I headed off to Madrid to watch the Knights of the Zodiac film, the Hollywood remake of the 80s anime Saint Seiya – I’m not making any excuses (I mean, I still went to the Symphonic Adventure after it got cancelled trice), I just wanted to see it, even if I did not have much faith in it. I wanted to combine it with another activity, and I thought I lucked out when I found that Caixa Forum Madrid was running an exhibition on mammoths – Mamut, el Gigante de la Edad del Hielo (Mammoth, the Ice-Age Giant). I allocated about an hour and a half for the exhibition, which hosted an almost-complete fossilised skeleton and a hyperrealist sculpture “among other pieces”. Truth be told, there was not much else to see.

The exhibit has some molars from different species, some fur, a tusk and a few pieces of prehistoric art. There was also an evolutionary timeline and little models comparing the sizes of different mammoth species to the average human size. The pièce de résistance is indeed the complete mammoth skeleton that was the literal centre of the exhibit – hugely-tusked specimen of wholly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius). It was a truly magnificent piece, but I was a little disappointed by how few pieces were actually on display. It’s not like there is not any material around – there used to be a Mammoth Museum in Barcelona that had actual tusks for sale. I had also seen another one in Muséum des sciences naturelles de Belgique in Belgium a couple of months back, which diminished the awe factor a little.

I was done in a bit over 30 minutes, so I had time to walk to the cinema – there was another exhibition in the same floor, but I had already seen it in Barcelona, and the Museum shop did not have anything interesting. I had planned to walk to the cinema, as public transit was only slightly shorter. The weather was not so nice, and there was a small storm. I did duck into a couple of shops but to be honest I ended up at the cinema 40 minutes before the session started while it poured outside. I found myself a seat to wait – I had got my ticket online the day the release was announced. This was my first time in a cinema since Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom in 2018, and it was a weird feeling, being so close to strangers again. It was also extremely cold, and the previews were felt eternal.

The reason I sometimes choose Yelmo Cines Ideal is that some of their films are shown in their original language, and I tend to enjoy subs more than the dubbed versions. The Knights of the Zodiac film was… a choice, I guess. It is based on the newest remake – which I have not seen because I’m not a streaming-service person – and it changed a lot of the lore. Except for the main character (Seiya in the original material), all the names had been changed, but I noticed that the subs stuck to the original ones.

It was not a bad film, all things considered. Entertaining, wannabe Marvel-like, tapping a little into mixing the cosmic magic and newer technology that was unimaginable in the 80s when the manga was made. It lacked on the music department though – considering how powerful the anime music is, that was disappointing, though here and there there are a few chords of the original song Pegasus Fantasy. That was cool.

But then again, I was half-expecting a disaster, so anything was an improvement, and the film made itself watchable. Sean Bean’s character died, but considering that in the original material his character is already dead at the end, I guess it could be considered some kind of record…