Modern Culture: Oops, I Did it Again (eventually)

This article - like the previous - contains spoilers. I know I should warn you every time I do one, but Elvis is dead and so is the Queen... Oh and most of this was written before I got ill, so it's nearly a month old.

The epic conclusion to series one of House of the Dragon leaked a few days early, much to HBO's anger and our otherwise dull Saturday night's delight. It was... bleak, grim and uplifting and had a conclusion, if not in some ways expected, that was still one of those, 'Oh shit, I bet you wish you hadn't been such a twat' moments that you know will have far reaching consequences for the next three series.

It was proper Dragon v Dragon stuff, except it was like Mike Tyson meeting Eddie the Eagle Edwards in a MMA boxing match with no skis rather than any fair contest. In fact, after a belligerent start, the smaller dragon was taken out with just one bite, rider and all. So if anything was needed to tweak Rhaenyrs' nipple it was having her second son become dragon lunch and the final scene of the black queen's shock and awe was all you needed to set you up for a year long wait until the next 10 episodes drop.

It's been much better than I thought it would be and has reinvigorated the GOT franchise without too much sex and convoluted plots. Let's hope it doesn't get bogged down in usual GRRM bullshit. Even Matt Smith has been slightly restrained and less Doctor Whoish...

***

If there was ever a TV show that I probably obsess over more than anything else, despite not really being a fan of is Doctor Who. I think I allow myself to get caught up in its fan side and the industry that has grown up around it. I find myself drawn to speculation as much as any Whovian and even more compelled to write about it. The thing is I've been trying to think of a comparison in the TV world; a program I feel so important to watch yet don't really care much about it. I don't think I have one.

I got hooked on the Doctor back in the early 1970s with the arrival of Jon Pertwee as No.3 and for four years I lapped it up. Sarah Jane Smith, Jo Grant, Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart, Sgt Benton, Bessie... it was cracking stuff even if the sets wobbled and the special FX weren't. I was 13 when Tom Baker took over and by the time I was 14 I'd stopped watching the series, I couldn't get on with this 4th Doctor and for seven years the show passed me by. I got a jolt back into it with the arrival of Peter Davidson and stuck with it until Colin Baker started fighting Liquorice All-sorts Men and I never watched a single episode of Sylvester McCoy's tenure - Doctor Who was dead to me.

The announcement of the feature film was greeted with a lot of interest; the world of special effects had moved on considerably in the seven years since the last BBC episode and this big budget thriller, set in New York looked great, unfortunately it just wasn't that good, but it became canon and the movement to bring the Doctor back really got underway. Fast forward nearly a decade and we had a Doctor Who for the 21st century brought to us by Russell T Davies and what had always essentially been a kids program that adults watched, became a for-all-the-family program with much darker elements than ever before and dealing with issues that had never been touched upon in such an environment.

Chris Ecclestone was good, broody and enigmatic and either should never have been cast or should have been coerced into at least doing more than one series. David Tennant, Matt Smith, Peter Capaldi and Jodi Whitaker (with a brief interlude by John Hurt, just to confuse things more) all followed; there were some great episodes and there were some real stinkers; Davies moved on, Moffatt arrived and annoyed lots of people and then Chibnall replaced him and did what I like to think of as a Truss on the show; he fucked it up big time...

Jodi Whitaker was a great choice as a Doctor, but I think any woman would have been and having a token woman demeans it greatly. Chris Chibnall was a woefully inadequate show runner and by trying to 'fix' the Doctor he royally fucked her up. Absolute stinky stories, poor quality supporting cast and scripts that would seem poor for CBBC; Whitaker's Doctor persona was fucking awful and became unbelievably annoying every time she opened her mouth. It wasn't ever her delivery, it was the words she had to speak... Ugh...

Which brings us to Doctor Who: The Power of the Doctor and Jodi's final farewell. So much about this was good that it made you wonder where Chibnall had been hiding his stories, but even this better-than-usual story was contrived nonsense; it was the cone game yet again. If it wasn't the sonic screwdriver to the rescue it was the cone game; how the fuck isn't the Doctor dead? Why hasn't one of their really nasty villains, like the Master just picked up a gun and shot the Doctor - twice - one through each heart, then incinerated the body in a sun? How come every weapon-wielding alien in the universe is a worse shot than a Star Wars Stormtrooper? How did the Cybermen or the Daleks conquer the universe? Basically the Doctor's biggest weapon is his/her name. 'I am the Doctor' has more effect than facing down someone with an army. 

Essentially this was a big plan by The Master, who somehow survived the destruction of Gallifrey (again) has managed to team up the Daleks and the Cybermen to help him finally destroy the Doctor - an obsession that is fantastically realised, but I've struggled for years to understand why. The Master is an utter enigma and if Steven Moffatt did anything right it was Missy; why the new incarnation (if he is indeed the most recent) has reverted to psychopathic type seems like poor character development to me. Anyhow, he swaps bodies with the Doctor, except she's now dead and he's her, looking like him. She's at a cliff edge meeting selected versions of her former self who are telling her some cod bullshit about choices and not being ready and it was at this point the wife prodded me awake. Boring boring boring... Is it just me that believes the BBC has a fantastic template for a brilliant ongoing TV series but just fucks it with a big stick so much it's become impossible to make it linear and comprehensible?

The show is full of nostalgia to the point it almost brings a lump to your throat even if you don't give a flying fuck and then the big reveal - the new Doctor... Except... Except the BBC announcer prior to the start of the show said something like 'It's time for a new doctor or maybe an old one' - not exactly those words, but most definitely an oblique spoiler. The new Doctor is an old Doctor, the David Tennant Doctor, looking a wee bit older but most definitely him. Oh no, what's happened? Where's the new gay black man Doctor we were promised? Why have I written so much about something that shouldn't bother me so much? I have a number of friends who are huge Doctor Who fans, fuck knows what they feel like about this dog's dinner of a TV series.

***

Scraping the bottom of the barrel time...

Part of me wanted to go into this and probably the next column without finding something MCU to talk about, but it's a drug, an addiction and I have three trailers to dissect...

There were three trailers for Black Panther 2: Wakanda Forever before it was released a ferw weeks ago and you can pretty much work out the following things: T'Challa is dead, there's a bunch of vibranium-wielding aquahumans who have suddenly appeared, led by a Hispanic looking bloke with small wings on his feet (Namor) and he wants Wakanda's vibranium and a new female Black Panther is going to turn up. The first and last parts seem fine, it's the Atlantis, Sub-Mariner, secret war elements that bother me. 

I appreciate that Namor, the Sub-Mariner has been in the [extended] Marvel Universe since the early 1940s and including him in the MCU is a no-brainer, but... on the balance it just adds more baggage to a story that's expanding faster than Brendan Fraser's waistline. You know the trailer is going to deceive and deflect from what is really happening, you know that Namor and his Atlanteans will probably team up with Wakanda against a common enemy, but ... Look, I know some people who liked the Aquaman film, but it felt a little like a post-modern The Man From Atlantis writ large with a budget and as Drop the Dead Donkey asked back in the 1990s, 'just how much crime is there underwater'? As The Boys likes to point out, The Deep is the most fucked up member of The Seven because of his weird aquatic fetishes and general stupidity. Underwater is often a joke. 

He also appears to have been retconned. Namor always had a faintly Oriental look about him, possibly a little bit of Japanese, but in Thor's body. Now he's Hispanic, the actor is Mexican, the look is more Conan than green briefs and I feel bad commenting about Marvel/Disney's diversity policy in a negative way, but...

