WWE Extreme Rules 2017 – Review

Clive BallsLeave a comment

The build to RAW’s latest PPV wasn’t a smooth affair. Okay, put simply – it was underwhelming. The ratings don’t lie but a number of factors are at play. As ever, we can point fingers at WWE “Creative.” It’s also easy to say that the forever MIA Brock Lesnar hiding the much-derided Universal Championship doesn’t help.

The worst offender in recent times has been lazy bookings. Back to meaningless or repetitive matches and title changes signposted with future plans no longer a surprise.

This being said, the opening bout – the Intercontinental title match between Dean Ambrose and The Miz – should have been a damp squid. We’ve seen this mix months previous on SmackDown Live and those in the know have told us The Miz is being lined up for gold in order to play sacrificial lamb to Roman Reigns further down the line.

The stipulation here went against the ethos of the PPV. Instead of doing anything, it was a case of Ambrose losing the title should he get a DQ. That – obviously – played a large part of the narrative. As it should. But congrats to WWE for avoiding some contrived way to get Ambrose disqualified. Sure, they hinted at it, and made out he was close to doing something silly. But he didn’t.

The action in between these teases was good. The Miz really deserves all his props lately. He has always been strong on the mic, now he mixes it like a champ in the ring, and does bring prestige to belts.

He took the gold here by way of distraction. Not the obvious Maryse one. It was her expulsion to the back that allowed The Miz to throw The Lunatic Asylum into the ref and allow the official to debate his intention.

A skull crushing finale later, and we had a new IC Champ.

Extreme The Miz

That was a solid base to the show. The filler that came was weak, topped with a healthy bun.

So why did the show fail between curtain opening and shutting?

It was a mix of things, individual to each match.

Take Sasha Banks and Rich Swann v Naom Dar and Alicia Fox. This one failed for a few reasons. First off, the style and pacing was something you’d expect to see on Main Event. In doing so, the joint-best female performer, Banks (Charlotte is the other), is degraded to making Alicia Fox look like an almost equal.

That’s like asking Roman Reigns to beat Undertaker then go twenty minutes with Heath Slater the next night.

Except here, the match was thankfully short. It wasn’t PPV billing, nor PPV class.

Alexa Bliss v Bayley didn’t actually fail for the reason some are crying about (crying like Bayley). It was wise to make Bliss look so dominant. She has been given the baton and the WWE needs to let her run with it.

It failed by allowing Bayley to go stale before our eyes. When she’s on screen, a feeling not dissimilar to the Cena effect occurs. But she doesn’t have his backing – just impending disconnect. There should have been a post-squash match change in attitude displayed by Bayley.

The steel cage match for the Raw Tag Titles was all about too many matches between the opponents in the weeks before, and tepid action once it began. It doesn’t help that the Hardyz are being begged to turn Broken by the WWE Universe. A cage match teased that chance.

Instead we got a few certainties. A Whisper in the Wind from the top of the cage and a Sheamus and Cesaro win. See, in wrestling, if a superstar (or team in this case) win too much en route to a PPV, it means the ones that seemingly have no momentum win.

They cash in the jobber tax (not to be confused with Jinder Mahal as WWE Champion, that’s the Jobber Lotto coming up trumps).

A final nail in this match’s coffin was how the idea of both teammates escaping didn’t fully explain the rule about reentry (which invalidates the initial escape).

Refer to Payback 2017 review regarding the Cruiserweight division. As a side note: if I were to offer any review for Neville v Austin Aries in their submission match for the gold, I’d have said it was very good. A good advert for 205 Live (which shouldn’t be a RAW element).

The Fatal 5-Way to become number one contender was a lift that brought the event back to the level The Miz and Ambrose set – and took it on a few more notches.

After a generic start – wrestlers taking it in turns to fight, hide, and showcase – an alliance of Samoa Joe and Bray Wyatt formed. This better controlled the traffic from Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins and Finn Bálor. It wasn’t long after this partnership broke down that Bálor went on the rampage.

Samoa Joe Bray Wyatt

The kick Reigns took to the face from The Demon King from the ring apron looked legit and painful. As did a multiple body pile-up spear through the barrier from Reigns, and a Rollins splash through an announce table.

Reigns and Rollins was teased as the finishing pair before it became Reigns and Bálor. As the Big Dog ate a Coup De Grace from the Irishman, Joe snuck up behind and locked in the Coquina Clutch.

