I remember once hearing Peter Bagge say that he regretted naming his comic book Hate because critics couldn’t resist headlines like “I Hate Hate” or something in that vein. I wish the producers of Sleight had heard that same thing because I can’t help myself but say that Sleight is, well, kind of slight. For a movie about magic tricks, gang violence, and subdermal electromagnets, there just isn’t that much going on. Sometimes that’s great and it reads as a nice little slice of life movie with some fantastic elements on the fringe; other times you can just sort of see where the effects budget ran out. Sleight is a good movie for $250,000 but I can’t help but pine for the version that cost a few million.
I appreciate that Sleight is trying to tell a smaller story, honestly I do. I like that it’s a simpler story of a young man trying to make ends meet for his family while chasing a dream and meeting a girl. It’s refreshing to have some trappings of a superhero movies but without having to have the entire fate of the world at stake. Not every movie has to be The Fate of the Furious or The Avengers to be successful.
I would appreciate it more if I didn’t see budget constraints as the reasons for narrative problems. The hero of this story, Bo (Jacob Latimore), spends this movie in mortal terror of a criminal enterprise that consists of only three people. You can’t tell me that isn’t about not wanting to pay more actors. You could get away from a three-person criminal organization by moving two or three cities away. That’s not plausible for someone struggling to make ends meet, but it seems like the best possible option when you’ve raised $40k in money to pay them off. Rather than spend days fretting about getting the last bit of money just use that money to get well clear of the world’s smallest drug gang. This is a nitpick, but things like this loom over the film. A lot of stuff happens off camera or is otherwise obscured from the audience not because it makes for a more compelling story but because they couldn’t afford to shoot it.
Sleight makes me consider what makes something a movie. I don’t think there needs to be some sort of minimum amount of spectacle for something to be a feature film. I’ve happily watched movies that were basically just sets of conversations. Sleight feels like it could be a TV show with no real changes. Hell, it might be better as an ongoing series because everything would have more of a chance to breathe. I can’t put my finger on the thing that makes it not feel like a movie, but there’s something that isn’t in Sleight.
I feel like I’m being a bit relentless with hitting Sleight for looking cheap and that might be unfair, but it was all that was holding the movie back. It’s a completely charming film that I would absolutely see a sequel to if that’s how this is going to go (how could a film not make back a budget of $250,000). I also think it’s a great idea for a TV show ,but maybe that’s more of a commentary on the effects than some unique call from this story. Sleight would be the best episode of Black Mirror I’ve ever seen. It just doesn’t quite feel big enough to be a feature film.
In the past I’ve mentioned some of what AfterShock Comics has been up to in my column here, but I haven’t talked about them as much as I should. I really haven’t been talking about the good work they’ve been doing. Having recently read World Reader #1, I decided I need to change that.
AfterShock Comics gets it.
I’ll explain. I was having lunch with Noah Sharma who writes over at Weekly Comic Book Review and AfterShock dominated the conversation. We talked about the different titles we’ve been enjoying like InSEXts, Animosity, Captain Kid, and World Reader. Well, the conversation actually started when I brought up how much I loved World Reader so let me backpedal a bit and talk about World Reader.
World Reader #1 hit the shelves on April 19th. It’s written by Jeff Loveness, drawn by Juan Doe and lettered by Rachel Deering. Jeff Loveness is best known for being a writer on Jimmy Kimmel Live! as well as writing Groot over at Marvel. This is his first creator owned comic. Juan Doe has worked on many comics over the years including American Monster and Animosity also at AfterShock. on Rachel Deering worked on the Womantholoy.
Basically, World Reader is about an astronaut, Sarah, who travels around the universe trying to help figure out what is seemingly killing it. She’s helped in this effort by her ability to commune with the dead, whether she wants to or not. We read on as Sarah is pushed to limits of her own mind in her quest to save us all.
For being the first creator-owned effort by Jeff Loveness, it’s fantastic. We really get sucked into this dangerous world and Jeff is humble enough to not overload the book with dialogue when it’s not necessary. He lets the art tell the story. And damn, it’s a good story.
This is a good story is because of Juan Doe’s artwork and colors. This book pops in a way that most books just don’t. I’d say that Jeff wrote a hell of a page turner, but the book is so gorgeous that turning the page might be the last thing you want to do.
What helps push you to turn the page is Rachel Deering’s excellent lettering. It’s not often that the lettering in a comic pops just like the art does, but Rachel makes it happen.
