Game On

Yes, I watched Gamer. Yes, I know it was largely panned. Yes, the trailers looked poor and the movie seemed to be completely unimaginative. Yes, it seemed ridiculous, even. Yes, I had better options for movies to watch (Descent 2 being one of them). No, I'm not sure what I was thinking.

But I was curious. Here was another movie loosely based on the video game industry and reality shows (among other things) and a treatise about how jaded and unsympathetic our world may become if someone really wanted to take that next step.

Some time in the future, the real world sucks. It's a bleak place, with society in general mostly in the toilet. The only bright spots in the future are reality entertainment, created by multi-billionaire Ken Castle (Michael C. Hall). First, Castle created Society, a game not unlike the hugely popular Second Life in which the player takes control of a remote avatar and controls all their actions and interactions with others playing the game. Unlike the digital world of Second Life that people nowadays can subscribe to, however, those avatars are living, breathing people who are paid to be part of this fake reality.

We'll get back to Society later. The reason people tuned into this movie was Castle's other creation: Slayers. In Slayers, Death Row inmates are given the chance to compete in a real-life death match not unlike those in games like Team Fortress 2 or Day of Defeat. The idea is that if they survive 30 battles of Slayer, they get their prison sentences communed. The contestants don't control their own fates however, as their actions in-game are controlled by gamers on the outside. The best of these combatants is John "Kable" Tillman (Gerard Butler), an inmate we meet with just three games left until he can be released. His wife and daughter are on the outside, and are the only things keeping him sane. But even with freedom so close, as the story is told we learn that Ken Castle would very much rather not see Kable go free.

Gamer is a very different film. A large-budget film that feels like a movie half it's budget size, it portrays society in three different lights. The brightest of these shades is Society, where the colors are so vibrant, the sunlight so bright, that you can't help but feel it's fake and showy, which of course is exactly what was intended. The users in Society are portrayed as connoisseurs of the seven deadly sins, exposing themselves, fulfilling rape fantasies or setting up their avatar to suffer bodily harm and laugh as their blood spills from gashes. The people who would subject their bodies to this treatment are usually of the desperate variety, not happy with their predicament but so desperate to escape the cruel outside world that it seems largely appealing by comparison. On the other end of the spectrum is Slayers. It's a dark, gritty, violent existence, where color rarely permeates unless it's blood red. Death can come suddenly, and it's only by the skill of their controllers that the participants make it to the end, or the "Save Point". In between is real life, where it seems poverty is up and nobody seems happy unless they're watching or playing the latest reality PPV. It's arguably the bleakest of the three existences, as people are more than willing to escape into something else, and unwilling to change the things around them.

If there's anything I found surprising about Gamer, it's just how GOOD the movie actually is. The twin writing/directing of Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor (Crank 1 & 2) is solid, especially the camera work, which was often done on the fly by either director. There are definitely some faults, but we'll get to those later. The casting, however, was the truly inspired part of this film. Of course Butler has since moved on to romantic comedies at this point, but this was his first big action hit after 300. He's really a force to behold both in his combat scenes and in his more insular scenes which are more of the film than you might go in expecting. Hall (Six Feet Under, Dexter) is fun as Castle, the villain. He really seems to enjoy being the bad guy here, and it's always good to have a "fun" villain. Amber Valetta (Hitch, Transporter 2) plays Angie, Kable's wife on the outside and works as an Avatar on Society to either pay the bills or escape reality, or both. She was truly the surprise of this film, as I never would have expected her to play this part with such depth, and there's a stark difference in her performance between when she is herself and when she's played by a lascivious user, as there should be. Kyra Sedgewick (The Closer, Justice League: A New Fronteir)  plays an unscrupulous TV reporter and talk show host who is seeking out Kable. Honestly, it's great to see her in a movie but her character is largely unimportant. At least she does it well. Logan Lerman (3:10 to Yuma, Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief) is great as Kable's controller, a widely respected cyber-athlete who's only 17-years-old. He's portrayed as being pretty spoiled and naive in the beginning, but the character goes through changes as the story progresses and Lerman pulls it off very well. Christopher Brian "Ludacris" Bridges (Hustle & Flow, RocknRolla) rounds out the main cast, playing the leader of a (for lack of a better word) terrorist group who call themselves "Humanz" who oppose Castle's evil plans. Kable finds himself tugged between these two factions during the course of the film, and it's good that they are led by Hall and Brown, who are both charismatic and good to see on screen.