Anyhow, we get a sneak peak of Ironheart and a lot of Angela Bassett emoting about loss all the while a remixed version of Bob Marley's No Woman No Cry plays over the top. I still struggle a little with the first film, being one of the few people who doesn't really rate it as more than average MCU and the feeling you get from this film is it's going more for the Infinity War styled Wakanda action rather than anything else... 

Do you know, writing that above sentence I saw the end of the MCU franchise... Every superhero film is essentially the same formula when it exhausts everything else - it's a big fight that you know, ultimately, the heroes will win. The thing that connects them and makes them less like copies is the difference in the characters and I'm seeing less character development and more set pieces as we become more familiar with the players. 

I hope I'm proved wrong, but I think Wakanda Forever might be a real stinker (it got 3 stars in the Guardian).

On the 25th October, the first trailer for Ant-Man & The Wasp in Quantumania arrived. It came out of the blue and wasn't really what I expected. Could it be that after two relatively benign films, Ant-Man is about to properly enter the real MCU (in a film with his name on it)? Scott Lang has faced Endgame, so his experience of dealing with crazy should be easier to control, but what we get with Quantumania is straight forward; there's (yet) another universe existing underneath our own one and it's far more dangerous. Natch. 

The trailer sends our heroes, the Wasp's parents and Scott's daughter into the Quantum Realm, which appears to be another MCU attempt at recreating a Star Wars-type world full of wondrous creatures and the initial excitement I felt at Marvel doing something 'proper' with Ant-Man was lost. It's a cosmic space film set within a micro-cosmos and Kang the Conqueror is either behind it or is manipulating events to allow him to escape (that last bit is pure speculation, if Kang is offering Scott something he needs you can bet there's a 'but' waiting in the wings.

It looks fantastic but it also looks 95% green screen and needs to be more than just a Guardians of the Galaxy meets Micronauts mash-up. A lot might change between now and February when it's released, but if this is a 'serious' Ant-Man film it needs to deliver. 

And finally The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special, which allegedly streams from November 25 and after seeing the trailer for it will someone please pass the bleach...

I want to give you a complete breakdown of the trailer including the fact that Kevin Bacon is in it, playing Kevin Bacon, or that Groot (might) be almost grown up again or that it appears to be set in the same universe as She-Hulk, but I'm not going to because I can no longer see the keyboard to write because my eyes and ears are full of bleach...

All trailers available on YouTube at the Marvel Entertainment page.

***

Vesper is a feature film made by Belgians, Lithuanians and a few Brits. There are some deeply disturbing things that happen in it despite it largely being targeted for a YA audience. Eddie Marson is creepy, the sets are strange, the entire thing was grim, dirty and not overly enjoyable. It reminded me of a cross between Monsters and Annihilation but its problem was it was neither weird enough or compelling enough for a story ten minutes short of two hours.

***

During my unexpected illness, we've been watching a lot of films, some of them memorable for all the wrong reasons...

I spent much of my time on the sofa watching the Legendary monster films - Godzilla (the Gareth Edwards 2013 version), Kong: Skull Island, Godzilla - King of the Monsters and Godzilla versus Kong and I enjoyed all of them to a certain degree. Edwards' giant lizard reboot was hampered by the acting and lack of Godzilla, but much of it had the Monsters maker's trademark feel, especially during the scenes in the overgrown Japanese township near the beginning. Skull Island was spoiled largely by an overblown and slightly stupid performance by Samuel L Jackson and the last two were ruined by the current fascination with Millie Bobby Brown, who really can't act and brings films (and TV series) she's in down to her level of crap acting.

It has been 45 years since I last watched The Exorcist II: The Heretic, the John Boorman follow-up to one of the greatest films of all time. It is a truly dreadful piece of shite with no less than three Oscar winners in it all hamming it up with a dreadful script on some of the most unconvincing sets you could possibly imagine. I remember leaving the cinema in the late 1970s, with my brother, wondering what the actual fuck I'd just watched and that is pretty much what both the wife and I thought after watching it the other night. It's probably one of the worst films ever made.

The Exorcist III: Legion is about midway between I and II, it's pretty much a great film until the last ten minutes when it goes a bit wobbly and is both creepy and really clever. The book, which is a direct sequel to William Peter Blatty's original is better, but he did write and direct this far better sequel than the second sequel ever could be.

***

The Walking Dead finishes in the next few days; it has been on a constant decline since series four and while the wife has been a fan, I watch it out of habit alone. There's news of more spin-offs - one featuring Daryl and another with Rick and Michonne reunited (without their kids), plus there's Fear, which was quite good for a while then got lost up its own arse. Once TWD is over I'm probably never going to watch another zombie related thing ever again because they're all shit.

A Couple of MCU Re-Reviews From 2021

One of the most common themes running through our re-watching of old films has been the comment, 'I don't/didn't remember that.'  That might have more to do with not having seen whatever film we were watching for 30 years, but it's increasingly becoming more common with films less than five years old. I came up with a theory for that - other than our advancing years - while watching the second of the two films up for review. It's the sense of expectation, especially with the Marvel Cinematic Universe films; I am expecting to be thoroughly entertained and blown away by yet another Marvel MCU Winner. Or to phrase it better, my expectations aren't met because I don't really know what I expected. Therefore on second viewing I'm watching it from the point of view where I've seen it, I know what happens (vaguely) therefore I'm watching without any sense of expectation, I'm watching it simply as a film. It has surprising results with critiques.

We decided, at the wife's request, to rewatch Black Widow the other night and it turned out to be a pretty decent film, far better than my original review suggested. It had a story, that was contextualised well; it answered some unanswered questions and was pretty much an action movie from the word go. It's pacing is what makes it a film worthy of grouping with the Captain America films and much of the first couple of phases of the MCU. In fact, had this film been released in, say, 2016 it would have been a blockbuster. 

There's a little too much of the jokey Russians and it underplays the utter horror of the abuse that young Black Widows endured just so that the villain - played badly by Ray Winstone - could get his kicks. It's also a little contrived, but that fits with the story and the timeline quite well and rounds off a circle quite nicely. The set pieces are dynamic and full of fun and even if the conclusion feels a little tame compared to the preceding 20 minutes, it was a fitting 'finale' for Natasha.

I'm not sure that Florence Pugh has the presence and persona to carry off being the new Black Widow; but she's a worthy addition to this film (and the universe) showing a range of acting skills that have propelled her high in the acting world and Rachel Weiss and David Harbour are interesting, if flawed, support. This film obviously ties into the Hawkeye TV series, by virtue of the post credit scene, which, in my opinion could have been handled better (the post credit scene not the TV show).

Marvel seems to do two types of film now - Mission Impossible styled Earth-based thrillers and cosmic spectacles; the former tend to be the better received by the general viewing public [Obviously the Spider-Man films fit into a slightly different slot, but they're not strictly MCU films] and the interlinked nature of them - moving forwards - is what drives the franchise; this film suffers from something the comics also suffered from - the untold story from the past tended to be a 'fill in' issue, regardless of who was creating it.

Overall, Black Widow is a quality MCU film let down by timing, which had a lot to do with Covid but can't be used as an excuse; this simply should have been earlier in the franchise's life.

Which brings us nicely to something that could have been introduced much later in the franchise's life but the lure of Chinese money hastened its arrival, I'm in no doubt. It had been almost a year since we first watched Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Gold Rings, so more of it was familiar; looking back on past blogs I realised that it has the ignominy of being the only MCU film I haven't properly reviewed. I gave it a six line 'review' of sorts in a Pop Culture from last November.

