Posts Tagged ‘Review’

Review: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S01E08 “The Well”

Posted in Reviews, tagged , , , , on November 20, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Marvel's Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.I’m going to come out and say this is possibly the best episode yet.

I had really hoped the hype about the Thor tie-in wasn’t over-hyped, because you kinda knew it would be over-hyped, but, alas, the connection was very tenuous. In fact, they could have had this episode without the Thor 2 info-tie-in. But in a way, this was really a good thing because the show introduced its first non-canon Asgardian, a mason who got bored of breaking rocks after a few thousand years… that nearly defines perfect. 

I saw comments last week lambasting AOS because they weren’t bringing in ‘named’ characters like Arrow does. The fault in that logic is that Arrow brings in characters just to throw them away again like tissue paper. A ‘named’ character, like The Huntress, is treated as a plot device rather than a real character. Then later on when they realize their mistake, like with Deadshot, the character is haphazardly thrown around for ‘name value’ only. By AOS bringing in new characters it allows the show to be its own entity and give us a broader, much richer, environment outside the comics.

  • Pro – It’s easier for non-comic readers to enjoy the series as they don’t feel like they need a comic-encyclopedia.
  • Con – They have to make us feel invested in these new characters when we’re already invested in others.

It’s a tight rope, but if AOS can produce quality episodes like it did this time, then we’ll want to be invested in the new characters as well as the old.

A few other points, I do like the whole sequence in the beginging with Coulson wishing the Asgardians would send down the “God of Cleaning Up After One’s Self”… because, yeah, London, New York, these places got ripped up pretty bad and of course the heroes don’t help clean up (except maybe Chris EvansCaptain America). I really want to see an episode just about S.H.I.E.L.D.’s legal department after one of these events. Especially the department which deal with the outfit’s liability insurance. 

We also get a look into Ward’s tortured (of course) past, but it’s not played up like I thought they would. They avoided many of the obvious cliches, but unlike the previous episode, they didn’t seem to constantly default to the polar opposite of said cliche. He dealt with his exposure to the Berserker Staff like a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent of his caliber would… and of course May totally outdid him. And then, in something that was refreshingly realistic, Ward follows May into her room, rather than Skye, because, let’s face it, May is someone who can actually connect to him and understand his pain as a soldier. Skye, all she does it talk like a neo-hippy. 

The show still has its issues but seems to be working through its growing pains. I have a feeling we’ll see a lot more interconnection in the back half of the season, esp if they focus less on Skye and more on the team as a whole. If they can also get Jonathan Franks back directing, more the better, cause he’s a really good director and the quality of this episode compared to some previous ones definitely shows how good he is.

Next episode seems to involve poltergeists… should be fun. 

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Review: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S01E07 “The Hub”

Posted in Reviews, tagged , , , , on November 14, 2013| 2 Comments »

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.Let’s all have a moment of silence for the sandwich.

The latest episode of AOS is called “The Hub” because the team goes to The Hub which is a central location for S.H.I.E.L.D. ops. We also meet Victoria Hand from the comics and Agent Sitwell from the Item 47 short film. We get to see an ops room, some hallways… but that’s it. There is talk of a lot of cool things, places like tech/research levels, etc, but all we get to see is basic white walls. Other than the fact that the team gets their next mission while being at the The Hub and Skye uses the visit as a chance to find out about her parents… it’s pretty much just background noise for what, essentially, is a trust exercise.

Victoria sends Ward and Fitz on a mission with no extraction plan because they didn’t have the resources… even though the rest of the team is doing nothing, at all. Then they are able to extract Ward and Fitz fairly easily with very little notice (and apparently that plane is super fast). The whole situation makes no sense unless Victoria was specifically trying to see what Coulson and/or his team would do. Coulson trusted ‘the system’, Skye didn’t (surprise?). Then the whole anti-trust/hacking-into-the-system discussion is just dropped, sorta, the episode ends without letting us know if Victoria was really testing them (her smile suggests it but that is all). It’s one of those storylines that needs a payoff or else it’ll become a glaring plot hole to nitpick at later.

