John Wick 3 took more in the opening weekend than John Wick 1 did in its entire run! #johnwick #johnwick3 #KeanuReeves #HalleBerry

 

The John Wick movies have quite rightly earned a cult status. The fresh fighting style that’s used (I heard Keanu describe it as being based on ‘gun katas’), the cool Matrix stylings and intertextuality, the simple righteous revenge plots, the intriguing underworld and global hierarchy of assassins, the lack of fear when it comes to the body-count, and Keanu’s inimitable style of acting… all combine to give us a compelling, adrenaline-fuelled and screamingly addictive ride. And it’s a welcome ride that really has resurrected Keanu’s career, to boot!

The first movie in the sequence opened without much media fanfare but quietly grew in audience and fame. Now, with John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, we have a movie that has taken more at the box office in its opening weekend than the first film did in its entire run. Added to that the fourth movie is already confirmed and a TV show spin-off called The Continental (named after the uber-cool, steampunk assassins’ hotel) is also being produced. Oo, and if you want my guess, the gun-toting Halle Berry character from the third film (along with her trained killer dogs) will also get a spin-off!

Regular readers of this site will know that this often grumpy reviewer was a massive fan of John Wick 1 & 2. So what did this often grumpy reviewer make of John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum? Well, indulge my grumpiness here, if you will. The title of the film itself is something of an indicator that the simple innocence of the first two movies has somewhat been lost. Things have become somewhat overloaded with new and contrived expectations. (For reference, Parabellum means ‘Prepare for war!’)

You see, the first two movies were based on simple revenge plots. In the first movie, John’s dog is killed by mafia types (and the dog was a gift from his wife before she died!) and his car is stolen. The mafia types have failed to realise that John is a notorious retired assassin… whom they have just brought out of retirement! Gulp! We cheer as the aggrieved and grieving John sets out for revenge upon the entire mafia. We are properly engaged, meaning that the action is emotionally compelling, no matter that it is overblown and not credible. It works morally and symbolically. The second movie is very similar… and that’s just fine indeed.

Yet the third film departs from the plot premise of the first two. It’s simply John on the run from all the other assassins because he has broken the rules of the assassins’ hotel/world. Hmm. Morally, we don’t feel much for John concerning this… after all, he’s a cold-blooded assassin himself. When we don’t care, the umpteen fight scenes become tedious rather than compelling. The refrain of the movie is ‘There are always consequences!’ but that is just a tautologous nonsense statement about the cause and effect nature of the world and basic physics, surely. The film struggles and strains to give itself depth… where before it naturally had it with simple elegance and without effort. Chapter 3 is by turns a dull and painful struggle to watch. Even the baddies in this third part aren’t properly bad. We have the Adjudicator character and her hired samurai, but they are simple functionaries, simply doing their jobs… and not actually evil for the fascinating sake of it. So we can’t even root for John based on his being more morally attractive than who he’s up against.

Look, true fans might be able to see past the inadequacies of the third film anyway, and I note the film has good scores from IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes, so maybe I/we shouldn’t talk too much more about it. Certainly, the third film does offer some new ideas and some extra world-building. And it’s setting up one helluva war for the fourth film! So let’s just say John Wick 3 is the equivalent of The Matrix 3, and leave it at that. I, for one, and no doubt one of many others, fully intend to watch the fourth movie and all future spin-offs – and maybe that’s the only real test of things! Onwards to war!

 

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Skull face appears on international author’s beer glass while drinking in Jamaica Inn! The new Turin Shroud? #JamaicaInn #TurinShroud #DaphneDuMaurier

Behold!

Shazam is a riot! #Shazam #MarkStrong #moviereview

Shazam is a wish-fulfilment movie in which a foster kid becomes the adult superhero he’s always dreamed of being. He (and we) have great fun childishly experimenting with his super-powers and buff body in an adult world. There’s also a suitably menacing supervillain to be confronted (played by the ever cool and cold Mark Strong), not to mention a demon horde (the seven deadly sins).

There are lots of self-aware references to DC’s Batman v Superman film, but the tone of DC’s Shazam is more akin to Marvel’s Deadpool, in truth. And DC are right to follow Marvel’s lead, cos Shazam really works as a consequence. Shazam even brings something new to the party, because where Deadpool is all adult cynicism and self-indulgence, Shazam is all youthful innocence and generosity of spirit. It is huge credit to the writers and director that they managed to pull off a PG-13 film that still offers enough for an adult audience.