It's an odd film in many ways; its main purpose, at times, is to hoover up some of the loose ends from other films - the Abomination's reappearance (considerably less eloquent than his subsequent appearances in She Hulk), the return of Trevor Slattery - in one of the most contrived shoo-ins to essentially dismiss the entire plot of Iron Man 3 - and what Wong had been doing (given that he would become extremely prominent over the last couple years this makes perfect sense). That's probably being unfair, the loose ends were obviously shoehorned in to tie the film to the MCU, but it's the thing that sticks.

The opening 40 minutes is cracking fun; Marvel does this kind of thing extremely well - the rollercoaster opener and that is only let down by the back story explainer, which appears to be an homage to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, especially given Michelle Yeoh managed to get herself cast in this. Then it all gets a bit silly; I'm all for worldbuilding by the MCU, but Marvel appears to be worlds building, adding extra layers that literally overcrowd a shared universe that was progressing nicely at walking pace and now seems to have gone into light speed in its need to introduce more and more stuff to muddy satisfyingly murky waters. 

There is genuine chemistry between Shang-Chi and his oldest friend Katy (played by Awkwafina surprisingly well and without too much goofiness), but after that it all gets a bit superficial; even Shaun's sister's back story seemed a little convenient, which didn't escape Awkwafina in an almost 4th wall moment. Then we enter Ta Lo - the mythical kingdom of cute manga creatures and belligerent peaceniks - and it swaps a decent romp for monstrous silliness, dragons and other things that make this film less than it could have been.

It's disappointing because this film has some excellent parts, but it also feels... a bit fake, a bit forced into the schedules to tap unclaimed markets rather than expand the oeuvre.

I was never a fan of Shang-Chi in the 1970s, despite having a cracking award-winning creative team working on it for a long time, but I never really got Kung Fu with David Carradine either and wasn't a big fan of Bruce Lee or those genre of films; so expecting me to fall for this kind of film was always going to be unlikely; the fact that Shang-Chi existed inside but was very much outside the Marvel Comics Universe was a really good reason not to read it and while I have no idea what has happened to the comics character in the last 25 years since I stopped reading comics regularly, trying to force him into the superhero world seems a wee bit desperate and you could argue that this film could have existed as a Marvel film but without added MCU baggage; it might have worked better. Shang-Chi also didn't have a sidekick and his dad was Fu Manchu and, if I remember correctly, often references to Sax Rohmer for inspiration and use of certain characters, but the last time I read a Master of Kung Fu comic was about 1980.

Simu Liu is a slightly unorthodox Shang-Chi, who was originally modelled on Bruce Lee, and he's a genuinely likeable actor/character; his superficiality isn't at all like he was in the comics, where you imagined he did everything from eat to shit with gritted teeth and a brow full of sweat, but the MCU isn't really doing earnest is it? Even Daredevil's recent (re) appearance felt like a comedic Marvel Comics mid 1970s guest appearance, completely out of character for the character. I mean, I read DD for 30 years, Matt Murdock rarely if ever smiles. 

The Pokémon aspect is also new and while some of the 'monsters' were okay, they were let down by poor visual effects and a cuteness that seemed misplaced. I enjoyed it more second time around, but it's never going to rank anything but low on a list of MCU films.

Modern Culture: Bump & Grind

There's this theory going round comics fandom, or so I'm told, which pretty much confirms everything I've been saying about the MCU for the last four years - with no heavyweight heroes everything else suffers. I have stated quite firmly that by 2030 Marvel will have brought back Captain America, Iron Man and the Black Widow - they might have been recast with new actors, but these iconic characters will return, because the MCU struggles without them. Hence why the MCU/Disney+ has made a few announcements recently that won't raise that many eyebrows.

This news - including the introduction of the Red Hulk and bringing Thunderbolt Ross back, despite William Hurt being dead, to become the Marvel character I know nothing about at all, is one of a number of things designed to bring back what the franchise has lost in the last 3 years (although I fail to see what this particular character brings to the party apart from a lot of Hulk stories I'm glad I never read).

Rumours also suggest Robert Downey Jr will be back - probably as an AI version of Tony Stark for the recently re-announced Armor Wars, which is no longer a TV series and now a full-on Iron Man film sequel and, of course, everybody and their brother has been pointing at Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman's two minute video telling us that Deadpool 3 will feature Jackman as Wolverine, yet again. Make no mistake, this is the MCU realising it's stopped working properly. 

That said, while many fans (and MCU execs) reel from the dreadful reviews that the new Thor film and the She-Hulk series have got, maybe part of the problem is pinning hopes on things like this and allowing something as fantastic as Werewolf By Night slip under the radar. I've seen very little promotional material about this absolutely monstrous bit of hokum and that's a real tragedy. 

Speaking of weres and wolves...

Werewolf By Night isn't the WBN I remembered as a kid (there ain't much left that is). Lead character Jack [Russell] is now Mexican rather than a rebellious blonde Yankee teenager and is covered in strange hieroglyphs. Gael Garcia Bernal plays him in a very peripheral, yet oddly central role for the entire 50 minute show.

With one exception, no one else in this one-off meant anything to me, although it did look like many of the supporting cast might be recognisable to some people. It starts as play on the old The Deadly Game idea, where hunters chase the marked 'prey' and whoever bags him wins the prize. The prize in this case is the Bloodstone - once owned by Ulysses Bloodstone [who first appeared in Marvel Presents #1 courtesy of John Warner, Mike Vosburg and Bob McLeod and in the next issue of the same comic with art by Sonny Trinidad. Any subsequent appearances passed me by] and originally promised to his daughter Elsa, but now up for grabs to any monster hunter because of some un-explained falling out between father and daughter.

This group of infamous monster hunters are tasked with retrieving the Bloodstone, now stuck to the hide of a nightmarish hell beast, but in reality it's more about all these monster hunters killing each other off first and that's where Jack and Elsa enter the picture. Jack is there for a different reason and Elsa is there because she wants the Bloodstone, as it is rightfully hers and she doesn't want any of the others to have it either, but she's not into all the killing. Jack isn't interested in the Bloodstone, he wants to free and save the monster who is being used as bait...

I have to admit to a genuine 'squee' moment when I realised that the 'monster' in question was actually the Man-Thing - a character who was both prominent to me in the 1970s and personal to me because it was the first Marvel comic book I started collecting from #1, so seeing 'Manny' or 'Ted' as he's now known, looking utterly splendid and doing what he does best - setting fire to scared people - was always going to make this A BIG WINNER in my house.

When we finally get to meet the Werewolf it's 35 minutes into a 50 minute show and we're not talking American Werewolf in London styled transformations, more an homage to both the genre this comes from - comics - and the werewolf WBN was always based on - Lon Chaney Jr's Wolfman. Jack saves the day, doesn't eat Elsa and disappears into the night, leaving Ms Bloodstone with the jewel and her mother to deal with. Fortunately, Elsa had been very kind to Ted earlier in the show, so he returned and burned the mother to a crisp - the end!

Except, there's an epilogue featuring Ted making Jack a cup of coffee as they camp out near the swamps and continue their quest to free kind monsters from human harm. It simply says we're heading for Legion of Monsters territory and that can't be a bad thing really given how compact and excellent this was and especially as they got all the special effects in this bang on. Man-Thing has never looked as good (at least not since Mike Ploog drew him).

As one friend said, 'It's just lovely.' And it is (despite being more violent than anything the MCU has ever done). 

***

It seems I might have been wrong about some of my predictions for She-Hulk: Attorney At Law, such as the Hulk returning or it being any good. I have a friend who thinks this series has been delightful, I'm now of the opinion that this person simply likes or dislikes things other people think are shit or good to be different.

