Because L assures me that sometimes my post should be up to date and my film reviews are now running 5-6 years late.
I start with some caveats: 1 - in my comic book days, I was very much a Marvel girl. Make mine Marvel etc. The nearest I got to DC was Batman.
2 - James Gunn is one of those creative types who appears to have a direct line to my soul. He is responsible for an excessive amount of me crying in cinemas; somewhat famously, the time Guardians of the Galaxy made me cry so hard I gave L a migraine.
I have very little skin in this game (Superman) and I know that I will enjoy it anyway.
That being said, it's so nice to see a friendly Superman on screen.
I blame a mixture of Quentin Tarantino and the comics' Dark Age for the dour Supermen we have been having on the big screen recently (this applies to big screen only, the cartoons have been suitable).
Quentin Tarantino because of the whole which of Clark Kent's identities is the "real" one spiel, and everyone wanting to be an auteur like him and ape him in every possible way. (Said with affection for his films)
The Dark Age for that period of comics were everything had to be bleaker than bleak. And fellas, I understand the appeal, because those were the comics of my teenage years too. But they were a short blip in a long lifetime of the Superman character.
Superman is the best of us and happens to be an übermensch, not just an übermensch.
I did warn you all that it would be a very occasional series. There are also spoilers for the book and for the way various films and adaptations vary from the book.
There are many, many filmed versions of the Three Musketeers, and I will not cover them all.
The Three Musketeers is an interesting beast. Like all of Dumas's work, there's a deep, multifaceted story hiding underneath the action adventure headline. When they make adaptations, they tend to stick to the broad strokes of the action adventure story. Very broadly, most of the time.
That does mean that it's very easy to name the best adaptation of the Three Musketeers.
It's easy because it's the only one that passes both my basic requirements:
1 - None of the Musketeers are presented as an idiot (except you know those moments when they are in the book, D'Artagnan, you hot-headed young fool)
2 - The Cardinal is an antagonist, not a villain.
The Cardinal was very much a foundational character for me. Here we have someone who is doing his level best to defeat our heroes, and our heroes are sworn to beat him back but even they admit he is probably a better ruler than the person they're fighting for. They're only against him because they've promised to fight for the King.
The Cardinal, meanwhile, is a reasonable villain, he only wants what's best for France, and has no time for vendettas. He's not boo-hiss villainy and he doesn't want the crown. He just wants the King to do as he's told.
And in this film I get *that* played by Vincent Price. (He even gets a white cat to stroke sinisterly.)
All that, and excellent swordfights - give me a dancer and I can make a fine fencer out of them - and glorious technicolour and Lana Turner in glorious technicolour ... oh it's marvellous and perfect, and actually elides very little of the plot given when it was made.
A lot of other people like the Michael York/Richard Lester films but for me they fail point 1 - they make Porthos an idiot and I will not stand for this because Porthos is my favourite (please don't tell the others because they are also my favourites).
The Chris O'Donnell version fails on point 2. The Cardinal is a boo hiss villain in it - I know they had Tim Curry and temptation can be hard to resist but he can do more than just boo hiss villainy - *and* they screw up Milady. The idea of a Milady de Winter who voluntarily throws herself off a cliff misses something/everything about the character. It also messes with her death being at the hands of our heroes (or at least due to their decision to hand her over to the Axeman of Lille), and the question of "what does that make them?" It makes them our beloved, damaged broken heroes, but you know, not necessarily nice. I have had the argument in the "Dumas Club" in real life, and well, I am on Aramis's side. Although, I admit I have occasionally had problems and thought "what would the Musketeers do?" and then immediately done the opposite. As a strategy, it works.
The Logan Lerman/Paul WS Anderson version is actually solid for all that it changes a lot, and at least it passes points 1 and 2. It could do with more Porthos (Ray Stevenson as Porthos <3 <3 <3) and I have no idea what to do with a version of Athos who gets over himself (I love you really, Athos). It also has Christoph Waltz giving it quietly sinister as Richelieu and Freddie Fox as an adorbs King Louis and I am generally fonder of it than I ought to be.
Similarly changing everything but with enough charm to get away with it is the recent BBC Musketeers, which is very much in name only but I forgive them. There are also two old BBC adaptations which I have not seen but would dearly love to, one with Roger Delgado as Athos, and one with Jeremy Brett as D'Artagnan and Brian Blessed as Porthos (which my mother has raved about for my entire life, but may have suffered from the BBC wiping it).
If you want something a little different I recommend Dogtanian and the Muskehounds.
