Antibiotic resistance: World on cusp of 'post-antibiotic era'

By James Gallagher

Health editor, BBC News website

19 November 2015

The world is on the cusp of a "post-antibiotic era", scientists have warned after finding bacteria resistant to drugs used when all other treatments have failed. They identified bacteria able to shrug off the drug of last resort - colistin - in patients and livestock in China. They said that resistance would spread around the world and raised the spectre of untreatable infections. It is likely resistance emerged after colistin was overused in farm animals. Bacteria becoming completely resistant to treatment - also known as the antibiotic apocalypse - could plunge medicine back into the dark ages. Common infections would kill once again, while surgery and cancer therapies, which are reliant on antibiotics, would be under threat. Chinese scientists identified a new mutation, dubbed the MCR-1 gene, that prevented colistin from killing bacteria.

The report in the Lancet Infectious Diseases showed resistance in a fifth of animals tested, 15% of raw meat samples and in 16 patients. The resistance was discovered in pigs, which are routinely given the drugs in China. And the resistance had spread between a range of bacterial strains and species, including E. coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. There is also evidence that it has spread to Laos and Malaysia. Prof Timothy Walsh, who collaborated on the study, from the University of Cardiff, told the BBC News website: "All the key players are now in place to make the post-antibiotic world a reality. If MCR-1 becomes global, which is a case of when not if, and the gene aligns itself with other antibiotic resistance genes, which is inevitable, then we will have very likely reached the start of the post-antibiotic era. At that point if a patient is seriously ill, say with E. coli, then there is virtually nothing you can do."

Resistance to colistin has emerged before. However, the crucial difference this time is the mutation has arisen in a way that is very easily shared between bacteria. "The transfer rate of this resistance gene is ridiculously high, that doesn't look good," said Prof Mark Wilcox, from Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. His hospital is now dealing with multiple cases "where we're struggling to find an antibiotic" every month - an event he describes as being as "rare as hens' teeth" five years ago. He said there was no single event that would mark the start of the antibiotic apocalypse, but it was clear "we're losing the battle".

The concern is that the new resistance gene will hook up with others plaguing hospitals, leading to bacteria resistant to all treatment - what is known as pan-resistance. Prof Wilcox told the BBC News website: "Do I fear we'll get to an untreatable organism situation? Ultimately yes. Whether that happens this year, or next year, or the year after, it's very hard to say."

Early indications suggest the Chinese government is moving swiftly to address the problem. Prof Walsh is meeting both the agricultural and health ministries this weekend to discuss whether colistin should be banned for agricultural use. Prof Laura Piddock, from the campaign group Antibiotic Action, said the same antibiotics "should not be used in veterinary and human medicine". She told the BBC News website: "Hopefully the post-antibiotic era is not upon us yet. However, this is a wake-up call to the world." She argued the dawning of the post-antibiotic era "really depends on the infection, the patient and whether there are alternative treatment options available" as combinations of antibiotics may still be effective.

New drugs are in development, such as teixobactin, which might delay the apocalypse, but are not yet ready for medical use. A commentary in the Lancet concluded the "implications [of this study] are enormous" and unless something significant changes, doctors would "face increasing numbers of patients for whom we will need to say, 'Sorry, there is nothing I can do to cure your infection.'"

[Well it appears that not only are our politics moving back to the Middle Ages (complete with Crusades!) but our medicine is going that way too. It appears that the best thing to do in decades to come is not to get ill and definitely not to have any unnecessary surgery. Let’s hope (at least until we’re ready for it) that the whole Black Death thing holds off for a while longer….]

Just Finished Reading: Hope and Glory – Britain 1900-1990 by Peter Clarke (FP: 1996)

Despite the difficulty of rendering 90 years of 20th century British history into a mere 404 pages I do enjoy the efforts made and appreciate the resultant overview that I can fill in at a later date confident in knowing a seal about the background. Books such as this provide the map, the territory, into which (God like) we can focus our attention on a particular incident (the 9 days wonder of the 1926 General Strike for example) or on a particular person (Winston Churchill, Lloyd George, Asquith, Chamberlin, Thatcher and a hundred other political giants of the age) in later follow up books now knowing that such events and such people shaped the world we live in today.