I'm kind of speechless about the season finale and that's not because I've jumped on the bandwagon of all the other haters out there, it's because the series, as a whole, was humourless rubbish with no real plot, no general direction and was full of half-arsed, barely recognisable supporting characters with no interest. It was not very good and anyone who tells you differently is a wind-up merchant.

The 4th wall twist - which isn't funny either - is that She-Hulk: Attorney At Law is a TV show in the MCU overseen by 'Kevin', who is depicted as an AI robot and is really in charge of the script-writing/plot of She-Hulk (and all other MCU product), it has supplied a ludicrous plot with a ridiculous ending which Jen doesn't agree with and it has no concept of how to rejuvenate or improve the show. Oddly enough and slightly ironically, this happens around the same time as the real Kevin Feige, who really is in charge. made some announcements in an attempt to try to rejuvenate the entire franchise and allay peoples fears that everything has lost its direction and they're just throwing shit at a fan. It's so Meta it's laughable but not in any positive ways at all.

This review is now almost as boring as the last seven episodes. I really expected something - in general - to happen, but even Bruce's unexpected return with son in tow felt manufactured, rushed and I expect we're going to see a film - probably for that slot in 2024 when the now delayed Blade was due - possibly called... Hulks (with at least four of the buggers crowding the screen). 

Marvel has some big problems creatively and the trailers for Black Panther 2: Wakanda Forever have done nothing to make me think they know how to solve those problems...

***

Before I leave Marvel alone for a few months, I saw recently there's an extended version of Spider-Man: No Way Home available! That's extra reasons for me to never watch this awful movie again.

***

While everything seemingly got turned to shit for Galadriel and the knights of Numenor in the penultimate episode of season one of Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power, it was the Harfoots who felt the full force of just about everything despite would-be Gandalf rescuing the fruit trees, and that included pissing off wood elves by seemingly just existing.  

This series has suffered from many viewers simply not caring about the characters; this is worldbuilding but without characters who you care about; they're all arrogant, pompous and self-interested, the attempt at Game of Thrones style politics doesn't seem to be able to click in the same way, maybe because there is already so much speculation and interpretation of all of Tolkien's works. Oh and the acting is woefully inadequate considering the money thrown at it.

Anyhow, the finale kicks off with the attempted twist that the stranger hitching along with the Harfoots might actually be Sauron and we don't shake that feeling until the real Sauron reveals himself in what could easily have been a twist had it not actually been signposting it, cleverly and without fanfare, since episode #1. The finale wasn't about battles as such - although there's a fair one between the man I think we can all call Gandalf and the triumvirate of unpleasantness attempting to turn him to the dark side.

It was borderline all right. It was very boring at times but it looked fabulous. That doesn't cut the mustard in television in 2022 and something has to change for the second season or this will go down as a colossal failure, whatever happens I really don't think I'll be bothering with it again.

***

A departure from my usual review fodder would be Simon Reeve's Americas which has been on BBC2 for the last 5 weeks, but also available on iPlayer as an entire entity. I'm aware this hardly falls into any of the categories I usually review, but we're big fans of Reeve and over the years we've turned each episode of his travelogue into a game - how many times will Simon say 'Bloody hell' each episode (it was 1-1 for this series; the wife guessed 2 in the first episode and I guessed 2 in the final one; not guessing the exact number wins no points) and occasionally 'flipping heck', if the mood takes us.

For those of you who've never seen his travelogues; Reeve travels around the world and each episode usually has him juxtaposition something impressive about a country with something scary, violent or unlawful and he often looks at the plight of the poorest or least advantageous in society. For every exotic animal or fabulous region he visits it's always counterbalanced by something rotten at the core.

I expect there will be another series of his adventures, but I also think he's pretty much been everywhere, so unless he starts to retrace his steps or go to the same places but different parts, I'm trying to make a list of places he hasn't been to and coming up relatively short. There was also something emotionally final about the last scenes as he rolled through Tierra Del Fuego, so we shall wait and see. If you've never seen it, you should; it's great documentary TV. 

*** 

The Old Man has been some of best TV I've seen all year - a geriatric action series in the vein of Homeland but a lot less convoluted, but no less complicated. It has been full of plausible twists and implausible turns, but it has been a rollercoaster of a 7-part mini-series with both Jeff Bridges and John Lithgow ripping up the sets.  

However, I'm really disappointed that it's going to have a second series. It really felt as though it was simply going to be a tight and taut 7-part thriller, but it soon became obvious halfway through episode 7 that we were not going to get a conclusion, despite all the cards now being on the table and all secrets revealed. Obviously, I'm now hoping that season 2 wraps it up and calls it a day, because I don't think this is something that has very long legs.

***

A quick mention for The Walking Dead. It's still there, slowly lurching towards an 'ending'. 

***

House of the Dragon has come on leaps and bounds from its shaky start of looking like a desperate prequel. The episode before the penultimate episode was one of the grimmest in GOT history; not because it was violent or relentlessly horrible; it was just dark with the feeling of foreboding running through it like words in a stick of rock. Lots of false smile, horrific and horrified faces, failed politics and Machiavellian deceit revolving around Paddy Considine's final appearances.

The King is dead! Long live the... oh... ah... King? Alsiante - the queen - announces to her father Otto Hightower that Viscerys's last words were that Aegon should be king and not Rhaenyrs, who he had always said would be queen. This potboiler for the finale, sets in motion events that will, you feel, be quite catastrophic for one side of this merry dance.

Expect dragon versus dragon battles with Aemond possibly holding the key. But that will have to wait until next time. This has been a considerably more enjoyable series than it probably deserved to be because it has kept to a relatively singular narrative. I expect season two will be worth the wait.

***

Next time: The finale of House of the Dragon and the final outing for Jodie Whitaker as Doctor Who. Plus it might be time to catch up with things I've put off as we enter the barren period before Christmas.

Modern Culture: Sharp Knives?

We're still a week away from the finale of She-Hulk: Attorney At Law and what was a fantastic opening gambit has quickly descended into something I'm trying hard to ignore. I'm a late bloomer in the 'I hate MCU TV' brigade... No, really. I'm far less critical of it than I am the movies and a couple of my friends positively feel let down by the output of the TV franchise. I didn't like Moon Knight but most of the other live action series have been enjoyable space filler and you might recall I was positively buzzing about Shulkie when she first appeared, but... it's just so facile and trite and I know trite seems like an inappropriate description given how 'original' the premise appears to be but despite the fresh 'feel', the fourth wall breaking and the metacomedy aspects, by the time we got half way through the series it just felt overplayed, unoriginal and just a little silly... and not in a good way.

In the space of a few weeks my liking for this show has evaporated completely and while I'm aware this is predominantly a comedy even the [slightly] sinister 'government lab' trying to extract some blood from Jen no longer feels like it has anything to do with this series and more to do with helping set up an apparent World War Hulk 'film'? I mean, why else has Bruce left Earth again if it's not to simply get him off planet allowing Marvel to bring him back after Phase 4 (is it 4 or are we now in 5?) and possibly a new story arc. 

I like the Hulk; it's a longstanding thing, but I gave up reading the book in 2002. I have problems with the idea of Red Hulks, sons of Hulk, armies of Hulks... I kind of struggled with the idea of She Hulk and still to this day feel it was more a copyright necessity than through any artistic merit, but I'm not going to get bogged down with Marvel minutiae because there's other woeful TV out there waiting to be reviewed. 