(I, like many of my generation, can sing this song word for word without excessive thought) (If you would like to hear it in a variety of languages, please see here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XQGZ_1sjjI)
Now Dogtanian does one weird thing, which is switch Athos and Porthos's characters, but none of the Musketeers are idiots and while the Cardinal is mean, he doesn't want to be king.
Special note, I mean the TV show not the recent film version of this. I'm not sure why the film just didn't work for me while the TV show did but it didn't.
Avoid at all costs:
The Musketeer - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0246544/
Which is the third worst film I have ever seen.
I don't know how you make the Musketeers boring and tedious, but somehow this film manages it.
Rochefort is now mysteriously called Febre, and it Tim Roth giving it villainy (which he can do, but it just doesn't work in this film). It also has Stephen Rea as Richelieu and somehow doesn't use that to it's own advantage.
Then again, it's also a version of the Musketeers where Athos only appears in one scene and we never see the Three Inseparables together.
It's terrible and I disrecommend it utterly.
Now for something completely different:
I finish with something only partly related to the Three Musketeers, but it's thing of marvel and wonder.
Philippe Candeloro does proper fencing footwork on ice skates!!!
No, you need to understand - the number of actors in normal shoes who don't do proper footwork and he's doing it on ice skates.
Technically accurate footwork on ice skates!!!
(It is also my second favourite men's programme ever. The only thing that beats it is Yagudin's Winter short programme [although Yagudin's Man in the Iron Mask is not bad either.])
I think Dune might be just the right film for Timothee Chalamet, because Paul is supposed to look scrawny, lost and slightly confused. I can already hear Gurney Halleck shouting at him.
I mock with some affection, I think Chalamet’s going to knock the Jamis scene out of the park.
Most importantly, I have seen pictures of Liet Kynes.
Doesn't she look magnificent!
It is no secret that Liet Kynes is my favourite character in Dune, and I am pleased to see they're doing him justice, in the photos at least. Of all the characters, if there was one they could genderswap, to try and balance out the number of characters of each gender (not that the women of Dune aren't all ... I'd say awesome, but just as flawed and vivid as their male companions is more truthful), then Kynes is the easiest, because there's nothing about him or his story that needs him to be male.
I've also found out that it's going to be two films, which might explain why they haven't revealed who is playing Feyd Rutha. Then again, he's important background for the plot and explaining the Baron Harkonnen's motives, so I remain dubious. Because that scene where the Baron watches Feyd Rutha fight is important, not just for the Baron's "be still my beating [redacted for the good of mankind]" at the sight of Feyd's body. It's so we know that although Feyd Rutha looks nice and, unlike the beast Raban, has manners, hygiene and charm, he's still a Harkonnen and enjoys fighting slaves who are drugged so they're no harm to him to make himself look good. It presages the end duel. You kinda need Feyd in the first half, if only for two scenes.
I withhold my fuller opinion until I see any of the Fremen's eyes.
The two of the three big trailers from Comic Con have left me underwhelmed. I was worried that I was being impossible or nostalgia was blinding me, because the one I quite enjoyed is the one where I don't know anything about the source material but I don't think that's the case.
Let's start with that one I enjoyed. The Witcher looks like perfectly servicable nonsense. And let's be honest, they had me at "people with swords". I am a simple creature.
Cats does not look like perfectly servicable nonsense. I did wonder whether I felt that way because it didn't live up to my expectations but no, I think even a completely disinterested observer would go, "nah, that looks terrible."
It looks like someone has spent a lot of money on SFX that are not up to the job.* I know that the only way we will ever get SFX that are up to the job is through failures like this, but I'd much rather they'd fail on something I am not fond of.
Because I am fond of Cats. I went to see it for a birthday party when I was little, and will still happily belt out random bits of songs for no good reason. As someone who does like it, this looks godawful. None of the characters look right and I do not even want to know WTF they have done to my beloved magical Mr. Mistoffelees. He is supposed to look magical and mysterious, not like Charlie Chaplin Cat! I am sure Ian McKellen and Dame Judi Dench will be having all the fun in their roles so it does at least have that going for it.
I am somehow even less impressed by the new Watchmen trailer than I am by the Cats trailer.
It's not like Watchmen is my favourite Alan Moore comic. Promethea is (yes, I know). But I have long since given up on ever getting any film or TV version of Promethea (mostly because of the yes, I know).