Of course, as with any work such as this much is left out. This volume is an unapologetic political history of Britain with only short confined forays into cultural history (there are very fine chapters on the growth of mass communication - the BBC etc and the rise in prominence of women in British society) and, to be honest is far more focused on England than its UK neighbours in Wales and Scotland. Ireland is mentioned somewhat more but only, by and large, as an English problem rather than an Irish history per se. But none of this came as any great surprise (or disappointment) as the author had already laid his cards clearly on the table for all to see.

What I did find odd (and a tad confusing/disconcerting) is how the author broke up the 90 years under review. He certainly didn’t arbitrarily divide things, as they are often divided, into decades but into political chunks of time often delineated by elections won or lost. So we have a chapter covering 1900-1908 and another (oddly that it covers WW1) 1916-1922. It took a little getting used to I admit although it did fit admirably into the authors narrative flow. Another thing that helped move things along was the author’s humour which seemed at times to be delightfully irreverent especially coming from a professional historian – from Cambridge! I guess that there have been enough historic events and characters (in the full sense of the word) for provide humourist grist for the historian’s mill and this author certainly found his fair share.

Overall the theme of the book was a challenge to the idea of (inevitable) decline from the 19th and early 20th centuries of glory and empire. Yes, after WW2 the British Empire basically went into a tailspin but it was a managed withdrawal handled far better than (for instance) the French withdrawal from Algeria and South East Asia. It is also unarguable that the Commonwealth was no Empire but it was never intended as a faux substitute. In one sense British power (or more accurately firepower) did decline substantially after WW1 but what we lost in one area we more than gaining in another – in the financial impact of London and our cultural impact which has long been well above what might be expected from a small island off the coast of Western Europe.

I admit that this was a dull read at times. Much like my history course in college this volume dwelt too much on who won what election by how many seats. Such things interest me hardly at all. However, apart from these rather narrow trips down our political history I found this book very interesting indeed and it has, rather inevitably, given me some ideas to follow up in future. Much more British history to come.  

[2015 Reading Challenge: A book written by an author with your same initials– COMPLETE (29/50)]

Cartoon Time.

My Favourite Movies: The Bourne Legacy (2012)

Some of you will already know how much I liked the Bourne trilogy which changed my view of Matt Damon forever. So here we have a kind of spin-off without the man himself. How’s that going to work? Needless to say I was in two minds about this but three things pushed me over the edge of wanting to see it (ignoring the whole Bourne thing for a moment) – the trailer which looked interesting and the fact that I liked the two leads, Jeremy Renner (who plays ‘Subject 5’ AKA Aaron Cross) who I a lot of time for and Rachel Weisz (who plays geneticist Dr Marta Shearing) and who I think is very underrated.

But what really impressed me about this movie was the fact that the director (Tony Gilroy) took his time to actually tell a story rather than just string together the usual action sequences with the minimal of fuss in between. Interestingly this film wasn’t actually a sequel to any of the existing Bourne films but actually happened at the same time as the first movie – and actually cut scenes from The Bourne Identity into the narrative to allow the audience to see where everything fitted in. That, of course, was another thing that impressed me – the fact that the director expected the audience to be intelligent enough to keep up with the complex storyline and (I think) had expected them to come already having seen (and understood?) the previous three films.

You definitely had to keep your wits about you with this one. Not only was their lots (and I mean lots) of covert goings on in the CIA and other agencies – and these activities being covered up (usually by killing people) – but there was also a lot of discussion of the Programme itself which was designed to ‘tweak’ the human body chemically (and later virally) to enhance both physical and mental abilities – where do I sign up I couldn’t help thinking! However, with most of the complexity in the background (brilliant to watch but nevertheless happening in the shadows and dark corners of the plot) the central story is a simple one. After the attempt to kill Aaron Cross fails (I’m not giving a great deal away here!) he needs to obtain a secure supply of his ‘chems’ to be able to function at the levels he’s used to and useful for. To do that he latches onto Dr Shearing (Weisz) and incidentally saves her life from another aspect of the rolling cover-up. Much explanation (and a great virtual ‘chase’ scene) ensue as they go where the ‘chems’ are.

Of course the great thing about series like this is the amount of depth they can develop after four movies which I personally love to delve into. Equally expected from the whole Bourne series is amazing action and especially close-in fight scenes that, I think, changed this aspect in other thrillers afterwards (as seen in the new Bond films for one thing). I still remember Jason Bourne defeating a baddie with a rolled up magazine – and it came across as totally believable! Cross doesn’t do anything quite that off the wall but he does have an interesting encounter with a Hellfire armed Drone that I thought was superb if a little far-fetched. There’s some pretty good fight scenes (mostly with normal people) and a great motorbike chase in Manilla to finish off that I enjoyed a great deal. Overall I thought it an excellent addition to the Bourne storyline and I hope that they make more of them.