That said, the 'therapy' episode with Tim Roth camping it up as Emile Blonsky (who is obviously up to something, but not necessarily nefarious) trying to get super powered misfits to understand their position in life was entertaining and kind of explains the basic premise of the series, which in case you need it explaining is about a woman trying to come to terms with the changes in her life. The main problem with the comedy is it isn't very funny and the problem with the drama is there isn't enough. I'm also beginning to wonder if the Netflix Daredevil series' belonged to another variant MCU because DD's much-heralded appearance featured the yellow and red costume he never wore in his own shows and his ability to be considerably more 'superheroic' than the aforementioned shows. This goes hand-in-hand with Kingpin's appearance in the Hawkeye series, seeming to be less influential but considerably more [physically] powerful.

In the penultimate episode (of what I thought was a 13, but is in fact a 9-part series), everything goes Hulk Smash in the final scenes and it stops being a comedy. This was counterbalanced by the knowledge that Matt Murdock shagged Jen Walters. This show has a 5/10 rating on IMDB - I wonder if Marvel/Disney care?

***

The Bear is a clever, sometimes brilliant, 8 part Hulu/Disney+ series I touched on briefly last time out. It stars the sublime Jeremy Allen White as a top Michelin starred chef who gives it all up to run the family sandwich shop driven into the ground by his addict (and deceased) brother with (no) help from his cousin Richie. It is fantastic TV. 

It is between 19* and 45 minutes an episode. It is relentless, noisy, brash and in your face, probably very much like how a busy kitchen is like at peak service. It has masterfully teased most of the stories of the main characters out without ever feeling it was being used as a set up and because White's Carmine seems like an extension of his Lip character from Shameless (US) and as the show is set in Chicago (where Shameless was set) there are lots of elements of Paul Abbott's brilliant show flirting and skirting around the edges. It's great TV with excellent characters and some absolute wankers; I've heard it's getting a second season, I expect that will be different and the same.

* The focus of that 19 minute episode might sound like I'm annexing it with She-Hulk as theft masquerading as TV, but the point of the 19 minute episode (18 mins and 40odd seconds to be precise) is that it was taken in one shot. It is one continuous scene with no breaks and it starts off fractious and ends up volcanic - you experience the tension and the stress being ratcheted up in real time culminating in a scene you'll have been expecting since episode 2. It is mind-blowingly good TV and felt like it was an hour and not less than 20 minutes. The wife said, 'you don't really want it to be more than half an hour, it's so in your face!'

I'd like to think we got the jump of the press with this one because now many of the broadsheets and websites are heralding this as breakout, brilliant TV and are trumpeting the skills of JAW; a fact we knew all about, long ago.

***

Brassic isn't clever and is often brilliant. It wants to be a slapstick version of This Is England and essentially that is what Joe Gilgun's lead character Vinnie is morphing into; his skinhead persona in Shane Meadows' masterworks. It also owes a lot to Shameless and is probably made really good by the occasional appearances of Dominic West as Vinnie's pot smoking psychiatrist. But it is fun and likeable and you don't need a degree to understand it. 

The penultimate episode of the latest series is an incredible heart-wrenching story giving proper souls to our main protagonists, even if it actually makes little or no sense when put under scrutiny and the series finale is really a set up for season five and the gang's confrontation with the Madonna brothers (two more characters that unbelievably appear to carry some weight in the vaguely criminal world everyone exists in). I kind of hope season five will be the last one, but that's because some series go on far longer than they should. 

One stand out feature of season four is the extensive use of Tommo, the gang's rather sexually ambiguous weirdo. Played by Ryan Sampson, who has appeared in numerous TV UK shows since his debut in Wire in the Blood in 2003 (a series I've always thought should be the name of the sequel to The Thing but obviously isn't...) and perhaps the show's writers and producers realised they had a real treat on their hands, especially as other main cast members have all drifted into the background to a certain degree, especially Damien Molony's Dylan, who has almost become peripheral to the entire series.

***

We're heading into the final stages of season one of the longest titled series of all time, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, and while it has proved to be better than I anticipated, it's still largely struggling to have engaging characters that you care about. Episode six was full on battle episode with twists and turns and absolutely no feeling of peril or actual bother about any of them. It feels like stories by numbers and that is terribly outdated in the 21st century.

***

The Old Man is quite extraordinary. We've just started it - watched the first episode - and we're hooked already. Jeff Bridges plays - presumably - an ex-black ops agent for the US govt. who has been 'on the run' for 40 years avoiding his former 'keepers' and trying to have a wife and a family. When we join the action, his wife has died, his daughter is a voice on the telephone and Bridges looks and acts like he's the most paranoid person in the world. Then, of course, you realise they really are out to get him. They've known where he is for a while and now they want him back - whether it's to answer for the questionable things he did or as some kind of US bargaining chip with a high powered Afghani war lord we don't know. All we do know is that semi-retired Assistant Director of the FBI - John Lithgow - has been brought out of retirement to oversee the capture of Bridges and the two of them have a long history, to the point where Lithgow makes Bridges an offer, which unfortunately isn't taken up, leaving us in a proper cat and mouse situation (although who is the cat and who is the mouse has yet to be decided). 

The main problem for Bridges character is he's in his 70s, he has old men's problems and the world has moved so fast around him he's not really on the same wavelength as the Powers That Be. This is part of the intrigue, because he isn't a 21st century boy, he's relying on skills that are no longer relied on.

However, by episode two you start to realise that this isn't just a by-the-numbers spies out of retirement gig; our two main protagonists have form and much of that form wants to remain hidden. Bridges' Chase is linked to the wrong Afghani warlord, who now wants his revenge for something Chase did 40 years ago and he wants it so bad he's cashing in all his lucky US govt chips. However, this isn't just an old geezers revenge story; it's clear that the FBI were involved in something the CIA usually specialises in and Chase - an ex FBI agent - went rogue to fight on the side of the Mujahedeen and managed to not only escape Afghanistan but hide himself and his Afghani wife away for 35 years. Oh and is Chase now suffering from dementia?

***

Brad Pitt's Bullet Train felt like a substandard Matthew Vaughn attempt at making a Quentin Tarrantino film badly. The wife liked it, but I found it all a bit too OTT, a little too contrived and very annoying in places.

***

Did something we've so far resisted and watched one of those Star Wars spin-offs - Andor. Fell asleep during it so many times I didn't understand what I was watching by the end; not going there again.

***

House of the Dragon has jumped 10 years in time and sadly that means we've lost some of the cast to different actors. It is relentlessly miserable TV and has more dislikeable characters than its parent show. The change in cast felt a little jarring and it needed certain scenes just so you realised who these 'new' people were. The story has also moved on and allegiances have changed and schemes are still being hatched. The problem I now have is unlike the LOTR spin-off I'd started to like all the characters and now I have to re-like them with new actors and that hasn't happened; I really liked Milly Allcock, I'm not sure about Emma Darcy. The jump feels like it's gone too far.

Recent episodes have tried valiantly to equal dramatic events in GOT but they were so... subtle, I almost missed them. This show suffers from two major things - poor lighting and far too much mumbling. Mumble TV has been in the news a lot in the last few years, but in HotD it seems to be rife and gives the need to constantly rewind because neither of us had a clue what was said. As far as the intrigue goes, it's up there with its big sister show for twists and turns - something the LotR show could really do with and by the end of episode 6 much of what you expected to happen is finally happening, it's just the kids have a habit of throwing a spanner in the works and these Valyrian children all hate each other with the same passion as their parents. What is transpiring might have been largely predicted with close scrutiny of previous episodes, but it's still been much more fun getting to where we are than most of the last five series of Game of Thrones, which always felt like a TV version of the ultimate prick tease; which failed to deliver when required to actually not tease any more.

