The Frankenstein Chronicles are well worth a watch #Frankenstein

The first series of the Frankenstein Chronicles was actually made back in 2015, but it was aired on an obscure ITV channel, so never really got the audience it deserved. It has now been launched on Netflix and is apparently doing so well that there is talk of a third series being commissioned. So what’s the show all about?

Sean Bean plays detective John Marlott in the London of 1827. He is tasked by the Home Secretary Robert Peel with clearing up a series of grisly murders that are apparently inspired the novel Frankenstein. Someone is trying to stitch several dead bodies together in order to reanimate a corpse via the science of ‘galvanism’? Grave robbers become suspects because of their access to the dead… and then so do various notorious surgeons.

In the course of his investigations, Marlott interviews the poet William Blake and the writer of the ubiquitous novel (Mary Shelley). All the while, he is dogged by the journalist Boz (the young Charles Dickens). Fact and fiction merge in this series, as do reality and dream, to create an immersive and disorienting psychological landscape. It is properly dark and gothic.

Each of the two series currently available on Netflix is comprised of six one-hour episodes. What that means is that the narrative is brisk throughout, without any duff or drifting episodes. And because proceedings are brisk, plot twists come as sudden and genuine revelations. The finale of series 1 is awesome.

The Frankenstein Chronicles perhaps represent what the Penny Dreadful show was trying to achieve. The Frankenstein Chronicles are far more successful and artistically accomplished, however. And Sean Bean carries the show superbly, as do the supporting cast (particularly the black policeman Nightgale, played by Richie Campbell). If you like gothic detective fare I strongly recommend this series to you. In being set before the Victorian era, it also offers something fresh and different in its visuals and setting. It’s a 9 out of 10 from me.

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Why the critics are wrong: review of The Circle #TheCircle #EmmaWatson #DaveEggers #JohnBoyega #moviereview #TomHanks

So, the movie of The Circle (adapted from the popular Dave Eggers book) got really panned and hammered by the critics (and some audiences) when it was released last year. It scored 43% on Metacritic and a measly 16% on Rotten Tomatoes. In fact, it was so universally trashed that I didn’t go and see it at the cinema, despite my initial inclinations to do so and my partner having enjoyed the novel immensely.

I love a bit of speculative future, near-future or cyber-thriller stuff. Indeed, we don’t get as much of it as I would like… because, apparently, such films go out of date very quickly, end up looking quaint and simply do not have enough of a ‘long-tail’ audience (people watching it even several years after it is made). Hollywood, according to what I have read, has really backed away from the real-world techno-thriller genre. In fact, there are so few films in this genre nowadays, that when I was idly looking for something to watch on Netflix, there was pretty much only The Circle available. Ironic, huh?

‘Can it really be as bad as all that?’ I wondered to myself. I mean, it stars Tom Hanks, Emma Watson, Karen Gillan and John Boyega, to name but a few. And it’s based on a cult novel. So I decided to watch this tale of a young woman deciding to work for the world’s biggest social media company (very Facebook, obviously), where all she has to do is ‘like’ or ‘dislike’ content, answer user questions… and share information about her own life. Indeed, she has to share more and more about herself, and receives poor performance ratings in her work if she doesn’t continue to share. Not sharing is considered to be a form of secrecy, lying and theft. Those who do not start sharing everything (who do not go ‘fully transparent’) are considered to be criminal or up to no good. A bit predictably, we then come to learn that the Circle has sinister intentions, wanting universal surveillance and control of the population. It does it in the name of a single-access and global democracy movement/goal – making it an entirely hypocritical or immoral organisation.

The movie, given how both Cambridge Analytica and Russia used Facebook to effect the US elections and the Brexit vote, has particular resonance today. Yes, it might feel slightly ‘after the fact’ now (out of date), but it also feels authentic and prescient. At moments, it is a bit expository and patronising in how it explains arguments for and against social media. But, at the same time, it riffs convincingly on the popularist style used by the likes of Steve Jobs (exposing how likeability is used to manipulate us all) and on the positivity that is so demanded by Amercian culture (exposing how it ‘forces’ people to endorse things they do not necessarily agree with). This movie, like the novel, very much understands how social media prioritises ‘style over substance’ in order to keep us off-balance. It very much understands, and is largely successful in describing, the world we live in today and the dangerous direction in which we are heading. Legislation needs to be brought in now if we are to be properly safeguarded (from ourselves and those with an agenda that is not too philanthropic, let’s say).

So, the film has intelligent content, even if it slightly struggles to adapt the text-driven nature of its original novel. Indeed, if the film had been shown more respect and paid more attention when it came out, we may not have ended up in the current mess. We wouldn’t have had to witness Zuckerberg apologising to government committees with admissions that ‘We got it wrong’ and ‘We were naive’.