Cartoon Time.

Change in sense of humour 'a sign of impending dementia'

By Michelle Roberts

Health editor, BBC News online

10 November 2015

An increasingly warped sense of humour could be an early warning sign of impending dementia, say UK experts. The University College London study involved patients with frontotemporal dementia, with the results appearing in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.

Questionnaires from the friends and family of the 48 patients revealed many had noticed a change in humour years before the dementia had been diagnosed. This included laughing inappropriately at tragic events. Experts say more studies are now needed to understand how and when changes in humour could act as a red flag for dementia. There are many different types of dementia and frontotemporal dementia is one of the rarer ones. The area of the brain it affects is involved with personality and behaviour, and people who develop this form of dementia can lose their inhibition, become more impulsive and struggle with social situations.

Dr Camilla Clark and colleagues recruited 48 patients from their dementia clinic at University College London. And they asked the friends or relatives of the patients to rate their loved one's liking for different kinds of comedy - slapstick comedy such as Mr Bean, satirical comedy such as Yes, Minister or absurdist comedy such as Monty Python - as well as any examples of inappropriate humour. Nearly all of the respondents said, with hindsight, that they had noticed a shift in the nine years before the dementia had been diagnosed.

Many of the patients had developed a dark sense of humour - for example, laughing at tragic events in the news or in their personal lives. The dementia patients also tended to prefer slapstick to satirical humour, when compared with 21 healthy people of a similar age. Dr Clark said: "These were marked changes - completely inappropriate humour well beyond the realms of even distasteful humour. For example, one man laughed when his wife badly scalded herself."

Dr Simon Ridley, of Alzheimer's Research UK, said anyone concerned about changes in their behaviour should speak to their GP. "While memory loss is often the first thing that springs to mind when we hear the word dementia, this study highlights the importance of looking at the myriad different symptoms that impact on daily life and relationships," he said. "A deeper understanding of the full range of dementia symptoms will increase our ability to make a timely and accurate diagnosis."

[I did struggle with this idea. I’m OK with the idea that a radical personality change can indicate a physical brain problem. But I’m less convinced that a ‘warped sense of humour’ (whatever exactly that means and how on earth you’d agree on it) points to early onset dementia and needs medicalising. Aren’t we moving into an area where, for the later good of a patient of course, we start prescribing drugs to supress behaviour that society judges as ‘inappropriate’? That is a very dangerous road to go down I feel and although no doubt well intentioned this study did ring decided alarm bells for me. Maybe some pills will help me sort that out?]

Just Finished Reading: Purge by Sofi Oksanen (FP: 2008)

Estonia, 1992. Aliide Truu just wants to survive. That is her only aim and after decades of doing so, through an early peasant life of hard backbreaking work, the German invasion, The Russian invasion and Occupation, the Soviet collapse and the slow death of peasant existence she’s getting pretty good at it. But the only way to survive in that world is to be hard and carry secrets buried so deep that they will never be revealed. Zara is also a survivor and has almost as many secrets. But Zara is also on the run from the Russian mafia who have been using her in the illegal sex trade in Germany. When they meet, deep in the Estonian forest, it seems like an accident at first. But some of Zara’s secrets involve Aliide and it slowly becomes clear that they have more than a casual connection. But both women have forgotten how to trust and cannot bring themselves to share secrets even if it might save both of their lives.

This is rather a strange book and not just because of its Finnish/Estonian origins. It’s told in a series of flashbacks told from multiple viewpoints which hop between the 1990’s and the 1940’s and times in-between. The story advances slowly (actually too slowly I felt at times) and although you learn quite a bit about both women – from memories and from their conversations in Aliide’s kitchen – I never really engaged with their life stories (tragic though they were). Despite the fact that both of them demanded sympathy for what had happened to them I never developed any kind of emotional attachment to either. I suppose in a lot of ways neither of the women were particularly likable, so I had problems caring a great deal about them.

