#axehammer

Rumble is VERY  loosely based on the Graphic Novel “Monster on the Hill”, something I DO want to check out sometime as it has it’s own unique premise: in it it’s set at the turn of the century and in this world monster attacks aren’t revilved but praised. People are proud to be scared by their local monsters but in the small locale of stoker on Avon, the people have a depressed monster named Rayburn, so it’s up to the local scientest and his boy sidekick to make this monster shine.  It’s brilliant and I will read it at some point. 

Rumble takes the bare basics: every town having a monster, their proud of, int their station. A monster named Rayburn. And the town being named Stoker after of course Bram Stoker writer of Dracula. But it updates it in it’s own unique brilliant way that still feels creative as hell, to the point I feel monster on the hill could be reapdated with the original premise and a monster name change and no one would notice. 

In the world of Rumble, instead of each town having a monster to scare people, each town has a monster due to the world wide monster wrestling league. See in this setting since ancient times monsters have naturally duked it out as much like with big sweaty men, you get a bunch of giant monsters together eventualy two are going to want to punch each other or need to have a ladder match for child custody. Eventually Human and Monster worked together to convert this into monster wrestling and the rest is history. 

As for how any of this works. .that’s one of the films high points. They put a LOT Of thought into this so as a result Monster Wrestling for the most part has clear rules, setup and pulls from not just wrestling but other sports to make it FEEL like an actual sports system while still simplified enough to work. 

As such the basic setup is the same as a standard pro wrestling match just with Kaiju: two monsters enter, beat each other up with cool acrobatic moves and powerful holds, and the winner usually wins by pinfall. But there are nice tweaks that add bits from boxing and other sports. For boxing, since it gets the most, the count is at 10 and monster wrestler have coaches who help them plan stratagey. Granted Wrestlers have managers, but coaches here work more like boxing coaches than wrestling managers so.. there you go. 

The fights are also unscripted, or to put it in wrestling terms  a shoot. Most wrestling based films do this to highten the tension and what not as “this is for realllll”, since honestly i’ts the same principal real matches use: like in a film wrestling is scripted.. but your still invested in who wins or looses anyway if the story’s told right. There’s also rounds, which again makes sense with both the coatches and not being pre-planned. 

WMW also throws in some bits and pieces of other sports: each town having a monster is much like towns having sports teams, complete with home stadiums, and the ring is in octagon instead of a square much like MMA, which makes perfect sense: the combatants are bigger and thus need more room to manuver even when you make the rings kaiju sized. 

We don’t get any special conditoin matches like regular wrestling.. but that’s fair as it keeps it simple for the story. If they end up making a sequel, which I hope for, THEN they can bring in stuff like weapons and cages to help amp it up. But keeping it just to one on one pinfall matches for this keeps the focus on the fights and the story instead of wondering how this new gimmick works.  Again common thing in wrestling movies, with both no holds barred and ready to rumble saving special stipulations for the final matches and having regular matches first. And yes I may cover both films here some day. One is so bad it’s good the other is ready to rumble. Not even David Arquette could save it and that is a hard bar to clear. Speaking of which if there’s a sequel PLEASE cast David Arquette as an evil manager or a monster himself. Dude needs more work and deserves more work because he’s fucking awesome. He’s also a former wcw champion, fought AGAINST them making him champion because itw as ab ad idea, then donated that money to people in wrestling who needed it. Guy is a legend and loves this buisness and I love him for it.. and for Scream. God bless Dewey. 

So naturally this sport has it’s own legends, and the peak of them all was Rayburn, backed by his coach the equally legendary Jimbo Coyle.  Rayburn was Monster Wrestling’s biggest draw, like Stone Cold Steve Austin or Goldberg, until one day he and Jimbo vanished at sea never to be seen again.  I geninely thought the film was setting it up for them to return at the end but no, they don’t. As far as the film’s concerned they dead. Maybe they wanted to keep something up their sleeves for a sequel, maybe it was in an original draft, maybe they just wanted to kill them without it being too graphic, I don’t know. I’m just the jackass who finds it darkly hilarious a godzilla-sized kaiju... went out drowning to death. I don’t have all the answers. 

