For Splatterfest, Mek and I chose four movie options that we could watch-and-mock with our friends. Amusingly, the two runners up—Red State and The Crazies—easily had the most actual splatter of the four films. But when mockery is a key point of your evening, do you pick the movie about zombies, the movie about fundamentalist groups, or the movie about the evil tooth fairy?

Yeah. Clearly, we’re talking evil tooth fairy tonight.

SUMMARY:

In Darkness Falls, the legend of the toothy fairy is not a comforting one. She’s not a nice woman who wants to give you money. She’s not even Dwayne Johnson in a pink tutu. She’s actually a disfigured, vengeful ghost who kills anyone that sees her. When Young Kyle Walsh gets a good look at her messed up face, the Tooth Fairy first tries to kill him, and then succeeds in killing his mother. The cops think Young Kyle Walsh did it, of course, and they send him away.

Years later, his childhood sweetheart, Caitlin, calls Adult Kyle Walsh and asks him to come back home. She needs him to help her little brother, Michael, who’s intensely frightened of the dark just like Kyle was—well, is, really. And then the Tooth Fairy tries to kill them all. Happy days!

NOTES:

1. Why in the hell does anyone live in a town called Darkness Falls? For that matter, who the hell decided to name the town Darkness Falls in the first place? You know, John, this new little village of mine is really quite a pleasant place to live, but I haven’t quite figured out what to name it yet. Lately, I’ve been leaning towards Darkness Falls . . . what do you mean, that’s morbid and creepy? Fuck you, John, that’s what I think. See if YOU get any of Mary’s famed mutton stew tonight!

2. As far as the movie itself goes . . . it’s kind of boring, to be honest. I mean, it’s not a sheer and total disaster—it’s no My Soul to Take, is what I’m getting at here—but it has very little in the way of gore, scares, or compelling characters . . . compelling anything, truth be told. Darkness is a primal fear, sure, but having to stay in the light is hardly an original concept. It’s been done before, and frankly, it’s been done better. For example, in Pitch Black.

Even basic opportunities are missed here. For Christ’s sake, this is a horror movie about the tooth fairy. Where are the horrifying scenes about extracting teeth? Even Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, pitiful as it was, managed to get in at least one creepy teeth scene.

3. I expect the lack of hardcore gore stems from the fact that Darkness Falls is a PG-13 movie. There are some good PG-13 horror movies—hell, Poltergeist is only PG, for Christ’s sake—but so many PG-13 horror films suck something awful. They feel like they’ve been stripped of their dignity, somehow.

In a mostly unrelated note, I feel the need to point out that, according to our rating system, Double Dragon is a bigger threat to our children’s minds than Poltergeist. Good God. Who’s in charge of these decisions, anyway?

4. We spend about three minutes with Young Kyle and Young Caitlin before spending the rest of the film with Adult Kyle and Adult Caitlin. Young Kyle is played by Joshua Anderson, who guest-starred in Farscape as Crichton’s nephew, Bobby. Young Caitlin is played by Emily Browning, who’s probably best known for playing Baby Doll in Sucker Punch.

If Darkness Falls had featured these two, the movie would have been much better off.

5. Instead, we get the adult versions, Chaney Kley and Emma Caulfield.

Also pictured: Caitlin's little brother, Michael. We'll be talking about him, too.

Apparently growing up into adulthood leeches these characters of having, you know, character. Emma Caulfield isn’t so bad. She has a couple of nice little moments—I particularly like when she kind of freaks out and laughs about the black cat—but for the most part, she has absolutely nothing to do. And Chaney Kley, he really comes off as a poor man’s Ryan Reynolds in Darkness Falls. Out of everybody, he clearly has the most character to work with, but he doesn’t do anything with it. There are a million ways this guy could be played—focus on his terror, his angst, his possible psychosis—but Kley’s really just sort of there, and that makes him one of the more boring protagonists I’ve ever had to watch in a scary movie.

Also: it doesn’t help that these Kley and Caulfield have absolutely zero chemistry.

6. Caitlin’s decision making skills are sort of bizarre. It’s cool that she never really believed her first boyfriend was a psycho who killed his mother and all, but randomly calling in said boyfriend to help cure her tormented little brother without even doing some basic research on the guy? The dude’s been in a mental institution for years! This is the kind of stuff you should know before you’re all, “Can you come back home and fix my baby brother and also, take me hard, take me now, I never stopped loving you!”

The scene that especially gets me? The doctors want to put little Michael into a sensory deprivation tank, and just as they’re about to, Kyle comes bursting into the room, shouting that they have to stop. He kind of looks like a crazy person, and this perception is not negated by the fact that there are about five cops chasing him and subsequently shoving him into a wall. And Caitlin even knows, at this point, about the whole committed-to-a-mental-institution thing, but she’s immediately like, “Oh, well, if Kyle says to do it, then by golly, let’s do it! Fuck those stupid doctors! What the hell do they know, right?”

Oh, and about that sensory deprivation tank? Yeah. It’s very clearly just an MRI machine.

7. Now, Little Michael . . .

He’s actually rather annoying for a small child. Part of the problem is the dialogue. I’m guessing the kid is supposed to be anywhere from eight to ten, but some of his dialogue could have been written for an adult, especially in the first scene you meet him. Yet Michael has a lisp that makes him sound even younger, like five or six. I’m not certain if the lisp is genuine or not, but somehow, it doesn’t make him sound cute, just irritating. I don’t know. There’s just something kind of aggravating about this kid.

