

The animation is decent-to-good in the first series, and drops to sub-par in the second.
Still a fun watch, but not for kids. Or players of 5e.

It's pretty and empty

First, it's visually quite satisfying, maybe a little over the top.
It should be: Besson is the incarnation of style over substance, and Mezieres, who drew the comics this was derived from, is up there with Moebius. Valerian (the comic) inspired Star War's visuals, Mezieres worked on The Fifth Element, and so on.

On the other hand, Besson probably thinks Avatar has a deep and meaningful political relevance. So same here: thin, lanky aliens living in a Rousseau-esque, good savage utopia, laid low by the evil of white man and capitalism. Oh, and the power of love. Wouldn't have seen that coming.
It's a French comic from the 70s, and the French are either world conquerors or communists. And well, by the 70s, they had stopped conquering.

Thankfully, the actors don't lean too much into that. DeHaan has a good grip on the character: be unremarkable, somewhat charming, and appear bumbling and inefficient, despite getting obvious elite results.

Delevingne (WTF? Prob French name bastardized by the Brits) seems actually pretty OK as an actress, but far out as a person. Even playing a role, she reeks of the danger zone on the crazy/hot matrix.
Her character is a somewhat tentative girlboss: she bosses her male partner around, but she gets damseled most of the time.

Actions scenes OK, lead chemistry OK, plot MIA, well-meaning (as in, useful idiot) socialism all around.

Meh.

Edit: just 'membered, comic Laureline's a green-eyed redhead. So, basically a Celt. At least she didn't suddenly turn black. Red Heads Matter!

Movie for the kids, too young to know better

Directed by the bloke who gave us Mortal Kombat, AvP and a number of Resident Evil movies. But also Event Horizon, so, one step above Uwe Boll.

Starring his wife. Jovovich has this thing for marrying her director, as she did for the 5th element.
To be fair, she's beautiful, charismatic and a decent actress.

Tony Jaa tries to branch out of the elbow-to-the-face roles. I think he actually does quite good.

Perlman, well, each time I see him, I wonder how he got a career. It can't be the casting couch. I mean, even in Hollywood, bestiality can't be as rampant as buggery and noncery. Right? It's not talent either. It's a mystery.

The first 2/3 of the movie work rather well as a survival / odd couple script. Probably because I haven't played the game (me wee lad has), because it's clearly not that kind of game. And then it tries to be a Monster Hunter movie, and fails miserably. It crams in obvious nods to the game, but fails as a movie.

The whole mixing worlds hurts the suspension of disbelief. Even in a 10 y-o. If it can be cut with a (bone?) sword or (huge) arrows, it's not shrugging off 50 cal sustained.

Slight girlbossing, expected with Jovovich, but she does it well enough to have some credibility. Cross-world magic mumbo-jumbo, she's a captain, so she starts off with a leveled char, I don't know.

A Ranger recon mission has not 1 but 2 females, among the two dozens in existence at the time of shooting. Really? What are the odds? On the other hand, they show the other female (black) breaking down under pressure, so yeah, good picture of a diversity hire.

Representation is important.

Same old, same old

Not any better or worse than the previous installment.

It's visually quite advanced, but frankly the overloaded undersea graphics can get tiresome. Plus, we've seen it all in the first movie. Except for the Star Wars Cantina / Jabba rip-off.

Momoa is Momoa, and works well with Morrison and Wilson. They get the father/son and brothers chemistry right.

The script is a chain: a series of holes linked together. Most blatant in the DC universe being, where is Superman. He could have this stopped in ten minutes, and he is in the business of saving billions.

My favorite: the plot techno-bauble releases humongous amounts of heat to warm the planet (in weeks, the maths don't math, but whatever) BUT the island is heat-shielded so it doesn't show up on satellites' nfra-red.
Meaning the heat is not released, and doesn't warm anything up. Even my 10 y-o caught this one.

It's not being as preachy with global warming as it could be (I mean, Atlantis, orichalcum, so why not anthropogenic warming), but still pushes the myth that it's readily reversible.

Also, girlbosses. The whole fish council is female. Well, Atlantis has been hiding and doing jack shit for millennia, so, not the flex they think it is. And the pirate crew. Pudgy women giving shrill orders as far as the ear can hear.
At least not all black people are thieves in this one. Oh, wait, the only black guy is basically a vindicative, violent car thief.
Is this not supposed to be fantasy?
Black Manta is still wet Temu Ironman anyway.

Meh movie, apparently boycotted because of Heard. Momoa really can't catch a break, can he?

Did not invent hot water...

The younger kids liked it.
Script is very formulaic; Arthur, lost royalty, ascends by finding a legendary weapon, character's origin is lazy, movie is not better.
Black Manta is one of the most tepid villain I've seen. Black submariner Ironman? Really? King Night Owl? He tries being a misguided villain for a while, acting for the perceived good of his people, but he just drops it later on.

It's visually pleasant. Lots of money went into the VFX. Some talent too.

Momoa is excellent, but he's played this role quite a few time by now. Dafoe, Kidman, Wilson, Morrison, they all earn their pay. Age finally caught up with Kidman. She's not that perfect dime anymore. Just a dime now.

Then there's Heard. In her 30s and already mid. But still hasn't found the time to learn to act. And has managed to make herself hated by the audience. Or was it after this movie?