This is not to say that the novel was particularly badly written – it wasn’t. It was certainly visual enough and more than believable enough considering things reported in the press. Also knowing a little of the experience (thankfully at third hand) of Soviet Occupation those passages that related to that rang true. Yet still I failed to engage. I guess from my point of view there was insufficient tension throughout undoubtedly not helped by my lack of caring for either woman. I hesitate to use the word ‘boring’ but I felt that this definitely moved in that direction. I did actually toy, from time to time, with abandoning it but managed to keep the pages turning to the end. Be warned that there’s a substantial amount of violence in this book generally directed at women and that the sex content is quite high too. Considering the context of the sex this is definitely not one for the faint hearted.

Translated from the Finnish/Estonian by Lola Rogers    

Cartoon Time.

Just Finished Reading: Spike Island - Portrait of a Police Division by James McClure (FP: 1980)

I could see early on why it took me several attempts to finish this book. It had been sitting on my shelf for years (I think I might have bought it new!) after at least one – or possibly two – previous attempts to read it. Unfortunately it’s actually quite badly written. Fortunately I’m made of much sterner stuff these days and there was enough of interest, buried in the meandering text, to keep me going long after I gave up previously. Plus I had a box to tick for the 2015 Reading Challenge!

This is a 533 page rambling account of the daily life of a police force in what was at the time the toughest inner city area in Western Europe. That quite a claim to fame though I suspect it probably wasn’t true. The interesting thing from my point of view is that ‘A’ Division immediately bordered where I was born – Toxteth in Liverpool – and many an officer mentioned just how bad it was there. OK, we moved away some years before this book was written but I never thought it was all that bad. Sure I grew up in a two bedroom house occupied essentially by two families (Mum, Dad, Brother, Me & Grandad/Grandma) but I never really noticed the poverty that must have existed back then. I guess that children don’t really notice that sort of thing – at least not for a while.

It was funny though, reading about the people the police came across – the criminals (often referred to as ‘bucks’), the victims, the needy and the lost. If we had stayed in that area I couldn’t but help thinking that I might have been one of them (if I hadn’t actually appeared as a cameo in the book as a buck that is!). There but for the grace of my parent’s forethought and planning….  

The author does, despite his wandering narrative, bring up some interesting ideas – although most of what he talked about has been overtaken by events. This was a time, despite the actions of the IRA, that the police (rank and file as well as senior officers) were dead set against being armed on a regular basis. Several of those interviewed had a deep repugnance for firearms and only issued them when absolutely necessary. This has changed a great deal although the average ‘bobby’ still goes unarmed most of the time. The other big topic discussed at length – from both sides – was the integration of women into the regular force patrolling rough areas on foot with nothing to protect them but their radio to call for help (in those days women officers didn’t even carry batons). Part of the worry from senior officers was that their male colleagues would over-react if a female officer got into trouble. But in the main having a woman confronting male offenders more often than not calmed things down. I’m not sure if that would happen today.

A few things did surprise me. One was the basic lack of equipment. Mostly on foot – with a handful of cars to draw on – police still flagged down taxi’s or even buses to get to a disturbance. Another thing was the acceptance of violence as a fact of life – that at some point in their career they’d probably end up in hospital after being in a fight. There was lots of talk, as you might expect, and much criticism of the legal system especially aimed at defence lawyers who seemed less interested in justice (or even the law) and more interested in being payed or simply criticising the police. Politicians came in for some equally frank criticism for both not helping the crime situation (being focused too much on statistics) or for actually making things worse. No solutions to either of these problems was forthcoming.

Overall, despite its many flaws, this was a reasonably interesting read. I did find it at times fascinating to ‘see’ parts of Liverpool I’d been to, lived near or visited later described from a police officer’s point of view. I honestly did raise an eyebrow (or maybe both) when one police inspector talked about Toxteth exploding in violence soon if nothing was done about things – a year or so later this is exactly what happened in the worst riots for a generation. Interesting from an historic and an anthropological perspective.

[2015 Reading Challenge: A book that takes place in your hometown – COMPLETE (28/50)]

Cartoon Time.

MI5 'secretly collected phone data' for decade

From The BBC

5th November 2015

MI5 has secretly been collecting vast amounts of data about UK phone calls to search for terrorist connections. The programme has been running for 10 years under a law described as "vague" by the government's terror watchdog. It emerged as Home Secretary Theresa May unveiled a draft bill governing spying on communications by the authorities. If it becomes law, the internet activity of everyone in Britain will be held for a year by service providers. Police and intelligence officers will then be able to see the names of sites suspected criminals have visited, without a warrant.