Rayburns home city was Stoker which naturally suffered a bit after loosing i’ts biggest draw but has started to recover and now has it’s big chance to make it back as they have a new beefy boy to promote: Tentacular, a giant handsome shark man with tranlucent tatoo like skin things played by Terry fucking Crews.  I can’t belivie it’s taken almost two years to get to Terry on this blog but he’s FINALLY here. Terry Crews is a terrific man, a hell of an actor and utterly killed it with Brooklyn 99 as Terry Jeffords, cumilating in Terry breaking through the wall like the Kool-Aid Man. 

God I miss this show. So the town’s all happy for it with signs, merch and buzzing to the jimbo coyle memorial stadium. Chief among them is Winnie Coyle, Jimbo’s daughter played by  Geraldine Viswanathan of Blockers.. where she played John Cena’s daughter. Yes really. The irony is not lost on me. 

Winnie is a huge fan of her dad, monster wrestling and is essentially our surrogate as she prepares to enjoy the match. So we get our first proper match complete with entrance music! Which isn’t very good! Yeah let’s talk about that: Tentacular gets a very generic r and b song that feels like a studio mandate. It’s mostly galling because one of this films MANY production companies, seriously there’s like a full minute even for a modern movie it’s rediculous, is WWE Stuidios. And it’s not a passing sponsorship: while they didn’t take creative control far as I can tell we see a sign promoting a kaiju version of smackdown in one scene and one of the later matches has the NXT 1.0 logo in the background. Which is awkward given they’d switched, very infamously given they fired tons of stars and changed who ran it, to 2.0 the same year this ende dup coming out but still. Point is they coudl’ve leant them some good entrance music.

It’s not a budget thing either. That i’d be fine with except his oponent uses Fancy for his entrance after using Rue Britania to start. So they CAN afford lisecned tracks, they just either couldn’t, as I could see paramount picking some of the songs, or failed to use better ones. Like fancy is not a terrible song... but it’s just not a great ring entrance for the wrestler in question. When you have access to masterpieces like “Glorious”, “The Game” and “My Time is Now”, among SO many others at yoru fingers why the hell do you go with Fancy? 

As for the opponent he’s one of my faviorite monsters of the film: King Gorge, a giant bulldog with bullhorns and whose also british... a LITERAL british bulldog. Though weirdly despite this refrence there’s only two kaiju here who refrence wwe history specifically, this being a refrence to Davey Boy Smith “The British Bulldog” and the other we’ll again get to. 

And our beefy heroes bring up another of the films strengths: monster design. Each monster is unique, beauituflly animated and fun to look at. It makes it so each match no matter the length is never boring and always keeps your attention and it makes it so some have logical weaknesses to exploit. I REALLY wish this had gotten a video game tie in and hope it does some day as this would be REALLY fun to play if done properly. But to watch.. still fucking cool. 

And the weakness thing is a major plot point as Winnie, having grown up around wrestling, can spot weaknesses. Thus when it seems Tentacular might loose, she runs down to point out  a tell she noticed he has. She’s almost rebuffed by her dad’s old sidekick and sexist asshat Siggy, played by of all people Tony Danza. But Tentcular ignores him trying to play whose the boss and listens: Gorge has a tell when he’s about to ramp up: he licks his nose. So Tentacular uses that, suckers him and succesfully beats him

But as you probably guessed by the fact that the guy on the poster is NOT a bara terry crews shark... Tentacular isn’t a great guy. Not wanting to be overshadowed by rayburn. Tentacular announces despite having just won the championship and the town needing it he WON’T be repping Stoker and is moving to slitherpool. It’s a heck of a heel turn,  nice work movie. I also didn’t peg Terry Crews as someone who’d be a great heel, he mostly plays nice guys, boisterious guys or boisoterous nice guys but he’s a fucking natural at it, and only gets better as tentacular gets more heelish. And what’s a good wrestling heel without a slimy manager. Thus we enter my boy Ben Fucking Schwartz as Jimothy-Bret Chadley III. But since that name is so dumb it warps the fabirc of time, space and my patience i’m just going to call him Jean Ralphio since he’s basically playing the character again just less horny. He’s an obnoxious rich kid with a lot of money whose parents barely tolerate him whose...

I mean Jimothy isn’t up to faking his own death or getting run over by a lexus levels of greatness but he could get there someday. 