This team really feels like lightning in a bottle and I truly feel like they are onto something here. I haven’t felt this excited to pick up a second issue in a while. If I’m picking up a second issue of a comic then, yes, I’m at least somewhat excited, or curious, or trying to give it a chance to let the story unfold, but here I’m pretty damn excited.
I admit that I’m a science fiction fan so maybe the kind of story they’re setting up here appeals to me more than it might to someone else, but anyone that likes sci-fi comics needs to pick up World Reader. Don’t think about it, don’t add it to your list, don’t put it in your big stack of comics that’s months old now that you just don’t know when you’ll get to it, read it! If you’re afraid if you get home with it it’ll end up in a pile then read it outside the comic shop when you get a chance, or in your car before you drive away, or put aside the eight minutes when you buy it on ComiXology when you buy it to read it right then and there. If you don’t normally like sci-fi, but you like pretty books with fantastic colors, you should give this a shot too.
What was I talking about? Oh, yeah! Lunch with Noah. So I talk about how I picked up World Reader #1 from Carmine Street Comics in Manhattan and after talking about how much I enjoyed it, we got talking about AfterShock in general. We talked about InSEXts and Marguerite Bennett and how that’s been absolutely fantastic, original, and one of the best books she’s writing. For me, it’s a flagship title for AfterShock, and a book they should be immensely proud of publishing. Animosity I haven’t gotten a chance to read, but it’s on my list. Yes, I’m being that person that I said you shouldn’t be about World Reader. I’m working on it, really!
One of the other books I really enjoyed that AfterShock puts out is Captain Kid. ComicMix’s own Ed Catto wrote about this book the end of last year, and I encourage you all to read it if you haven’t yet. Though it’s concluded as of April, it was a fantastic character driven story by creators Mark Waid and Tom Peyer, who oddly enough were both DC editors some years ago. The team includes artists Wilfredo Torres and Brent Peeples, colorist Kelly Fitzpatrick, with A Larger World lettering. The book is about a character that’s a bit of a reverse Shazam (I wish I could call him Captain Marvel) and uses that as a device to create a very personal feeling character piece about aging and coming to terms with your life. It looks and feels like a comic from a time where the stories were a bit simpler, in a good way. If you love the Silver or Bronze Age of comics, or the kind of person who loves groups like DC In The 80s you should read Captain Kid. If you didn’t get a chance while it was coming out, the collected edition comes out in June.
Sorry. I keep getting off track. Lunch… that’s right. So Noah and I ended up talking about these different titles and we come to the conclusion that AfterShock really gets it. Though they’re working with quite a few established writers, they are trying to take some chances. They throw stuff against the wall and see what sticks. Sure, not every title is going to be the next The Walking Dead, and some titles are going to be duds; it happens, but it’s the drive and creativity they have that gives AfterShock Comics the feel that they could be revival Image Comics one day.
Basically, what I’m trying to say is, if you haven’t checked out AfterShock yet, there’s no time like the present.
The Starz adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s award-winning novel American Gods is finally here, and having seen the first four episodes, I can tell you that, like Mad Sweeney in a bar fight, I am all in.
For those who haven’t read Gaiman’s novel, first published in 2001, it and the Starz adaptation featured are centered around an impending battle between two types of American gods – the “old gods” who crossed the seas from other countries with the immigrants who believed in them, and the “new gods” of technology, celebrity, drugs, and mass media that have gained in followers as belief in the old ways of life waned. The conflict is seen through the eyes of Shadow Moon (Ricky Whittle), a recently released convict who finds himself at loose ends after his old life falls apart, and becomes the personal assistant of the mysterious and charming Mr. Wednesday (Ian McShane). Shadow’s adventures with Wednesday as they travel the country meeting Wednesday’s mysterious associates and gathering them for the coming war drives the plot as both the viewer and Shadow learn more about who Wednesday is and what he is up to.
In the beginning of the TV series, the story unfolds gradually because we are seeing it as Shadow experiences it. It mixes vivid dream sequences with Shadow’s quiet awe at experiencing vast expanses of scenery after his imprisoned life, but also with Wednesday’s more lively banter, which pulls Shadow out of himself. The style is decompressed and may require patience early on from those unfamiliar with the book, but it also allows you to really sink into the richly detailed storytelling that Gaiman does so well and that the production crew has brought to life.
These specifics serve to make this work of fantasy fiction feel oddly real – like this could certainly happen, if not to us, then at least to some other person somewhere. The first two episodes are a slow build, but as the pieces begin to slot in place for both Shadow and the audience, the pace quickens – as the weirdness Shadow is experiencing stacks up, and Shadow starts to accept that the world is not what he believed it to be. It’s possible that the introductory episodes may be a bit confusing for those who haven’t read the book, as a pantheon of characters is introduced pretty early on, sometimes only with hints about what gods or goddesses they portray; but I think that patience will pay off as things coalesce by episodes three and four.
