Suggested by Destroyer The Light End Dragon is a fierce opponent but I don’t think he will be a match for the Crimson Dragon here. Mainly the reason for that is the Crimson Dragon is just too powerful. These creatures are both dragons but Crimson has significantly more attack power and defense at his disposal. So when they’re trading energy blasts left and right there can only be one winner. Crimson Dragon wins.
Suggested by Destroyer Genbu is a decently strong demon with rock type abilities but this isn’t a great matchup for him. Manda II is very durable and so he can endure those attacks for quite a while. Meanwhile Genbu has nothing else up his arsenal so after getting hit by the rocks for a little while Manda II will eventually land a finishin gblow and that will be it. Genbu doesn’t really have a chance here. Manda II wins.
Suggested by Destroyer Raymond Barone isn’t really much of a fighter but that is doubly true for George. George started balding early and never hit up the gym so he lost his confidence and any chance at becoming a fighter. Meanwhile Raymond is probably about average in terms of fighting ability which should be enough here. Just throw in a few punches and he is good to go. George won’t be stopping him. Raymond Barone wins.
Suggested by Sonic It’s time for a battle of fire types! Both of these guys are strong but Incineroar is completely out of his league. These two are both fighters so you may think that’s a bit harsh but the problem is that Blaziken’s technique is so many times better than Incineroar’s. He should be able to kick the life out of this guy with minimal effort and dodge all counter attacks. Blaziken is still one of the all time strongest fire type Pokemon and it shows. Blaziken wins.
Suggested by Sonic The Flash may know himself as the fastest man alive but that’s not going to cut it against Quickman. Quickman has been shown to even out speed Megaman on occasion and his speed is absolutely crazy. While the Flash is getting tagged by everyone out there, Quickman actually uses his speed very well in combat. With his sharp arm blades he only really needs a single good hit to take the scarlet speedster out. And well…knowing Quickman’s speed I see that being rather easy! Quickman wins.
Suggested by Sonic Atlas is a lot faster than Falzar but this is a rare time where the speed won’t be enough. Falzar can easily tank Atlas’ attacks for quite a while here and then counter with a devastating blow. Atlas would need to be attacking for a very long time in order to land a decisive victory and the problem for him is that he just doesn’t have that kind of time. Meanwhile Falzar only needs to land the occasional strike and he will be on top. Falzar wins.
Suggested by Sonic Griffith is a powerful fighter and someone who has given Guts a lot of grief over the years but he’s not touching Yuno in this fight. Yuno’s mastery over wind as well as his incredible speed means that he will be dictating the terms of the battle right from the start. Griffith is really going to struggle to endure these shots because of how much power is behind them. He’s no ready to face someone like this. Yuno wins.
Suggested by Sonic Kurama is a pretty powerful demon with a long range weapon. Fox has his blasters but the shots aren’t going to connect. While Fox is fast in his own right, he’s not quite on the same level as Kurama. Throw in Kurama’s accelerated healing and that widens the gap even more. Fox is not someone to be underestimated but ultimately he doesn’t really stand a chance here. Kurama wins.
With a title like the Black Scorpion you’re expecting massive hype and lots of creature action right? Well, it takes a very long time for the big scorpion to show up. Once it does we do get a good amount of screen time but for that whole first half you’re just wondering what happened. Surely they wouldn’t be keeping the main draw of the film on the shelf for so long right? Well sometimes that’s just how it happens I guess. It’s still a decently good movie but one with relatively low replay value and loses to the average creature feature.
The movie starts off with a pair of archeologists driving around when they notice an abandoned police car. Eventually they find an empty house with a baby in it and a corpse nearby. There was no blood around though so how was this guy taken down so easily? His gun had also already fired all of its bullets. Well no time to worry about that, the characters do more investigating and sleuthing until it turns out that there are Giant Scorpions running around! They’re murdering everybody and now the heroes have to think of a way to stop them before the entire town is destroyed. First the Scorpions will destroy the town….and then the world!