A well-balanced packed main event and a good choice of winner moving forward. He may be visiting Suplex City to take a defeat but he’ll still leave looking strong.

5/10

Baywatch – Review

Daniel SimmsLeave a comment

It’s tricky giving an objective view of the new Baywatch movie. That’s because it has an identity crisis of sorts. Sure, it’s a beautiful image – there’s lots of eye-candy – but it gets lost somewhere between knowing this is all over-the-top, self-depreciation and a worthy action movie with TV detective tropes.

That’s another issue, it never quite feels like a movie. Not the type you pay to go see in the cinema. It’s like a really flashy, CGI enhanced, TV movie. I’m sure Dwayne Johnson didn’t have this in mind when he agreed to replace David Hasselhoff as Mitch Buchannon.

Except, he hasn’t really replaced him. Turns out this isn’t technically a reboot, The Hoff also played a lifeguard called Mitch and handed the keys over to The Rock after serving as a mentor. So, the Baywatch a generation enjoyed on the telly is canon.

Although, we’ll spare the show a link to this. Not because it’s terrible (ignore the one star reviews), it’s just too far removed from anything serious or plausible. That’s right. The TV show was like The Wire in comparison.

The movie sees a new team form before our eyes. Mitch already has his C.J. in the guise of a warm Kelly Rohrbach (don’t worry Pamela Anderson pops up again too, and she’s called Casey Jean). She’s so warm, she is the love interest for team trainee Ronnie, who looks like a little Har Mar Superstar.

Mitch’s number two is Stephanie Holden played by Ilfenesh Hadera and spared a reunion with an equally named TV counterpart. As are Summer Quinn and Matt Brody. They divert from the television styling. Summer is now feisty, played by Alexandra Daddario.

Zac Efron’s Brody is a bad-bay Olympic swimmer with two golds in the bag, a scandal where he cost his relay team a medal, and no home to go to. The lifeguard gig is a community support punishment he doesn’t take seriously.

He continues to point out the police should run investigations, not the Baywatch folks. He obviously never watched Baywatch Nights. Mitch has a bee in his bonnet about Priyanka Chopra’s Victoria Leeds. She’s opening beachfront clubs and has an eye on property.

Mitch has her to blame for a spate of bodies washing up on “his beach” and the surge in drugs.

The way the idea of the team’s sense of duty is pushed, starts out as laughable until you realise this isn’t one of the script writers attempt at humour (many other moments will have you wondering if they are meaning to be funny, tried but failed, or oblivious) but a cringeworthy ideal.

The detective segments are padded out with dick jokes, flirting, run ins with authority figures, spew references, spewing, a few saves in the water, more action scenes on land, and a lot of flesh on display.

Anyone that criticises the movie is coming from a solid base. It isn’t laugh after laugh (but there are laugh out loud moments) and for a film running at over two hours, that’s not a great indictment for a “comedy action flick.”

But perhaps those that have consigned it to movie hell failed to see the flashing lights in the opening scenes declaring this movie as anything but taking itself seriously.

It pokes fun at itself and others. It allows The Rock persona to appear in Johnson and his supporting cast add a good dose of heart. And by the end – if you’ve been opened minded – you will feel a connection to these characters.

For that reason, it can’t be hammered with a low score, nor is it reinventing the simpler genre it inhabits, so it gets a healthy…

6/10

The Fate of The Furious (Fast and Furious 8) – Review

Daniel SimmsLeave a comment

Just as the trouble finding a title that works across all markets is a problem for those that run The Fast and the Furious franchise, it has become hard to recall a standout identity on screen. The Europeans have been given the simplified version of adding a number eight to the title. Such a high rollout is usually the reserve of horror movies. Has director F. Gary Gray been able to avoid slashing up the moneymaking car-based property?

First off, let’s spare a thought for the man replacing James Wan. With each movie, it becomes harder to justify the fanfare (buckets of cash aside). Also, he is the first man to tackle a plot that has to exclude Brian’s role entirely following Paul Walker’s death.

The main problem is how the series hasn’t felt gripping since Michelle Rodriguez reappeared from death in a post-credits scene. It took ten minutes into the latest instalment, with her character Letty and Vin Diesel’s Dom enjoying a honeymoon in Havana, to realise these answers had already been fully explored and a full adventure had taken place in London since.