There were also a large number of recognizable D and E-List stars who made appearances throughout the film, and it was fun to recognize John Leguizamo (Spawn, Romeo & Juliet), Aaron Yoo (21, Friday the 13'th), Allison Lohman (Drag Me to Hell, Beowulf), Terry Crews (The Expendables, The Longest Yard), Keith David (Platoon, Mass Effect 1 & 2), Milo Ventimiglia (Heroes, Rocky Balboa), Sam Witwer (Battlestar Galactica, Dexter), John de Lancie (Star Trek: The Next Generation, Stargate SG1), and Zoe Bell, who has yet to truly get out from under the shadow of the best damn car chase scene EVER (Death Proof). Even though most of these characters did little to move the pace of the story forward, it was good to see so many recognizable faces, even if they were most definitely not big stars.

Now onto the bad stuff. To be fair, I only have two gripes with this film, but they're big ones.

Gripe #1:  One-dimensional bad guys

Remember how I praised Michael C. Hall's performance? I meant every word. He did an amazing job with that character. The problem was the character was a third-rate James Bond villain, all posturing and posing, never one to miss overlong speeches detailing his great plans and how wonderful he is. Even a surprise song and dance number near the end doesn't make him any more deep or complex, and his mindless exposition makes me wish he at least had an interesting second in command. No such luck, as his cronies are even more boring than he is. At then end, after the day is saved, the second in command says to the hero: "Well played." Yes, he says THOSE exact WORDS. No excuse.

Which brings me to the second gripe:

Gripe #2: Bad ending

There's not really any excuse for how badly the movie ended. The story leading to it was actually pretty good, cloak and dagger mixed with bullets and explosions mixed with exploitation. But the end felt mostly anti-climactic, without anything original, charming or intelligent, followed with a cliche hero driving off into the sunset. For the story to have done so well to end on such a sour note is distressing, after I'd been so pleasantly surprised with the rest of the content.

If you combined Gamer's strengths with that of a more popular summer movie in '09, say Terminator Salvation, you might have had a fantastic movie on your hands. Instead, the duo known as Neveldine/Taylor have made us a merely okay film, with a strong first half, good acting, and great action sequences and camera angles but marred by an incomplete second half and cliche ending. I don't regret watching it.

I just regret watching it FIRST.

A Film Jamboree!

It's been a busy week for me with movies. Between the Redbox and the old-fashioned movie theater, I've seen five movies this week, and that didn't even include some movies I've really wanted to see , such as Iron Man 2, The Losers, Descent 2 and Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. With my week so filled, was everything I saw worth the viewing?

Pandorum was the first film I watched, starring Ben Foster (3:10 to Yuma, The Messenger) and Dennis Quaid (Vantage Point, The Rookie) as deep-space astronauts who awake on a broken ship, the Eden, with no memory from a long hyper-sleep and unable to get out of their sleep chambers and to the bridge, where they can assess the situation. Foster eventually escapes through some air ducts, but the situation only gets more dire, as he finds himself stumbling blind through a dying hulk of a ship, with something, or someone, hunting him.

 Pandorum didn't make too much at the box office (about $19 million gross worldwide, but the movie cost $33 million to make) and that's unfortunate. It's definitely difficult surviving as a sci-fi film these days if you're not directly descended from a popular author's library (Jurassic Park, Minority Report) or part of a popular franchise (Star Trek, Star Wars) or have big names like J.J. Abrams attached (Cloverfield). When a film is as good as Pandorum, that quality should be front and center, but it will always carry the stigma of being a sci-fi movie and non-sci-fi fans will never take part. Like the Oscar-overlooked Moon, Pandorum goes down as one of 2009's best ignored sci-fi films.

It's scary, but GOOD scary, with tension dripping off the screen as you feel you're in this dark, claustrophobic place with Foster and Quaid, waiting to see what insane thing happens next. Add atop that great support acting by Cam Gigandet (The O.C., Jack and Bobby), Eddie Rouse (Observe and Report, the upcoming Green Hornet) and the beautiful Antje Traue (in her first English-speaking film). Even former World Champion kick boxer Cung Le does a good job despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that he doesn't speak a single English syllable the entire movie. Overall, Pandorum was a great way to start the week off, and I definitely recommend it to anyone who liked The Descent or Event Horizon, as comparisons to both are warranted.

2012, after seeing Pandorum, is cheese. No, wait, maybe it's not Pandorum's fault. 2012 may be just be cheese all by itself. but you know what? It's more like a sharp cheddar than a plain old American cheese. First of all, it's very visually pretty, and any movie in which you see a subway train fly through the air is completely worth price of admission. All in all, 2012 might just be the most fun movie I didn't see in the theaters last year.