After all, this is a show that, eventually, has everything – mystery, humor, weirdness, raw emotion, sex (and it’s varied and not censored, so be advised), creepy chills, heists and cons, immense sadness, over-the-top violence, angst, and the feel that we are simultaneously in the midst of an epic story, a small-town American experience, and a backwards buddy cop movie (given neither Shadow nor Wednesday is an entirely upstanding citizen). The show, like the novel, can be raw and pulls no punches and has some moments of epic melodrama (but hey – so do the gods themselves). It reflects harsh truths and ugly realities, and isn’t afraid to show the grimier, less beautiful side of humanity.
Yet already in four episodes there have also been several immensely beautiful and oddly peaceful scenes – and the way they fit together into the broader fabric of the story comes directly from Gaiman’s writing. His ability to meld humor and horror is also not lost in the screen adaptation, and viewers will experience an odd sense of fun even in the midst of dark happenings. Wednesday’s constant unpredictable behaviors, for example, bring to mind a crazy old grandpa, who messes with Shadow even in the middle of a bank heist because he gets a kick out of keeping him on his toes. And a scene where Shadow’s wife Laura Moon (Emily Browning) is reunited with her former best friend Audrey Burton (Betty Gilpin) is incredibly dark and pretty gross, but also absolutely hilarious in its absurdity.
Another striking thing about this show is how relevant the novel’s themes, as brought forward into this iteration, remain. The show addresses racism, cheating spouses, death, religious beliefs, sexuality and homosexuality, and more as the story unfolds. And at its heart, it addresses where we choose to put our faith, and the clash between traditions and values new and old. There is no question that, as when Gaiman wrote the novel, we still struggle with the conflicting pulls of living an authentic life while also being enmeshed in the sometimes overwhelming and disconnecting communications of modern media. And it is apparent in today’s political climate that America still struggles to reconcile varying and conflicting cultural beliefs with what this country is supposed to represent in democracy and equality. As Mr. Wednesday astutely notes, “[America] is the only country in the world that wonders what it is.”
For would-be viewers who are fans of the book, there is no question what this show is – it’s the best kind of adaptation. It’s deliciously satisfying to see the story we know so well come to life, remaining faithful to the narrative and the characters while keeping any adjustments that might need to be made for the transition to television from changing the dynamic or intention of the original. For example, episode four delves into the backstory of Shadow and Laura, and changes and additions are certainly made; but at the same time, that episode is so well-scripted and evocative, and fits so well with the earlier episodes, that it may be my favorite episode so far. In addition, the show is laden with details and chunks of dialogue, both large and small, that come directly from the novel and have been worked seamlessly into the screen version.
While keeping close to the details of the original, the stunning cinematography, effects, and music of the show are also exactly what’s needed to evoke the feel of Gaiman’s book. When Bryan Fuller and David Slade were first announced as two of the executive producers on American Gods, I began having high hopes for it, as their recent work together, Hannibal, had a uniquely creepy, dreamy, mysterious feel which lent a strange, unreal beauty to even the horror elements of grisly scenes. Given the variety of weird, mysterious, and surreal happenings that unfold for Shadow as he begins to realize that all is not what he thought, I knew a similar vision from these creators (along with Michael Green and others) could be a good fit for this story, and wondered if there even was anyone else who could successfully bring Gaiman’s vision to life.
And come to life it does in these first episodes. American Gods, both book and show, begins with a tangible atmosphere of foreboding. Shadow feels it as he waits to be released from prison; and viewers feel it through the clever use of techniques such as extreme attention to small details, as well as time lapse and then slow-motion videography; along with an excellently moody soundtrack that is mostly wordless and full of strange and unsettling notes. The depth and style of the soundtrack so far, while unique, also struck a familiar note (hah!) for me, which is unsurprising, given that Brian Reitzell, who is responsible for the music, was also responsible for the Hannibal soundtrack (which I discussed with him at SDCC 2013) and Fuller has spoken highly of his work. When the soundtrack does include popular songs, they are an exceptional fit for the scenes. For example, Lead Belly’s Where Did You Sleep Last Night and Bob Dylan’s A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall are both disquieting and in keeping with the small-town America feel that pervades the much broader, epic and wide-reaching story Gaiman is telling. And the use of Garbage’s Stupid Girl over a montage showing Shadow’s wife Laura’s dissatisfaction with her circumstances is brilliant.