Speaking of pay-off, we continue to get trolled about Coulson. It seems ‘it’s a magical place’ is some kind of hypnotic response to the mention of Tahiti. Apparently he’s also not allowed to look at his own health records. I have a feeling we’ll get the pay off on this one at the mid-season break, it was something they likely planned in case they didn’t get their back nine. Okay, that’s how I would have played it.

The episodes are picking up, Skye is given the B-plots now and we’re seeing more of the other characters… but it almost seems formulaic. Last episode was Simmons. This one was Fitz. Next looks to be Ward. If the one after that is May then it literally is count-by-numbers character development. And while the plots have been used for character development, this episode was pretty much the ‘anti-cliche’. It felt like every time a situation came up they would automatically choose the exact opposite of the stereotype, which, is kinda just as bad because it doesn’t allow for the anti-symmetry of life. Sometimes we are the cliche, sometimes we surprise you… they tried to do this here but it just kinda came off as very safe.

But all in all, it’s still a good episode, they are working towards finding their niche… and unfortunately destroying awesome sounding sandwiches.

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Review: Thor: The Dark World

Posted in Reviews, tagged , , , , , on November 9, 2013| Leave a Comment »

thor the dark world posterThe long/short review: an enjoyable romp with very little substance.

One can definitely tell the change in director between these films as in the first Thor there was a Shakespeare undertone, dry humor and smirking wit along with some masterful turns at character development and story telling. Thor 2 is put together more like an action flick where it’s all about the explosions and one-liners.

Do I like action flicks all about explosions and one-liners? Yes, I enjoyed Avengers, didn’t I. But that was the purpose of that film, to bring together characters who were already individually explored and see them work together. In Avengers, character development, save a few key scenes, is pretty much left to be explored in their individual movies where a more direct focus would serve the characters better. We see this in Iron Man 3 where not only does Tony get his own villain but he battles his personal demons and fears as well. That’s what Thor 2 should have been about, continuing to grow Thor as a character through an actual plot arc rather than the typical action style of laying it all down at the end for a quick wrap up.

This really is an example of how bad it can be to ‘just give the audience more of what they want’ rather than ‘making a movie that their audience will love’.

Here is my breakdown, spoilers ahead.

Thor – I always thought that he got the shorter end of the stick in the first film when it came to character development. His motivations were just a bit more petty and his sudden shift to not being such a douche was too quick and unearned. There isn’t so much of a problem like that in Thor 2 because there is no character development, at all. From the beginning he’s just this guy who is trying to be a good son while pining over the woman he loves. At the end of the film, he’s still trying to be the good son while pining over a woman. The only thing that changes is that he has the guts to tell his dad that he doesn’t want to be king and instead continue to hit things with hammers and love a Midgardian. While the argument can be made that this is indeed character development in that he chooses to accept that he doesn’t want to be king, etc, it feels very lazy and simple. After losing his mother and brother, there isn’t any true thought to how this personally effected him or his decisions. As stated before, there is a quick wrap up at the end to say ‘yep, I haven’t changed, this is what I want to do’ and that’s it.

Jane – I didn’t care much for her in the first film because I thought Portman, who is a great actress, just kinda walked through the role and there was no chemistry between her and Hemsworth. As a character though, she was pretty cool. She was this super smart scientist who was trying to awesome things because she was a scientist trying to do awesome things. In Thor 2, she’s reduced to a woman who has apparently been moping around because Thor never called her back. Sure, she was doing sciencey things, but not because “hey, science!” but because she was looking for Thor. Then when Thor snubbed her, she stopped with the science. Huh? I’m sure it hurt to see him come to Earth in Avengers and not bother to call her or even drop a note, but why the hell did she decide to stop doing science because of this? She was a scientist before Thor, she can continue to be a scientist now. Hell, if she was that mad that he never called her, why isn’t she trying harder to find a way to Asgard just so she can slap him? But nope, her entire reason for doing anything worthwhile in life (or I would assume seeing how dedicated she was in the first film) ceased to be because Thor never called her back. Even at the end of the film, she’s moping because he hasn’t come back in two days. And for a lot of the film, she’s just standing there doing nothing because the focus is on Thor/Loki (which I’ll get to in a minute) and she’s almost forgotten about in many scenes. She does have a few moments of her being a freaking scientist and thinking as such, but it’s all framed by the fact that she now exists solely as a love interest to Thor. (But at least we were spared any horrible cat-fighting between her and Sif.)