2012, of course, refers to the widely-held obsession that the end of the Mayan calendar signifies the actual end of planet Earth. To that end we focus on an anonymous author played by John Cusack and his family as they escape destruction after destruction. Remember when you saw Titanic, and James Cameron forced you to watch the two least interesting people on the WHOLE SHIP when all you REALLY wanted to see was the damn boat sink? Well, here you go. To be fair, I might not be as critical if they had focused more on a couple of minor story lines that actually focused on other people but were almost completely discarded until they were needed, as means to an end as it were. One, about a Chinese family, is introduced in the very beginning but don't make any reappearance until at least the third act. The other involves a couple of elderly Jazz musicians on a cruise ship (great work in limited roles by Blu Mankuma and Geoge Segal) in the middle of the ocean who only make sporadic appearances. All in all, seeing Cusack's family escape danger after danger can get a little drab, as little is done in-between to ease the tension, especially when after the first BIG disaster scene, the tension actually scales DOWN rather than UP. The big climax is actually smaller than the FIRST one, which from a storytelling focus makes no sense, since you'd want to save your big guns for the finale. No such luck, which might not be much of a surprise from the director who ruined Godzilla for the western world (Rolland Emmerich).

But it's a movie I still loved. In fact, it taught me to love! I loved the special effects, big or small. I loved Chiwetel Ejiofor (Serenity, the upcoming Salt), the Jeff Goldblum of this movie.  I loved Tom McCarthy (The Wire, Boston Public), who had a sizable role. (What the hell, I just love the director of the underrated The Visitor) I loved Woody Harrelson's cameo performance, which was spot on. I even loved a Russian pilot named Sasha (Johann Urb).

That's not to say the movie has little in the way of problems. It's not usually my way to be all gender-focused and feminist, but like his former film Independence Day, the heroes are largely male-heavy. The few female roles act mainly as support systems for the male characters to hang onto. Just as Constance Spano and Mary McDonnell were sorely underused in ID4, so are Amanda Peet and the extraordinarily talented actress Thandie Newton in this film. The only remotely strong woman (the Vivica A. Fox character, to keep the metaphor going) is Lisa Lu (Joy Luck Club) who, after her big scene, promptly has no subsequent dialogue. Does it detract from enjoying the movie as a whole? No, but it surely does make you think afterward.

Despite these gripes, you're not watching 2012 for the social commentary. You're watching it for the cheese, to grip the arms of your chair and shriek as your hero once again escapes calamity. And despite not being as good as the aforementioned Independence Day, 2012 was a great by-the-numbers action flick which succeeds in getting it's point across with a maximization of body count. Worth renting and seeing on a good TV.

Am I the only one who believes a movie about Fallen Angels toting machine guns and blasting all hell from the Apocalypse, one starring Paul Bettany (Master and Commander, Young Victoria) to boot, should be a GOOD film? Apparently so, as there's little to recommend Legion to anyone with a pulse, not anything that you haven't already pretty much seen in the trailers, anyway.

The cussing old lady? The one who turns puts the bite on a guy and then goes crawling on the ceiling in all freaky fashion? And the ice cream man, the one with the elongated limbs and the stretched out face? Yeah, those parts, which combined last all of three minutes, are the BEST parts of the movie. And they're in the TRAILER. Actually, come to think of it, there is one more good part, but I'll keep that under wraps so perhaps someone else will join me in my misery which is this film. Oh, and Paul Bettany. He was good too. Awesome, in fact. But he's just not enough.

The story, for anyone who hasn't already watched the trailer, is thus: Almighty God, pissed at us for all the bullshit humanity carries out on a daily basis, sends his Angels to Earth to wipe out mankind.The only one to defy his order, Michael (Bettany) makes his way to Earth ahead of the invasion force and seeks out an unborn baby who would be mankind's salvation. That baby is currently in the womb of Adrianne Palicki (Friday Night Lights), who up to this point was considering giving up the baby for adoption since she has trouble taking care of herself, working in a greasy-spoon diner in the middle of nowhere. It's at this diner that pretty much everything happens.

The problem is it doesn't matter what big names you get to fill out your roster (Dennis Quaid, Charles S. Dutton, Kate Walsh, Tyrese Gibson) if you don't care enough about them when they die. For a film that was supposedly the "baby" of director Scott Stewart (What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, the upcoming Priest), it's not well done, especially the storytelling aspect, which ends, but not in any ways remotely satisfying. Even the arrival of Kevin Durand (Lost, 3:10 to Yuma) as Archangel Gabriel is nowhere close to how well he played Martin Keamy (which will now forever be his signature role). All in all, Legion is a mess from front to back, with very little to recommend this movie or be hopeful for any of Stewart's future projects.

The one movie I actually saw in the theater this week, Kick-Ass, might be the best of the bunch. It's equal parts action film and nerd fantasy shtick, as any true comic fan has thought at least ONCE about what it would be like donning a costume and becoming their favorite hero.Great storytelling, combined with perfect casting and adapted well on the same-titled graphic novel by Mark Millar (who's excellent Wanted I reviewed two years ago), it's no surprise that a sequel has already been announced for release in 2012.