Anyways Jean-Ralphio’s family bought him a stadium in Slitherpool, fucking over Stoker and leaving everyone, Winnie in paticular devistated. Well maybe not more than fred who remodeld his diner sign to honor the guy who just peaced out with a rich kid to go work somewhere else. Fred is great by the way, he’s voiced by Monk and Wings alumnus Tony Shaloub. 

Things are worse than that though as it turns out without a monster, the funding for the stadium goes away too and puts the towns jobs in jeapordy. So the mayor and city council.. are planning to sell it to put up a parking lot. Winnie is upset about this.. but while in theory they could get another monster in practice the town needs the money the sale would give to live so it seems stuck. 

Okay two things about this. The first is simple:

THIS IS CONTRIVED AS ALL HELL

The monster wrestling world has to have even dumber laws than the kayfabe world of wrestling for this to BEGIN to make sense. And keep in mind THIS once happened in the world of wrestling

Yes i’m calling this dumber than a ladder match with a prize.. and for those of you not familiar with wrestling or this match.. yes this DID in fact happen. And THAT is still smarter than the time , RECENTLY Rey Rey lost an EYEBALL during a match in kayfabe. Yes again, really. 

My point is an athlete being able to walk out, with no consequences, potetntail lawsuits or pentalites from Stoker or the various stadium backers makes no sense for anything OTHER than plot purposes. Sure sports teams leave.. but sports teams aren’t one person. Tentacular would get sued into oblivion.  And yes I know he’s a giant sexy shark man who could just eat a human lawyer.. but this is a world where humans and monsters live side by side. That means that not only are there probably monster lawyers, not every monster wants to chokeslam i’m sure, but monsters are held to the same laws as humans. Within reason I mean there are probably allowances for accidently stepping on a car or something, it happens, but my point is there had to be a contract. This isn’t like in wrestling when a wrestler turns heel. And again look up, wrestling kayfabe law is fucking insane and nonsensical. You can bet anything on a wrestling match. Dominick Mysterio isn’t the only person to be bet on a wrestling match.  Buff Bagwell’s MOTHER was the prize in one match, on a forklift rather than a poll but still. 

But my problem with all this is all that shit has been wrestling being kinda nuts or neceisated on the dramatic payoff in situation being guys hitting each other with chairs. As such a LITTLE wiggle room is okay...again wrestling’s taken in in insane directions like “winner has to make his opponent loose his eye”, but still.  This film is a wrestling film yes, so some bollocks betting is expected and is used for the climax.. but having this entire exit dosen’t

On top of that while most towns seem to have a monster, the fact is an open slot for a monster, especially from a town that has now produced TWO champions, would send tons of monsters flocking to fill the stadium. The film seems to forget , which is VERY werid given how much it understands wrestling, that a LOT of wrestlers.. grew up watching other wrestlers on tv. Looking up to them. Wanting to be them. So while Tentacular turns up his ... nose? Do sharks have noses? does it matter for a shark tentacle man? I don’t know. Point is while Tentacular scoffs at being in rayburn’s footsteps, tons of monsters would KILL to not only have a town to represent but for it to be RAYBURN’S town. Sure the coach they have now is an inexperinced 20 something.. but for a film that’s in part about the love of the game it forgets wrestlers are fine with working up the card. So the 90 day “get another monster” thing makes no sense to me when it shoudln’t be that hard to get a workable monster. It’d take time to get another champ sure.. but loosing the champ isn’t their fault and investors would rather get merch than a quick payout from something as stupid as a giant parking lot for a town in the middle of nowhere. 

The second isn’t as frustrating but it is very noticiable

THIS FILM IS PACKED WITH SPORTS AND ANIMATION CLICHES TO A LUDICROUS DEGREE

Look while I feel animation is more of a medium than a genre the fact is, having seen 80 dozen animated family films in my life time they have certain narrative tropes writers like to use a lot, and some of those become cliches very quickly because they use them all the damn time. It’s simple storytelling. 

So it’s impressive this film uses MOST of them, while also using one or two sports movie cliches for good measure because this is a wrestling movie after all and they love those as much as any sports movie. 