That’s the problem with “new” Fast and Furious films: they are great for the two hours you watch them, but are instantly forgettable.

This one starts with a street race reminiscent of simpler times, when it was good old street races, a bit of undercover work, and not big set-pieces. It can’t last in a modern version of a film bearing the name (in any guise) connected to this franchise. It is now Bond on Wheels, and we all remember what happened to that series when the stunts became too far-fetched…

Because they are brains-out movies, no spoilers or hints will be dropped here. It’ll remove the ten seconds of reveal you may be interested in. The main premise is how Dom goes rogue and is recruited by cyber terrorist Cipher, played by Charlize Theron.

He’s hunted by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s Luke Hobbs, himself now an outlaw from his own government after the initial mission went tits-up when Dom went rogue. He’s aided by Dom’s own team, and Jason Statham’s Deckard Shaw.

Yep, you read that right. Far from me to be a cynic, but the baddie gets a new backstory added where he was a decent captain in the SAS but his government sold him short – just like The Rock’s! Forget that he then became a ruthless murdering bad guy.

The thing is, there’s no need to care. Believability is suspended, so why not just enjoy the characters as they come? Also, it gives us Helen Mirren popping up as Shaw’s mum. In the process, we see a posh bird trying to sound like Peggy Mitchell from EastEnders.

A special mention should go to Kurt Russell. This was a screen-stealing edition of Mr Nobody and when you compare his turn in Guardian of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and this, you appreciate just how diverse his range is.

The same cannot be said of Nathalie Emmanuel as Ramsey. The Brit needs to drop the overaccentuated well-spoken words and be more natural in the role. With a screen awash with warm characters, she is the odd one out. The static, cold, sterile (pretty) face.

The plot has been criticised for being bloated, long, and dull. That’s a major knife in the back, it’s actually okay. The cliched parts aside, and the massive suspension of disbelief required (and that’s a great thing, otherwise we’d be robbed of Shaw’s comedic shoot-out toward the film’s end), it does reach the scope it aims for.

Okay, it is best served as a hangover film when you need a quiet Sunday afternoon, perhaps not what the studio want to hear, but with two sequels planned, their cash cow has some milk left in it.

There’s rumours Dwayne Johnson and Vin Diesel clashed during this movie’s production. From a marketing point-of-view, that is ironic because moving forward the franchise Vin started might have to become The Rock centric in order to survive.

6/10

WWE Backlash 2017 – Review

Clive BallsLeave a comment

This year’s edition of Backlash, now a SmackDown Live exclusive PPV, didn’t really whet the appetite in the build-up. The question is, was this just unfair? More a sign of WWE’s PPV oversaturation or weak bookings? Let’s see, shall we?

Okay, I don’t think there’s any need to do a match-by-match account here. Unlike some, I don’t believe the WWE will ruin the spectacle of special events by doubling their number under the Brand Split. When it comes to good sports entertainment, you can never have too much.

This is only true should the PPVs remain a level above the weekly programming. Sadly for Backlash, it played out like a regular episode of SmackDown Live. As such, even the big-name clash of the night, felt more like a grapple-by-numbers than a titanic showdown.

That was, of course, Kevin Owens vs AJ Styles for the US title. That belt, with these two fighting for it, kinda becomes the premier title on SDLive. Unlike RAW, who have to promote the Intercontinental Title in Brock’s absence, the blue brand has turned to the US Title out of choice.

That came about after fluffing the Superstar Shake-up and sending Bray Wyatt away when the battle with Randy Orton still had legs.

Many are saying the US Title bout lived up to expectation, and the Styles count-out means we’ll revisit it, so maybe I’m being harsh. If I am, it’s because I was drained by the earlier bouts.

Shinsuke Nakamura vs Dolph Ziggler was so, so predictable, it was painful to watch. Almost as cringe as the latest Ziggler heel character. Anyone who questions why a guy with great in-ring ability was never fully invested in should watch this match.

His character acting is second rate, and the best wrestlers over the years – like Chris Jericho – can flip between heel and face and retain certain personality traits. It makes it more believable. Nowadays, Ziggler in a WWE ring is just distracting.

Oh, and yeah, Nakamura won (obvs).

The best highlight of the night was Breezango. The Fashion Police shouldn’t work – but it does. A quality comedic act always goes over in WWE. This one works on many levels. Not only is Tyler Breeze great as master of disguise, it is a slow but effective rehabilitation of Fandango’s in-ring prowess.