Kick-Ass follows Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson), a normal kid who's grown tired of living in a world where crime pretty much does at it pleases and nobody will stop and intervene in a crime taking place. So, he dons a costume, gets his ass kicked in fights, but nevertheless earns a reputation for the work he does, knocking petty thugs down a notch. This in turn gets him noticed by crime boss Frank D'Amico (Mark Strong), who targets Kick-Ass thinking him the source of his late difficulties distributing his drugs throughout New York City.

The real star of this movie, despite star turns by Johnson and Christopher Mintz-Plasse (Superbad, Role Models) and "star" Nicholas Cage for the celeb factor, is thirteen-year-old Chloe Grace Moretz (Dirty Sexy Money, (500) Days of Summer) as Hit-Girl, foul-mouthed martial arts expert who can handle a firearm better than most adults and wants a butterfly knife for her birthday. She calls a roomful of grown thugs "cunts" and can single-handedly take down a whole warehouse full of armed goons in the dark. The movie may mostly focus on Johnson as the titular hero, but make no mistake, it's Moretz's character that keeps the story moving forward, and she steals every scene.

I don't want to give anything away for people who haven't seen this film yet (I don't know who you are, but my theater was fairly packed, so obviously there are some out there) so if you're in that category please please PLEASE see this film and let me know how it rocked your world.

In Daybreakers, last year's under-the-radar release by German directors Michael and Peter Spierig, vampires are the norm of society. As the opening tells us, humanity was given a chance to assimilate. They refused, and now it's estimated that of the world's population, only about 5% are human. Enter Ethan Hawke (Training Day, Hamlet) as Edward Dalton, a vampire who hates what he is, trying to create a substitute for human blood before the world runs out, and flat out refusing to drink human blood himself. Knowing he's in the minority and has no chance to change the way of things, one accident will change his future in ways he never would have imagined.

The great thing about the setup here is the society portrayed. Vampires treat the world around them the same as they did before they turned: They get up, they go to work, have their morning coffee (with a shot of type O, of course), and otherwise have extraordinarily boring lives. Soldiers go out into the world to hunt rogue humans to bring them back and harvest their blood. It's a bleak time for humanity. But something even darker lies underneath, only showing itself when there's almost no blood left in the world.

With such an original story and message to convey, you'd have to screw up royally for this movie not to pop, and with low-budget indie films like this, that happens more often than not. Fortunately, the Spierig brothers are extremely talented in not only bringing out the best in their actors' performances, but also in the scenery they create, the final product matching their visions beautifully. Hawke is perfectly cast as the conflicted Dalton, who refuses to partake in the extermination of the human race even as he knows that without human blood or some substitute, vampire society as he knows it is over. Other great performances from Willem DeFoe (Spider Man, Shadow of the Vampire), Sam Neill (Jurassic Park, Event Horizon) and Australian actress Claudia Karvan (Star Wars Episode III, Aquamarine) flesh out a cast that really come alive (or in a vampire society, is it the other way around?) in their performances. Neill especially chews the scenery with a sparkle in his eyes, and it's not just the special contacts he's wearing throughout.

In essence, Daybreakers is about us needing to adapt to survive. With resources only so finite, we have to ask ourselves how we would react were our dwindling supplies suddenly to run out.

When all is said and done, I've seen five movies over the span of a single week and that definitely means I'll be taking a break from them with the completion of this post. Most of the films were good or at least enjoyable with only Legion breaking my heart, but the best overall I think was by far Kick-Ass, with Daybreakers and Pandorum neck and neck at a distant second. With many big things happening in the future (The Lost finale and the recently released Robin Hood come to mind) I'll be looking forward to sharing my ideas and info with you in the future.

Until then, have a fun time.

XIII, Not so Unlucky

I finally started what I hope will be a long and fortuitous relationship with Redbox today. I went with one sole purpose: to rent a copy of Pandorum, which I hoped they would still have. They did, and while I added that to my cart, I decided to check if they had anything else in stock I might be interested in. Doing so, I saw they had something that I'd seen on shelves before and had been intrigued at it's very existence. It was XIII: The Conspiracy, and frankly, I had no idea why this story had been co-opted yet again.

