Weirdly wonderful Netflix discovery: Attack on Titan

Sometimes the best thing to do with Netflix is just  follow the suggestions. Do this when you’ve got a free afternoon and you might chance upon a rare gem, like Attack On Titan.

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Set in the future, or maybe the past, on this Earth, or maybe another one, Attack of the Titans tells of a human race under seige from strange  near-immortal giants with a taste for human flesh. The giants (which the hapless humans refer to as Titans) have decimated the population and forced the survivors inside a cluster of cities  zoned and protected by three concentric walls.

Pretty much as expected, the human race is mounting a desperate fight back. An army of young soldiers armed with swords and grappling hooks are humanity’s last line of defence …

It’s classic Manga. the animation is nothing to write home about, but it still manages to pull of some scarily breath-taking action sequences; the subtitles and information pages flash by with barely enough time to read them (I dunno why the Japanese always seem in such a hurry), and there is an awful lot of shouting. And it’s really quire gory too. Our heroes are regularly eaten alive and then vomitted out some time later because the Titans, inexplicably, have no digestive tract.

I watched Season 1, about 25 episodes, in four days, and I’m looking forward to the next series which is just around the corner.

I’d recommend watching Attack on Titan if you’re a fan of the genre; though I suppose if you are a fan of the genre, you’ll have seen it already.

Eight out of ten.

 

JumanjiGate: the controversy that isn’t.

I think it’s a very bad idea to comment on a film before it’s released, even if  I’m just as guilty of it as everyone else: remember the whole ‘White Nile’ thing with Gods of Egypt? Turns out the naysayers were right on the money though; that film did have some ‘unfavourable optics’. But still, let’s wait a movie hits the screens before tearing it to pieces.

… But we won’t, will we?

In a brave attempt to get ahead of  the superhero onslaught that the Jumanji sequel is going to be up against next year, one of the stars, Kevin Hart, tweeted a quick publicity shot showing some of the cast in costume.

And here it is:

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Not the greatest photo ever taken, but enough to  get the Twittersphere’s underwear in a bunch.

Continue reading “JumanjiGate: the controversy that isn’t.”