The actors cast for the main roles are also brilliant, and embody Gaiman’s characters to a T. Whittle and McShane do a lot of heavy lifting as Shadow and Wednesday, playing perfectly off of each other as the quiet, distrustful ex-con and the sharp but slightly shady con-man who is more than he appears. Pablo Schreiber as Mad Sweeney, a nearly-seven-foot-tall leprechaun, is a delight to watch as he chews the scenery portraying the craziness of that character, who absolutely needs that larger-than-life energy to work. Yetide Badaki as Bilquis is introduced through what was probably one of the weirdest scenes in the novel and, I’d imagine, one of the hardest to shoot in the show. It’s super trippy, and doesn’t stint on the nudity, either – but Badaki handles it gracefully, making what could be a jarringly unreal scene seem intimate and acceptable.
Emily Browning masterfully portrays the flawed and fairly unlikeable Laura Moon in such a way that you at least appreciate how she remains her own person in a way that’s not necessarily nice but is very human. Betty Gilpin is fantastic as the distraught but also angry and snarky Audrey, trying to pick up the pieces after her world is shattered. Jonathan Tucker brings Low Key Lyesmith to life with sly, worldly humor in exactly the way I’d picture, and I can’t wait to see more from him. Bruce Langley as Technical Boy is appropriately off-putting, smarmy, and impersonal even as he’s being nasty. Orlando Jones as Mr. Nancy is harsh and in-your-face, with a rhythmic showmanship that is perfect for his role. Gillian Anderson as Media is both seductive and disconcertingly hollow. And Peter Stormare is absolutely perfect as Czernobog, evincing a sense of brutality and darkness even as he embodies his current role as a diminished god who once relished his work in the Chicago slaughterhouses.
Even as a fan of the book, I acknowledge that the first episode was slightly slow going as the drama began to unfold; but it still drew me in – and now that I’ve finished episode four, I’m no longer wondering whether this series is going to keep me hooked. The cast, the drama, the visuals, and the storytelling have all drawn me in, and I definitely want to see more.
And you can too, since the first episode of American Gods is airing on Starz right now!
So check it out, and until next time, Servo Lectio!
Time ShiftersBy Chris Grine Scholastic Graphix, 266 pages, $12.99
Everyone processes loss in different ways. For young Luke, it’s been a year since his older brother died in a bullying incident. He’s still mourning when he sees something fantastic, goes to investigate, and gets swept up in a time travel, inter-dimensional romp that lasts almost the entire 266 pages of Chris Grine’s busy Time Shifters.
He stumbles upon three of the dumbest henchmen found in YA graphic novels — a skeleton in a pressurized space suit, a hollow mummy, and Vampire Napoleon – and winds up wearing their objective, a piece of tech that lets him cross dimensional boundaries. In the process, he buddies up with a scientist, a robot Abraham Lincoln riding a mutant T-Rex named Zinc, and Artemis, a sassy female ghost about his age.
Grine, best known for his Chckenhare, presents a done-in-one story that moves quickly, too quickly. There’s a lot of running, jumping, chasing and similar kinetic nonsense that does little to actually explain what’s really happening. Grine is a solid storytelling and has inventive character designs but there is no rhyme or reason to the having a Napoleon vampire or robot Lincoln. It’s just oddity for oddity’s sake when there should be a reason.
Similarly, when they spend a large chunk of the story in the other dimension, it is styled after frontier western town from the 19th Century. Why? I don’t know. He’s on a third and I don’t give a darn. Seriously, the lack of internal logic robs this imaginative story from being exceptional. There are some large themes to work with but Grine seems almost afraid to tackle them head on.
The tonal shifts occur throughout the book so you think you’re reading one thing then we’re on to another and you feel the whiplash. As a work intended for 9-12 year olds, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense and may result in them finishing the book feeling dissatisfied despite an emotionally rousing epilogue.
Because Grine is moving at such a fast clip, any attempt at characterization is left to a few panels here and there so none of the characters, including Luke feel anything more than chess pieces.
Scholastic Graphix feels strongly about this, offering an excerpt as part of Free Comic Book Day, but this is far more of a misfire that should have been more carefully planned and edited.
Something hit me like a bolt from the blue during the third act of Free Fire: I am all the way over nihilistic action movies. I don’t want to watch movies full of people who don’t care about anything commit violence against each other anymore. In my teens and twenties this felt ok; that it was worth it to explore the space of cinematic violence. Either we’ve completely explored that space or I’ve aged out of it or maybe Free Fire is just a particularly bad example of the form, but I can’t stand for it anymore. I need my action movies to have people who care about things in them and those things can’t be violence for the sake of violence or money. I need more than that.