Loki – He stole the show in the first movie where he got some perfected paced and designed character development,  and in Thor 2, pretty much every awesome moment can be attributed to him. He was much more jokey in this film, spilling out one-liners like the class clown who is hiding just how sad he is in. He also had a stronger reaction to Frigga’s death. It puts him in a lot of pain, pain he even tries to hide from Thor through illusions. But, much like Thor, there is no development. Loki is stuck, he’s played his hand as the ‘would be king’ who is rightly pissed about his parentage issue… and he continues to do so because he believes he needs to save face. Then he fakes his death (which, let’s be honest, we all saw coming) and somehow takes Odin’s place (which, okay, that was an awesome twist). There is no development, he’s still the same person he was at the beginning of the film, just in a different place. Throughout the film, though it is very hilarious, he’s just there to crack one-liners and play off Thor. It’s the few moments he’s not doing this that he truly saves this film.

Thor/Loki – The Thor/Loki dynamic is an interesting one and there are a lot of fans both of this as a non-romantic pairing and as a romantic pairing. Loki is also a fan favorite with a movement to get him his own movie. This is where the ‘giving fans more of what they want’ turns sour because this film is pretty much just two hours of Loki and Thor banter, sometimes serious, often for laughs. You know that moment in Avengers where Thor says “listen well brother,” gets knocked down by Iron Man, and Loki goes “I’m listening”… yeah, imagine that for two hours. While yes, it’s really funny and I laughed a lot, I did often find myself going “where is Jane?” or “what about the Elves?” Literally, Jane disappears from view for a good ten minutes at two different times just so that Thor and Loki can banter with each other. It’s not like she’s not around, she’s literally in the same ten square feet radius, but is removed from frame and nearly forgotten about. As much as the Thor/Loki stuff can be fun or even emotionally dramatic, here is was played not like Shakespeare, but like Michael Bay.

Frigga – What the heck? Thor takes repeated poundings from the Hulk. Loki gets stabbed in the chest (maybe, sorta, not sure where the illusion started there). But Frigga gets a dagger in her and dies almost instantly? Gah! I know she was going to die but did they have to make it so easy? Esp after she put the smack down on the Dark Elf? This part pissed me off the most… but mostly cause Frigga is awesome and played by an underrated but also awesome actress. I really hope a future movie is Loki going to Valhalla to get her back… I really do… I any case, she was both soft mother and badass warrior and all in a very small space of time. Writers, take note.

Odin – Worst. Father. Ever. But what else is new? The fact that he was actually being reasonable there at the end should have been our first clue that he wasn’t actually himself.

Darcy – Almost makes up for Jane. She’s sassy, knows her level of intelligence in comparison to Jane, and where she falls in the hierarchy of the film, and she owns it.

Erik – The only character that truly seemed to have any kind of real development from the Avengers film. Basically, after what Loki did to him, and with him being just a person and not a trained S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, he’s pretty much off his rocker. This is totally legit and I applaud that they actually went there and showed that everything is not all happy smiles after events like what happened in Avengers.

Malekith – Our villain of the weekmovie. Eccelston is a great actor but he, like many others in this film, has little to work with. Again, he’s just a device to allow for the Thor/Loki banter.

Overall – It was a fun romp of a film but it was more of a filler episode than a film in its own right. I laughed, I smiled, I got pissed at a character death, but in the end I felt like I hadn’t actually gained anything from the experience regarding the characters. I’ve heard that a good 20-ish minutes where cut and that truely could have made all the difference in giving us more of the depth we needed rather than the silly one-liners.