***

The second season finale of [the much despised] Resident Alien kind of jumped the shark with an episode that seemed a little from out of left field with snippets of interviews interjected throughout of peoples experiences of aliens or abductions.

In case anyone cares; Harry decides to stay on Earth and save it from the Greys. The agent of the Greys takes a job as deputy at Patience PD, while Harry gives himself up to the army to meet and enlist the help of Linda Hamilton's shallow and facile general. Some things are quite excellent, like when Darcy discovers Harry's secret and other things like they've been welded onto the plot over the last two weeks - the mayor's sleepwalking was always going to be ... alien in nature.

I may tune in for season 3 just to see if Asta's arse can get any bigger.

***

Guess what's back for the last time? Yes, the original Walking Dead enters its final furlong as AMC attempts to wring the last life out of this brain-fogging and banal zombie series. Nothing really gets you going any more; there isn't really a story that's compelling and all the best actors have left. It is 2022's V but with more money and less lizards...

The two-part season 'opener'/'closer' is about the beginning of the downfall of the Commonwealth, an oddly, dysfunctional conglomerate of people that we know live life like there's no zombie apocalypse, have a class system that is deeply offensive and, as with many things in this series, never explains how a settlement of thousands of people manage to have many of the luxuries of pre-apocalypse times. Who is growing all the food? Who is making all the clothes? Who is manufacturing all the stuff they need from repairing faulty stuff to creating things like bullets, fuel and all that funky armour the Commonwealth deck their police force out in. 

I think my main problem with all the zombie/dead series since its inception is the fact that once organised how do they survive? I did a blog once that suggested a series focusing on farming successes or failures or the quest for the perfect location to set up home (on a hill, near a water source, with its own generator or solar/wind powered energy) wouldn't really make interesting TV, but given that the alternative has failed repeatedly for five years to produce interesting TV, maybe it was a direction to go in?

***

Before I get onto my favourite bugbear, I would like to take a moment to remember my old chum Roger Balfour, who died at the end of September. I met Roger when I wasn't really into comics (I'd fallen out of love with them for the first time) and he was all over them like a rash. His exuberance and love for the medium was always like an insurmountable wave that you rode rather than fought against and he embraced superheroes on TV and in film like a long lost family member and seemed to simply be happy to be alive while these things were actually happening.

He will be missed, even though I don't think I'd seen him in the flesh in the last 20 years and ironically, the last thing he went to the cinema to see was the latest Thor film; he loved the God of Thunder. I hope they've got a really good cinema wherever his wondrous soul ends up...

Anyhoo... I want to chuck an idea at you regarding the last film review I did. Thor: Love & Thunder is a really awful film in many ways. Scratch the surface and it's simply a mess and unbelievably facile and superficial; it makes you wonder how and why Marvel allowed it to be released in that form.

It's like there's some disgruntled employees who feel the same way because within a week or so of the film starting its streaming life, two or three 'deleted' scenes have surfaced that suggests the story must have been going in a completely different and far more logical direction and paints Russell Crowe's Zeus as a benevolent but flawed god who is gracious, humble and an addition to the MCU. So why the hell did they completely go the other way with that horrendous and pointless OmniCity segment?

Had Thor, Jane and co arrived in Olympus, possibly had a run in with Hercules and eventually left with Zeus's thunderbolt and his blessing a lot of the bad feeling about this film might never have happened.  Also much of what they were trying to achieve could still have been done and in a completely plausible way. If you get the chance, go on You Tube and search the Love and Thunder deleted scenes and see for yourself. 

Next time: conclusions of series and we cast our gaze into the abyss that's likely to be TV this autumn.

Modern Culture: All Filler No Killer

Actually, the title of this blog is wrong (as it often is) because we're kicking off with a proper killer, with no filler... the third season of Barry, the Bill Hader led contract killer black comedy drama which has gone from a very dark but funny show that now finds itself in the lap of absolute madness. This is the blackest of black comedies and for every laugh out loud moment it's balanced with something so grim and bleak that you almost feel ashamed of laughing at it moments earlier.

Season 3 pretty much plays out over the space of what appears to be a week (we watched it in one night). Fuchs is still the primary psychopath in this series, but it's clear that just about every person in this show is batshit crazy and you wonder how the events in the first two episodes can possible allow there to be six more, but they do and because they do things start to fall apart, very quickly, for all the main characters. Apparently there will be a fourth season, this will be interesting given the way season 3 ended. 

***

I truly want to say that The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is the best thing I've ever seen on a small screen, but regardless of the spectacle it presents, it's just really fucking boring and dull. I mean, if we want to be honest about it, once The Lord of the Rings was made into a ten hour+ film split into three sections about 20 years ago by Peter Jackson, I think the passion and thirst for something Middle Earth on screen died, along with any cares about any of the characters, especially elves, who live forever and shit gold (but are sacrificed in a way that makes the ending of The Return of the King now basically really tragic, sad and unhappy - yes, spoiler warning: all the surviving characters went to heaven - end of, whether they'd died or not). 

No one cares about made up stuff that happened thousands of years before the events we all know. It's a bit like the Game of Thrones prequel - yeah it's 'quality' TV but does anyone really want it? They might think we want it but it needs more than just being a brand. If Cadbury's brought out a chocolate bar that tasted of shit, I doubt even idiots would buy it, for long.

That said, episode three felt like there was an actual story brewing and the mysterious stranger helping the Harfoots could be a young(er) Gandalf. With the fourth episode things started to fall into place as far as signs and portents were concerned, but in general, it kind of feels like Willow from the 1980s but remade with special effects and someone else's story...

***

Speaking of House of the Dragon, I can almost feel myself warming to it. However, I think that might be down to the fact that it's simply more interesting than its illustrious cousin featuring on Amazon Prime. I might have thought a new GOT series wasn't really needed, but compared to the LOTR nonsense, I'm all over this like Valerian greyscale. 

I think one of the reasons I've changed my mind a little is it isn't going in the direction I expected and it's already had a couple of red herrings/rug pulling exercises that make me think there might be some serious writers working on this, rather than the ham-fisted morons wot did GOT series seven.

I still don't care about the characters, but the young heir is growing on me because she's a proper underdog (despite being a princess) in this chauvinistic world order and while I personally can't see anyone but Doctor Who in a blond wig whenever Matt Smith is on screen, I get the impression that he's not the star of this show for nothing.

I also like the lurches in time in the opening episodes; like we're getting specific snapshots of an unfolding story rather than the sometimes plodding plotting used in GOT. Episode four however brought sex back into the show, but in a very discreet way and didn't appear to move the story along very far, apart from the suggest that Matt Smith and his cousin might be making the beast with the two backs before long - incest is after all a game for all the family in Game of Thrones land...

***

Brassic is back and for all of its problems it is still jaw-droppingly one of the crudest things on TV with added strangeness. Joe Gilgun is still brilliant, but the rather maudlin story line about relationships with Michele Keegan and the marginalisation of his supporting cast overpowers it a little.

It's a strange show but almost every series - now in its 4th - has me wondering why I watch it and then something unexpected happens or Dominic West turns up and steals the entire show and I fall back in like with it. Another problem I have is that it is starting to feel like it's set in a bygone era despite it being as contemporary as they come. It just feels like it might be better if it was actually set in the 1990s, rather than just having a bunch of characters who look like they've just walked out of said era.