Mrs May told MPs the proposed powers were needed to fight crime and terrorism but civil liberties campaigners warned it represented to a "breathtaking" attack on the internet security of everyone living in the UK. The draft bill aims to give stronger legal cover to the activities of MI5, MI6 and the police and introduce judicial oversight of spying operations. It confirmed that Britain's secret listening post GCHQ has been intercepting internet messages flowing through Britain in bulk, as revealed by US whistleblower Edward Snowden, "to acquire the communications of terrorists and serious criminals that would not otherwise be available". It also revealed that the UK security services have been allowed to collect large amounts of data on phone calls "to identify subjects of interest within the UK and overseas", provided they comply with certain safeguards, set out in a supporting document also published on Wednesday.

The draft bill aims to tighten up these safeguards and put the bulk collection of data on a firmer legal footing. Taken together with the other measures, the home secretary said the bill would give the security services a "licence to operate". While GCHQ's programmes were exposed by Snowden, this one by MI5 remained secret. There were hints about the capability in the speech by MI5 boss Andrew Parker the week before the draft Investigatory Powers Bill was published, when he talked about how "accessing data quickly, reliably and at scale is as fundamental to our work…..without communications data for example we could not have detected and disrupted numerous plots over the last decade." He, like the home secretary, claimed that bulk communications data was used to "identify, at speed, links between the individuals plotting to bomb the London Stock Exchange in 2010". Now - along with other capabilities - the bulk data programme is out in the public and up for debate.

In her Commons statement, Mrs May referred to the 1984 Telecommunications Act, under which she said successive governments had allowed security services to access data from communications companies. The data involved the bulk records of phone calls - not what was said but the fact that there was contact - with companies required to hand over domestic phone records. BBC security correspondent Gordon Corera said the programme, which sources said was used to track terrorists and save lives, was "so secret that few even in MI5 knew about it, let alone the public". The government's independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, David Anderson QC, told the BBC the legislation used to authorise the collection was "so vague that anything could be done under it". He added: "It wasn't illegal in the sense that it was outside the law, it was just that the law was so broad and the information was so slight that nobody knew it was happening".

Mr Anderson has called for a "comprehensive" new law governing surveillance, which the government has produced with the wide-ranging draft Investigatory Powers Bill. Mrs May told MPs the draft bill was a "significant departure" from previous plans, dubbed the "snoopers' charter" by critics, which were blocked by the Lib Dems, and will "provide some of the strongest protections and safeguards anywhere in the democratic world and an approach that sets new standards for openness, transparency and oversight". The proposed legislation will be consulted on before a bill is formally introduced to Parliament in the New Year, Mrs May said. It will then have to pass votes in both houses of Parliament. Labour's shadow home secretary Andy Burnham backed the draft bill, saying it was "neither a snoopers' charter nor a plan for mass surveillance".

[Well, it’s heart-warming to know that I can sleep safely in my bed with MI5 and GCHQ listening into my phone calls and tracking which websites I go to. After all what is the loss of privacy next to the secure feeling I have when I wake up every morning? Personally I think that all new house builds should use clear glass bricks so everyone can see what everyone else is doing at all times and that Drones should circle above us 24/7 to make us safe from ourselves and others. Only then will we be truly safe from criminals, child molesters and terrorists. Privacy is just another word for having something to hide!] 

Just Finished Reading: A Very Long Engagement by Sebastien Japrisot (FP: 1991)

Mathilde’s family always knew that she was strong willed. Any child growing into adulthood who could not walk and enjoy a normal life could not survive for long without a will to overcome any additional hardships that came her way. But they had no real idea how strong willed she was until she heard that her finance had died in combat on a frozen battlefield in 1917. With only a scant official report to go on Mathilde needs to know more. Doubts about what actually happened that day only succeed in driving her further and an interview with a soldier based on that section of the frontline only confirms her worst fears. Her lover did not die in action but was seemingly executed in a barbaric way – driven into no-man’s land with four other soldiers all accused of cowardice in the face of the enemy and sentenced to death as an example to the others. But as Mathilde digs ever deeper into the truth of that day and discovers conflicting reports of what did or did not happen between the lines the idea of hope starts to grow. Maybe her lover didn’t die that day, maybe two men walked off that battlefield the following morning after the French launched a blistering attack against the German lines. Maybe someone is lying, maybe someone is covering up the truth, and maybe someone doesn’t want to be found? But if two men walked away and lived another day which two of the five made it? And after so many years have passed why hasn’t Mathilde’s finance contacted her?