In conclusion: Was it enjoyable? Yes. Was it disappointing? Yes

Funny how that works out sometimes.

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Review: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S01E06 “FZZT”

Posted in Reviews, tagged , , , , on November 6, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - Fitz SimmonsWith this latest episode, AOS takes great strides towards getting there.

One of the banes of the last five episodes is that they where pretty much about Skye and we got no character development from the rest of the group. In FZZT we get some much needed time with Fitz and Simmons, the resident geeks. We learn more about their back story and their strange relationship. There is a lot of love there, and you almost want to ship them as a couple, but they play very well as siblings. I’m honestly not sure if ‘sibling’ was supposed to be the vibe or if they are just that clueless about each other. They definitely have more chemistry than Ward and Skye.

There were some problems with the episode and a lot of that had to do with the speechifying. Ward is especially bad at just stating his emotions/thoughts rather than showing us. Also, as powerful as the scene was with Coulson comforting the dying man, I felt that there was too much inaction. Usually in shows/comics like this, there is more “we have to do something” and less “so yeah, let’s just stand out of the blast zone”. It’s like no one cared that this man was going to die other than “we should comfort him” when they should have been “hey, maybe we should try to save him”.

Then there was the jarring  cut scene between Ward’s rescue and Coulson’s rant. On a technical spectrum, it wasn’t the best put together episode and I have a feeling a lot was cut.

But what FZZT did right, it did exceptionally well. Once I got past the ‘why isn’t anyone doing anything’ when Coulson spoke to the dying man, it was a fairly powerful moment. Coulson died, he knows something isn’t right about that, and it’s slowly eating at him. The show is seriously trolling us, but so far it hasn’t reached LOST level trolling. It’s still the delicious level of trolling. Then we have Coulson’s discussion with May at the end… there is a lot of pain there, and you can feel it.

Also, in contrast to what I said earlier, I loved the level of inaction in this episode when it came to the team dynamics. Most often in these situations, the non-scientist gets sick and the scientist has to save them, this way everyone is doing something. The non-scientist is ‘being sick’ while the scientist goes around solving the problem. But here, the scientist is the one who is sick and is trying to find the cure. All anyone else can do is literally stand around. It’s a painful situation to be in (and Ward got a little speechy about that) but it was extremely accurate. You can identify with the team moreso here than at any other time I would wager.

And the moment Coulson realizes that Simmons is infected, your heart literally sinks.

This is the kind of emotional jockeying that we’ve been expecting and it paid out in spades here. Let’s hope that Skye’s plot line has been shelves for now and move on to some of these more juicier bits.

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Review: Arrow S02E04 “Crucible”

Posted in Reviews, tagged , , , on October 31, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Arrow - Season 2aka the “how many tropes can we cross off our list” episode…

Laurel, whose father is a recovering alcoholic, is turning into one herself over the death of her boyfriend and of course won’t listen to anyone.

Surprise, Sarah is alive but won’t tell her family cause ‘things’ and she is having something of the same existential crisis as Oliver did so of course he has to mentor her.

Felicity isn’t even dating Oliver but seems to feel the need to be jealous at everything because her character is being reduced to a love interest.

Oliver saves the life of the man he’s at odds at making them friendly.

Said man being the good guy who wants to help the people but, surprise, is actually the bad guy, go figure.

Oliver does surgery on himself to remove a bullet and despite having no medical training manages not to cause massive internal bleeding or rupture a vital organ.

But hey, “the Mayor” having his “city hall” in the strip club… now that is classy.

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Review: Arrow S02E03 “Broken Dolls”

Posted in Reviews, tagged , , , on October 28, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Arrow - Season 2Have the writers ever even read a detective novel? Or even watched an episode of Law & Order?

There are almost a dozen victims and two… TWO… use the same hand cream. “That can’t be a coincidence!” Really? That’s how you going to have him break the case, with a huge freaking leap in logic instead of actual detective work which may lead to discovering several of the women to have purchased said hand cream. Why do the writers continue to ignore basic logistics? Because yes, it can totally be a coincidence, especially when you haven’t looked at anything else yet and just pluck that out of the air.