***

She-Hulk now looks like it's going to be a guest star of the week affair. Two weeks of the Hulk, followed by two weeks of Wong, a week off and then Daredevil waiting in the wings for Charlie Cox to re-relaunch his MCU career (I say re-relaunch because he appeared in that woeful 3rd Spider-Man film catching a brick) and I expect someone else will follow him... It's like they didn't think it could work without 'spicing' it up with a few iconic guest stars.

As for the series... well, after a very promising start it's all a bit deflated balloon as we hit the middle section of the 13-part series. It still feels a little like Ms Marvel in that there seems to be a lot of characters appearing, either related or unrelated to Jen, that we don't really have a back story for, they're just there and it seems taken for granted that the viewer will understand the relevance.

Some of my friends baulked at the Megan Thee Stallion appearance, as I had absolutely no idea who or what she was it kind of washed over me, plus the Titania law suit episode - weighing in at 24½ minutes - was TV at its most disposable. 

***

We watched Peter Jackson's 1996 comedy horror film The Frighteners the other night after we'd spent a week watching his remake of King Kong and the first thing that dawned on me was I remembered it far more fondly than it deserved and the second thing is that Jackson, up to the LotR films had made nothing but lo-quality B movies, in fact this Michael J Fox vehicle - made 5 years after his Parkinson's diagnosis and the first time he started to look a little less like everyone's favourite kidult - despite a good rating on IMDB, is actually really awful, with so many contrived moments and poorly scripted scenes I'm surprised it didn't finish off both Fox and Jackson's careers.

***

I'm a big fan of Jeremy Allen White. Not only was he the best thing in the almost faultless Shameless (US), he could play Robert Mitchum in a biopic with very little effort. He is a quite extraordinary actor and his new series The Bear (I have no idea apart from it might be his nickname) is more like a fly-on-the-wall documentary than anything else. JAW plays Carmine, one of the country's TOP chefs, regarded by anyone who knows him as up there with your Michelin starred jobbies. The thing is he has turned his back on NYC and stardom to run his late brother's sandwich shop in downtown Chicago and that business is up to its shutters in debt.

So far it's just been a cacophony of noise, blurry camera work and more shouting, but there's the beginnings of a story emerging that is playing out subtly and not like many TV series where it's almost beaten into the viewer. There are some great guest stars, interesting ideas and a spotlight on the fact he can turn fantastic street food into something even better. This doesn't seem to be the kind of thing I would normally watch, but so far so good.

***

A different kind of Beast is a rampaging man-eating lion in Idris Elba's latest eponymous B movie. This shouldn't be as much 'fun' as it is and despite lots of clichés, there's lots of red herring clichés thrown in to make you think there's more to it than four people being hunted by a very angry lion.

It offers up cod philosophy about nature turning on man and has, with the exception of Sharlto Copley's game warden buddy, some pretty dislikeable characters and dodgy dialogue, but it's 85 minutes of roaring action and wholesale butchery. It's more fun than a lot of things I review. 

***

Next time - as I appear to be writing these more frequently than usual, probably I'll be talking about all the things from the last blog's next time thing. Some things will be concluding, new things will have started, it will have gotten colder.

An MCU Review: Thor - Love & Thunder

There's a lot wrong with this film but it wasn't the car crash I was led to believe nor was it very long. It weighs in at under 2 hours and if anything it could have done with being longer...

Observations:

I forecast a couple of months ago that the trailers for this wouldn't reflect the film in the slightest and that some scenes wouldn't even be in the film and I was spot on about that. The thing is, some of those scenes in the trailers should have been in the film.

Was the decision to team Thor up with the Guardians of the Galaxy a mistake sorted out in the opening 25 minutes of this film? Why were they even there? It seems to me that 'Marvel' has ideas but soon realises that these ideas might not necessarily work.

I know this follow themes in the comic that I've not read but Jane Foster's [ambiguous] cancer and the really [ACK!!!] corny way in which she becomes Thor all seemed conveniently manufactured and leaves me with the question as to why didn't Steve Rogers turn into Captain AmericThor? Why has there never been a casual comment about the possible sentience of Thor's weapons? Oo-er, missus. 

There's a remarkable amount of standing around talking, exposition and explanation and I'm sure a bunch of Easter Eggs - such as the Celestials appearance, Eternity and Hercules, but surely the most misguided decision was OmniCity and the inclusion of all those gods - great and small, all looking up to the massive cockwomble called Zeus. No wonder Asgardians act differently, because most of the other gods of the universe are a bit naff.

It doesn't feel like a complete film; it jumps about a lot and moves the Asgard story forward without really moving it forward at all and some of the early set pieces/scene setting looks fantastic and had no reason for being there and Gorr, while getting a fair bit of screen time, seems a wee bit superficial and rough-edged, like the best of him ended up on the cutting room floor or in the trailers that weren't used in the film. He definitely isn't Marvel's best supervillain; he's just a bitter and twisted zealot who has seen the errors of his ways and his denouement is just... a bit wrong.

The finale wasn't bad, I just felt that empowering all the kidnapped children with the power of Thor seemed a little more Deus Ex Machina than normal and pay-off felt, like much of the film, rushed and in need to be done quick enough so you don't spend time analysing it*.

It's not the worst Thor film, but it would fight Dark World to the death without a real winner if they were both boxers. However, whereas Dark World still feels largely like [enjoyable] filler - a non-plot episode in the season of MCU films - Love & Thunder feels almost more like a set up for other films that are coming.

It is sad, stupid and quite funny - not as funny as Ragnarok - but feels forced and like it desperately needs to go at a million miles an hour. There's a half decent film bookended between the opening 25 minutes which appears to be nothing more than an intro to Gorr and a recap of what's been happening since the end of Endgame. The closing scene, with Thor now the 'god' parent of Gorr's celestially reborn (with powers) daughter, felt as forced and tacked on as the final scene in the recent Dr Strange film - like an invitation to miss the next thrilling instalment. 

In conclusion: I don't know if I enjoyed this more than almost every other MCU film since 2019 because of the familiarity with this sub-franchise or because it's the best of a generally bad lot of films. It does have two polar opposite end credits scenes. The first is a bit of a face palm moment because if one thing was clear about this film, Zeus is a twat (as are most Gods) and he should have been forgotten about, as quickly as possible and the final end credit scene was sort of lovely, fitting and nice.

This film missed Loki like a Star Trek film would miss Jim Kirk; despite Hemsworth's charms (and physique), Hiddlestone steals all the Thor films because his character, generally, is so good. This film could also have done with missing Korg...

* We watched the only older (pre 2020) MCU film we hadn't seen more than once the other day - Ant-Man & The Wasp - and pretty much realised that it feels like a movie script written by AI. It was like there was a check list of topics that needed to either be mentioned or explained that felt almost shoehorned into the story to give the impression of a flowing narrative and as an exercise in tying the film together, they would have done better using SuperGlue. Everything from Larry Fishbourne lecturing about the exact thing the film was dealing with to the heavy-handedness of the FBI. It's most definitely an MCU film, it's just not very good, possibly one of the worst in the entire franchise (although the beginning is ace).

Modern Culture: Green with Envy

... And so it came to pass that with the addition of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, Marvel introduced us to a world where Deadpool can exist (although part of me expects Deadpool's next film to have Multiverse writ LARGE all over it). However, what I really should have started with was, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law could be the show that cracks it for Marvel/Disney+ especially if the first episode is anything to go by.

This is IN YOUR FACE TV, exactly what we want from Marvel. This is one of the big-hitters involved in something 'proper Marvel Universe' and it's fun; there are funny moments, it's well-scripted and best of all it knows it with the excellent breaking the fourth wall moments, which, incidentally, is a direct swipe of John Byrne's She Hulk revamp in the 1990s. 

