The Great Wall & Meekah

The Great Wall

Reegs: Welcome to Bad Dad's Film Review, in which a bunch of 40 something year old men chat about movies and kids tv. This week's show starts with the top five movie cows and some other things as well, news and stuff. Before we move onto our main feature the Chinese director Zang Epic historical Fantasy, the Great Wall before finishing things off with a look at it in expansion to the Blippy Cinematic Universe or the Blippy verse with the Netflix show, Mika.

Now it occurs to me that after three years or so of this pod being around, regular listeners will probably know quite a bit about us. Now, for instance, this sports Mad Dan so old that his chiropractor is a paleontologist. Then there's the motherfucking dinosaur himself, Edith Rex side, and then there's me res just another soloist.

Hello. Uh, But what you probably don't know about is the man cave where each week's pod is presented from, and which we won't be here for much longer, for a little while. So that'll be interesting to see what happens with that. But anyway, I thought I'd give the listeners a sort of brief description of where we are.

It's not one of those sleek, modern man caves. This is a, it's all sort of bookshelves factory and trinkets and memorabilia and that sort of stuff. The records and record players. There's a bar in one corner, dartboard in another. Of course there's a recreation of versa size. Beautiful fountain of Apollo.

In the, in the fifth corner over there. course in the adjoining room,

wait, yeah, there's, I'll have to describe that another time, but I can see wait, is that a lost DaVinci mural? Is it

dan: it's quite echoy that room.

Room,

Reegs: and yeah. and there's a, a signed photo of the actual DB Cooper holding his passport and everything.

dan: and, and Trevor Bren up there.

Reegs: Yeah. So that's,

dan: it's just some of the wonders of the man

Reegs: Yeah.

So maybe next time we can tell you a few more bits and pieces.

Sidey: There's also a roulette wheel and I forgot to tell you, but there is a full roulette table in the auction this week.

dan: Is there? Oh, dangerous.

Reegs: Could put it in the wing.

dan: Well, I'm, I'm gonna be I'm gonna be off on my travels again. So, if you wanted to get roulette table and set it all up in here for me when I get back, that'd be fine. But we, we will be recording from elsewhere then. Yeah. Next month.

Sidey: We've, we've had offers just need. Just sort it

out.

Reegs: Yeah. Make it happen.

Sidey: Might,

might do a, a sort of combination of different venues. Maybe just keep it fresh. Yeah. Who knows? Cause we don't

Reegs: don't

Yeah. So Dan, you were, you wanted to spice things up and reinvent the wheel a little bit and you were saying let's do some

dan: Yeah.

I, I was thinking instead of the top five Yeah.

Which we've

we are doing anyway. Why not hit the fans with some of the, the celeb news and Hollywood movie news that we, or film news that we

Sidey: it was a good news week I think. Cause we had the Golden Globes, didn't

dan: didn't we? Yeah.

Sidey: And that coincided very nicely.

Completely by chance with our Banes of Sharon.

Shout out to shout out to Johnny Utah. left him feeling like, like dis consulate and depressed.

Reegs: I still haven't seen it and I've avoided all the spoilers, so I will watch it at

dan: I,

Sidey: but it's on use my Disney plus

dan: I did get the misses to watch it as well, and she, she said it was quite sad.

Sidey: Yeah, my sister didn't wanna watch it again. I wanted to watch it twice for the pod last week and no, I'll watch it, but I just thought

dan: I'm, I'm, yeah, I'm still a fan. And if there's any kind of indication of who does get the Oscars, then Colin Farrell won the Golden Globe for

Sidey: the greatest that ever did it.

Yeah, yeah. It had a good a good, a good acceptance speech.

dan: Oh, did he?

I didn't hear

Sidey: hear that Yeah, there was

a few where they, they, you know, they, they, I think they have a counter with, you've got the X amount of time and it's not long. Right. And he told 'em to fuck off when they started playing the music.

You can turn that off. And so did Michelle, yo yo, she's like, turn that off. Stop that. Or come and beat you up

Because they, I mean, they can be a bit lovey, but this is really good. And of course oh my God, I never get his right name. Right. Timber Doom.

that's it. KeHE Colan. His, his

dan: Oh, what a story. Fantastic. So, so one of the things I watched was the actor's round table this

Sidey: week. I started watching that.

dan: And so he was in it with Colin Farrell, Elvis, Elvis Austin Butler, FRA Austin Butler. Have you heard that dude talk? Like he just looks an absolute bang, average normal dude. Do you hear him speaking? He's like, just got that Elvis draw. And then it suddenly just seems to change the way you even look at him.

Just how, how you hear him speak. And it was, he is fantastic to have all those guys around.

Sidey: got fucking zero interest in that film

dan: but data's story to give him his. Goons name was fantastic. 25 years. Mm-hmm. He didn't work. He'd fallen out of the film

Sidey: He probably did some other,

dan: he'd gone

Reegs: stunt coordinator on Jet Lees the one I found out this week, which is amazing.

So

dan: he worked behind the camera and then he, he watched Crazy Rich Asians, I think it was, and he started to think, well, maybe Hollywood's turned a corner in. There were, there's some more roles for, for Asian kind of actors. And he's then gone and applied and two weeks later, after getting an agent, after this, that script came through his door and he just said, it's unbelievable.

I can't believe I'm, I'm sat here with all you guys, because it wasn't so long ago. I was, you know, just this was a, a distant dream of mine again.

Reegs: Well maybe what this section should be is good news, bad news, because it's good news for Kay Hewan, but it's unfortunately bad news this week for Michael Bay.

dan: The

Reegs: well,

Sidey: it's good news for the rest of

Reegs: well, he's furiously hit back at reports that claimed he'd been charged over the death of a pigeon in Italy while filming the Netflix movie, six Underground.

So, yeah, it's apparently a pigeon was killed by a dolly while babe was filming in Rome, and it's illegal to harm or kill wild animals there. So he, as director is being held responsible for the incident, so could be a pigeon that brings down Michael Bay.

Sidey: That'd be good. There was also Jennifer Coolidge won for the series that e Really Lights. Yeah. White Lotus. And

Reegs: she was great.

Sidey: speech was brilliant. as well. Really good.

Reegs: Yeah, it was all a, a load of PE and Brendan Fraser as well. It was all just people who'd been forgotten by Hollywood and a bit of a celebration. It was great.

dan: Have you heard this exciting news about Jake Gillen Hall and K McGregor going to do remake of Roadhouse?

Yeah,

you've heard that, right? Mma? Yeah.

Sidey: Douche

dan: So, Jake Gillen

Sidey: I mean, I'm, I'm, I've checked out of this story already.

dan: Yeah. Well, I'm j I I'm just, I'm just reading the news. Me. But that's quite a strange combo, isn't it? Yeah. Might be one. To, to remake Roadhouse.

Have you not seen it? Okay. Well

Reegs: can see Gillin Hall

dan: a midweek on that.

Reegs: I can see, I can see Gillin Hall in that. Anyway, so that's news.

That

was good. Wasn't it? News?

Sidey: Did you watch anything? We, we, we haven't seen you for a long while, so you must have watched at least something.

Reegs: Yeah, well I watched all of Van or, and what everybody says about it is true that it takes ages.

Well, it's a lot of world building and it does take a while to pay off, but when it does, it pays off big style.

Sidey: Okay. I still haven't watched that,

Reegs: Ah, it's great.

dan: I really liked it. Yeah. Even I liked all the slow. Buildup of it. Oh, I enjoyed the

Reegs: I did enjoy that there. It was getting to a point at some point you're like, you kind of need something to happen, but then stuff does happen and it really builds and builds and builds.

It's great. And Kaleidoscope I

Sidey: Oh,

Reegs: was an interesting Netflix experiment

Sidey: anywhere or something. Is that

Reegs: Yeah, it's hard to see how you couldn't start it on the one that I started it on, but I guess everybody watches it says that, but yeah, that's an interesting experiment where you can watch the whole.

