3-Pack (Unpublished)

 

I tried something a bit different this week and The Keizertimes didn’t want to publish it. Wanted me to stick with the one movie or TV show, one review format, which is fair. I will be writing a full review for one of the below, but here is the 3-pack I initially submitted. Enjoy.

 

 

Because there are just so many darned things to watch these days, I thought I’d do something a little bit different this week and write three mini reviews for the price of one. Here are just a few things that I have been enjoying recently:

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (Disney+)- Marvel Studio's latest is a blend of courtroom shenanigans, comedy, and superhero action that unfortunately bores more often than not. Tatiana Maslany's charming performance as the jade giantess is not enough to disguise the mostly bland writing, thoroughly uninteresting side characters, and questionable CGI. There are funny moments, sure, but they happen far too infrequently, and it’s kind of sad that the show is at it’s best only when a guest character from another Marvel franchise shows up. If it weren’t for them I wouldn’t have felt much of a need to check in with the show week to week, which is a shame. Shulkie deserves better.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season 1 (Amazon Prime)- Although it’s not technically affiliated with Peter Jackson's Middle-Earth films, Rings of Power obviously takes a lot of inspiration from them, from its majestic scenery to its soundtrack to its creature design. Less impressive are its costumes, which often look cheap despite the show's staggering budget, as well as its glacial pacing; there are so many storylines going on at once that barely anything happens each given episode. But the cast is great and the dialogue is appropriately pretty, even if the writers do occasionally overdue it a bit with flowery phrases that they apparently think are profound but don't really mean anything. Any Tolkein fan can tell you that the lore itself is quite questionable, but if you treat the show like the very expensive, non-canonical fan fiction that it is you just might like it. If you don’t mind a really slow burn, that is.

Black Adam (only in theaters)- I actually enjoyed this film a lot more than I thought I would, or at least the first two-thirds of it. A long brewing passion project of star/producer Dwayne Johnson, Black Adam is pretty fun until you realize that only an hour and a half has passed and the movie still has a long third act ahead of it. This act decides to throw out any hint of originality the film has had up until that point (which is, admittedly, not much… the pitch for the film apparently boiled down to the question “What if Shazam straight up murdered a bunch of people?”) in favor of every superhero movie cliché in the book, ending with, you guessed it, a sloppy CGI slugfest with a sky beam. The CGI in question isn’t that great either, nor are the plethora of supporting characters (with the exception of Pierce Brosnan as Doctor Fate… that dude’s awesome). But kudos to Johnson himself for a job well done. I still wouldn’t call what he’s doing here “acting,” but it’s certainly different than what The Rock is usually cooking.

Well that was fun. Happy watching!

 

This review was not published in The Keizertimes. You can still visit at http://keizertimes.com/ , though.

Rosaline (10.21.22)

 

We are all the main characters of our stories, a fact that has led to many overinflated egos and sociopathic tendencies. This illusion is further reinforced by the very nature of narrative itself, as individual histories and circumstances are eliminated inasmuch as they do not service the main plot. Who spent any time thinking of Hamlet’s childhood friends before Tom Stoppard wrote Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead? Who has time to think of the little guy? Much like Stoppard’s 1966 tragicomedy, Rosaline offers a fresh new perspective on a classic Shakespearean tragedy by shining the spotlight not on the much-explored titular characters of Romeo and Juliet, but on a character who was originally more plot device than person. The resulting romcom about Romeo’s ex-girlfriend Rosaline is a bubbly romp that offers plenty of laughs and sweet moments but is ultimately a bit short on plot.  

Much of the humor of Rosaline is derived from taking the tropes of modern-day romantic comedies and putting them in fair Verona, where we lay our scene, and it is surprising how much mileage the film gets out of this alone. Despite the classical setting, the soundtrack is full of modern songs, the language casual and iambic pentameter-free, and sass abounds but never becomes annoying.