Why then did the critics and certain audiences slam the film so badly when it came out? Because they wanted to hate it, that’s why. They wanted to reject the message of the film. They were in denial about what was going on in the world. They had already been manipulated by social media companies just like the Circle. Spoooooky!

That final irony, for me, says there is something valuable and worthwhile about the movie of The Circle. It is fun and fluffy, but it is also a touch thought-provoking and deliberately dissatisfying. Don’t let the critics tell you what to think. Fight them! Anyway, it scores a 7.5 out of 10 from me.

Luke Cage 2 great until the appearance of the Mighty Cheese Fist! And I wanna try Bushmaster rum! #LukeCageSeason2 #Bushmaster

The first season of Luke Cage was flawed (a lot of very macho and repetitive fighting) but pretty much worked. The second season builds on the first season, reducing the amount of fighting but making the fights that happen more meaningful, and strengthening the female roles. The second season also works hard to add more intellectual content – and, apart from the odd misfire, succeeds. There are the usual themes of debating the true nature of a hero, of how the children inherit the sins of the father, and so on, but then there are some surprising issues raised, such as the relative social status of different shades of black, of the new nature of the American Dream, and of the superior value of a benevolent dictatorship. There’s even bisexual representation, which is extremely rare (the ‘B’ in LGBTQ is traditionally ignored and treated with suspicion).

Don’t get me wrong, season 2 still has some significant issues. There is far too much navel-gazing (reciting umpteen cliches, platitudes, aphorisms, addages and non-sensical mantras), the contrived ‘row’ between Luke and his girlfriend (all done in mixed metaphor, DIY psychobabble and American pseudo-Christian-speak) will have you groaning and reaching for the fast forward button, the attempt to involve Instagram etc to ‘be down with the kids’ will have you cringing, and the appearance of the Mighty Cheesey Fist completely ruins episode 10 (a tragedy for me, cos I always loved the Iron  Fist comics and am still devastated by what they’ve done to him on the small screen).

Yet the Bushmaster baddie (played superbly well by Mustafa Shakir) is a genuine challenge to Luke’s ominipotence and introduces some refreshingly different Jamaican mythos, politics, gang culture and patois. There are great, complex and intriguing female roles – Alfre Woodard as the Queen of gangsters is chilling and utterly convincing. The soundtrack, with regular appearances of both legendary and upcoming black musical artists, is banging. And this season actually succeeds in doing something ‘new’ (where the second season of Jessica Jones tried but failed), something new within the wider superhero genre, not just within the Marvel tv and film world. The second season of Luke Cage had an unpredictable ending which actually made me reflect back on all the other episodes and ‘see’ things differently. What Luke represents at the end of the season does break the mould. I genuinely look forward to the third season – if it can build on season 2 (in the way season 2 has built on season 1) then we should be in for something very special.

There are some duff episodes along the way (episodes 2 and 3 spring to mind), but they are worth getting thru. The RumPunch Massacre is truly something shocking. Watch for it. And I wanna try drinking Bushmaster rum!

Review of Westworld Season 2 – Even some of the hosts give up: and they have far better endurance than most humans! #westworld

[No spoilers] So, the finale of season 2 of Westworld has now aired. Do we finally get some answers? Do we get to make some sense of all the cryptic references, apparently random events and frustrating dislocation within this series? Well, yes, we do get some answers, resolution and satisfaction, as it happens. But do any of us still care? How many of us have remained bothered enough to make it all the way to the end? (Even some of the hosts/androids simply give up, and they have far better endurance than most humans.)

If you recall season 1, it was centred around human characters who become morally challenged and compromised by the freedom that Westworld gave them to enact all their darkest fantasies. Their true selves (ids) were revealed – and it was fascinatingly monstrous. The moral dilemmas that the opening season presented kept us engaged (sometimes emotionally and sometimes in a problem-solving way). We cared, even though we were often appalled.

Season 2, however, centres around the hosts/androids (particularly Delores) as they seek to overthrow their human masters. Unfortunately, season 2 simply doesn’t have the same moral dilemmas as season 1 to keep us engaged. The hosts really do not have any credible internal conflicts. I personally found it extremely difficult to care about these avenging androids. And then season 2 kept messing with the chronology so much that there wasn’t any clear sense of the story progressing. It wasn’t intriguing – it was simply annoying and often nonsensical.

I kept watching though, because it was clear that the makers were working so hard on trying to do something interesting. I persevered, against my better judgement. I waded through stodgy episode after episode (although the special FX were always a diverting spectacle). Then we got to episodes 7 and 8 and I thought aha! Finally! Decent standalone stories that are as bitter-sweet as they are thought-provoking. But then episode 9 returned to the same old tosh as before. And the finale (10) was a double-header that my partner was asking me to switch off after 30mins. I’m kinda glad I kept at it. But only kinda.