And cliches can be used well and sometime their often used for good damn reason to the point you can’t do a film without them. This film has montages for instances but the fact is a sports film.. just isn’t the same without one and we all know it.  And i’m not even a sports guy but it’s just something that’s baked into the genre. But here it comes off as a lazy way to avoid having to build a plot or deeper characters so they can focus on what they clearly care about: the world. And the world for this movie, as iv’e said, is fucking amazing. Without it this movie wouldn’t be as good as it is. Outside of that... headache above, it’s incredibly well thought out. But you can have a well thought out world AND a good story. Inside Out, Toy Story, Incredibles, films that aren’t pixar probably, they put in effort for the world AND tell a great story with it. This film is enjoyable, I don’t question that. But it COULD’VE been better if they put some effort in on the story and characters. 

Instead that leaves me to use my faviorite tool the counting gag to show just HOW many, good and “oh god not this again” are baked into the film

So already from the setup of the film we have: young scrappy hero who no one belivies in, young scrappy hero who idolizes a dead parent and wants to be them, supportive mother for said hero, opening where a heroes dream falls apart after building up their expectations of finally making them, main villian who seems nice but is actually a dick (earlier than most but still counting it), comedic sidekick for said villian, crotchety old bastard who dosen’t like hero because they different, having to save the town, having to save the local sports team, having to save a thing from being demolished, no one but our hero and one or two other people beliving in saving said thing, the hero only having one parent left, a place that was once great but has now fallen on hard times or changed from what the hero remembers, bumbling rich idiot and the hero having to learn to not be the person they idolize but themselves or as spider-verse brilliantly put it “don’t do it like me, do it like you”.

So that’s

CLICHE COUNT: 13

You can see why I didn’t start the count till now as there’s SO many in just TWENTY MINUTES OF SCREEN TIME, yes 20 we haven’t even gotten into the meat of the film yet, that if I did it’d wreck the pacing. And you’d think “Well okay it’s just a bit frontloaded iwth them” but no it has more in the pocket. Yes somehow. I do like this flim but my god did they not put a lot of effort into making the story or characters feel fresh or new and given the budget, beautiful animation and wourld they damn well should’ve. 

Anyway Winnie heads to go fetch them a monster, so we actually get to see the underground scene. Fitting WWE’s view of any promotion that isn’t them it’s a dingy fight club where anything goes. This is also where the Kayfabe comes in as these matches are predetermined... granted here it’s so the owner, Lady Mayhem, can fix the bets, but like real worked matches they still take a lot of altheticisim and it’s unclear if EVERY match is worked or not, but probably. 

Winnie is taken with a female monster named Razorback, played by WWE and NXT Women’s champ winner and the boss Becky Lynch, who have I have the utmost repsect for.. and did not recognize in this film as she dosen’t use her regular voice so it’s a bit of a confusing cameo but hey, it’s still nice to have her. Razorback laughs winnie off, though unlike the other thing I get this: she’s making decent money, has fans, and would have to give all that up to play by regular rules and possibly loose. As we learn league matches are winner take all, so there’s a chance of not getting paid, something that just isn’t a problem here as long as you play by Lady Mayhem’s rules. 

So Winnie is depressed and goes to a bar to get drunk... so she’s at least 21? Anyway the guy at the bar is a friendly fella who points out the monster he bet on in the current match, a big horned red guy played by Will Arnett... who Winnie recognizes. Turns out this guy is Rayburn Junior, now going by Stupendous Steve, and she played with him. Which itself is confusing.. not the size things, monsters start out pocket sized here and grow into being kaijus. He was like a toddler sized whent hey played. No what’s confusing is the characters are close to the same age in flashback or only a few years apart at most yet steve is played like a decade older than her. Again for a film with such tight world building the slips just make me pound my head into a desk that much more that they didn’t catch this or think this through. 

Anyways naturally Winnie goes to talk to him, he tries to ignore her and the resulting mess causes steve to accidently win his match.. that he was supposed to and was trying to throw.  Steve tries to run but gets stopped by a giant furry ball thing man, a great little onster deisgn and is forfced to confront lady mayhem whose mad the match got borked and wants her money back in 90s day or it’s his ass. And i’d say a wrestling promoter getting this thretaning over a mistake would be a bit much but A) this is an underground fighting ring, she can make her own rules and getting the money back is more important than whose fault it was. and B) This is how the actual owner of the actual biggest company acts. 