The odd things about it are clear; there's a substandard feel to the SFX, but that might be deliberate, this is, after all, a comedy and it essentially gives you Jennifer Walters life story in a 30 second recap, ties her link to Bruce Banner, without explaining how (and not needing to) and sets you up with everything you need to know by the time you enter the 4th minute of the show, which is pretty much constant in it's action and set-ups. 

Episode two however weighs in at just under 21 minutes of actual screen time and this is an issue Marvel needs to address with its TV; it's either too long or not long enough, they don't seem to get the balance right and even when they're in the ballpark they miss the trick... Anyhow, the second episode quickly sets up Jen's new job and returns Emile Blonsky - the Abomination - to the centre of the MCU and despatches cousin Bruce, in what looks like a return to the planet he was on in Thor: Ragnarok, in a subplot that obviously won't be explored in this series and we're unlikely to see Mark Ruffalo again in this either. There's also a very funny scene round Jen's family home, mainly to do with Hawkeye retrieving his used arrows.

With episode three it becomes a law show, albeit one with a certain twist and while the action is ramped down the humour remains solid. I think one thing is clear, while this is very irreverent it still sits firmly within the MCU and will probably not be the last we see of She-Hulk. It was also closer to 30 minutes than 20, so that was an improvement.

At the moment, I'd highly recommend it - running time considered.

***

I'm such a fool... Last time out I was moaning about the piss poor season finale of Motherland: Fort Salem and how they just seemed to set everything up for a season 4 we're not sure is being made and it only turned out to be the penultimate episode of the series... D'oh.

The finale was... odd. All credit to the writer - Eliot Laurence - for the direction the series took and the eventual conclusion it arrived at, which was more MCU - Mycological Character Universe than you can imagine. One thing I will always say about this series was where it struggled with the acting, the overwrought scripts and the dialogue straight out of 6th form dramas, it had some wild and wacky ideas that it followed through until the end.

There was death, but only the one and that almost seemed like tokenism, especially as it was a little telegraphed by the character's big huggy farewell to her trainees now all grown up and about to end the world as we know it. There was also a few loose plot lines, which I think might have been brushed over more for the problems they caused than anything else. The baddies were comprehensively beaten by the B team, leaving the A team and their mates to sing us to a brave new world order.

I meant what I said last time around; I won't watch this again, but I don't think I have anything to fear there. This was about as conclusive an ending as you could devise, leaving our three heroes in charge of the world (with a wink and a nod to Buffy season 7) with a lot of building to do. It was a satisfying ending to a mildly enjoyable series. I just wish I wasn't harping on about how poor quality many of the actors in it were.

***

We started watching Barry. I'd been hearing things without really knowing anything about it, if you know what I mean? It wasn't until I actually looked at the IMDB entry that I even knew it was a 'comedy' - a very dark, very black comedy. It's essentially a show about a cold blooded contract killer who has grown disillusioned with killing bad guys and wants to become an actor after being inspired by one of his contracts.

Bill Hader plays Barry in a very cold fish out of water kind of way; Sarah Goldberg is his 'love' interest and Henry Winkler is essentially playing a 60-something Arthur Fonzarelli reinvented as an acting coach. It has laugh out loud moments, is extremely well put together and I totally get why it's this huge sleeper hit for HBO. 

Series one does a great job of setting the scene, introducing us to the characters and making us realise that while there are some genuinely funny moments, this is as black as the blackest black hole.

Season two, which we have just finished, pretty much carries on from the first series but a little later. There's a continuity issue that I hope will be cleared up - how Janice's partner managed to suspect Barry of killing his partner when she didn't even suss Barry out - accidentally - until the final couple of minutes of the season one finale. However there is also possibly one of the funniest and surreal half hours you will ever watch as Barry (and Fuchs) have to kill an Olympic Taekwondo champion, with a feral, superhuman daughter, to get the LAPD off their backs. It sounds weird enough on paper, it's actually a bit like an entire episode of Peter Griffin fighting the giant chicken on Family Guy... 

Plus NoHo Hank. That's all. 

***

Nope certainly gets a thumbs down from me and a big 'nope' to back it up. 

I don't want to give anything away so trying to explain what went on is difficult enough without me having fallen asleep several times during the viewing with the wife prodding me and reminding me I wanted to watch this. 

It's more like a M. Night Shyamalan film in both obliqueness and having an ending that the previous two hours wasn't even hinting at. There's lots of theatrical in-jokes, justification of situations and Daniel Kaluuya mumbling, grumbling and acting like Forrest Whitaker in a caveman play - although the character is depicted as a slightly on-the-spectrum social misfit. He does say 'nope' quite a bit, either as a subliminal advert for the film or simply as a commentary on the absurd nature of the film.

The thing is I wanted to like it, when the film ended all I could think about was how I should have enjoyed it more than I did because the concept was fantastic, it's simply just a really dull film with a lot of blind alleys to pump up the running time. Jordon Peele doesn't appear to be the saviour of horror and mystery at all, a little like M Night mentioned earlier...

***

Okay, despite claiming we weren't going to watch it, we've started watching House of the Dragon and it's basically Game of Thrones set 200 years earlier with grubbier sets, more violence, less nudity and a bunch of people you really don't give a toss about. Plus, we kind of know what will happen if we read the original books of the unfinished tome, because the Targaryen time line is there to see if you look for it, therefore, as with all prequels, nothing should be as awesome as the original and probably won't feel as important otherwise why do the book adaptations when you could just make shit up?

Episode two did nothing to make me change my mind; it's just a re-tread of GOT with Crab men rather than White Walkers. 

***

The Sandman returned less than three weeks after the series concluded. This unusual addition to the first season could easily have been placed in the middle of the actual series, but came as a very welcome extra to an excellent show. 

Split into two parts - the first third is an animated version of the Sandman story The Dream of a Thousand Cats, while the second part - Calliope - is about a muse and former lover of Morpheus who finds herself prisoner to some brutal men who abuse her for success and how the Robert Smith look-a-like gains revenge for her. Apparently some people are angry that this instalment didn't go far enough with the revenge element or that it allowed an evil person to be depicted as a desperate man who needs to do anything to be successful.

Arthur Darville plays the writer who first welcomes his new muse with friendship and promises before - off camera - treating her much like her former 'owner' to get the best out of himself. It's the actor's best role since Dr Who and he wasn't that good in that, but in this he shows all the vulnerability and desperation he needs. Another cracking episode and it makes you wonder if we're going to see other 'specials' appear over the next year as we await the second season?

***

Just a quick mention about Resident Alien which really has jumped the shark with a time paradox story to add to the already plethora of plots, subplots and lord knows what else in this mess of a show. It does seem to have rediscovered its ability to make you laugh, but only by returning the sheriff to the bizarro dude he was originally and having Harry insult people. As dramadies go though this is rapidly turning into a load of shite.

***

Next time: We'll be about half way through She-Hulk, the dreadful thing mentioned just above will have finished (hopefully for good) and we'll be zeroing in on the finale of the GOT prequel. I'm going in with the LOTR prequel and before that will be a review of the latest MCU offering, which streams next week... 

In the meantime, ponder this: if the cost of living crisis becomes as bad as everyone is warning (usually a sign it will be worse) how will all the streaming services continue to produce astounding television - whether good or bad - if their customer base begins to shrink because of poverty? It doesn't matter what right wing leaning people think about the poor, I'm fairly sure Netflix is less important than feeding their children.