Lets talk about some of the positives here first. I do think that the writing is pretty solid. It’s not amazing or anything but it makes logical sense and the script should keep you decently engaged. I like how serious everyone is about the giant scorpion threat and that the government actually gets to look decent. The two leads get rather cocky after blowing up some of the Scorpions so that they basically don’t want to hear about there being any survivors. The government puts a stop to that real quick and it’s rare to see them pull rank like that.
Additionally this allows the film to effectively have two climaxes. You have the first one in the caves and then the second one on the go when the Scorpion returns to cause vengeance. So that was pretty solid because you don’t see that happening very often. In a way the humans got super lucky here because they fumbled the bag on several occasions (Letting all the poison get destroyed, missing the target with their thunder arrow, etc) but the giant scorpion ended up destroying most of the competition on its own so that bought some time. If the Scorpions had actually teamed up with each other and with the other giant creatures then it would have been over. You could have packed humanity up, they would have stood no chance.
Even that idea (One monster destroying the rest) is one that you don’t see very often. So you’ve got some decent ideas here but the film doesn’t really make them as exciting as they could be. The giant monster fights were fairly decent though, we had some classic wrestling and all of that. All of the creatures were absolutely doomed against the big scorpion though. They never stood a chance! I felt bad for the big one in the end though, of course you know the humans have to win eventually but it was so close!
As for the main characters, well they were just pretty annoying the whole time. As I mentioned they got too cocky about beating all of the scorpions to the point where they didn’t even wanna take the government serious about their chances of being alive. Then near the beginning of the film when a lady falls off her horse it felt like they immediately jumped into a lot of flirting. She seriously had to say she was fine like 5 times before they finally got the hint and backed off. Of course we still get the obligatory romance after that which was super rushed and unneeded. These films don’t always need a romance!
Of course the worst character is the local kid who was trying to help. He disobeys orders numerous times and stows away in their vehicles more than once. In each instance he just ends up causing a lot of trouble. The worst part about him is really that he has no remorse the whole time. The guy will try to explain why what he did was wrong and the kid will just say again that he was trying to help. No apology, no “I’ll never do it again” or anything like that. So you know the kid absolutely would do this again and no lesson was learned.
Then even the local cops don’t look great here as we have a super unnecessary character death near the end. The main captain misses his shot so he goes to pick up the thunder arrow but everyone forgot to turn the charge off so he gets bumped off. The main characters then fire the second shot but that has to be one of the worst ways to go out. Because he should not have died in the first place. I’d be majorly peeved if that happened to me. Also it’s not like it was an easy shot at all, you have to aim for the weak spot by the creature’s throat while it’s running around and beating up the army. Also , props to the guys in the tanks getting up close and knowing they will be destroyed but just buying time for the heroes. That can’t have been an easy mission.
Overall, The Black Scorpion is a film where the humans tend to be annoying so you’re really going to have to be in it for the creatures. The Scorpions make for imposing villains with their huge tails and long reach. Definitely not a foe that you will want to take lightly and the movie shows just how dangerous they can be. They’re not super fast but when characters trip and don’t start their engines in time it means that the body count here will still be fairly large. I’d be down for a sequel to this some day. There’s always room for more creature feature films but I hope the humans can be a bit more likable here. Honestly you don’t have to do a lot to be a decent human in a film like this. Just make some decent plans and fight a bit, that’s all you gotta do. Also the creature should appear way earlier, the dead time before it was just too long. I mean it’s an old film so at least the dialogue is good enough where you can still get through the first half just fine but it’s very noticeable considering the film’s name when the title creature takes so long to appear.
Overall 6/10
Suggested by Destroyer Copperhead may have a solid bite that has some real venom in it but I don’t think that would pierce Kumonga’s shell. Copperhead is fast enough to try and make up for that in speed but at the end of the day that will only buy some time. He still has no way of dealing serious damage to Kumonga so it’s not really going to help him change things. Kumonga wins.
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