Thing in, in any order that you want, apart from the last episode.

dan: been taught. Yeah, I've been hearing, hearing about

Reegs: It's only Okay, but it's a really novel idea. I like the ambition of it. So I watched that and I watched all the stuff for the pod apart from um, ed Shearing. Yeah,

Sidey: Yeah.

dan: I

did Batman last night. I did the Dark Knight Rises after watching the Dark Night.

Restart that, restarted that. And I, so I finished that and then I thought, why

Sidey: have you watched the Batman though?

dan: And I've watched the Batman as well. Yeah, that's really good. Elvis is the next kind of big blockbuster i'd I'd like to see. I like those biopics. But how good is the dark night rises because you've got

Sidey: it's pretty good. It's a tough act to follow the dark night

though.

dan: It, it is, but I, I really like, I mean, Tom Hardy, the change for him to go in his

Sidey: We need Howie here for an

dan: Imperson. It's absolutely scary. He's, he's huge. They, I had to look it up how they did it, and they gave him kind of lifts and he said he was overweight anyway, so he just kind of carried on, piling on the weight, but he doesn't look anything light.

You wouldn't recognize him or

unbelievable

transformation. And I really enjoyed that again, so I, that's only the second time I've seen it,

Sidey: Oh, right, okay. I've

seen that quite a few times.

dan: really good.

Sidey: We watched, oh, we're two and a half films into the parts of the Caribbean franchise this week.

Which I Didn't, like the

dan: how many are there?

Is there four,

Sidey: five, I think. Maybe. Right. But my daughter's really enjoying it and we watched Willow the series.

Reegs: I heard. That's good.

Sidey: It does feature one of the most, like appallingly bad acting performances by Warwick Davies. I mean, it's like so bad, but

It's

really good. It's, it's really good. We've immediately gone around and started it again, so we're half the way around again. Nice. It's better, I mean, it's fucking way better than the rings of power.

Reegs: Yeah. I haven't watched that

Sidey: Don bother. That's crap.

Reegs: Oh, I'll tell you what, we did start the Queen's gambit.

Sidey: Okay. Yeah,

Reegs: that was good.

Sidey: good. Yeah. Yeah, that's

good.

dan: All right. Yeah that was pretty much me actually with with watching bit of the football obviously, which has been tortured for those Hammers fans, but

Sidey: yeah, much better for us either.

But San Francisco 49ers continued to win, so at least one of my teams is doing okay.

Dan, I get the feeling from what you said earlier, that you researched tiptop for this week, cows?

 No, No

dan: Dunno. Just had a bit of a, a blind spot on that one. I, I, I'll I'll have a quick look now while, while you go along and I'll come up with something clever and funny.

Sidey: Okay.

well it is top five cows.

Yeah. This was originally gonna go along with Henry

Reegs: Yeah.

I

Sidey: of Jersey. The Jersey

Reegs: involved in that episode. The Man of Steel episode. Yeah.

Sidey: Yeah. Well you probably, oh, well definitely. I know you love that film, so you would've been singing its praises probably a lot more than Dan and I cuz we were like, it was okay.

It was good,

Reegs: Well, it just, I, I always liked the, I like the fact that they tried something really different. You know, it would've been really easy to just kind of go the comical marvel route and they went the epic like God-like stuff. And not everything works, but the score is amazing. Cal's brilliant.

It's like a, a sci-fi first contact story as much as anything else. And yeah, it's a good movie.

Sidey: Cool. Uh, W would you wanna give us a cow as your first cow?

Reegs: It's gonna start linked to this week's mid weeker. We watched the Debt collector if you remember. And this week we watched Avenge for our mid weeker.

The debt collector was a great Scott Adkins and Jesse V. Johnson movie, and it interspersed black and white footage of cows moving through an abattoir with the scenes of Atkins and Co-star Louie Mandalore in a great little sort of crime thriller action. Tarantino inspired collaboration. You think?

Remember that?

Sidey: Yeah. Yeah, I

do.

Reegs: So, that there was that and Matthew Kassovitz is Lahan has it was about racism and social tension and police brutality in the ban years. Yeah. The, the police co the council estates of Paris in the nineties and it's got Vincent Cassell and his character VINs.

Imagine seeing, seeing a cow on the estate at various points in the movie. It's a hallucination, but also something, something symbolism.

dan: Okay.

Reegs: Yeah. So that's a couple of cows for you.

dan: Teenage Mutant Hero Toes, Cowabunga, that's about as much as cows I've got off the top of my head.

Sidey: Okay. The very first one that I thought of doesn't qualify, cuz the first thing that I thought of was the Apocalypse Now.

Reegs: Yeah,

Yeah, it is a water buffalo. But

Sidey: I dunno if

Reegs: an actual one that they slaughtered on film.

Sidey: Yeah. Yeah. He had to defend that. Obviously years down the line people are like, it's not that cool.

Reegs: water

Sidey: like that's what they do.

dan: suppose the,

Reegs: it on my list. Is that a cow

Sidey: or

I dunno if it's bovine. We could maybe, maybe if it, if they're, we'll have to look that up.

dan: The stakes are high, aren't they?

Sidey: Yeah. So that, that's a, maybe it's, it's on the maybe pole.

Reegs: That was the first one you thought of? The first one I thought of was the twister one. Yeah, the cow in

Sidey: That was, that was next. Yeah.

Reegs: another cow. Yeah. I think it's the same one.

Sidey: Do you know that one, Dan?

Twister the movie with Bill Pullman. Yeah.

dan: Oh, scene not heard.

Sidey: Yeah. Yeah.

And as a cow just gets twisted by the twister,

Reegs: the twister.

Sidey: I don't think it was Johnny Ner did a review of that for our local, like,

Reegs: yeah, I think he fell asleep.

Sidey: He said there's nothing like a good movie and this is nothing like a good movie.

Reegs: Yeah. Yeah.

Sidey: Any others?

Reegs: Yeah. Yeah. Me, myself and

Sidey: Yeah,

this is my favorite.

Reegs: And he, like Jim Carey's sort of multiple personality

Sidey: Do they find it, or has

Reegs: yeah, they find it in the middle of the road and he thinks it's been killed by truckers and they sort of decide to try and move the body.

It's obviously his huge cow. And these two people, it's him and Renee

Sidey: yeah.

Reegs: So, then it starts to move. So Carrie decides to put it out of it's

Sidey: think it farts as well. And yeah, she, he's like, you don't wanna see this,

you

don't wanna see this. And it's like just, okay. He says something about like, you know, trying to put you out your misery and it's just like a single gun shot.

And then when they get to move it, it moves

again. walks

Reegs: off and it moves

Sidey: trenches every time your shoot it

Reegs: he shoots it like three times. Just

Sidey: mother of God, it

Reegs: then eventually ends up in like a headlock.

Sidey: Yeah. He, he's got it in a sleeper hold with

his fingers, like clawed up his nostrils and he's chatting her do something damnit and she just comes up and it's like, kicks it in the gut.

Yeah.

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: Fantastic. Yeah, that's, that's great. I've got something else that we reviewed on the pod which is the magic.

Reegs: Okay. Oh yeah. Okay. Yeah. That's

Sidey: cow tude and I have a cuddly toy of that. Nice. A soft toy somewhere. I think it's now been swallowed up by my daughter's cuddly toy collection, but I was always a fan of

tude.

Reegs: What was Ermin True's particular

Sidey: It's just to take an easy, she offered some sort of sage advice from time to time, but she was just pretty placid doing cow stuff.

Yeah.

Reegs: Oh brother. Where art now there's two cow moments in that. George Nelson. Oh, George.