And OMG Laurel, it’s not all about you, you freaking whiny diva. Your father nearly lost you cause of that crazy serial killer, he has this wonderful emotional moment, then Arrow comes in and saves the day, and all you can think about is yourself and your bloody guilt for being the biggest idiot by deciding that exiting a burning building was more of a guideline than a legitimate strategy. I guess they were trying to go with a ‘near death life changing experience’ for her but it played out horribly.

Though, that said, this is one of the better episodes because, amazingly enough, Oliver didn’t have the lead in it. It was mostly about Dresden and the serial killer, and also Harper and Black Canary (or whoever that is).

I amend my earlier statement, can this show be about Diggle, Fecility, and Dresden (Officer Lance, whoever, he will always be Dresden to me).

Seriously, there was more emotion and real gravitas in this episode with Dresden than seen all through last season with Olivier. Paul Blackthorne is an under-appreciated actor and really sold this episode. When he was there thinking he was going to watch his daughter die, the man freaking brought it and you felt for him… moreso than any of the blank-slate or overly whiny/angsty stuff seen by the rest of the cast.

Then whiny Laurel had to ruin it.

But hey, Doc Fraiser, always good to see her.

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Review: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S01E05 “Girl in the Flower Dress”

Posted in Reviews, tagged , , , on October 22, 2013| 4 Comments »

Marvel's Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.And now we discover how AOS will be getting around the no-mutant legal gag that has been put on the MCU… and I kinda like it.

Step One, find a new name. Chan is a pyrokinetic and they couldn’t use Pyro, Match, Human Torch, or any of the already taken names. So they call him Scorch… which works, all thing considered.

Step Two, don’t explain why he’s a pyro, at least not completely. They make an off comment that could explain why he’s a pyro (he lived next to a nuclear plant that went kablooey) but they don’t really make it concrete. In fact, later on, one of them states they really aren’t sure how he’s a pryo.

Step Three, just run with it.

I have a feeling we’re going to see a lot more of these base-set powered ‘gifted’ humans. PK, TK, TP, etc, these are all powers that can’t be copyrighted so they will use them, hopefully, in the same manner above. This means that we can explore some of the plot lines seen in the comics (just with out known mutant characters) and if the fates love us then if we get a merge of Marvel and Fox (or even more unlikely, Marvel gets the license back) then they can slot in mutants as if they were always there.

Yes, this is me wishful thinking… what?

As for the story itself, I’m really getting tired of Skye. Finally got my ‘twist’ and it’s just another big trope. I still want to know more about the rest of the team, especially this interesting relationship between Coulson and May. And just Coulson in general… something is wrong with him but what?!?! And they get rid of one evil doctor and bring in another shadowy bad guy? They are really keeping us in the dark on this, I hope they don’t try to go too LOST on us.

I think the best part though is I do like the little moments, there are a lot of them and they are pretty fun. When Coulson and May hear that Scorch has a moniker now… the look on their faces are priceless. There is a fun factor here that really makes the show an enjoyable watch.

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Review: Arrow S02E02 “Identity”

Posted in Reviews, tagged , , , on October 20, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Arrow - Season 2Can we just make this the Diggle and Felicity show?

Seriously, Oliver is a complete waste of space and totally unlikable as a character. This would be good if he was the antagonist or even if he was a secondary character, but he’s the title character! But him and Laurel are painfully annoying in their characterizations, esp since both have now done 360s. Now Arrow doesn’t kill and now Laurel is ‘vengeance is thine!’. On paper, it sounds good, in practice, it’s just a little WTF? It’s called ‘character development’ not ‘character shake it like a Polaroid picture”.

Speaking of WTF, the flashbacks are as pointless as ever and only serve to make Oliver even more unlikable and seemingly stupid (hello, unprotected sex in the jungle?).