Vince McMahon Frightens Me Count : 1

And yes this is a promo.. but Vince ACTUALLY ACTS LIKE THIS BACKSTAGE. The only seperation between real vince and kayfabe vince is that each one commited diffrent crimes. 

So Steve is understandably pissed at Winnie and not really into going home, given the whole changing his name and running away thing. But given he has a pissed off monster after him for money and 90 days to get it he has no other options so he reluctantly agrees. 

Steve is played by Will Arnett himself.. who while having a penchant for manchildren in general.. is basically playing a younger bojack before he REALLY fucked up his life: he has issues with his dad, who in this case put way too much pressure on following his legacy (Something they needed to do more with honestly), is sarcastic, lazy and has a paunch belly. I’m not complaining mind: watching a giant kaiju bojack horseman is a good afternoon. Just an observation is all.  So now once again it’s time for some more cliche counting! We have protaganist whose dad never understood them, main character is saddled with the best they can get, sarcastic jaded snarking male paired with peppy female who gets him to be a better person, villian with minon who is goofy yet suprisingly intimidating, secondary villian who is only in the plot to move it along and the one i’m suprised is a cliche, chacter character owing a lot of money or money substitute to a shady mob boss. 

Cliche Count: 19

So this unlikely duo head back to Stoker. To get training. Also we get Winnie’s mom, and I almost forgot to include this, saying “use the monster you have not the monster you want”. Which one, phrasing, and two... you probably could’ve got this across without just yelling your point at the audience. 

 As you’d expect things don’t go great as the idea of getting up at 6 is foriegn to steve who flat out refuses. So Winnie decides to shove his words of “get me a match and i’ll do the rest” down his throat.. not literally, he’d probably swallow her by accident. 

So to kick the guys ass into shape she books him a match. And the setting is really cool: it’s at a shiping yard with plenty of spectators at night, so it’s surrounded by boxes, having a sort of underground feel but without being underground like the last match. Feels like they slammed Ken and Zangiefs stages from Street Fighter II together honestly, shit’s awesome. 

His opponent is Ramarilla Jackson

A... well gorilla. NOt a lot of ram in him though weirdly. You’d think with the name. But he’s got hammer like hands so he has SOMETHING going for him.  Winnie tries coaching steve who rebuffs her... till he tries to play it like he does and play dead. After going back to his corner Winnie announces the catch: as I mentioned earlier Monster Wrestling Matches are winner take all. So while the cash payout is enormous you get nothing from jobbing. And this structure does make sense: it gives every match stakes as the winner gets paid and gurantees a decent sized match. Squash matches, i.e. one wrestler steamrolling another, have their place and are a staple of the industry.. but they just don’t work in a version of it with such a small roster: ther’es likely only so many registered towns (Jimothy-Ralphio had to get his parents to buy him a staidum and stadiums irl are expensive so imagine them for kaiju) so having them get clocked in 12 seconds dosen’t work.  So Steve has to actually put in effort, which terrifies him. With ya man. But Winnie has a plan

No really, she pegs Ramarilla has having great offense but no stamina. Hence if steve can just keep away from him long enough he’ll tire out and Steve will net the W. It’s not PRETTY.. but they also don’t have any other options. So steve runs around the ring, sadly not to yakkity sax, and even though he ends up on top of the containers running from ramarilla at one point.. he still wins. Technically. This also brings us to our next cliche, a character winning their first match or whatever in a sports movie entrely by luck or circumstance despite doing really bad. 

Cliche Count: 20

The match dosen’t go over well though as we get one of the films handful of talking heads segment. Though sadly instead of getting actually wrestling color commentary people for this.. they got two guys I haven’t heard of as a giant angler fish type kaiju and his black human cohost. The Angler guy is a likeable enough guy, rooting for our heroes while his human pal.. lis an angry dick who constnatly raves about how “this isn’t really wrestling”. And he’s one of the more annoying parts of the film as if I wanted to hear some guy say “this isn’t wrestling” without it being funny intresting or anyhting i’d go refollow Jim Cornette. And yes the irony that a character whose a strawman for guys like Cornette is black does not escape me. 