Not the livestock . Is he guns down the cows? That's the only thing he hates more than the police. And then early in the movie they meet the the blind guy doing the

Sidey: Yeah. The

Reegs: tracks thing, whatever that thing is, and he says, oh, you'll see by the end of your journey, whatever, you'll see a, a cow on the roof of a house.

And they do at the end when the damn bursts and the cow, it's on the roof of a house. Great

dan: There's been a few kids, ones, isn't there? There's actually a film called Cow. I've never seen that, but

Sidey: think it's a documentary about the,

dan: About

Sidey: the

the, the cow

industry, The, which

dan: reminds me of the Jake Gillen Hall one that we watched Octa, and I'm fairly sure

Reegs: that was a pig though. It was a

dan: it was soup pig, but I'm, I think at the abattoirs and things.

Didn't they have cows as well, or am I,

Reegs: Didn't You watched Real Steel? I watched that along with you in solidarity. Doesn't he fight a bull

at the

dan: He, he, he, he punches one. Yeah. I think, doesn't he, he gets well, the robot does.

Reegs: Yeah,

Sidey: that's right.

Yeah, yeah. When, yeah. Yeah,

dan: When I was a kid, there was a film.

I think he might have been a Jackie Chan one, or, and he actually punches a cow as well. And knocks it out.

Reegs: nice.

dan: but I can't remember exactly the name, so I can't add it in here.

Reegs: Power of the dog that we watched for the pod had lot of cow content. The one of them dies of anthrax early on that Phil Cumberbatch notices and then later the kid scallops and and anthrax ridden cow to make the rope that he poisons

Sidey: That's right.

Reegs: And doesn't cumber batch also castrate a

Sidey: Yeah. I have been watching something new. 1923.

Reegs: Ah, the is something to do with Yellowstone or

Sidey: whatever. Yeah. So Yellowstone's the end one. This is the middle one.

I think it was 1883, which is the

Reegs: what, what came out first? I dunno where to start.

Sidey: think Yellowstone started. Yeah.

And then it was 18, 15. Now it's not So I'm like joining in at the end. Yeah.

Reegs: I don't wanna do that. I wanna watch it in the

Sidey: your audience. Yeah. I kinda wish I hadn't.

Reegs: what everyone's talking about now, isn't it? It's

Sidey: But it's really fucking good. It's Harrison Ford is the lead. He's the, the patriarch and head mirin fucking like out of this world in this fucking great, it's another always annoying one a week things.

Which is annoying.

Great cattle content though. Cause they are, they are, you know, on the fucking

Reegs: planes.

Sidey: On the planes, Yeah. They are, they're proper cowboys. You know, they're moving the herd around and they're, they're in a battle with the local sheep farmers who are grazing on their land. And

Reegs: The farmers are,

Sidey: Yeah. And it es it escalates. It escalates very quickly and it's people aren't afraid to kill characters off anymore, are they?

Intel? And if you get some fucking deaths right. Really early

Reegs: on. All

Sidey: it also like nothing to do with cows. But ob you know, I, you know, I love a western and, you know, old school westerns is always cowboys engines, you know, cowboys goodies. This is like reframing the story to what actually went down. And it's got a lot of reeducating the Indian women in the ways of the Baptist church and it's fucking horrific.

Absolutely fucking appalling.

Great series though. And fucking shit loads. I mean, hundreds and hundreds, hundreds of counts in it.

Reegs: Yeah.

dan: Well, I was just trying to think of the other one that. With Brad Pitt on the planes.

Sidey: legends of the coral,

dan: are the goal. Legends are the fall, of course. Cow, because you have these big open ranges and, and I guess any western would fall under the, the cow. Kind

Reegs: does any movie like a Western where it has like a cow skull to symbolize that they're in the desert

dan: Oh, , right? Yeah.

Reegs: You just see the cow skull,

dan: So that would be probably Tarantino's.

Sidey: Well, ACE Ventura too as well.

dan: Ace Ventura

Sidey: too. What a wonderful room of death. You have

Reegs: Another cow based movie that we watched for the pod.

There was obviously been a lot of them subconsciously we didn't know, but the, the founder,

Sidey: Yeah, yeah,

Reegs: the story of McDonald's. Yeah. Um, And Ray Crock,

dan: actually

decent there, isn't it? With

Sidey: like

that Michael I was thinking the straight story. Must have had a cow in it at some point, but then I couldn't think of a specific one.

Reegs: There must be though. Yeah. Mars attacks in the prologue. They roast a whole field of cows. But yeah. Good high quality cow content in

dan: movies. Well, in movies,

Sidey: I've got a few animated ones. Clarabelle Cow from Mickey Mouse. I think she was the one that he played her udders in Steamboat Willie.

Yeah. Which was disturbing. And then we reviewed the tick, the kids,

four kids. I know it's necessarily four kids. Yeah. Not in the episode that we watch, but there is a character called The Man Eating Cow. And it is just a cow who eats men.

dan: What is that? The horror film? The, the uds?

Reegs: Well, I'm probably, I mean, I could probably go on about cows, but maybe I'm done.

Sidey: I've got one from Comic Book World, which is back cow from the DC Universe. Yeah, but I'm not gonna nominate that. Should we go, should we have a look at what we've had on Twitter? Cuz there has been some, some decent shoutouts on Twitter For this.

For this we've got Monty Python, the holy gra.

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: Cher Lavash. When they catapult the cow over

the wall. Cock and ball story.

Reegs: Yeah. It's Coogan.

Sidey: wanna say it's Michael Winter bottom, but I dunno if that's true or not.

Reegs: It's the Tristan's Shandy

Sidey: that's Darren Lethally coming up with both of

those. And I couldn't

Reegs: remember a cow

Sidey: think of a good Darren Lethally cow port Mano or anything like

that.

Reegs: well, what, how are you do, what kind of breeds of cow are there,

Sidey:

top secret. Remember the Valcom one?

Reegs: Yeah. Yes,

dan: There's cows in that isn't there? And

Sidey: that, was nominated by Killer Tomato.

dan: there is the Latian Brown or the Lithian Brown Cal Variety.

Sidey: That was some good ones on Twitter. It was Killer Tomato. Who mentioned the top secret one? Dunno, it was so long since I've seen that movie. I can't remember. But he's, he said he's adamant, the only correct answer is top

secret.

dan: the part of that, that I remember is when the, the professor looks through the, the magnifying glass and he takes it away.

His eyes still the same size It was just silly humor. Made me laugh.

Sidey: Right? So what we're gonna put in to our first top five of 2023.

Reegs: I am gonna put me, myself and Irene in

Sidey: a great shout.

dan: is strong. Well I'll go for Monty Python.

Sidey: Yeah, good call. I'm gonna put an Irman trade for the magic roundabout.

I think top secret is going.

And then we've got room for one more.

dan: one other.

Sidey: Yes. Yes. Let's find out if water buffalo is from the bovine.

Gina.

Time for some movie chat.

Reegs: Yes.

Sidey: The Great Wall.

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: The name of a movie and also the name of Pete's in-laws Chinese takeaway.

Which is where I get my Chinese takeaways from. Okay.

It's

dan: good. It's pretty good. Yeah. A

Reegs: Bit of free advertising there.

Sidey: Yeah. I want free bonus ribs in picking sauce next time.

Thank you.

Reegs: Okay.

Is that, is that really true? That Pete's

Sidey: That's really true. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In COVID when Pete was having to find different stuff, he was a delivery driver for them temporarily, if you recall. Yeah.

dan: I think they got family over in Hong Kong. Is it in,

Sidey: do. Yeah. Someone connected to

isn't it?

No. Who's that? Fuck. Now his name goes outta my mind now is in police story and all that.

Jackie Chan.