There are also meta references to the usual ‘Chosen One’ and ‘Hero’s Journey’ motifs of superhero stories (see Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces if you want to know more). Shazam subverts them very entertainingly. We realise that anyone can be hero if they choose to be so. Hand-in-hand with that, we understand that anyone can be a villain if they choose to be so. So this is a story about the risk, self-knowledge and bravery one requires if they are going to self-actualise. It’s a healthy message in this infantalised (and infantalising) era of nappy-wearing self-obsession.

So Shazam is more than just a rites of passage movie. It is more than just a superhero movie. It is more than just a kids’ movie. It is more than the sum of its parts. Give it a watch – you’ll eventually enjoy it despite yourself… I did, anyway. (Okay, it’s a bit slow at the start, but it gets there in the end.) It scores a hugely respectable and feel-good 8 out of 10 from me.

Embodiments of evil!

Luna Press Publishing are soon to be publishing A Shadow Within: Evil in Fantasy and Science Fiction. I’ve got an essay in the collection entitled ‘Embodiments of evil and reflections of social change in second-world fantasy’. You can read about it here: https://www.lunapresspublishing.com/single-post/2019/04/14/C4P-A-J-Dalton—Embodiments-of-evil-and-reflections-of-social-change-in-second-world-fantasy

The disorder of ‘The Order’ on Netflix #theorder #netflixreview

So, in quite orderly fashion, a college kid joins a secret magical order (called ‘The Order’). All ordinary so far. But then he’s extraordinarily kidnapped and turned into a werewolf, meaning he’s now a disorderly inside man in the werewolf fight against the Order. We never really find out why the werewolves are fighting the Order, but werewolves aren’t great thinkers, so never mind.

A love interest is chucked in. There are buff boys and bints aplenty. There’s a range of random murders (the police never get involved though, for some unfathomable reason), meaning there really can’t be many students left alive at this college. But no one seems too upset by that, since pretty much all the students are so annoying. There are enchanted blades and stabbings, but magic goo to heal the wounds, except when the series forgets about the magic goo and wants to create jeopardy. There are betrayals (sort of). There’s a kinda cool ‘necrophone’ that lets people speak to the dead, but it gets pretty promptly destroyed (shame). There’s a magical gauntlet that tortures people till they tell the truth (use it on Trump!). Oh, and there’s a deep-voiced mad supermagus with a big old grimoire that might destroy the world… or save it… we’re not sure which and it doesn’t matter really.

This series is utter junk in terms of character and continuity. It shouldn’t work. It shouldn’t be compelling watching. But somehow it is. It’s fairly baffling how it manages to pull it off. True, it avoids clumsy exposition and there are some funny lines… but is that all we need these days? Maybe. Don’t we need logic and credible plotting? Apparently not. Expedience seems to be the name of the game. High tempo and fun rushing around is all we want these days, cos that’s all we have time for in our stressful and hectic lives. I can’t believe I’m saying this: I enjoyed the series and would recommend it to a degree. Says a lot about me, probably.

Green Book is two different movies forced to cohabit #GreenBook #MahershalaAli #ViggoMortensen

This year’s Oscar for best film went to Green Book. There was a backlash, led in part by Spike Lee. Having now watched the movie, I can see his gripe. Where Green Book starts out edgy, with some pointed role reversal… it then descends into homilies, cliched scenes, white-splaining (so much white-splaining), white saviour tropes, white police showing that they’re not so bad after all (no BlackLivesMatter issues here!) and then a flipping family xmas Love Thy Neighbour whitewash. Yikes.

Where did it all go wrong? Well, it really started coming off the rails when white corporate America decided to get in on the movie. I kid you not: Viggo Mortensen pulls the car over at the first Kentucky Fried Chicken in America and then all but force-shames Mahershala into eating fried chicken. Mahershala, gagging, is forced to concede that it is indeed fried chicken and he has some sort of racial affinity with fried chicken. WTF? How on earth did the makers think this was an okay scene? It is quickly followed by Viggo railing at Mahershala that ‘I’m more black than you, cos you don’t know what it is to struggle to feed a family’. Ultimately, Viggo liberates Mahershala, helps him connect with his true self, saves him from bad types and makes sure everyone lives happily ever after.