When all’s said and done, season 2 doesn’t really stand up to close scrutiny. It cheats on the philosophy – it’s all a bit ‘cod’ and just doesn’t hang together. It cheats on the continuity – there ARE paradoxes and contradictions that occur as a result. And it cheats on the plot – time and again we follow a loose thread that goes nowhere. It felt like episodes or character storylines were being written by different people with different visions of what should be going on – if that had been done in a more self-aware way, that might have introduced an interesting meta-theme to proceedings, but actually there were already too many themes interfering with the central arc.

How to sum up then? Hmm. I’m not sure. Season 2 is even more flawed than season 1. Where I could forgive the first season for its shortcomings, I’m really not sure about the second season. Sadly, I’d only score the second season 6.5 out of 10. But maybe the test of time will change that. Certainly, critics and fan forums score it higher than me at the mo.

Marvel’s Cloak and Dagger is far better than DC’s Black Lightning

So, the first two episodes of Marvel’s Cloak and Dagger have just landed on Amazon Prime – which is odd, cos most other Marvel series like Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Daredevil, The Defenders and Cheesy Iron Fist have appeared on Netflix. Strange that Marvel have changed platform? Well, Netflix had already shown DC’s Black Lightning, you see, so Cloak and Dagger would have been far too similar to what the Netflix audience had already seen.

Which one is better: Black Lightning or Cloak and Dagger? The latter, by quite a margin. Where BL is very hammy, preachy and cumbersome, C&D is nuanced, ambiguous and non-expository. Both series deal with serious issues about what it is like being a person of colour in today’s America, but BL is moralising and about taking individual responsibility, where C&D is about empathising with those who are victims/creations of their circumstances through no fault of their own. Put simply, BL is old-fashioned and stereotypical goodies v baddies fare, whereas C&D is real-world and morally confusing. Where BL’s storyline jumps around illogically in order to permit a big set-piece fight scene (always popular), C&D is about two young people coming of age, fearing the adult world into which they are emerging and seeking to suppress their incipient powers that will make them even more of a target. The two series are almost photonegatives of each other in terms of story-telling approach and plot organisation. They have competing philosophies, fundamentally.

Cloak and Dagger is not only better than Black Lightning as a TV show, but also it is markedly better than its own original comic strip. I grew up reading Cloak and Dagger (from their first appearance in The Spectacular Spider-Man), and they were a simple pair of heroes representing light and dark as superpowers, fighting an array of very silly baddies. There was no actual social context within their stories. Yes, Cloak was a person of colour, but literally only in how he was coloured in – there was nothing about his ordinary travails in the real world – and there was no real attempt to deal with (or discuss) their implicit inter-racial relationship. The TV show on Amazon Prime, by comparison, is fully ‘woke’ (if you’ll forgive the term).

The young pretty blonde who is Dagger is a petty thief. The way she steals from others is quite distressing to watch – and her crimes become less and less justifiable. We do empathise with her, because we’ve seen her upbringing and abusive mother (and she is as pretty as she is well acted by Olivia Holt), but at the same time we are increasingly horrified by what she does. Then there is Cloak, who is a young black guy who is morally upstanding but still ends up getting into no end of trouble (in part because of his colour). Dagger rides her luck and uses her colour to her immoral advantage, whereas Cloak (as buff as he is well played by Aubrey Joseph) does the right thing but always has his colour as a disadvantage. It’s a fascinating juxtaposition and complementarity. Their lives are a mess – and, we ironically suspect, things will only get better when they embrace their opposite. Roll on episode 3! So far, it’s an 8.5/10 from me (not more yet cos of the incipient evil-corportation cliche).

Deadpool misunderstood by critics? #deadpool2

Most of the reviews I read in the British press for the Deadpool 2 movie gave it three stars. And yet, on Rotten Tomatoes, the film is currently scoring 86% with audiences. There’s a bit of a mismatch there. I saw the film last night and, pondering some of the accusations levelled at the film by the critics, have to say I think the critics are just plain wrong, misinformed or critically unsophisticated enough to ‘get’ what the film is doing. Deadpool 2 is a brave film that is deceptively simple. In fact, a lazy, unthinking viewer (one who doesn’t engage brain or critical faculty) will probably consider the movie to be by-the-numbers or even straightout bad. This is a perfect example of ‘you get out what you put in’.