Chan. So Pete's

Mrss like

uncle or great uncle or something that was in a movie with Jackie Chan. Some, some connection. We'll get him to explain it next time as well. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Reegs: Oh, wow.

dan: I, I've got a

Reegs: a friend

dan: friend's in China.

I said I, it's like living in China and he says, oh, I can't complain I can't, can they

Reegs: Anyway, this is by zk, who was a Chinese director that I'd seen a couple of his movies. Hero. Yeah. I was going through a big Jet Lee phase and so I watched that. I remember in sort of the early two thousands and when, whenever it came out. And then House of the Flying Daggers when I was watching a lot of wusa,

Sidey: mm-hmm.

Reegs: Which is a sort of historical fiction slash legends of martial artists type movie.

Of which this is. But yeah, the, he also did a movie called A Woman A Gun and a Noodle Shop, which is a sort of re remake of the Cone Brothers Blood. Simple.

Sidey: Okay. That's interesting.

Reegs: interesting. Yeah. But yeah, his movies have a sort of characteristic use of this wusa style acrobatics and colors and stuff.

And it's born out in this sort of cross-cultural movie that he did The Great Wall that has a bunch of Western actors in it, including Matt Damon.

dan: Matt Damon. You, he did Hero this guy didn't he? Yeah. And House of Flying Dagans

Reegs: Yeah. I

Sidey: Yeah. I wonder what goes on when we is talking. You just switch off

dan: Yeah. no, I, I'm

Sidey: just

Reegs: long as I, hopefully not everybody else

Sidey: does,

Reegs: Yeah.

dan: he's got that kind of voice, isn't he? Yeah.

Sidey: yeah. But he's right, Dan, he did do all those things. This film we get a bit of text at first about the war

itself. Say 1700 years or something it took to Bills.

Reegs: Yeah. 1700 years. It's

dan: five

Sidey: What's a long time, isn't it? It's

a really long time.

It's also bullshit that you can see it from out of space,

Reegs: Well, it's not true. Yeah. All right.

Sidey: Where's a myth

dan: it It depends how cloudy it is, I guess, isn't it?

Sidey: I think it was supposed to be the only man-made structure you could see from the International Space Station, but that's bollocks. Not true.

Not true.

Reegs: It's got a sort of pounding score, which is kind of a mix of Western stuff and sort of Chinese drums and that sort of stuff. And it's by ramen Giardi, who's the guy who does the Game of Thrones music. And you can hear that influence. Yeah. Across it. And yeah, we're given some background via subtitle about how it's stood for so long to keep out

dan: the Led Zeppelin. Were gonna do the they were, they were gonna do the soundtrack for this, but the government declared a lockdown so, they couldn't

Sidey: geez, that's, that might be the worst one ever.

dan: I dunno whether that works. No.

Reegs: And then we get Matt Damon as William and Pedro Pascal as Tova Damon is kind of allegedly Irish.

Sidey: Didn't know that till I read reading the notes later on.

Reegs: Yeah. It's pretty comical. His accident this, it's sort of that Robin Hood syndrome. Yeah.

Sidey: I think we got about half an hour in and my misses went, it looks like quite a lot like Matt Damon

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: honestly. And I looked her and I didn't know what was going on and she went, that guy, and I went, it fucking hits Matt Damon. And she's like, oh, really?

dan: So she was right.

Sidey: Yeah. Oh, how he

dan: it kind of looks a little bit of Prince of Persia vibes going on.

Sidey: Well, that kind of outlaws something's going on.

They're they're looking for something out the desert, aren't they? And they're being tracked

and, and attacked.

Reegs: They're tracking down this black

dan: black Powder Gump powder.

Reegs: But yeah, they're being attacked by local bandits and they take refuge in a cage and some number of cage cave and some number of their crew are dead or dying. And there's some conversation about leaving men behind. And Damon and William says, no, I won't do that.

I was left behind twice and it didn't turn out good for the other guys who left me behind, blah, blah, blah. And then one night when he is fumbling around with his magic magnetic, Rock. They're sort of attacked by something unseen in the shadows. It's not really clear what it is. But he manages to l lop an arm off it and then sort of suddenly kick it over a ravine that appeared next to them.

Yeah.

dan: I bet they wouldn't have camped there if they really knew how, how close they were to that ravine

Reegs: So yeah, it's pretty clumsy that bit. And he, anyway, he's locked off the claw arm of something and they

dan: a baby Godzilla or something.

Reegs: Yeah. Well, we don't really know what it is, but they take it they get up the next day to travel and they're being chased again by I think it's called the Nameless Order.

It's the local Empire Forces and the Bandits, and they decide to take refuge at the Great Wall when they find it. Taking this arm with them.

dan: Well, they've got a choice of go back and face the guys that have been chasing them or, or go towards this. Army on the wall. And they're surrounded by a ring of arrows, aren't they?

Sidey: Yeah.

as soon as they appear.

Reegs: some really bad CGI arrows.

Sidey: I'm an archery fan though, so that I thought it was pretty cool.

Reegs: Oh yeah, I know. I always love all the the stuff in

dan: yeah. Well they're, they're not going anywhere apart from

Sidey: they're just marginally outnumbered.

dan: Marginally outnumbered. Yeah. And out powered. So they, they go in,

Reegs: do

get to meet this, this is great. You get to meet the soldiers. Yeah. They're all in these intricately designed different color coded costumes that you know, that it signifies what they do and we'll find out. Some of them do

Sidey: Excited. Yeah. We've got some lovely narration slash expo exposition of which unit

Reegs: does. Yeah.

And they, it looks amazing. Well, if you like that sort of thing, which, you know, people standing in ornate armor in all these real vivid colors in formation and stuff and they're all very excited about the arm that he chopped off. And they

Sidey: come, they don't believe his story at first.

Yeah. And the lady is having to translate it back to.

Reegs: general Lynn and Strategist Wang,

dan: Well, there, there, there's this comedy moment where they're tied up talking English and then she kind of goes, tell me what is this? And they realize, oh, you speak English as well.

And they'd been talking about escaping or, or whatever it was. But yeah, they get the point across that actually it was just this guy on his own, Matt Damon, that had,

Sidey: they don't believe him,

but Wang the strategist, he says, no, he is got green blood. He's got green blood on his sword. Yeah. His story,

it ties out. Yeah.

And then we got also William Defo just lurking in the shadows.

Yeah. Just like looking over a balcony at them, like

it's a bit shifty looking

Reegs: very shifty. Yeah. I would say. So, they get sort of taken as prisoners,

Sidey: No. Someone, someone burst in the room in this scene saying the smoke, the smoke houses or whatever it is, and they've got on the wall. When someone sees something they light and the next tower lights and the smokes, the smoke signals indicate that something's happening and they say, oh shit.

You know, we thought the attack was nine days away, but it's happening now. Yeah. Straight into the

Reegs: straight into full scale Helms, deep style siege at the wall. And they, it's one of those great scenes where everybody, the armys get set and then it's quiet and you're waiting for stuff to happen and like somebody's trembling or

Sidey: part of the set is the, the ladies in the Blue Power Ranger costumes, they go out onto this kind of pronged fan thing. Yeah. Over the over. Looks the wall and it's

like the Simpsons where that guy is just standing there and you're like, I really wanna know what, what AG one does. What do they do? Yeah, because you've got archers, you've got infantry men,

you

Reegs: got these like huge machine gun arrow things that they've created.

Sidey: but we don't know exactly what I mean you think they're gonna jump off there, but I mean, you wanna see it and we do get to see it's cool.

But

dan: do, they they jump off with big spears

Reegs: Well, not yet, cuz the whole like army comes like this monstrous sort of green, leathery kind of testicle monsters with lots of eyes and

Sidey: their eyes are on their shoulders.

Reegs: Yeah. Yeah. Pretty horrible. Pretty effective. Like thousands of, I can't even tell you how many there are.