For those of you who don't know, XIII was originally a Franco-Belgian comic book series written and drawn by Jean Van Hamme and William Vance, both with long careers in the European detective comics scene. But that's not from where I happen to know know XIII. In 2003, Ubisoft - a computer games company responsible for developing several outstanding titles including Splinter Cell, Prince of Persia, Brothers in Arms, Far Cry, and Beyond Good and Evil - adapted the comics into their own game, also called XIII. In it, the player assumes the identity of an amnesiac struggling to rediscover his past, the only clue to his identity being a tattoo on his chest reading XIII. The game appeared on several gaming platforms as well as PC and Mac, and is played from a FPS (First Person Shooter) perspective, and with a unique cell shaded look that was far different to watch than anything else on the market that year. It also featured the voice acting talents of David Duchovny, Eve and Adam West. Sadly, poor sales have all but guaranteed that despite it's "To be Continued" ending, no sequel has been announced and it seems extremely unlikely that there will be a followup.

Gratuitous head shots were often the most satisfying part of XIII, as shown above.

Back to XIII: The Conspiracy, though. It was developed as a Franco-Canadian two-episode miniseries directed by longtime TV director Duane Clark that originally aired in France during October 2008 and aired in the States on NBC in February of 2009, though I have no recollection of that. NBC was desperate for shows even then, I'm sure. Stephen Dorff (Deuces Wild) plays the titular XIII, completely without memory but also the prime suspect in the assassination of the President of the United States (Mimi Kuzyk). On the topic of the female President, this is definitely one difference from the game, which had been essentially set up with the idea that XIII had murdered the Prez in Dallas... from a book depository... I think you know where I'm going here. The late President's brother even had a thick New England accent in the game, if you want it even more clear. Obviously the filmmakers didn't want to have that kind of controversy, so instead we see an affluent white woman with no discernible accent become the dead President (and this was filmed before the 2008 Presidential election, mind you, when Hillary Clinton was still in the running). As Rorschach might say, "Hrm."

The story splits to many different viewpoints, from the confusion of the amnesiac XIII, to Acting President Galbrain (John Bourgeois) as he and his cabinet try to track down the president's killer while also fending off political opponent (and the former President's brother) Walter Sheridan (Ted Atherton) in the upcoming election, and then to General Carrington (the excellent Stephen McHattie) who may know XIII's identity, and may or may not be his only ally in the world. Add in a conspiratorial bunch with a lot of power to make things happen (like presidential assassinations) with the face of their enforcer The Mongoose (Val Kilmer) hunting down Dorff, and you have the idea that nothing is what it seems, that everyone and everything you think you know is suspect.

And that's what XIII has always been about. It's easy to see where the inspiration for the series came from, very Jason Bourne in it's execution, right down to the close-up fight scenes where you can barely tell what's happening, it's going so fast. It's also good to see that much of the characters from the game have been faithfully interpreted for use in the series, from Mongoose, to many of the conspirators, to Carrington and several other minor characters.

Dorff, who I'd never seen good in anything before, is surprisingly likable and sympathetic as the numerical assassin who is trying desperately to find out who he is. Kilmer, as the villain Mongoose, is however a laughingstock. I'm reminded of the episode of the Simpsons where Rainier Wolfcastle responds to weight criticism with: "It's for a movie! I'm playing a fat secret agent!" That's Val. Always overrated, Val used to have his looks for fall back on. Not now. All the peripheral characters are mostly only okay, with the exception of McHattie (a longtime scene-chewer who some might remember as the original Nite Owl in Watchmen) as a perfect General Carrington. The story is surprisingly gripping for a poorly-shot, overly fading to black miniseries that WANTS to blow you away but occasionally LOOKS like the bad film it's production values aspire to. In short, it's okay. If it had been filmed by Uwe Boll, I'm sure it would have been terrible. With someone of at least average talent at the helm, it's turned out surprisingly well.

As a miniseries that owes more to it's epic source material than it's own ingenuity and originality, XIII: The Conspiracy that is still surprisingly watchable in one sitting, with enough surprises and enjoyable storytelling that you won't regret having seen it... especially if you only pay $1 to rent it. And you can't go wrong going  back to purchase the XIII game, though right now it might only be available on Ebay.

Enjoy.

Target This

Successful television shows focusing on pure action are rare to see today. It seems every season there are three more coming on the air, usually as mid-season replacements for shows the network actually wanted, and they're gone before too long. Mostly such cancellation is truly warranted, as there's a good reason the show was never supposed to air in the first place.

Not so with FOX's Human Target. Based on the I assume little-known DC Comics character Christopher Chance (I didn't even know that much until the end of the first episode when the DC logo flashed on the screen), Human Target is a heady ride of thrills and chills that never lets down unless it's to unleash a witty repartee. Leading the way is uber-hunk Mark Valley (Boston Legal, Fringe) as the aptly-named Chance, as he's constantly taking chances to protect the clients who hire his bodyguard services. Right from the opening scene of the series we get the full feel for this character, an American James Bond (Daniel Craig style, thank you) with the right words and a plan for every scenario. The only thing we don't know is why he continually risks everything to save his clients, seemingly with no regard for his own well being. That will probably be something explained in future episodes.