But there is already an Alan Moore comic about a violent police state with people running around in masks. It's called V for Vendetta. But I can imagine it is hard to raise funds for a TV show where a fascist is brought to power with help from the religious right, and then puts people in cages. Obvs. too far-fetched (and yes, I know it's set in the UK).
Either which way, I have no interest in watching Damon Lindelhof's dark future AU fic of the Watchmen! Mostly OCs with a few canon characters appearing.
Not least of all because he suffers from JJ Abrams problem of "dude, I have seen the same films as you, that is not anything new!" For instance, I suspect we're supposed to be shocked, shocked I tell you that FBI lady is Laurie when we find out somewhere in episode 13-17.
If they do decide to give him any depth, Jeremy Irons will knock (possibly spoilery character) out of the park. Plus, he gets to practise his German again. I am intrigued, just a little, by how they will handle (spoilery character) because, yeah, I had problems with how the film did him. I have no idea if that's because I read the character differently to everyone else, or because the film decided to simplify his character, which ruined a lot of the glorious ambiguity of (spoiler) but either which way, (spoiler) is the only thing that interests me about it.
I would prefer to be thrilled by Comic Con trailers! * There is a reason why everyone is posting that image from What We Do In The Shadows.
This began as a review of Assassin's Creed, and turned into a discussion of the nature of storytelling. If you want a review, that's easy:
Avoid.
Run far, run fast, don't look back, don't try a Leap of Faith in the real world.
None of the following is a diss on the technical people involved. The film was beautifully made. The costumes were amazing, I loved the camera work.
When you're as good as that cast list are, then the acting is not the problem. Particularly Michael Fassbender at the beginning, he was amazing.
The trouble was it was difficult to care about any of that when no-one is given all that much character.
I mean, Aguilar gets a bit, but the fact that I can only remember the assassin's name and not the modern-day dude should tell you something. The film was really bad at giving the characters names and identities. For instance, the only reason I know that Maria's name is Maria, not 'unspeakably hot Assassin chick' which I had to call her, was because I looked the film up on IMDB and had to work backwards from female actresses listed.
The same thing for the modern day Assassins. I would care a lot more about the fate of Assassin 3 and 4 if, you know, they were people rather than cardboard cutouts that some fine actors were doing their best with.
I mean it. Name one non-Aguilar assassin just from watching the film.
There's no sense of them being real people, they have less personality than the NPCs in the game do.
What Mad Max: Fury Road did excellently well, this doesn't bother to do at all. I'm not given a reason to care about these characters, so I don't, which means the grand sacrifice scenes don't work.
It's odd that a film that took so much care over everything else (the sets, the costumes, the little details like Aguilar's name and the Torquemada's nose) had such a bad, flat script.
My other problem is not the film's fault. Or rather, I have the same problem with the games but the film emphasises it. The whole, 'there are no rules' philosophy is well and good if you're strong and strapping. If you've the kind of person who isn't, it tends to end badly for you. Relying on people to look after each other in that sort of set up also ends badly. That the film just blithely accepts that the Assassins view of life without questioning it is ooky.
Some spoilers below.
The film goes out of its way to avoid shades of grey. Whether it's making Cal Lynch a criminal who prays on other criminals (so it's okay to cheer him on), painting the Assassins as completely good and the Templars as completely evil, or just making Marion Cotillard evil all of a sudden (I cannot overstate how bad the film was at giving the names of the characters). That was also a shocking waste of Marion Cotillard. She’s an amazing actress, so use her.
Assassin's Creed annoyed me, because it came so close to being good. It had one glaring flaw, but the script was so bad and a script makes up such a large part of the film that I felt really let down.
And because otherwise I will use up the world's entire supply of exclamation marks in one go. (Yes, that is a warning that several of these posts will be squee-ridden.)
Suicide Squad goes first because I keep forgetting it exists only for someone to remind me.
Suicide Squad isn't one of my comics, but I know the general gist.
The trailer amused me, and I did like seeing Amanda Waller.
I'm always going to be in favour of any film that gives Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje a role.
From the trailer, I think I'm going to like the Leto Joker a lot more than a lot of people will. Because yes, he looks and feels like the Joker, just not the Ledger Joker.
I'm less taken by their version of Harley Quinn, she doesn't sound or feel like Harley Quinn. No diss intended on the actress who is giving it great guns, I just prefer my Harley more cheerful maniac rather than dark manic pixie girl.
That being said, I will be very sad if she doesn't turn on the Suicide Squad for Mister Jay!
I still have grievous doubts that they're going to be able to pull off the Suicide Squad properly in a film but I'm more than willing to give it a go. If I remember it exists.