The movie doesn't push the "ecological" angle as I would have feared. But, by some strange twist of fate, all white males happen to be bad apples. One could argue Dafoe, but he doesn't look like himself in this one. Very ethnic.
It could honestly be due to chance / setting. But in current year, it still is suspicious.

80s adventure at its best

As another commenter noted, this movie is painful on the ears.

Capshaw's jobs are 1/ being a smokeshow and 2/ screaming at the top of her (expansive) lungs.
She's impressively good at both. Also, she actually can act, even though she's never made much of a career of it. I guess she was mostly a SAHM, no reproach from me.

Seth is vastly underused, Quan was just a kid at the time and Puri takes a detour from his prolific Indian career to play an over-the-top but tone-perfect villain.

My youngest was quite a bit afraid during the movie. Guess Gen X kids were built tougher.

Indy 3 (the final movie) was probably superior, but this one is great fun.

Getting long in the tooth

It's an entertaining movie, reusing the same characters, same jokes, same visuals, and basically the same plot.
But all that is getting a bit tired and cliched. It's lost its spark.

Depp, Rush and Bardem are beyond reproach, as expected of such experienced actors. Same for the supporting cast, including Sir Paul (McCartney).
Thwaites and Scodelario are decent enough; they're young actors with a rather bland script, and neither has the presence to shine through that.

Scodelario's character gets that woke point, though. Not girlboss, but insufferable know-it-all, despite getting humbled (without learning humility) throughout the movie.

The male (and thus dumb) characters work because they're caricatures, and manage to succeed despite their flaws. The female "lead" is the opposite: she's incredibly realistic (I've worked with her too many times), and manages to need rescuing despite all of her much-professed-but-never-witnessed qualities. Basically, an extension of the movie's McGuffin, allowing the plot to move on to the next scene.

Still, the movie is somewhat entertaining, mostly due to Depp's involvement, thus highlighting how incredibly stupid Disney's corpos were to antagonize him over that whole false accusation shenanigan. Him and his fans. Threw the golden goose out with the bathwater they bought on OF. Morons. Well, corpos, same thing.

Jackie is not even tlying

Low budget is one (forgivable) thing, but low effort is another. Especially when compounded with low budget.

I'm a fan of Chan, I tend to think every little thing he does is magic, but on this one, just call the police.


This movie has nothing to do with the City Hunter franchise, it's just a generic Chan flick paid for by product placement. It even manages to make Wang look plain, a feat in itself. On the other hand, it also shows Daniels never was an actor. Discount proto-Adkins. But I'm just Brit-bashing.

Ah well, a few good ideas, the Bruce Lee scene is uninspired, the Street Fighter scene is bad, movie's lousy, nuff said.

Should have been better

Having watched the French and Japanese movies back-to-back, well, what to say. The Japanese film is more faithful, the French more fun.

Suzuki is an up-and-coming actor over there, deservedly so. Also a perfect Ryo: handsome, a natural in actions scenes, and obviously the correct ethnical background.
Morita is a good actress, generally, but fails to fill her character's shoes. More of a casting failure, I guess; Kaori is supposed to be an epitome of tomboyish charm, and well, that's really not easy to pull off.


This movie leans more into the serious, gravitas side of City Hunter. Which is a risky proposition. No giant hammer (sort of), no slow-flying crows.
Also, there's a fun cultural clash, where the French movie is more overtly sexual in a, well, sexual way, whereas the Japanese 'mokkori' (think Wayne World's 'schwing') is a lot tamer in many ways. And again, plays to the deeper, tragic part of the character. In its limited fashion.


The script is straight-up thriller, and nobody does cool OP MC quite like the Japanese. Think Snipes' Blade, but palette-switched. It does help the rather anemic plot.

The final product is not bad by any means, but I did prefer the French cretinous romp.

More respectful than accurate, surprisingly good

Although adapted from a Japanese manga, this is a French movie. Because City Hunter had such a tremendous success there way back when, that they made a movie. And changed the character's name. But to something American-sounding. Not French. Because. Just because. Don't ask. Still, it takes place in France, probably Paris. Because budget, obviously.

They did change the characters a little. Manga Saeba is a bit like Spiderman, he hides his pathos under a carefree appearance. It's comic/manga, it's not that deep, but still. Movie Larson is more of a moron. With a twist. They kept the overtly sexual humour, same as the manga; the opening scene is a good example. By the way, although played for comedy, there's a healthy amount of nudity is this, enough to warrant an R rating in the States, I would say. Totes swell in Europe.

Neither Lacheau nor Fontan look like their alter egos. They're both competent albeit average actors, but make a point to play their characters very straight, which does work. They're both straight men to the script's clowning.

Said clowning is on par with the manga: gags are predictable, often puerile, but still funny if you're into this, which I'll admit I am. It borrows from Jerry Lewis, ZAZ, among others. There's a definite skew in the humour, though; one could argue to a French touch, but definitely cultural drift. Eg the shrink or hostage scenes. A few (probably) very specific references went over my head, though.

I will also credit both actors for their laudable efforts in the action scenes. It's rather obvious neither come from a martial background, but some clever editing and a lot of personal effort are enough yield some pretty good fights. The final showdown is actually rather impressive.

Pet peeve: no trigger discipline. Then again, they're French, so, more of a food culture.


Nothing woke. Homosexual romance is played for fun, as the worst thing that can happen to Saeba. No girlboss. It's true to the manga.


All in all, this is very niche, probably a boring 20% for most people, but if you're into self-aware stupidity, go for it.