Free Fire is about an arms deal that goes bad and that’s the entire plot. We spend the first 20 minutes getting to know the 10 principal characters, and then spend 70 minutes watching them shoot at each other in a warehouse. There are only two moments I would consider plot or character development after the shooting starts, and so we just get sequence after sequence of people mostly futilely shooting at each other. There are no grand twists or revelations just an escalation of carnage. Anyone that’s been to more than ten movies in their life could probably guess who “wins” from the trailer. I kept waiting for some kind of escalation or turn and it never comes— we just get people crouching in the dirt until they run out of time.
I expected to come home and do my preliminary research for this review and discover the movie was based off of a novella or something. It would be a fine novella, all of the characters could have internal lives and explored backstories. It’s not often I come home from a movie wishing for more exposition or more navel-gazing, but here we are.
I don’t know what else there is to say about a movie that I reject so completely as a story. The acting is fine. Brie Larson is always fun to watch but she’s asked to do very little here. Cillian Murphy is pretty good but I wish he reached in to his bag of expressions and came back with something that wasn’t “handsome pensive” a couple times. Sharlto Copely gives a completely off-the-wall performance that I can’t decide if it’s brilliant or just completely random, but it’s probably at least 70/30 in favor of the former. I’m not entirely sure why the movie needed to be set in the 70s other than some whimsical wardrobe choices, but it’s kind of fun seeing people dressed like that and I chuckled the first time I saw someone put in an 8-track tape. It’s really scraping the bottom of the barrel when you’re giving a movie credit for using antiquated audio technology.
I’m honestly not sure if Free Fire is as bad as I’m making it sound. Perhaps ten years ago I would have seen this and spent the next week gushing about it to anyone who would listen. It’s neither offensive nor spectacular in its failures such that I could imagine no reasonable person liking it. It’s just a bland film that never seems to aspire to be an interesting film. Free Fire is a movie that might have seemed like a revelation in a world where Reservoir Dogs didn’t exist and we hadn’t been seeing movies inspired by it for the last quarter of a century. But Reservoir Dogs does exist, and so I can’t see what use Free Fire has at all.
When some of the smartest people alive today insist we need to begin colonizing other worlds, you tend to believe them. When science fiction fans hear those words, we begin to salivate at the possibilities.
National Geographic cannily appeals to both audiences with their hybrid miniseries Mars, which mixes today’s science with tomorrow’s fiction by positing what the actual colonization of the planet, a mere 140 million miles away, might look like. Yeah, we got a glimpse of that in the adaptation of Andrew Weir’s The Martian, but this goes further and shows more of the risks involved.
The miniseries, out now from 20th Century Home Entertainment, is a captivating piece of work if unevenly assembled. You get all the usual suspects weighing in why and how we might get there including Space X guru Elon Musk and the ubiquitous Neil deGrasse Tyson. Accompanied by a Greek chorus of NASA scientists and engineers, we get a frim grounding on where we are today and what it will take (including how much and how long) to reach Mars and stay there.
With the firm guiding hand of Brian Grazer and Ron Howard – who took us to the edge of space with the gripping Apollo 13 – the fictional sections are visually interesting and feel like they could possibly happen over the next hundred years. The most fictional part of the story may be the notion that countries around the world can put aside their partisan issues in order to partner for such a project. Given the expertise and money required, it’s unlikely any one country can mount such a mission. Of course, it’s equally unlikely we can all come together fast enough to actually do it on the timetable envision by the likes of Stephen Hawking. That this story takes place in 2033 may be the most fantastic concept of all.
With a nice nod to Greek myth, the Daedalus is sent to Mars and we follow the crew, led by Ben Sawyer (Ben Cotton). The crew and their personal issues are far less interesting than the real science employed to get them there, which is a shame. After all, one reason America was captivated by the Mercury program was the canny PR done to turn the Mercury Seven into instant heroes, their every move followed by an eager public.
Obviously this was intended to be a utopian or dystopic view of life on other worlds, but the hazards and problems encountered are therefore representative, but also almost predictable, spoiling some of the dramatic satisfaction the fictional sections intended.
The sets and tech look fabulous as one would expect from the channel and production team. Watched as an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1, it looks great on the home screen accompanied by a serviceable DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix.