So while running worked once they have to up their game but once again, as you’d expect things don’t go well which means it’s time to up the count as it’s time for the two to have a blow up followed by an emotional moment that helps them connect better. 

Cliche Count: 21

Again I don’t hate these tropes, this one’s fine, but i’ve seen it in so many animated movies. IN this case Winnie keeps trying to make Steve follow his dads old plays and train like him till he snaps.. and accidnetly blows away the book. To his credit though, he apologizes and the film does give us a valid reason this dosen’t work for him: during the training earlier he gets a flashback where his dad tried to railroad him into doing his moves, being kind of a dick about it. 

And this has given steve a complex as he explains: He ran away from stoker for the same reasons Tentacular strutted away: he was tired of being compared to his dad. It creates a nice contrast between the two: Both have a valid wish in NOT wanting to be compared to Rayburn constantly. The diffrence is how they went about it. Steve left sure, but he left when Stoker had another monster, was disappointing nobody and simply wanted to find his own path away from his dad. He did it unhealthily, fight clubbing and hiding , but you can’t blame him after having what had to be a pretty shitty childhood being constantly told “you have to live up to my legacy son!” and never allowed to be himself. 

Tentacular by contrast IS allowed to be himself.. but is so insecure and resentful of his town having a history before him, of not being THE center of attnetoin but the succesor to an all time great, of being just SLIGHTLY in someone’s shadow, something he’d likely of crawled out of with time.. .he abandons a bunch of people who NEED him just to satisfy his own ego. Just to be the best and spite a guy he likely never knew simply because he HAS to be center of attention nor nobody is. 

And it’s why Winnie eases up on Steve: he still needs to train and shape up sure, but she now sees she was trying way too hard to be her own dad. Sure JImbo didn’t abuse her.. but she’s not him and Steve’s not rayburn and if she wants to save her town.. she has to start thinking like herself and let Steve be himself. 

So she starts over, asking what steve enjoys. And after relatable answers like napping and sitting, he gives one that’s also relatable, even if he’s far better at it than me: dancing. While naturally as you’d expect he denys it , which gives us another one as “character has goofy passion they deny that gives them the 

Cliche Count: 22

Still it works. As Winnie notes wrestling is mostly footwork. And other things but she’s not wrong, so she simply translates that into dancing, which not only gets steve actually motivated, but bonds the two as we finally get a proper training montage

Cliche Count: 23

There’s another montage later, but i’m only counting for the one. Just because it happens twice dosen’t mean i’m going to double it’s spot on the count.  So steves next match against a lucha style lizard man goes much better as his salsa means steve can easily dodge, and dances his way to a victory and the pin. It’s geninely charming and fun to watch.

My issue with it is more the commentary guy I mentioned: he just wont’ stop raving about how “dancing isn’t wrestling”. One Fandango, Tyler Breeze, Disco Inferno, Brodius Clay and Too Cool would like to have words with you and two... it comes off as whining over a gimmick that’s not tha tbad and is unique and intresting, with Steve showing real dancing tequnique while being badass.  Besides i’ve seen and heard of SO many gimmicks that are worse. And since I got you here

Let’s do this.

We have Akeem the African Dream, a white man pretending to be a black man in a dashiki, Kerwin White, a latino man forced to pretend to be a white man, Beaver Clevage, you don’t want to know and if you do.. i’m so sorry, Paul Vergil, first a pirate then incest, Issac Yankem DDS, the Repo Man, both self explaintory, Sparky Plug, the nascaar driver/wrestler, Bastion Booger, he nasty, Atom Bomb, he from the future, Arachniman, guess, Hornswoggle, he’s a leprechaun, Lumberjack WIlliam Regal, HE’S A MAN, SUCH A MAN, Mike Awesome as both the fat chick thriller and that 70′s guy, again both self explantiory, Hugh G. Rection, yes really, The Booty Man, again YES REALLY, Zodiac, who befor eyou say “that sounds kind of cool” he went yes no yes, THE YETAAAYYYy, who was actually a mummy, and the king of all thorughly stupid , throughlly laughed at , throughly questionable gimmicks, THE SHOCKMASTER!