The Bond connections link fast from the opening credits, which seem to borrow heavily from the Bond psychadelic themes that are so well known (complete with femme fatale ink-blot) and giving it a slightly American action hero twist. That's the best I can explain it, but it sure looks good. And add Bear McCreary's always good themes to the mix, and you've got an entertaining soundtrack. Bear's work may not be as unique or innovative as his work on Battlestar Galactica with it's booming crecendoes or Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles' blend of old-meets-new score, but it's good and I never doubt Bear's skills to set the mood and get me excited for some action with a few notes.

I'm sure someone out there thinks Mark Valley is just a pretty boy, but I tell you he is perfectly cast here. Carrying off Chance's charm and bravado may seem like an easy assignment, but the character is so complex and multi-faceted (while, yes, at first appearing simple) that it's a credit to Valley that not only does he pull it off, he truly becomes Christopher Chance. Chi McBride can only play one character type, but he does it well. That's all I'll say about that. What may really get geek fans watching this show, however, is third member of the cast, Jackie Earle Haley. Movie snobs might know him as the Academy-award nominated actor for playing pedophile Ronnie McGorvey in Little Children, but the rest of us know him (and love him) as Rorschach, one of the few reasons that Watchmen was, well, watchable. Once again he's inside a character so completely that if you hadn't seen his name in the opening credits, you'd never know who he was. A true chameleon, there doesn't seem like much wrong Jackie can do.

The show's not without it's problems. With only three principal characters, the show's main method of survival will probably rely on more guest stars than a Law & Order marathon. And no, while sci-fi geeks will love that Battlestar actors Tricia Helfer and Donnelly Rhodes (A better space doctor than McCoy, you heard it here first) appeared in the pilot, getting higher-rated actors to appear would no doubt attain a more mainstream audience and pay the bills. Also, with the possible exception of Chance's mysterious past, there doesn't seem to be anything akin to an overarching plot to attatch episodes to, raising questions as to what keeps us watching, what keeps the story moving forward.

But this was just the pilot, and it's early. Hopefully fans will watch, hopefully FOX won't cancel another promising series before it really hits it's stride. Come on, FOX.

Take a Chance.

They Have a Plan

They were Created by man
They Rebelled
They Evolved
There are many copies
And they have a plan

No, this isn’t a review of the new Battlestar Galactica straight-to-DVD movie (if I can make it through more than just the first 45 minutes of the film, maybe that’ll be my next project. Until then…) but instead of the DVD release of a show that I assume not as many people watched, FOX’s Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, season two. The show began airing on Sunday, January 13, 2008 and ran with decent if unspectacular ratings before being ignobly canceled after just two seasons. It’s a damn shame, too, since season two was so good I would have been frothing at the mouth waiting for the third season to be released, had the cancellation not occurred.

Season one ended on such a shocking cliffhanger that it’s impossible not to wonder how I actually survived the months between my DVD viewing of the two seasons. Not only had the covers of Sarah Connor (300’s Lena Headey) and her son John (Thomas Dekker, Heroes) been cracked by a couple of Russian-related moogs intent on doing them harm, but Agent Ellis’ (Richard T. Jones, Vantage Point)  FBI team learns just what happens to a group of heavily-armed agents who go up against Cromartie, a T-888 sent back in time to kill John Connor. (Hint: The FBI doesn’t do so well). Oh, yeah, and friendly Terminator Cameron (Summer Glau, Firefly) was in a car that got, well, car-bombed. Season two picks up immediately following the events, and stuff gets crazy…

In the confusion, the would-be assassins fail to realize that Cameron didn’t exactly die in the bombing. And stuff gets even better from there. After dispatching of the assailants, Cameron’s programming resets, leading to an outstanding sequence of her pursuing her former ally John Connor through the streets of Los Angeles. Almost as good is Cromartie letting Ellis live, leading to Ellis questioning what he believes and leaving the FBI to search for information on the Terminators another way, through the private company of Catherine Weaver (Shirley Manson of Garbage fame). And so begins the second season of Terminator, which takes everything that was great about the first season and stretches it out over a longer run of episodes and almost makes the perfect show out of it.