Kaitlyn Dever plays Rosaline with charm to spare, proving to be a more-than-competent leading lady who shows command of both comedy and drama as her character tries to win back her man and instead ends up learning things about herself in the process. The supporting cast is equally as fun to watch, particularly Spencer Stevenson as Paris, here brilliantly reinterpreted as Rosaline’s sassy gay best friend who only asks Juliet to marry him to get his parents and society off his back. And don’t worry, even though this is a story based on one of the most famous tragedies of all time things still end on a bright note with everyone happy and in love and stuff.  

If all of this sounds a bit cliché to you, you would certainly not be wrong. For the most part the modern cliches are welcome, helping to illustrate just how timely and applicable the Bard’s tales can be to our day and age, just as 10 Things I Hate About You did with The Taming of the Shrew and She’s The Man did with Twelfth Night before it. The only problem I have is that the cliches also serve to make things overly predictable; the plot of Rosaline is a bit thin overall, and unless you’ve never seen a romcom in your life you can probably guess everything that happens long before it happens. Rosaline by no means sets out to reinvent the wheel, but it is a perfectly enjoyable time despite its sometimes stagnant story.  

So if you ever feel like a supporting character in someone else’s story, just remember that Rosaline was not even listed in the cast of Romeo and Juliet, let alone had any lines, and she still ended up getting a fun little movie made about her. Who’s to say the same won’t happen to you?  

Rosaline is now available on Hulu. 

 

This review was first published in The Keizertimes on October 21st, 2022. Visit at http://keizertimes.com/ 

The Sandman Season 1 (10.14.22)

 

Oh boy, was I looking forward to this one.   

Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman is not just my favorite comic book of all time, but may just be one of my favorite bits of fiction period. The story of Morpheus, the king and personification of dreams, deftly employs classic literature, mythology, and history in a way that transcends any one genre. It is a beautiful tale of change, and it is also one that is inherently difficult to translate into a visual medium thanks to its epic scale and inherently surreal subject matter. Some fans said that a film or television show based on Gaiman’s magnum opus would never work, and although the Netflix series does indeed lose some of the magic in the translation, it is pretty much the best adaptation possible. 

Tom Sturridge shines as Morpheus/Dream/The Sandman, taking on and nailing a challenging role that would intimidate any actor with a modicum of self-awareness. Morpheus is a character that is sometimes difficult to root for, but Sturridge deftly pulls it off by employing brilliantly subtle bits of emotion that are not necessarily true to the character but are nonetheless welcome in the move from page to screen. As anyone who has read the comic can tell you, The Sandman is as much the story of the mortals that get pulled into the dream lord’s orbit as it is about him, and the supporting cast here give performances that are just as realized as Sturridge’s. The plot itself is incredibly faithful to the source material, and the few changes that are made make sense and help streamline a story that has a tendency to bounce around a bit thanks to its huge cast of characters. The most jarring plot development happens halfway in the season as the story of the first comic volume is wrapped up and the very different story of the second is started almost immediately. This abrupt 180 makes The Sandman feel like two short seasons smooshed together into a single medium-sized one, but I’m not complaining; better to include two stories than stretch one beyond its breaking point, especially when you consider Netflix’s obnoxious history of cancelling good shows if they even slightly underperform.   

The only other criticisms I have are minor ones that naturally arise from the transition from the page to the screen. The dreamscape isn’t quite as fantastical as it is in the comic, which is understandable; that kind of thing is much, much easier to do with a pencil than it is with CGI. Certain concepts are also sometimes awkwardly explained by characters that have no reason to share this information, which also makes sense because the TV show does not have narration like the comic book does. These nitpicks will not be noticeable to most people, however, especially ones that have not read the source material. Overall, Netflix’s The Sandman is the best possible adaptation of one of the best comics of all time, and I couldn’t really ask for more than that. Except maybe a season 2.  

The Sandman season 1 is now available on Netflix. 

 

This review was first published in the Keizertimes on October 14th, 2022. Visit at http://keizertimes.com/