It's like one of those You ever played a tower defense game? Yeah. Yeah. It's like one of those where they, and they're just lobbing like fireballs at them and there's probably like a millionth of these things. Die

Yeah.

dan: we learn there's a queen as well and

Reegs: she's got these like sort of stretchy mind flaps and she can flat them to talk to

Sidey: She kind of broadcasts and everyone and everyone follows her

dan: turn left, turn right, attack this, attack that she's

Sidey: the one they've gotta get. But she's got

Reegs: the, well, she orders them

Sidey: to gorilla kind of cavalry with her that have like metal shield arms.

Reegs: they're like in the 300 or whatever with their

Sidey: that's right. Yeah. Yeah. Very much

dan: Yeah. They've got their wings or, or backs are made of metal or

Reegs: and she, her mind plunge, she tells them to go up go like world wars, head up the walls and that's when we see the, the, these like crazy crane women, they jump off.

Yeah. Stabbing down a very ineffective use of spears I think, but it looks amazing. They like

Sidey: Julie, you could just throw the spear down and then winch the, she the spear back up.

dan: I, I'd be looking at hot oil myself from there and just roll. Rolling that down the

Sidey: wall. They got some scissors later

on.

dan: Yeah.

they did. But yeah, there's all different methods and, and it's spectacular that they would just

Sidey: I don't know,

dan: the clouds and start picking off

Sidey: how historically accurate this is.

Reegs: No, it

dan: Well,

Reegs: it's a legend.

dan: I've been to the Great Wall of China, and

Sidey: Well, when this was happening,

dan: when it was a little bit after that, but you could see the effects still of, you know, the inner workings of the wall and everything. There was still bones of these guys around,

Sidey: Oh, we've got walls here. I mean, I don't know why anyone would need to travel to see a

dan: Well, that's a great wall. That's the

Sidey: how great is it? actually.

dan: Well, it's, you know,

Sidey: anyway,

some of the

Reegs: they, they

Sidey: generic green things do make it up onto the

Reegs: Oh yeah.

Sidey: Battlements. Yes. And the good Irishman, Matt Damon like comes into, you know, show off his full range of fighting skills and he takes one down,

Reegs: where he slow mos a spear out the air. And then Pedro, what's his name? PE Pascal. Pascal. He, Matt adores one of them.

Sidey: I honestly was like, no, they are fucking not

Reegs: it's amazing, isn't it? ? He mat adores it and he comes through and Damon shoots it. I think they do it twice. It

Sidey: They do because, but the first one is just pure Matador nurse, and the second one he does the slowmo, like slide on the ground and shoots up into it.

So I never misses a shot in the entire

fucking movie.

Reegs: Well, at, at the end he

Sidey: he does.

Reegs: Yeah. Yeah.

Sidey: And so

he proves himself to them because he was gonna be in the stock age, but they didn't

have

dan: they, they both were and they, they've.

Got themselves

Sidey: because the muscles retreat, the muscles do retreat, don't they?

Reegs: they pull their dead and wounded off the battlefield, which is pretty weird.

dan: Yeah, and that's right. They, they don't want anybody to, to have a body of these kind of alien creatures. The aliens will, will take their dead and injured away so there's nothing left for them to experiment or find out more about them.

Which is one of the, the themes a little bit later on. But at this point our two uh, European heroes who have come to save the Great Wall of China of Have been made friends because they were so brave on the wall, weren't they? And at this point they have a

Reegs: they saved the life of a young soldier Pen, young, I

dan: that's right.

And they, they start having a conversation with William Defoe who's helped him out at, at one point

Reegs: he's Ballard. He also came searching for black powder 25 years ago and has sort of remained there as teacher slash captive slash opportunist waiting for a chance.

It's

Sidey: Yeah, it's weird. Yeah.

Reegs: he's given it. His eyebrows are given it at least as much as if he was doing like Antichrist or the Lighthouse or something, like he's well into this.

dan: He's, he's been there 25 years, and as you say, he has the, the free range. I found him quite a strange character actually, because he, he

Sidey: like they didn't really know how to write him into this film.

Reegs: He's greed. He's, he's, you know, a lot of this is about greed and that sort of thing.

dan: Where his

Reegs: by Tony Gilroy amongst lots of other really talented people.

dan: He gets yeah, his head gets turned and, and they start making plans and plots to, to grab the black powder and and get the hell outta Dodge.

Sidey: But also I got the feeling there was possibly a little simmering romance there between Commander

Reegs: General Lynn

Sidey: Lynn May,

and good Irish stock.

Reegs: I don't think so. No. There no,

Sidey: Oh, I definitely thought she was into him.

Reegs: it. No. Well, maybe in another life. But she lived in servitude to you know, her crane people.

She, that's what she did. She was the general.

Sidey: You can't do both.

Reegs: and also she's a, she's like, she's a bit disgusted by him because he's a mercenary and he's foot like never under one flag

Sidey: Yeah. He says, oh, I killed bar and I fought for them and I did this with the Italians and Yeah.

Reegs: I protected a Duke or whatever, and she like pulls the moral high ground on him when not the same.

And, and you know, they, he's gonna learn about trust and loyalty and all that shit. Anyway, yeah, Ballard does come up with his plan to steal the black powder and escape during the monster attack, the next monster attack, which is a good idea.

Sidey: Because it's very clear that they, they are gonna come back.

Reegs: Yeah. Yeah.

dan: are not of this world,

Reegs: Well, we get Strategist Wang now gets the chance to tell us, oh, 2000 years ago there was a really greedy emperor and there was this comet was sent to punish him for his greed. And this screen shit emerged and every 60 years they're gonna attack. And that's what it was, this comment.

And he's also got a theory that the queen is something to do with it all, and.

Magnets. Something about magnets.

Sidey: Yeah. That his, his Magnetic

rock. Hopefully that will come into play at some

Reegs: Well they did find a 900 year old scroll, didn't they? That'll come out later that it also talked about magnets.

They didn't put two and two together, I guess.

dan: So.

there's various battles and various opportunities for them to get a little more favor with the general. And there's a big fight about to happen, isn't there?

Reegs: There's been a few. There's one General Lynn ends up getting promoted

dan: yeah. After a big fight that kills

Reegs: nighttime fight that kills.

Yeah. The other general in the, in the blacks

dan: a tearful scene where he hands over the, the

Sidey: your army. Your army to come on now.

dan: now,

Reegs: now,

and there's a beau, gorgeous funeral drums, and these lanterns going up into the sky like the stars

Sidey: best shot in the film. Yeah,

I did enjoy that. When they gave the order to do something in the battles that was communicated to the army by drums, that was really fucking cool.

Reegs: Anyway cuz they've got this theory about magnets and ship Damon's like, well we should harpoon them and bring 'em back like whaling. We'll introduce whaling to, to the

dan: I've seen it in Spain. I've seen it, didn't he? Is that what he

Reegs: you said? Yeah, it is what he says.

Yeah. And so they decide to the next monster attack, try and like sedate one with this yellow stuff smeared on a big harpoon thing. Yeah,

dan: that's right. So Sed Damon asked, he's the guy that needs to go down and secure the beast, isn't he? Because they manage

Sidey: Well, yeah, cuz they're, it's like fishing. They are on a, you know what they're trying to wind in and they, they

think, they hit about five or six of these

things.

dan: it is, it is at this point, they've had an opportunity to.

I think, am I right in saying that this is the, the point and he goes back

Reegs: he does

dan: to fish, whereas the others have been waiting for him. Yeah. And they're, they're really pissed off because he didn't end up making the escape

Reegs: That's right. He's playing hero

dan: He's playing hero. And he's, he's, as they're winding the, the beast in, he's saying, no, no, no. You've got letter out. Let it tire itself a little bit. Otherwise it's

Sidey: Oh, you're gonna, you're gonna break the chain as well.

dan: chain will break and everything. And, and so that's what they do and they tire him out and he, he goes back and they su eventually secure this beast and they bring it back up and it's going mad

Sidey: he does have, like you say, he does have to go out under Battlefield and Pedro Pascal appears and just saves him

dan: just as

Sidey: just about to

dan: die.