After the first episode, our weary heroes need to find a new home and base of operations (their old one kinda burned down) and new obstacles arrive: John learns about girls and relationships with schoolmate Riley (Leven Rambin, All My Children), and a list left on their basement wall in blood by someone else from the future leads them on jobs throughout the city from a nuclear power plant to a Japanese computer company suspected of creating the new Skynet program. It’s not all good though, and one storyline in particular takes up far too many episodes, four, for what it ultimately provides to the plot. Still fantastic episodes abound on these six disks, starting with the opener, Samson and Delilah. Allison from Palmdale tells a bit about the girl Cameron was modeled after; Goodbye to All That finds John and his uncle Derek Reese (Brian Austin Greene, 90210) protecting a future Resistance hero from a current Terminator; The Tower is Tall but the Fall is Short sees our heroes seeing a therapist, but not for the reasons you might think; Mr. Ferguson is Ill Today shows us a south-of-the-border shoot-out with Cromartie, Complications has Derek’s lover Jesse from the future (Stephanie Jacobsen, BSG: Razor) bringing Derek to interrogate a suspected future Skynet collaborator (Richard Schiff, The West Wing); Self Made Man, about what happens when you overshoot when time traveling; The two-part Today is the Day flash-backs Jesse to her final days on a friendly-Terminator driven submarine; And the finale episode Born to Run is an absolute treat, with another cliffhanger ending that will drop your jaw on the floor and curse out FOX for not bringing this great show back for one more undeniably awesome season.

Despite obviously sinking most of the show’s budget into the special effects department (and the effects look GREAT on TV) executive producer Josh Friedman had some great talent to work with. Besides all the great technical work and writing  his crew did, standout among the behind the scenes  belongs to Bear McCreary. Musicman for such outstanding sci-fi shows as Battlestar Galactica and Eureka, Bear had the unenviable task of creating a score for the series but remain true to the score of the first two Terminator movies. In that, Bear succeeded spectacularly, creating a sound that was obviously new, but managed  to hearken back to the 80’s, when the stars of the show were Linda Hamilton, Michael Biehn, and the Governator. It’s just a perfect thing that many composers would have screwed up somewhere, but not Bear. He’s just that damn good.

Acting was something Friedman had in good supply on the show too. Everyone had their moments, but you couldn’t get much better than Headey as Sarah Connor unless you had Linda Hamilton return (the Linda Hamilton from twenty years ago, mind you). Headey however does her damndest and succeeds in harnessing Sarah’s distrust, fear, anger and frustration without it seeming too much. She epitomizes sexy without going too over-the-top, and for that alone she should be lauded. That she’s that and more is icing on the cake. And Glau is perfect for the tinman-like Cameron, creature without a heart who just might be the one who kills John Connor if she malfunctions again. Brian Austin Green returns from the first season with a jacked bod and great storylines. Not entirely trusted by anyone in the house, Green really pulls it off as Kyle Reese’s brother, and really comes through as the level-headed, warm-hearted member of the house. Jones is actually disappointing as Agent Ellis, what began as an interesting character in the first season got relegated to second-tier status the second time around, and except for some great interaction with the other characters, Jones is wasted in much of the season. Of course, that may be because of the trifecta of new talent that stole screen-time from him. This was Shirley Manson’s first acting job. No, really. She’s perfect as Catherine Weaver, an executive with a secret and an interest in the Terminators and where they come from. If Manson doesn’t go back to Garbage, I hope she gets more parts like this. Levin Rambin is actually pretty good once you get past her first few scenes. She has good chemistry with John Connor and although her character gets put through the wringer writing-wise, you really end up liking her. Maybe it’s the smile, the cocky attitude, the pain under the skin, but I really felt connected with the character, even if it wasn’t a character the show particularly wanted. And Stephanie Jacobsen is serviceable, though not all that great, as another resistance fighter from the future and seems to play double agent, working sometimes with Derek while secretly spying on the Connors and their allies.

The best acting jobs on the show might belong to Thomas Dekker as John Connor and Garret Dillahunt (Last House on the Left) as the Terminator Cromartie. John undergoes a transformation during the show’s second season, the reasons for which are eventually explained to us over the course of the season.  The result is an even better performance than he had done the first time around, and he really comes front and center , beginning to become the man he was born to be. Dillahunt doesn’t do much through the first half-dozen episodes, but it’s the second half of the season where he shines through. Watching his performance throughout the season was just a joy, and if you ever watch this show (and you should!) remind yourself to ask why this man’s not in more things this good. He, like Dekker, are too good to pass up.

The show’s not without it’s flaws - so few shows are - but my biggest problem is with the time-travel aspect. Forgive me if I’m mistaken, but in the original movies it was very difficult to send people (or terminators) back in time, but during the course of the show no fewer than ten characters were sent back to the “current” time period. It gets a little weird when you suddenly have all these characters who all the sudden are from the future. If it was so damn easy, why didn’t Skynet just send an army to the past and be done with it? It’s not bad, just seems off to me. That, plus the unusually poor four-episode side-track I mentioned before, are the majority of my problems with the show.