Such a shame. There are superb, moving and insightful scenes early on. The acting is suitably brilliant. The relationship between the male leads develops interestingly (although a lot of Mahershala’s subplot points are never resolved, meaning he’s half the character Viggo is). And, cinematically, the Pan-American road-trip is a true Odyssey. But the money men behind the film hijack the narrative completely.

It’s far from being a progressive film. It scores 7.5 out of 10 from me.

Much more fun than this Vulcan stoicism? Star Trek Discovery gets a bit mixed up?#SaintsofImperfection #StarTrekDiscovery #episode5

Hmm. Episode 5 is called ‘Saints of Imperfection’ and, indeed, there’s a lot of imperfection going on. Imperfection that involves nothing but contradiction and incoherence. And the characters aren’t ‘saints’ at all, cos they’re part and parcel of all the imperfection going on. The fundamental problem that started in the previous episode is that Burnham’s character is now so inconsistent it’s ridiculous. Burnham was meant to be all ‘Vulcan’, logical and dispassionate (as per the upbringing of her formative years), but suddenly she’s the most empathic person on the damn ship – more human than the humans. She mopes about, looking doleful and pained. She gazes mournfully at Ash Tyler (her true love who is denied to her), she looks tragic about her disfunctional relationship with Spock (who isn’t even there) and, unprompted, she turns up at Tilly’s quarters to engage in a weepy sob. Trust us, Burnham, it’s painful for us too. What are the writers playing at? Well, that’s it: they’re playing about. They tell us so as well, cos Georgiu says: ‘It’s much more fun [like this] than [having] this Vulcan stoicism.’ The writers reckon they can wring more jokes out of proceedings by having everybody emotional and chaotic, like Tilly. It’s very lazy writing. The writers have lost direction and, once again, they verbalise it during Burnham’s narrator reverie and summary at the end of the show: ‘If I have a path, I’m still searching for it. We all are. I envy those who can believe there’s a greater hand writing our story.’ Burnham actually says that! How self-indulgent are these writers getting? They’ve put their hands up and admitted they’ve let it all slip. Oooooops.

Where does it leave us? Back to flaming square one. All the characters that have died up till this episode are back, and they’re all fit and healthy. Georgiu (the annoyingly cryptic and creepy Michelle Yeoh, whom the producers have clearly hired for another season but aren’t really sure what to do with) stalks around wearing black and trying to find a narrative for herself. Then Stamets (whose grief had made him so interesting) has his old love and life restored to him. Ash Tyler is back on board, and for some non-reason he gets to stay, cos Captain Pine supernaturally seems to know this will cause hi-jinks in future episodes. And… whatever. (By the way, we all know Lorca’s gonna reappear too, right?) We needn’t have watched anything at all before this episode then? Because nothing has had any real or actual consequence? What’s the point then? WHAT are you doing, writers? No wonder Saru has nothing to say throughout the entire episode (despite having had such a transformative moment in the previous episode). He’s shocked into a horrified silence, probably glad he’s wearing so much prosthetic make-up so that we don’t see him cringing and wincing.

It’s a shame, cos the first half of the episode, set in the Mycelial Network, presents us with an intriguing scenario of ‘there’s a monster in the woods killing us one by one’. It taps into ancestral memories and fairy tales. It’s powerful. And the Tilly-May relationship is compellingly strange – an incipient interspecies lesbian relationship. But that scenario gets phallocentrically overtaken very quickly (by the Stamets-Hugh relationship) and it’s all put to bed before we have to see any actual physical intimacy (that’s where Hollywood draws the line, of course). AND THEN, the rest of the episode becomes this bizarre talking-heads exposition in which Pine, the Admiral and the head of Section 31 (Star Trek’s black ops division) witter nonsense about the never-ending pursuit of Spock and try to set up a political love-hate triangle amongst themselves, trying to give themselves characters and tense character relationships. ‘Enough of this manlier-than-thou bullsh+t!’ the Admiral castigates the other two… except neither of them have been acting in such a fashion. The Admiral tries to explain their characters to them. It’s like a writer’s meeting. Indeed, that’s what the entire episode is – confused writers talking to themselves about themselves, darlings. It’s so self-indulgent it’s nauseating. They seem to have entirely forgotten the audience is there. And, maybe, the audience won’t be there for very much longer. Buck up your ideas, please!