The miniseries does boast a rather impressive physical (and/or CGI) production, with decently realistic sequences set on board the Daedalus and, later, on Mars itself. The fictional element’s “look” has obviously been highly influenced by The Martian (as can clearly be seen in some of the screenshots accompanying this review), with some individual shots looking like they in fact could have been lifted directly from the film. But again and again it’s the current day scientists and explorers who provide the most riveting information. As odd as it might sound, this is one miniseries that might have benefitted from a kind of “reverse seamless branching”, where viewers could choose to skip the fictional parts and stick to the facts and only to the facts.
The three-disc Blu-ray set comes with a handful of extras, starting with Making Mars (47:17) which does a fine job recounting how the mockumentary was made. There’s Before Mars – A Prequel (33:00) which offers up some welcome backstory for the dramatic portion. There’s the brief Before Mars Behind the Scenes (2:28); Getting to Mars (13:51); Living on Mars (10:26); More Mars (10:29); Behind the Scenes (14:38); and, Cast and Crew Interviews (25:06). Taken as a whole, the extras greatly expands our understanding of the nearby world, the difficulties in getting there, and how we might extend our stay. Additionally, the behind-the-scenes interviews with the production crew shows the meticulous detail that one expects from National Geographic.
How to Make Awesome Comics By Neill Cameron David Fickling Books/Scholastic, 64 pages, $8.99
Aimed at 7-10 year olds, this book attempts to explain how to create comics when it merely scratches the surface and suggests mash-ups are the only way to design characters. Neill Cameron should know better considering his background with YA graphic novels and his role as artist in residence at Oxford’s The Story Museum. This collection is culled from weekly installments that first saw print in England’s The Phoenix.
Narrated by Professor Panels and Art Monkey, they breezily and cheekily tour the most basic aspects of telling a story, creating heroes and villains, and putting them all together to form a visual narrative. Every chapter tells you how to do something awesomely but it’s too much in too few pages.
There are some basics early on that are age appropriate for the readers but once he tells you awesome ideas are to take one from column A and one from column B and your done does the budding comics creator a major disservice. This mix and match approach is carried on throughout the book which suggests to readers there is just this one way to tell a story or creator interesting characters.
Cameron should have dropped some of the silliness in favor of elements like making sure each panel leads the reader’s eye in the proper direction. How to place balloons, captions, and sound effects to aid in the reading. There’s nothing on anatomy, perspective, or page design which might seem too sophisticated for the age range, but these are essentials for good comics literacy.
I would warn well-meaning parents away from giving this to their budding talents and instead find other sources (or courses) that would do a better job training them.
I don’t believe in objective reviews of media. I think the personal subjectivity of the reviewer is impossible to remove and, honestly, that it would be boring if you could. That said, I am not capable of being remotely objective when it comes to the Fast & Furious franchise. I find the formula they have stumbled upon since Fast Five to be unbelievably charming and I can’t separate the movie from the joy they’ve brought in to my life and the friendships these movies have enriched. If this bothers you, I can give you the low down on how I feel about this movie and you can be on your way: if you’ve liked any of the last three entries in the franchise you’ll like this one, and if you didn’t this will not change your mind. If my F&F obsession does not bother you, come on and let me geek out a little bit.
If you’ve seen the trailer you know the hook for The Fate of the Furious: Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) has turned against his crew, his family, and is now working for the super hacker Cipher (Charlize Theron). That’s sort of the whole film. Cipher has a nefarious plan but it’s very nebulous. She wants nuclear weapons and she wants to launch one, but I’m not sure what she wants to do after that. It all feels hastily thrown together so we can get the shots of Dom in his evil black jumpsuit driving a more evil-looking black Challenger. That’s all fine, the plot is only there to hold top the action sequences— but this feels less substantial than usual. There’s also the idea that Cipher would blackmail someone who has pulled off some of the zaniest heists and car chases in history but only uses him as a glorified bag man that rubbed me the wrong way— but again it’s all about big action sequences and meaningful glances, so whatever.
There are two signature action pieces in The Fate of the Furious and they’re the most important thing to judge the movie by. There’s a big second act set piece in New York where Cipher hacks a bunch of cars and controls them remotely as a big swarm to take out a motorcade. This is a visually interesting bit but it might finally be the moment where a Fast & Furious movie got too far out there for me. I know cars don’t work like that. More importantly, it doesn’t feature any characters we care about so it’s literally just cars smashing in to each other with no purpose. The sequence picks up a lot when it becomes about Dom and the rest of the crew, but by that point you’re kind of tired of action. The movie’s climax is a race across a frozen bay to stop a submarine while being chased by cars firing missiles. I know I said self-driving cars were straining my suspension of disbelief earlier in this very paragraph, but I loved every ridiculous second of this sequence. It feels a little like they’re trying to top the tank sequence from Fast & Furious 6 by using a bigger more menacing piece of military hardware and it doesn’t live up to it, maybe nothing ever could, but it’s great in its own right.