I saw several reviewers complain that the movie, for all its representation of minority groups, was still centred around two white guys (Deadpool and Cable) proving who was the toughest. These reviewers claimed that the female characters and minority groups were reduced to canon fodder or background filler (with very few lines of dialogue). Such complaints and claims are a fundamental misrepresentation of the movie. At the end of the day, the movie is about the Deadpool character (who, admittedly, is white and male), but throughout he challenges what a white male hero is all about in today’s society – that’s the point of his character! And Cable (who uses the c-word) is only there as the inverse – to show us what a macho asshole Deadpool would be if he was reduced to the traditional white hero – the Deadpool/Cable dynamic is actually a bipolar debate about the nature of male identity. To then say the female characters and minority groups are done a disservice (in ‘service’ to the patriarchy) is hogwash. The Domino character (a woman of colour) proves Deadpool wrong, has plenty of central moments and survives where loads of white males (X-force) get chewed up. Then, when the Deadpool/Cable narrative falls away, it is the narrative concerning the young, large-bodied, Maori Firefist that completely takes over. Yes, the female character of Negasonic Teenage Warhead remains largely surly and monosyllablic throughout, but that’s the whole point – since, if you remember the first movie, she hates adult authority, is too cool for school and absolutely doesn’t want to succumb to Deadpool so-annoying dad-jokes (and her manga-cutesy Japanese girlfriend, who gets on so well with Deadpool, only adds to the tightly-wound interplay). No, the Japanese girlfriend isn’t a tacitly racist stereotype – because she is given telling lines at the end to make it clear that her ‘geekdom’ character was just that – all an act, and one that she used to her own benefit (even if it does play upon our own lazy thinking or cultural bias). There might be a stronger argument that the weedy Asian taxi-driving male character gets shorter shrift (when Deadpool quips that he’s ‘Brown Panther’), but I would argue just as strongly that he’s an aspect of the male identity debate (an aspect which is even more complex when competing cultural expectations are involved).

Another accusation of Deadpool 2 from the critics is that this movie is far less ‘meta’ than the first. It simply doesn’t break the fourth wall as interestingly as the first. There’s only one line from Deadpool like ‘big CGI fight coming up’ to keep things self-aware. Once again, the critics are talking nonsense. The whole point of the ham-fisted X-force team that Deadpool assembles (and promptly gets killed) is that they spoof the X-Men motif. There are geek references to the John Wick movie, lines like ‘that’s some lazy writing right there’, ‘he’s young enough to keep the franchise going for another ten years’, apologies from Ryan Renolds about how poor the Green Lantern movie was, intertextual mention of Thanos (Josh Brolin plays both Cable and Thanos) and a whole host of ‘Easter eggs’ that I just know I didn’t even spot. I am definitely inclined to watch again, as I know I’ll see so much more.

So where does that leave us? The easy assessment is that Deadpool 2 is a far better movie than you may have heard or read. And then there’s a tougher question about what the hell the critics are up to with their relatively poor reviews. I’m not sure I have all the answers to that. Clearly, you can’t trust the media critics to guide you properly. Media critics still don’t properly understand geek culture or current social debates concerning identity (debates that are significantly informed by the (often angry) voices of young people), it would seem. For me, Deadpool 2 is an 8.5 out of 10. Up your bum, critics!

 

The Alienist – a new gothic classic #alienist #netflix

The Alienist is set in the New York of 1896 – a Victorian, very Jack-the-Ripper sort of place. There has been a spate of child murders. The police are unable to make any progress in tracking down the killer… and some may actually be protecting him, as the suspicion is that he is the son of a powerful family. In desperation, the police commissioner (who is the historical character of Theodore Roosevelt) tasks his psychiatrist/alienist friend (Laszlo Kreizler) with assembling a team to find the killer.

Psychiatry is still in its early stages, as are the sciences of police forensics and profiling. Kreizler has to fight misconceptions, his own preconceptions and a corrupt society. All the while, the clock is ticking… and children are dying. He is frustrated and panicked by his inability to make immediate progress and lashes out at his companions, who are fighting their own demons. Indeed, it is the telling character interactions and growing self-awareness of his team (the feminist, the indolent dandy and the Jewish anatomists) which really make this compelling viewing (along with brilliant acting by the likes of Luke Evans, Daniel Bruhl, Dakota Fanning, and others). The series refuses to indulge in excessive exposition – instead, we pick up clues about the protagonists’ past lives and associations by how they react to their various situations. Each of them has a hang-up, each of them has their own moral code, each of them has skeletons in the closet. The audience is effectively one of the team in having to read the clues and make sense of the narrative. It’s utterly immersive.

And we are immersed in some very psychologically-dark deeds that would only make sense to a dreaming or otherwise altered mind – a mindscape, if you will. It’s the definition of the gothic. The show is gory, in a surrealist way. It is full of disjuncture, false starts, misgivings, bizarre clues and circularity. But it’s thrilling, exciting and daring.

If you can imagine a mix of Mindhunter and Penny Dreadful, then you know what’s in store. If you can imagine a mix of historical fact and fiction, of romance and horror, of depravity and tenderness, of revulsion and compulsion, and if that intrigues and inspires you, then you will enjoy this show immensely.

It’s right up my murky, dangerous alley, this series. I score it 9 out of 10.