Tyler bags the laughs, Fandango bags the moves.

Here, it also made the champs – The Usos – look like the deadly, dominant foe their new personas require to maintain momentum.

SmackDown Live has been called the Land of Opportunity since the Brand Split. This has been true, but with Jinder Mahal facing Randy Orton for the WWE Championship, it felt like we were about to jump the shark.

They didn’t just jump the shark, they pole-vaulted over it.

Not one for a conspiracy (he is really – editor), it does beg the question if the SmackDown writers have spat their dummy. They wouldn’t have a large say in the men that moved in the Brand Split. Right now, they would like to be feeding The Miz into the main event scene. Instead they have been left threadbare with their best wrestlers looking at the secondary title.

So what to do? Demonstrate that the Land of Opportunity can appear great or ridiculous.

Jinder Mahal comes with the Singh Brothers, a regular trick from a heel – sidekicks. They caused the distraction that allowed The Maharajah to sneak a win. Disbelief? Not really, just disappointment.

It shows body image is still king with Vince McMahon. I’m not saying Jinder has taken steroids, he just happens to have hulked up in months and suddenly developed a bad case of “Backne” (acne on the back, it’s a play on words thing).

It shows Vince McMahon will sell the prestige of his top title to better penetrate the large and ever-expanding Indian market.

It also shows us that Randy Orton was once again uninspiring when given the ball and told to run. JBL repeats, about every thirty seconds, “If you designed a WWE superstar from scratch, he’d look like Randy Orton.” No arguments, he’d look like Randy Orton, you’d just have to remember to add charisma.

After being the best of the two brands since the split, suddenly SmackDown Live is in serious trouble.

Ghost in the Shell (2017) – Review

Daniel SimmsLeave a comment

The fuss of casting a white actress in the lead role of Ghost in the Shell can at last take a (temporary) backseat. It helps that the actor in question is Scarlett Johansson, she has the screen presence to divert attention to what is important. As always, that should be the plot.

Playing the role of the Major, a rank we see her attain here after a short opening sequence that reveals her “creation” and/or alteration. She is Mira Killian, her brain is planted into a perfect engineered cybernetic body made by Hanka Robotics. The CEO there, Cutter, sees her as a weapon and wants her up and running as soon as possible.

The designer, Juliette Binoche’s Dr Ouelet (because white people make, as well as look, like the best of Asia in this future world), sees Major as a living person. Most definitely not an object. And therein begins our moral tale of consciousness and what constitutes life. However, unlike the animated original, these themes – along with the entire movie – have been made more accessible for a mainstream audience.

It means the deeper philosophical questions have been dumbed down and the action sequences, instead pioneering like its forbearer, become generic and lifeless. They do pay homage to scenes from the original, at times it’s as if moments have been lifted from there. And the authenticity of the environment is solid throughout.

It falls down when it comes to adding suspense and the journey Major undertakes to reveal her true identity (it isn’t Killian). It’s noble they tried to add the backstory in what they must be hoping is a franchise, but everything is far too obvious.

Whether it be Hanko turning on Major, to the main plot of seemingly malevolent AI that is looking to bring down Hanko. This third-party intelligence is at odds with Major’s views of the world, leading to Hanko losing faith, despite Dr Ouelet’s protests.

It seems tech companies like to be run by bad guys once they’re making revolutionary strides forward. Hanko is like RoboCop’s OCP. A company in deep with the government and run lawlessly from within.

Visually, it can be stunning at times. A body suit clad Johansson is always going to be easy on the eye, and as mentioned, the set pieces breathe life into the world they are trying to replicate from the original. Perhaps the finale goes too big on the Hollywood action, and the setting feels at odds with all that came before it.

But as something to look at, whether it be Major, Hideo (we see why he needs the goggles), the city, or most of the fight scenes, it deserves the title: Ghost in the Shell.

It even tries to carry the heart of the original and gets a free pass, this time, because of the leading lady.

Sadly, it just lacks that something special beyond the performance of Johansson to make it noteworthy. The 1995 version was ground-breaking in many ways, this is the exact opposite. It plays it safe, using standard techniques and methods we’ve seen a million times before in countless forgettable movies.

Hopefully there is enough of an interest to allow Section 9 another chance but without Rupert Sanders in the director’s chair.

5/10