Reegs: Is it, did I miss you have They did.

They've got this, they fire recorders.

Sidey: The screaming arrows. Yeah.

Reegs: they're basically just recorders. Yeah. And yeah, so you can hear them and he's killing them all.

dan: yeah, dude, dude, dude, dude.

Sidey: he, he picks 'em up and fires them into the air to show, to let 'em know their location.

Reegs: Yeah. And then they just obliterate everything.

Anyway, they, they throw the black powder Tova. So, and he passes out. And when he comes to, he has a confrontation with Tova. Doesn't, he doesn't like what he's become. I don't recognize you, et cetera, et cetera.

dan: Yeah. The, well, he's, they went into China with a, another kind of renegade guy who, who's been on many adventure before and they've saved each other's lives countless times. And they, they had a simple mission to go in, get the black powder, get out and get out. And suddenly he's exactly what we've said.

He's trying to play hero. He is trying to show,

Sidey: well, he's, playing it very well.

dan: Yeah. He's playing it very well. And he can see, actually the problem is if they break through this wall,

Reegs: everyone's fucked.

Yeah. Because

dan: they seem to multiply with the amount of people they kill. Yeah. Or something. So,

Reegs: why they've been taking the bodies back because the queen feeds on the bodies and that's how she multiplies or something. It's all down to the

dan: so anybody, human bodies as well would mean that the queen's gonna produce more young and suddenly they would just

Reegs: and they're getting smarter as well.

Sidey: And it's stated that if they, all they've gotta do is take out the queen and the army will fold, you know, will, it will be gone once the queen is gone.

Reegs: gone? That's what they theorized, don't they? Yeah. It's because they do a little experiment cuz they have caged one of these beasts. And they work out that when it's really close to it, it cuts off.

Its communication with the

Sidey: the hive.

dan: Well that's it. A, a magnet basically a big old magnet. Is this this beast kryptonite? What, what did the beast have a name?

Reegs: Yeah. The Tte.

dan: Tte, right. So yeah, they would They were just kind of go all exhausted and, but take that away from them, even by about 10 meters or so. And well, there was exactly that happened, didn't it?

Because they need to get that beast once they stare, say no royal decree. If you catch one of the taes, it's gotta go to, to the emperor. So the emperor wants to, to see this beast and

Sidey: the big, big brave

emperor.

dan: Yeah. Who's just a young boy. And the, they take the magnet too far away and it freaks out the cage and it, it nearly damages.

Yeah. Again,

Reegs: well, it lets, lets the queen know where they are and that's what,

dan: they changed direction, don't they? And, and all start

Reegs: And also because they had tunneled through in a another battle that

Sidey: discover that the, the battles were a red herring, a distraction, and they've been tunneling under the wall.

Reegs: Yeah. At the same time as this is happening, Ballard and Tova have. Committed their plan of blowing up the armories and stealing the stuff from there. So it's all going wrong. And they su general Lynn suspects or knows of the William was complicit in it because he knew about it and didn't tell her.

dan: But then he is he's cut out of the, the trouble really, when the, the same guard that he saved in the first part of the show just says, no, actually he was trying to stop him. Yeah. And they, they dropped something on his head and that's why he's here and not with them.

Reegs: That's right. Yeah. It, he Ballard just William Defoe just drops a load of stones on his head from, from for some reason, doesn't he?

Yeah.

dan: He just says, no, we can't have this guy slowing us down. And, and they escape and they've got all the.

The black powder with him. And whilst looking for a root through Pascal goes off onto his off his horse and starts going up a track to see if he can get a better vantage point.

And Defo legs it off

Reegs: horses. Yeah. He's gone. Horses

dan: and the black powder.

Reegs: Yeah. He's pretty quickly captured actually by a bunch of bandits who dunno what the fuck they're doing with the

Sidey: that's right.

Reegs: he is tied up, they're like dancing and playing with these bombs and stuff and they throw one near a fire and then they just all get killed.

It's brilliant.

dan: And that alerts everyone to where they are. Yeah. And he goes and picks up the last kind of few sticks of dynamite that hasn't blown up and still tries to make an escape. Mm-hmm. Eventually he's caught though as well, isn't he? And he's taken back

Reegs: U Tova is

dan: He's taken

Sidey: that at the end. But whilst they've been cocking about with the monster in the cage at the palace,

like you say, the, the Horde has, has been alerted to where they are so that we've seen them on mass change direction and we've got this huge now.

culmination of all the battles.

We got some hot air

Reegs: Yeah, they hot air balloon.

Sidey: Yeah. Yeah.

Which are pretty cool.

Reegs: You ever done been on a hot air balloon? Yeah.

Have you? Yeah. Is that good?

Sidey: I, no I'd never contemplated how you land. You just crash. You just have to have a crash landing.

When we, it would be fine, but we did it in Dubai, so it's like, look over there, some sand.

Oh, look over there. some more sad. Yeah. So that was Wang. But these ones, they were more like, they were on a pallet.

Reegs: Yeah. It's kind of raft style.

Sidey: Yeah. With a fabric balloon. I didn't know if that was actually work or not.

Reegs: well it appeared to in this and there was no reason to doubt any of the events that occurred. , I think

Sidey: legend.

dan: Yeah.

Reegs: And they're like dropping bombs and stuff I think

Sidey: Knowledge bombs or like

Reegs: No actual bombs. Yeah. And then eventually Wang, as they get hold up decides, you know, tells 'em they've gotta take down the queen. That's the only way to finish it. So they captured beast. They decide to tie a load of bombs to it, fatten it up with meat and it'll go back to the hive where the queen will eat it.

Yeah. I think,

Sidey: yeah, that was the theory,

dan: Or at least accept it into the little kind of gorilla army group she's got around there that protect her and, and maybe blow her thin up.

Reegs: so that Damon runs up the inside of this like beautiful stained glass building with all these kaleidoscope of colors coming through.

And he's trying to take this shot and he fucks it twice. Like taking the shot to to to hit the

Sidey: It's like when the first guy takes the shot of the death.

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: Or you think he's, he nailed it. Cause it looks like it's about to go in and one of the girls just deflects the arrow away.

dan: Otherwise he would've been the hero. Nobody had heard

Reegs: it. Exactly. Yeah. But it's not him. Uh, Generally's like tired of him fucking it up. So she takes the thing and

dan: bungees it. It is actually quite nice that Matt Damon didn't go for it again. And she goes, no, no, I'll, I'll take this one.

And, and she nails the

shot, She

Reegs: nails the shot, she LOBs the magnet through. So just as they're closing up their little hole they go and yeah. And everything blows up. And then instantly like a hundred thousand of

dan: Yeah.

Reegs: just kind of stop

dan: of Thrones kind

Sidey: load of. rings. Once siren's gone, everyone dies. Yeah. So that was a nice resolution to everything. And then we get to see good Irishman, Matt Damon he's got the keys to the city and he opens.

Looks like he may be going back to his cell or whatever, but no, it's um,

Reegs: Pedrick, Tova

Sidey: he's in like his

dan: in the stocks

Sidey: and chains of the wall and it's all very jovial and it's like they said I could like take all the black powder I carry, I could come and save you and you like this is fucking shit.

And he is obviously chosen to save his mate. Who knows why? Because they

dan: his mate says

Reegs: he says, I hope you chose the

dan: And yeah, were they,

Sidey: fucked him over. There's no way he would've done

dan: done. And they didn't even really look like they really liked each other that much

Sidey: No, there's zero chemistry.