I have no words, such poetry. And so many questions. Even if he HADN’T fell over the wall.. he’s still a paunchy man in a glittery stormtrooper helmet and black vest who sounds like dr.claw. Just one of these thigns woudln’t hurt his drawing power but why all at once? 

So yeah we get a montage as steve gets in shape and fights more opponents the major one being Jokerzuna, basically gamera combined with yokozuna, a sumo wrestler wwe legend. Since he’s a big boy, Steve has to practice with Razorback to be able to life him dirty dancing style, allowing steve to eventaully win. 

So our heroes are on the up and even get a match with Gorge... it’s because Gorge is still traumatized form his last loss but still. 

Then thigns take a turn as the mayor and councilwoman decided to sell anyway because fuck this plot making any sense. Like.. you guys HAVE the monster now, even if he’s a comedy babyface, he’s still a mo nster. They can’t legally pull the money. That was the problem. 

Also “shockingly” given he hasn’t been in the film for an hour despite being the obvious final boss, Tentacular is behind it, wanting to tkae his petty wrestling dickery from regular heel to “ric flair buying hulk hogan’s orphanage on baywatch” levels of heel by ruining the town. The mayor agrees and even lets jimothy sign it on his back and Winnie is left crushed by everyone being stupid. Like.. you get more money from having a monster you can slwoly make a champ than a fucking parking lot. and your selling to someone obviously and transparently shady! Just find another billionare who WANTS a monster fighting franchise and let him buy it! 

So both me and Winnie get some and while Steve TRIES to help her, she’s down which leads to him going back to pay his debts and her moping, so we hit another as we get “the heroes have a falling out and things are really bad”.. only really stupidly handeled because them going bad makes no sense and Steve has no reason to go back to throwing fights or any motivation too anymore.  Paying his old boss back? Sure, but why does he go back there? Why any of this?

God my head hurts, so point is Steve comes back and after getting jabbed in the eye, makes his own inspirisng speech to winnie, pointing out he dosen’t want to go back to who he was, and even if they loose the stadium.. they have each other. He wants to be a better person and knows she has it in her.. and he actually has a plan to save things. 

So as Jimothy Ralphio gets booed and Tentacular prepares to blow it up real good.. nothing happens

Naturally our heroes stopped it, with Steve making an entrance and offering a match: he wins, Tentacular dosen’t tear it down. Tentacular, who choked steve earlier, laughs it off at first.. till steve reveals himself as Rayburn Jr, taking back his dad’s name. Not for a legacy or because of the pressure.. but because it’s the only way to help his friend. 

And thus he offers Tentacular the one thing he can’t turn down: a chance to completely and utterly destroy rayburns legacy and once and for all remove him form his predecessors shadow.  It’s also a brilliant play: even if Tentacular wasn’t such an egotistical manchild that he coudln’t resisit the chance to beat up the closest thing he has to rayburn and prove himself once and for all, and he does not, given there’s news coverage of this event, hence every character we’ve met finds out the reveal about steve, Tentacular will look weak if he dosen’t honor the bet, and it means Winnie can book it in stoker, so the town likewise gets a GIANT match with all the buisness that comes with it: the prodigal son of rayburn himself versus the man who wants to bury his legacy. It’s a perfectly built build for this match and awesome as hell. And since the bet is ONLY for Steve to go three rounds (Winnie got excited), the town gets it’s money either way: if they win and keep the stadium, they now have a monster who just surivived three rounds with the champ and lived and whose the son of their biggest hero. He’s both guarnatteed a future title shot and bigger matches from this. If he looses.. well the contract isn’t void then and they still get the money needed to keep going. But it still works because the stakes are personal: our heroes are fighting for their dad’s legacies and for themselves against someone we want to see go down. And often.. that’s what makes a good wrestling match. The belts nice but it’s the beef between the two fighting over it, the struggle to get there tha makes it FEEL gigantic. Also big bet based entirely on a sports match

Cliche Count: 24

That said while this was a big swing Winnie isn’t dumb: She knows Tentacular is a massive step up from the mid carders and low carders they’ve been facing. Thankfully the town bands together and makes a neat obstacle choice. So we get a training montage.. sadly not set to I get knocked down as is teased as the song peters out after Steve gets knocked down but it still works. 

The town thing is eh for me though: While I like them coming together they never feel like a character, something you need for this film. 