Fast Five was a heist movie with all the wonderful twists and turns inherent in the genre, and in the two films since they’ve abandoned that to make straight-up action movies. While they haven’t gone back to stealing giant safes, they have returned to meaningful third act twists and I’m so thankful for it. There’s so many things we find out were slightly different than the first time we saw them, and it’s what these movies need to not just be an endless parade of flashy car tricks. It needs characters, it needs stakes, and it needs to be just a little bit surprising.
Reading this back, I can see how much I’m grading The Fate of the Furious on a curve. If this was any other movie with the flaws this one has I would probably be here tearing it apart and begging you not to see it. I love this franchise, I love these characters, and I can’t set that aside. There are so many little things to appreciate from an eight movie franchise that can’t be replicated. It’s nice just to hang out with these characters and exist in their world for another couple hours. It’s fun to pick up on the callbacks and see them pick up threads that were set down years and years ago. I still find The Fate of the Furious as refreshing as a Corona on a hot LA afternoon— and as long as that’s true, I’ll carry water for these movies.
Condensing nearly eighty years of comics continuity, characters, and interpretations into other media allows for cherry-picking and revision to be done, so the resulting new work has the look and feel of the original while offering up something fresh, and hopefully, good.
One of the best-regarded storylines in DC’s history is “The Judas Contract” which was the culmination of a two year thread in New Teen Titans because no one saw the twists and turns in the storyline while it also dramatically shifted Dick Grayson’s status quo. It also provided readers with the origin of the Tiran’s great foe, Deathstroke. The ending was emotional and strong while the entire story holds up on rereading.
What is offered up in Teen Titans: The Judas Contract animated feature, out now from Warner Home Entertainment, is a pale comparison for a number of reasons. First, the lineup of characters is substantially different so the bonds of friendship are different. We open with a flashback to the original Titans (more or less) showing their ease with one another, their trust and teamwork. It nicely introduces Starfire and shows her immediate connection with Robin. Then we move five years into the Animated Universe continuity and we have the current Titans: Starfire (Kari Wahlgren), Robin (Stuart Allan), Beast Boy (Brandon Soo Hoo), Raven (Taissa Farmiga), Blue Beetle (Jake T. Austin), and Terra (an excellent Christina Ricci). There is little explanation of when Terra joined the team, but in the comics, she was around for quite some time before betraying the team.
In the comics, Deathstroke was hired by H.I.V.E. to destroy the Titans and manipulated Tara Markov, a sociopathic teen exiled from Markovia, to be his mole. He played the long game, getting her deep with the team’s trust, even initiating a romance with Changeling (Beast Boy), before having her deliver them to his grasp. She wound up sacrificing herself to save the team, a noble final act.
In the animated film, this is a much more condensed story, with lots of character threads that are under-deserved while the comics’ concurrent Brother Blood (Gregg Henry) story was given way too much play here. Ernie Altbacker, who did a great job on Justice League Dark, has a tough job in adapting the story for film and by using Brother Blood and his cult, serves up nonsensical action in lieu of the real emotional core. Terra’s introduction to the Tians is skipped over while flashbacks show a vastly different origin than the comics, a cliched one at that.
Terra’s romance with Beast Boy comes too late in the story and doesn’t have the same deep resonance it had in the comics, the same with Deathstroke’s uncomfortable sexual relationship with Terra. In the film, he is colder towards her, redeemed only by Miguel Ferrer’s strong (and sadly, final) performance as Slade Wilson. I still dislike how Deathstroke was appended to the League of Assassins in these films since it makes little sense and wish they’d move past that.
Blood’s device, designed to drain the Titans’ powers into him, transforming him into a god, is perhaps the weakest part of the story and an illogical one since Beetle’s alien tech or Raven’s supernatural force cannot easily be captured and transferred.
Where Altbacker excels, is with the evolving relationship between Starfire and Nightwing (Sean Maher) as they move in together at the same time she is jealous with his easy rapport with the team he no longer leads. The other character subplots – notably Beetle’s tense relationship with his father – could have been stronger. At least this film runs longer than most, clocking in at 85 minutes, allowing even this much characterization. His use of Damian is an excellent addition although he’s off the gird for a long stretch in the middle, as if Altbacker couldn’t figure out what to do with him.