Reegs: Yeah. And then she, general Lynn is promoted to General of the Northwest Territory. So she comes by for a sort of respectful farewell with Damon and then William and Tover

dan: She's a big job. It's a big job that, yeah,

Sidey: picking

dan: that,

there. And they're, they're also giving a like a escort back, aren't they? Because there's bandits in then their countries, but they're giving a royal escort back without the powder.

That they went for. But confirmation in those guys that it does exist because it is still during a, a time of the world where the, the Chinese had invented gunpowder, I think hundreds of years before

Reegs: And a lot of it is about, you know, re reckless western pursuit of, of gunpowder and the machinery of war. And, and greed.

dan: Well, a lot of

Reegs: of it and trust

dan: is touched on that. It's

Yeah. Yeah, it is. I like it. But it's, it's for an awful film that that is, at least it works. The fact that it's action, you know, you can't really go wrong just because it's all thrown down there and you can, and they have. But it, it wouldn't, you know, the, the fact that it is just larger than life and it, it throws all this stuff.

It's, it's obviously just bullshit. The Great wall is just a backdrop to an otherwise kind of. You know, like a zombie movie or, or kind of, you know, whatever it is, it's, it's like a plague

Reegs: Yeah. Swords and sandals type thing, but, you know, featuring a lot of like Chinese culture and that sort of thing. And yeah, I thought it was quite enjoyable. It's like, it's only about an hour and 40 minutes and it's pretty, you know,

dan: which saves it actually because it under, under that kind of time period, it fills the pace of, it moves quick enough that you can kind of watch it. If it had been a two hour move, if they'd have tried to make this into an epic or, or longer than that, it would've.

You know, it'd been unwatchable to be honest, but it was, it was borderline that, anyway, don't get me wrong, I, I, I, I know Sadie's looking at me like it was the worst movie he's seen all year. Probably

Sidey: It's definitely the worst s definitely the worst film I've seen

dan: year. Yeah.

Sidey: honestly, it was awful.

Absolutely

dan: It was, And terrible acting, but

Sidey: was bad enough for me to like laugh at it and get a kick out of it. Honestly, every time Matt Damon spoke, I was like,

what's going on? This is fucking unbelievable.

Reegs: The

Sidey: And think what maybe didn't have was that I didn't know it was gonna be monsters. I thought it was

gonna, be like a historical

army against the army sort of

thing.

Reegs: Yeah. So did I.

Sidey: So I was taken aback by that, and they were just kind of generic and rubbish. The design of them was just lazy to me.

It was preposterous, no chemistry, like between any of the leads.

Didn't like any believable performances. What it felt like was a film made for the Chinese market. And then they threw in a couple of Westerners just to sort of say, right, we might be

able to sell it, sell it to a different and then it just felt

like a

Reegs: a, well, but it was exactly pitched specifically as a cross-cultural thing to see what they could do and could they bring, could Zang, you know, this really famous Chinese director bring his style and his movie to the West, you know,

Sidey: Just bring those movies to the West and they're all right anyway.

Reegs: Yeah. Well, they, but he, this was specifically his artistic vision. This was the movie he wanted to make. And,

Sidey: it's like a weird Power Rangers movie for me.

It's just

dan: Yeah,

Reegs: It's not as good as

dan: Hood kind of thrown in and, and stuff nowhere near as good as Hero or house Alert flying daggers or, or any of those. It, it's, it's definitely not fit to,

Sidey: they also,

Reegs: was pretty good

dan: but stuff, but as, as a kind of action adventure, maybe, you know, just with the, if you'd never seen Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones or any of that and this came out, you would think, wow, that's, that's, but it, it was all just built on the back of that really for me, you just

Reegs: except it's from legends that are thousands of years old. On the Chinese side though,

Sidey: Matt Damon said he saw the director cave in to the investors and that, and, and to completely compromise his vision. Right? And he said whenever his daughter talks about it, she calls it the wall. And he says, no, it's the great wall. And she says, it's fuck all

great about it, .That's fair

dan: enough. No, I I was surprised that I, I sat for it all in one sitting.

And it didn't drag that bad for me. I mean, I, my expectations on this was, was really low. I remember it at the time, getting really bad reviews. And I'm not remembering about the monsters or anything or, or recall anything about that. But I was just thinking, is Matt Damon in a, in a film about the Great Wall that was Shit.

It doesn't seem one that I'm gonna go for. But I've seen it now and it wasn't as bad as all that. But there's lows better stuff than this.

Sidey: Do you wanna know the number stats? Yeah. Budget for it. This is just, the production budget was 150 million us. What are we thinking?

dan: I reckon it probably about the same one.

the same.

Maybe the same. Yeah.

Sidey: It made uh, the box office 335 million, but when you throw in the amount of marketing and all the rest of it, it ends up losing 75 million

Wow. Which is big numbers.

dan: But think of all those marketers that have

Sidey: They're dollar right. Have it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

dan: done well.

Reegs: the sort of sweet spot for thing I things I like, which is like a huge production movie that, you know, has loads of weirdness in it, in it. And

um,

Sidey: Enjoy the scissors as well.

yeah, That was a highlight for me,

Reegs: You know, watching all those guys in blue and red being savaged amongst a sea of green and stuff.

That was pretty cool. Could have done with a bit more violence maybe, but

Sidey: yeah.

dan: Yeah. I, I think if I say it's good, it's hyping it. So if you're gonna watch it, know that it's shit

Sidey: Right. Dan, you are now notorious for your disdain for this section of the show, the kids tv.

dan: It's, it's not true. I've just had a bit of a mind blank on it. I do actually enjoy a lot of the, the TV shows you guys put on

Reegs: Well, this was a real

Sidey: well, let's tell you what we think like this and you may want to pick it up afterwards and, and catch up because we watched Mika Yeah.

Which is in the Blippy

Reegs: Yeah.

So way back when in our La la Land

Sidey: Yeah.

Of Christ. Yeah.

Reegs: We reviewed Blippy.

Sidey: Is this the same guy?

Reegs: This is, this was the actual blippy. Yeah.

dan: Did you watch Mika and Blippy race cars at Discovery Cube? no,

Sidey: This was the big, the big Bite ride.

Reegs: Yeah. So let's a little recap of Blippy 17 million subscribers. He's got his most seen video, a 15 minute jungle animal for kids video has 895 million views.

Yeah. uh, His stuff is completely empty. Calorie TV lacking absolutely any educational or artistic value whatsoever.

And he has the weird, creepy vibe.

Sidey: I thought it did have edu I thought it was

Reegs: blippy.

Sidey: Yeah.

I'm sure when we covered it the first time it was, it had some kind of

Reegs: squirt. No, they were, yeah. He's a really cynical.

Sidey: So

Reegs: that's how he's most, he gives off the most like creepy, weird vibe, like uncle who doesn't have kids and doesn't really like them type vibe.

And his whole shtick is just to scowl in amazement at like the most banal things you've ever seen. Woo. Wow. Starts

Sidey: off with him. He, he has a kind of distinctive look about him. So he's got like trousers, braces, white shirt, and then everything. I like all the accessories are fluorescence. So he has a bright orange tie, blue and orange hat, I think. Yeah.

Reegs: Do you remember the main thing about him? St what was his name?

Sidey: His like absolutely enormous wealth off the back of this shot.

Reegs: He, he, right. So he did, he was a shot. Well, there's all of that and the sort of weirdly sort of sexual life that he lives online for a children's entertainer but he was also a like, what are they called? Like a.

video

person called Seth Steve Grossman, and he once sat on a toilet backwards and shot over his mate wearing a bicycle

Sidey: helmet.

And this episode that we watched was the big bike ride,

Reegs: why I chose it because of that. Yeah. So yeah, there's a, there's a, that Stephen John is the guy's name and there's a video out there if you wanna see him shitting on another human being.