So steve trains, cleverly using some shipping boxes to simulate the tentacles and runs a gauntlet before running up a hill while winnie tries to kill him with a forklift, ole. He wins and IT’S TIME FOR YOUR MAIN EVENT. RABOGRRGLE

The atmosphere is tense, thigns are set, let’s do it to it: So Steve gets the only proper entrance music of th emovie, a salsa version of eye of the tiger. A bit of an easy choice for the song being covered sure.. but it’s so damn cool I can’t help but love it. Tentacular gets another nothing song and we  GET READY TO RUMBLLLLE complete with Micheal buffer, the guy who made up that catchphrase.  Before the match Steve has a bout of nerves both due to seeing his dad on the banners in the stadium and his opponent. So Winnie gives him a rousing speech (Steve told her not to earlier then wonders why she didn’t before now because it helps), pointing out how far he’s come and how he’s his own monster and can win this by being himself and you know the rest. Oh almost forgot, be yourself moral

Cliche Count: 25

This pumps him up and round one goes their way, with steve dancing through the danger and dodging everything. But then things get clever as instead of just having tentacular counter it normally, finally taking the match seriously etc. But no smartly the narrative dosen’t have his own arrogance be his downfall like you’d expect. I mean that trope works, just ask Vlad Masters, but here they went with something that works better: tentacular and old man whose name i’m not bothering to look up more than once thought ahead. Thus when Steve tries salsaing away next round.... Tentacular TANGOES with him. Besides giving us furries what we asked for it’s a damn clever twist, showing that as much as they dont’ LIKE the whole dancing gimmick, Tentacular isn’t above learning it. It also shows that while Winnie netted him the championship.. this guy DID earn it himself. He’s a dick sure, but he’s not an incomptient dick. 

He also chokes steve, again because that was clearly someone on the team’s thing, and is forced to let go with old man whose name I dont’ care about urging Winnie to give up. SHe almost does... but Steve dosen’t want her to. Even if he’s at risk of getting hurt worse.. he wants to try. It’s not about the stadium, or about jimbo, it’s about the two of them proving they can do this. 

So he lets Winnie actually coach him, using a combo of his agility and dancing ablility with actual wrestling moves. THis leads to a REALLY awesome and tense third act: while, let’s face it, we know their going to win, this movie isn’t rocky after all, the film does what a good wrestling match does: has you buy into the narrative: you dn’t FEEL that steve’s win is guarnateed so you buy totally into it hoping for him to. 

The finish is equally spectacular.. and kind of hilaroius. Steve tries to do an elbow drop, tentacular throws a chair.. except it’s people sized so it instead goes flying past him and only hits him in teh eye scausing him to tumble over. But even with that our two combatants are too exausted and it’s down to if they can even stand. Tents can, but it seems like Steve is out.. until the crowd starts clapping in time thanks to winnie’s mom, the beat slowly rasing him as the croud chants “RAYBURN JUINOR (CLAP CLAP) RAYBURN JUNIOR”

Steve gets up and does his dad’s finishing move on a dazed and shocked tentacular, winning the match, saving the stadium.. and to his shock WINNING the championship. Tentacular is left beaten and in disbelief, Jim-Ralphio gets hit with a chair in one of the best gags of the film and we end with a dance party. 

Cliche Count: 26

Still for once this one works as.. what else were they gonna do? Honestly. 

Final Thoughts:

Rumble is FAR from a perfect film. As the count up there suggests ther’es a lot of well trod ground and some very annoyingly baffling plot points. But despite this.. it’s still really fun. It truly loves wrestling and celebrates it, the animation is gorgeous and the cast is great. IT’s a truly fun movie if not a great one and I genuinely want it to get a paramount+ spinoff series. Wrestling is perfecctly built for a show a week format and there’s tons more to do from here: where does Steve go from here? whose he fight next? what next level opponents does he fight now? Who from his past will come out of the woodworks now he’ scome out as Rayburn jr? How do he and Winnie handle the pressure of being #1 in the world. What’s tentacular do now? Lots of good questions, please answer them.  So yeah not the best film.. but I had fun anyway and if you love wrestling or will arnett, then you’ll enjoy taking three rounds with this film.