Diggle and Felicity are the only characters that really seem to have heart and consistency. But Oliver continues to crap all over his friendship with Diggle, only at the end of the episode apologize for being a douche, then continue to be a douche in the next episode. Felicity is the smartest one of the bunch and her sassiness is a welcome break from the brooding, except she keeps being reduced to the ‘awkward innuendo statement’ and yet another girl who has the unexplainable hots for Oliver.

On a side note, the sister has been much less annoying so far…but we’ll see how this whole thing goes down with Roy “Red Arrow” Harper helping out Oliver. He might be good for her, we’ll see.

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Review: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S01E04 “Eye-Spy”

Posted in Reviews, tagged , , , on October 15, 2013| 2 Comments »

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.As much as I’m digging the comic book vibe, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. mustn’t forget they are a still a live action tv series. There is no way Ward kept from looking at his hands (especially while driving) or avoided all reflective surfaces for that long of a time. If you’ve read my Arrow reviews, then you know logistics fubars like this really annoy me. Thankfully, this isn’t Arrow, it is edging there, but only just.

The issues I have with AOS lay in the oversimplified dialogue, i.e. restating what’s previously been said and verbally stating the themes. Thankfully, unlike Arrow, AOS hasn’t gone so far as to completely speechify everything, were way too much screen time is used to show a character droning on about whatever deep point the writers feel they need to make.

Also, AOS isn’t taking itself so seriously. The problem with the ‘dark, gritty’ theme is that it leaves no real room for anything else. Everything has to be so serious and existential… which gets really old, really quick. AOS is keeping the adventure theme which offers a lot more latitude. It can be funny, it can be dramatic, it can be thoughtful, it can be insane, or it can be dark. That’s what AOS is bringing to the table, a much broader sense of the universe which doesn’t have to fit in a mold.

In this episode, the action (still with awesome productive values btw), the comedy, the intrigue, and a good dose of comic book adventure, makes up for the visual fubar, relegating it to just an annoyance rather than a glaring pain. The guest character also wasn’t there as fodder, and the little touch at the end in her cell seals an emotional connection with her. The intrigue is neither bluntly tossed around nor is it insanely over-complicated.

I didn’t mean for this review to become an Arrow vs AOS (DC vs Marvel) but these points needed to be made. If AOS could just fix the dialogue then this series would be near perfect. Well, I could at least forgive the logistic issues.

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Review: Fearless Defenders #10

Posted in Reviews, tagged , , on October 14, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Fearless Defenders #10I have to give it to Bunn, he’s doing something that is very hard to do in any franchise: bring in a new original character. keep them in the front, and make it work.

Right now there is a lot of new mutants popping up, especially in Bendis’ Uncanny X-Men you have a whole group of original characters, but they tend to just be more of a story device than actual full characters. The stories still revolve around the core group of mutants, Scott, Wolverine, Kitty, Storm, Emma, etc… characters that have at least been around since the 80s. Even in Wolverine and the X-Men , most of the story revolves around pre-existing characters like Quire and Idie, with of course a heavy dose of Wolvie. It’s like no one is really trying to shake things up and do new things.

Part of the reason is because readers will only spend so much money on the comics, it’s purely economics, there are a lot more titles to choose from and only so much money to spend. Marvel feels safer giving us known characters rather than risking new ones. Granted, that’s probably the best idea when it comes to Solo’s, but for team books, you think they would let the writers experiment more, freshen things up?

That’s what happening here in Fearless, not only do we have some of the B-List characters who are kicking butt, we’ve also been introduced to Annabelle, a brand new character who literally shares the spotlight with Valkyrie and holds her own as a character. Through her life, death, and weird body time-share thing, the reader is made to care about her and see her as a hero even if she doesn’t weld a big sword. She’s not a story device, she’s a main character along with all the others. Even if you’re not a fan of Annabelle, you’re not overwhelmed with her presence any more than, say, Misty.

This is what we should be seeing in all the X-Titles, new characters alongside the characters we already love as equals. Someone give Marvel the memo…

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