It's out there. This, he doesn't do that. He's cold and dead behind the eyes. He's a cynical advertiser who understands the algorithm and has created all this shit. But, and he

Sidey: So in this one he has a yellow bicycle and it has a flat tire.

That's the, the driving force behind this. And then we meet the autonomous Mika.

Reegs: Yes.

Sidey: Who says, oh look, dickhead, you've got a flat tire. He's got a fixer. Did you notice that?

Yes. A fixed gear

dan: Amika is his female

Sidey: an equally irritating thing that appears on the screen and just cartwheels and just, just like squeaky. The, the voices are all really squeaky and like infantile.

Reegs: Yeah.

Her personality is sort of easily pleased in bae

Sidey: They, we meet, I've never had, like, I've never seen anyone on the screen that I've had more sympathy for than the bike mechanic that appears in just a few moments because she points out that they're, they're outside.

Bike shop, but it's also a cafe and they're like fucking blown away by the fact that you can get your bike looked at and have food and drinks there,

Reegs: The spoke bicycle cafe.

Sidey: So they ha this guy has to come out and his. He's pain. You can tell that he's like excruciating. He's living like his own personal Hell yeah. As they squeak and like squeal at him. And he has to explain like the intricacies

dan: is he like a, a normal person or is he He's

Sidey: human. Yeah. He's a human male.

And he is having to genuinely describe how you change the tire on the bike. And they're just like

ging and

Reegs: And shrieking. And there's a sort of strangely hypnotic moment when he is like pumping the wheel up and Blippy is just staring at his pumping arm, licking his lips.

And they, you know, he just shrieks in amazement like oh it looks like a circle and whatever the fuck. And they put in a new inner inner tube. It, he makes it look pretty easy. To be

Sidey: yeah, it's not.

Reegs: not. Yeah,

Sidey: It is if you're a bike mechanic, if you're an idiot like me, cause I'm a bike enthusiast. But I still would

dan: so these are adults acting like children and it's

Sidey: huge. And when I watch people like that, I just think about when they finished doing this, it's like you've murdered someone and you know, Macbeth, you wanna wash the, the blood off your hands.

Like I could never get over the shame of having to have to perform like that. Yeah.

dan: 800 and odd views would get you some money, wouldn't it?

Sidey: I know, but I wouldn't, I don't think I'd be able to put myself through that.

dan: No,

Reegs: no. Well, I, I,

Sidey: watching it's bad enough, but having to do it,

Reegs: I probably would, but it's the sort of soullessness of it all. It's so cynical and lacking in any artistic merit whatsoever. Anyway I.

Sidey: they have some food.

They

Reegs: fix a bike. They fix a bike up, they have some food. They put stickers on the helmet and ribbons and

Sidey: you ever decorated your helmet?

Reegs: Yeah, . . He does say that and nobody, everybody, yeah. Yeah. Mm. When they go and look for a helmet, she chooses it on color, which is like terrible advice to model in the,

Sidey: she should make sure it's, it's up to spec

safety

Reegs: But they don't do that.

Sidey: So they go

for a

dan: paper pink one.

Sidey: they go for a bike ride together and then they go on a tandem bike together.

And

Reegs: I was thinking about this. Would you prefer to be on the front or the back of a tandem? Have you ever done it? No. Have you done it?

dan: Yeah.

Reegs: front looks really fucking hard to me, but,

dan: yeah.

Well, you wanna be on the back, didn't you?

Sidey: No, I'd wanna be steering, I'd wanna be in

dan: wanna be sort of like just lifting my legs up in the back.

Sidey: back.

Reegs: Yeah. But then you have literally no control over. You are just like mindless legs pumping away at the back?

dan: No, just like,

Sidey: Name of your sex

dan: not not cycling

Sidey: anyway, the, the enjoyment of that is over pretty soon.

Reegs: Yeah. And

Sidey: then does it just end? I can't remember what

happens.

Reegs: They, so looking fabulous in his decorated helmet. Blippy sort of rides off into the sunset, and then he's sideswiped by an 18 wheeler. It's

Sidey: No, I remember what happened. They spell each other's names. Yeah. And it started to really bug me because this is

Mika. Yeah.

But the whole thing has been completely

Blippy,

completely taken over by Blippy.

And it's, he takes, he does all this to camera stuff. He spells out his name first and he is like, oh, and what's your name? Person whose show this actually is. And she spells out her name and then they fuck.

No, it's torture. It's absolute torture. The good thing though is it's on Netflix and you can put it on different playback speed.

So I watched it on one and a half

times,

normal speed, but because they talk in that fucking wretched, it makes no difference

So it's fine.

Reegs: the thing with like, when you watch two things like this, like there's always in the back of your mind the first question when there's a young man and woman in this is like, I wonder whether they boned, but there's no question of that whatsoever.

Because they've got like, you know, there's like no tension or chemistry between the mother. They've got this sort of vibe of they were given a school assignment and they don't really know each other and they have to do this thing together. That's their whole life shtick.

dan: So I, if I'm correct, then this is something they've started on YouTube together and it's just taken off.

Sidey: Yeah.

dan: And

now it's on Netflix and it's taken over.

Reegs: a Blippy did live shows. There was a whole fake, fake blippy

Sidey: oh con controversy.

dan: Wow. I just, yeah, I don't see what the,

Sidey: I would like to inflict on you,

dan: adventures

Sidey: I would like to inflict on you just for a couple minutes, just say, I feel like you should suffer too.

Reegs: I really despise

dan: I did try, I did try to watch it, but there's,

Sidey: this?

Reegs: My youngest one went through a time when she liked Blippy. Yeah,

Sidey: I would put in back on and say, there's

dan: fortunately, there's too many people watching my Netflix account. . I can't watch it.

Sidey: It's Oh, oh, it's painful. It's really painful.

Reegs: Yeah. Terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible.

dan: Okay. And,

Sidey: strong. recommend

dan: I'm, I'm thinking who's our other Pete likes him.

Sidey: Oh, Ryan's

dan: Ryan's world. Yeah.

Sidey: It's

probably worse than Ryan's world, I'd say.

Would you? Yeah.

dan: Yeah.

Reegs: This

is worse than Ryan's world. Ryan's world did at least develop into a slightly better show.

say

Sidey: talk like human beings might.

They do not in this

dan: It's a low bar, but even they

Sidey: yeah, I mean I wouldn't, you know, I wouldn't watch either of them, but yeah. Strong recommend.

Reegs: Yeah, absolutely. Worthless. Yeah. Strong recommend

dan: Draws us to a closed gentlemen.

Sidey: Yes. We need nominations for next week. We need to decide what day we're doing this next week.

Reegs: Cuz I'm not here on Monday.

Sidey: You are getting called in the big capital city.

and Dan's got something on. Dan's got Callum.

dan: So we will organize it though,

Sidey: We'll make it happen.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll make it happen. But good varied content this week. If not like unanimously enjoyed by all,

dan: all. have

we got nominations for

Sidey: Literally you don't listen to anything we say

dan: Yeah. No.

Sidey: So we will have nominations down, but we don't have them just

Reegs: we don't Yeah.

dan: but who's nominating?

Sidey: if you'd like.

dan: Okay. Right. Get ready.

Sidey: Okay. It's born ready. I, I should have mentioned that we have a new thing. Rigs. You supplied a new sign

Reegs: Oh yeah. Kurt. See of my nephew. We've got a a bad dad's film review, custom made light

dan: It looks really cool. Actually,

Sidey: It's really good. Yeah. We put it, we turn it on now when we're recording so that the three of us know that we're recording.

Checks We are

Reegs: where we are recording. Yeah.

Sidey: So that's cool. That's good. And on that bombshell, it's side's out.

Reegs: Rigs out.

dan: Dan's gone.