Long-time fans will recognize Jericho in an early scene and we’re rewarded with a hint of things to come with a post-credits scene. Similarly, Wonder Girl is seen at the end, and should be showcased whenever the Titans turn up next.
Overall, if you take the film as the latest installment in the shared animated universe, it’s a strong entry. As an adaptation of this cherished comics tale, it falls woefully short. The film can be found in a variety of formats, of course, including a nifty gift set complete with Blu-ray, DVD, Digital HD code, and a Blue Beetle figure.
The Blu-ray comes with a 28-minute chat between New Teen Titans co-creators Marv Wolfman and George Pérez which shows their easy camaraderie. Marv brought along some nifty artifacts enhancing the video.
Less interesting is the Villains United—Deathstroke (9:00), with Wolfman, Pérez, and Mike Carlin talking about Slade Wilson’s evolution and place in the pantheon of great antagonists.
There’s a fun Sneak Peek for the next offering, the stand-alone Batman and Harley Quinn with the return of Bruce Timm to the team. Rounding out the video are two thematically-related episodes from the DC Comics Vault: “Terra” and “Titan Rising”, both from Teen Titans.
I feel like I never see movies like Gifted anymore. Gifted is a smaller movie, almost completely devoid of the spectacle that snobs complain about in modern cinema. It’s as anonymous a movie as one can get from the director of The Amazing Spider-Man franchise, the star of Captain America and Octavia Spencer. It’s funny when it wants to be, touching when it tries it’s absolute hardest, and if you’re willing to suspend an ample amount of disbelief there’s a heartwarming message to be found here.
There’s a reasonably famous book on screenwriting called Save the Cat. It’s a guide to crafting marketable scripts, there’s good advice in there, and it sold a ton of copies. The title refers to the need to have your main character do something early in the film to get the audience on their side; something like saving a cat. I’m telling you this because in the first scene of Gifted we are introduced to Fred, the one-eyed cat who was adopted by Frank the protagonist of this film (Chris Evans). He assures his niece Mary (Mckenna Grace) that while he doesn’t generally like cats, he likes this one. It’s such a transparent use of this trope that was the title for this wildly successful screenwriting book that this is either an insane coincidence or a stunning lack of self-awareness on the part of the writer. (I know this probably won’t occur to 95% of the viewing audience who have never read any books on how to write a screenplay but it was distracting for me.)
Other than the whole cat bit (which also comes back in the third act for extra emotional stakes but I said I was moving on) the story is suitably interesting. Mary goes to her first day of school and is clearly a prodigy, and through her being a precocious scamp who is good at math and beating the hell out of children twice her age she gets the attention of her grandmother Evelyn (Lindsay Duncan) who does not like Frank. A custody battle ensues, and the crux of the film is if Mary should be allowed to have a “normal” life or if she should be pushed to be the mathematical whiz her mother was and that she seems to have the potential to be. It’s kind of interesting that this film just assumes that mathematical aptitude is some kind of hereditary trait that was passed through three generations. I could see that an overbearing mother like Evelyn could make her daughter in to a mathematician through constant effort but I’m not sure how Mary, orphaned as a young child and raised by smart but not genius Frank, is on the same level. I suppose it isn’t exactly the point but it’s a weird universe to assume.
A lot of the movie is tied up in this custody battle and I like a good courtroom scene as much as the next person, but the real joy in the movie is away from all of that. The scenes with Octavia Spencer as Roberta, the next-door neighbor, and Jenny Slate as Bonnie, Mary’s first grade teacher, are universally the best ones. Chris Evans is great at trading barbs with his inexplicably British mother but I’d much rather see him having quasi-meaningful conversations with Jenny Slate. This is the first dramatic role I can remember for Slate, and while she might not be the second coming of Meryl Streep she’s fun and interesting— and most importantly, a breath of fresh air for a part that sometimes feels like it cycles between the same six actresses over and over again. Octavia Spencer is a delight in everything she does; I don’t feel compelled to sell anyone on her. Spencer has a small part here, but she talks the most like a real person and that’s worth a lot.
Gifted is a fun movie. It’s nice to see Evans and Slate playing against type. It’s a heartwarming story that never twists itself in to being a downer. I sort of wish that the end result of all of Frank’s handwringing about whether he’s going to screw up Mary’s life was answered by someone telling him that he will definitely screw up and it will definitely be okay because that’s what parenting is. That isn’t what this movie is though, and it’s okay. I liked watching Gifted and I would be absolutely thrilled to stumble upon it again on cable on a slow afternoon or on an airplane, it’s the perfect movie for those contexts.