You know what’s really scary? Not that this show didn’t get picked up by FOX, but that FOX picked up the Joss Whedon show Dollhouse to run another season (and get canceled to boot) rather than give this show another chance, despite similar ratings. After the somewhat disappointing Terminator:Salvation, I might still hope that people will remember this show and just how good it is, because FOX has made sure that by canceling it, there probably won’t be more smart and well-planned entertainment like this on network television. SyFy, see if you can pick up the rights to this series, because what Terminator really needs is the old SyFy treatment like it’s likewise geek oriented BSG.

500!

When you do something 500 times, chances are pretty good you've done it well. From Stan Lee to Chris Claremont to Ed Brubaker to Matt Fraction, Marvel has done quite well by their most Uncanny of superhero teams. The X-Men turned 500 last week, and with it came a new beginning, different yet all to familiar to longtime readers.

The heroes everyone wants are here: Cyclops, the mild-mannered boss-man; Wolverine, the hard-edged maverick; Angel, the winged avenger; Storm, the African weather goddess; Colossus, the metal man; Beast, the blue-furred genius; Nightcrawler, the elf; even psychic former super-villain Emma Frost is still here. All in all, not much seems to have changed with this super group; aside from changing coasts (trading in dreary Westchester for hip San Francisco) there isn't much different about this new group.

But things are quite different: for one, the local government is absolutely in love with them. The mayor happens to be quite smitten with Warren Kenneth Worthington III (Angel) and she's openly embraced the X-Men to make their homes on the west coast. They've spared no expense building a new headquarters that makes the Xavier School look like a basement studio, Angel's vast sum of loot paying the way easily. This is indeed a whole new beginning, no more "To me, my X-men" lines, just a real team, pulling together for one another, caring for one another as people and a diminishing race.

The Mayor has news for the team. Apparently, Japanese filmmaker Kingo Sunen (who first made his appearance way back in 1977 in the Eternals futuristic movie in San Francisco. Casting former mutant The Blob, Freddie Dukes, in the lead role (the unrecognizable Dukes is portrayed as a "weight loss guru") series) wants to film his new sci-fi film in San Francisco to use the Dreaming Celestial he's obsessed with as his backdrop for the movie. Which is fine. Until it's revealed that another artist, one Guy deMondue, has decided to create art due to the recent mutant influence and bases his art on decommissioned Sentinels.

That's right. Sentinels. Remember when I said some things were very much the same?

It leads the team to attend the art unveiling, where there are more X-Men fan boys than at your average national convention. Every one's dressed up as Marvel Girl, Professor X, Banshee, Angel and Psylocke, and the heroes fit right in. (Interestingly enough, no Wolverine costumes are shown, yet there's one woman dressed up as Mystique. Hmmm) This is until an old villain returns from the dead and wreaks havoc over everything.

It's a fantastic new beginning for this team, thanks much in part to the writing. I love both Brubaker (Captain America, Daredevil) and Fraction (Invincible Iron Man, The Order), and their excellent work at making this new start both simple and complex all at the same time. They're not going to make it easy for the X-Men to settle into their new homes, and you just know they had to take from personal experience for the fan boy convention sequence. The writing in itself would make the book fantastic. But with beautiful pencil art by Greg Land (Ultimate Power, Birds of Prey) and Terry Dodson (Wonder Woman, Songes: Coraline) and colors by Justin Ponser (X-Men: Phoenix Endsong) sealing the deal, it's hard not to immediately add this title to you new favorites pile.

Am I gushing enough? I'm so enamored with this title, my complaints almost have no real merit. There's one person who shows up at the end who I felt I should know, but don't because I hadn't paid too much attention to the X-Men universe until recently. It's a small thing, and his story will likely be fleshed out later in this run, but it's disconcerting that I should feel a sense of foreboding, but only if I knew who this character was supposed to be. Also, there's not enough X-Men in this story. Except for cameos by Cannonball and Pixie (Pixie??) no secondary X-Men are shown. No Warpath? No Hepzibah? No Iceman?? Shame, shame! Bring these characters back into the fold! I want more mutants, damn you!

Despite these minute transgressions, X-Men 500 is exactly what they've been hyping so much about these last few months. It's a new beginning, a new hope, and yet familiar enough to attract old and new fans alike. Buy it. You won't regret it.

We're Sorry...

Were you expecting a new review here? Fully intending my next entry to be all over Uncanny X-Men #500, I've been thwarted by the fact that I've yet to be able to put my hands on a copy. Since I never had a backup plan in place, no review this week! So sorry! Instead of cobbling something together last-second, I've decided to wait until I get this landmark issue this week, so look for a new Latest Issue soon!

- Gianni