 Played by Audrey Tautou in the 2004 movie of the same name, Mathilde is a great central character and I think the movies director certainly picked the best actress to play her. The book does have several distinctive difference from the movie – even down to the different explanation for her being wheelchair bound. In the movie it was from childhood polio, in the book it was from a childhood fall whilst jumping off a ladder in an attempt to fly. In the movie Mathilde lived with her Aunt and Uncle, in the book she spent quite a lot of time with them but lived with her parents (who we never saw in the film) in rather well-off surroundings. The book also took a lot longer to come to the same conclusion – in years rather than pages. The storyline was essentially the same – told mainly through letters and a handful of interviews rather than mostly interviews (visualised through flashbacks) – but with much less emphasis on one of my favourite characters in the film Tina Lombardy (played by Marion Cotillard). Overall I found it to interesting enough to turn the pages though a bit slow and drawn out (the film was more tightly plotted probably through necessity) in places. It was an interesting sideways look at WW1 with nice little insights both to the politics of the war at the front and how particular circumstances affected the families back home – especially from a French point of view.

Translated from the French by Linda Coverdale.

Remember, remember!

    The fifth of November,

    The Gunpowder treason and plot;

    I know of no reason

    Why the Gunpowder treason

    Should ever be forgot!

Cartoon Time.

My Favourite Movies: Godzilla (2014)

Whilst I didn’t exactly grow up watching the original Godzilla movies I was pretty familiar with the rather strange Japanese basis of the whole idea. I’d seen chunks of quite a few of those early versions and think I actually made it all the way through the first movie when it was given away free on DVD by my Sunday paper. Despite seeing the previous Hollywood outing (also simply called Godzilla) in 1998 starring Matthew Broderick which was frankly awful I thought that the trailer for the 2014 remake looking interesting (and dark) enough to give the idea another chance. As you can imagine, from it making my Favourite Movies list, I wasn’t disappointed.

One of the things I liked about the latest outing is that it took time to build a story rather than just leaping into the action after the most perfunctory introduction of story or characters. Interestingly (as I’ve seen on a few occasions) quite a bit of the background story was telegraphed in the opening sequences – though explained to an ‘outsider’, in other words us, later on. Another thing that impressed me was that you didn’t actually see Godzilla – at least not all of him – for almost the first hour of the movie. Both things are (these days anyway) rather brave stances to take and rather trusting of the audience that they’re willing to wait a fair bit for the action.

The story was, I thought, a pretty good one. Engineer Joe Brody (played by Bryan Cranston of ‘Breaking Bad’ fame) is investigating strange seismic activity near a Japanese nuclear power station when all hell breaks loose and his wife is killed in the disaster. Refusing to accept the official report he stays in Japan to find out what really happened. Meanwhile his son, Ford (played by Aaron-Taylor-Johnson of Kickass fame), grows up and joins the US military as a bomb disposal expert. When Joe is arrested in the quarantine area Ford needs to get him out of police custody and there’s the inevitable fight. Following him back into the supposed danger zone both father and son realises that something is very wrong when they stumble upon a secret facility set up to study a strange giant creature they call the MUTO (Massive Unknown Terrestrial Object). When it escapes and heads across the Pacific towards the US the Navy set off in pursuit only to be accompanied by another giant creature they have been tracking for decades – Godzilla. Hoping that the giant reptile can ‘restore balance’ and kill the MUTO they’re happy to keep their distance whilst Godzilla takes care of the problem. But when a second MUTO appears and seems to be pregnant with hundreds of eggs the US military can leave nothing to chance if they want to avoid pushing mankind back to the Stone Age.  

I know I’ve said something like this probably too many times but one of the things that really sold me on this film was the cinematography. I just really liked the way it was filmed – from the glimpses of the monsters (almost incidental in places to the human action in the foreground), to the impressive devastation shots including the destruction of large parts of Las Vegas and San Francisco, to the (not really very well explained) EMP weapons the MUTO uses with devastating effect against US aircraft, as well as the nicely crafted fight/battle scenes – some which felt rather surreal at times. Much of the film was on a vastly larger scales than the mere human but managed time and again to bring the human element back into focus. Giant monsters might have been battling each other between the cities skyscrapers but it was the people scurrying around in the resultant rubble that counted. A surprisingly good monster movie I thought and I find that I like it the more I watch it – which can’t be bad really.  

Cartoon time.