8. In a side note, was this movie made in Australia? All the kids are Australian. I just find that interesting.

9. Thankfully—and unlike My Soul to Take—the backstory of this movie is fairly straightforward. Of course, that isn’t to say that it’s particularly consistent when it comes to explaining the Tooth Fairy’s actions. Sure, she’s going after the guy who’s seen her face. But what about the poor bastard who she just swoops up from behind and flies away with? I don’t think he even had a chance to turn around, much less see what she looked like. And while I’m sure the Tooth Fairy, being a ghost, is not too terribly concerned with collateral damage, she does kill an awful lot of random people in her hunt for one guy and one kid.

10. Best lines in the whole movie?

Cop 1: “Batten, see what that was.”
Batten: “No, you go see.”
Cop 1: “I outrank you.”
Batten: “Lead by example and see what it was.”

Excellent, Batten. Wonderful survival skills. I approve.

11. There is a car crash in this movie. A character goes straight through a windshield . . . but never fear. He’ll only be down for a couple of minutes before getting right back up and running around some more. Everything is perfectly okay.

12. After the film was over, my friends and I were just kind of sitting around talking. We left the credits roll, and eventually we noticed that they seemed to be taking an awful long time to wrap up. According to imdb, we weren’t imagining things. The end credits on Darkness Falls are so long because if they had been any shorter, the movie wouldn’t have been long enough for theatrical release.

13. Finally, there’s this list of 100 Best Horror Movies I like to reference sometimes. Darkness Falls? Number 93.

Admittedly, that’s not high on the list, but . . . really? Why is it on there at all?

CONCLUSIONS:

Blah.

GRADE:

C-

MORAL:

If there’s a local legend about an evil tooth fairy who kills you once you see her face . . . go to sleep blindfolded, okay?

Finally, the last movie to come from Splatterfest’s leftovers . . .

This is a decent (if somewhat flawed) horror movie about your neighbors trying to kill you.

SUMMARY:

Strange things are happening in Ogden Marsh, and by strange, I mean fucked up. Regular townspeople start going very violently nuts. As Sheriff Timothy Olyphant tries to figure out what’s going on, the government swoops in to save the day. Er. Well, they swoop in to quarantine the shit out of Ogden Marsh, anyway.

NOTES:

1. The Crazies is a remake of an old George A. Romero film of the same name. I have not seen said Romero film, so I really have no way of comparing the two movies. On its own, though, I liked The Crazies. It’s a good-ish horror-action-thriller thing with some fairly creepsome scenes . . . but, like in most movies, some things work a lot better than others.

2. What works= Timothy Olyphant

Are you kidding? I always work!

Anyone who’s read this blog, you know, ever knows how . . . heh . . . crazy I am about Timothy Olyphant. I don’t suspect this role was particularly hard for him—David is pretty much Raylan Givens without all the hard edges—but Olyphant nails it, regardless. The character feels like a natural fit, and he’s got some of the best reactions to all the insanity around him. (“Everything’s fucking moving!” Heh. Priceless.)

3. On the other hand, there is Radha Mitchell . . .

. . . who actually isn’t horrible in this movie, but her character seems kind of dull and lifeless, and she has no chemistry whatsoever with Timothy Olyphant. Considering that the two actors are playing husband and wife . . . yeah, that’s bad. Mitchell’s character, Judy, isn’t aggravating and whiny, at least, but it’s sort of hard to care very much about her. Perhaps if someone had bothered to write an actual character for her, instead of, you know, a brief description: Judy, David’s Attractive, Doctor Wife.

4. Who does Timothy Olyphant actually have some on-screen chemistry with?

That would be Joe Anderson, who plays Russell. Anderson and Olyphant play off each other really well, and they’re just simply a lot more compelling to watch running around than Olyphant and Mitchell. Anderson does a good job here in the supporting and often thankless role of small town deputy. Also, his stab at an American accent? Much improved since Across the Universe.

5. I do wish that the crazies themselves had been depicted a touch more consistently than they were in the film. The audience doesn’t get much in the way of backstory, and for the most part, I liked that—it’s a good way of building tension, when we only know what the characters themselves know—but there are inconsistencies that should have been eradicated or at least explained. For instances, the crazies mostly don’t talk . . . except, you know, when they do, and they start going nuts pretty quickly . . . except, you know, when they don’t. It’s not a huge problem for me, but the change-ups between scenes does begin to smack of convenience after a while.

6. There are a number of really good disturbing scenes in this movie. The one with the woman and her kid trapped in the house by her husband? That was an effective scene. The car wash? Also pretty awesome. But easily, easily the creepiest scene in the whole movie is the one with the guy who’s got a big ass pitchfork.

Yeah. That was freaky.

7. The car wash scene is maybe halfway through the movie, maybe a little more, and it’s unfortunately after this particular scene that I think The Crazies starts to falter a little. Even with spoilers, I’m not entirely sure I could articulate exactly how this happens . . . the pace just seems to slow down a bit, feel a little sluggish. There aren’t a lot of main characters in this movie, and I feel myself wondering if having a few more people in the mix might have helped out some in the second half of the film.

8. When you’re concerned that someone in your party has been infected with Total Psychoness . . . you make them walk in front of you. For fuck’s sake.

9. It’s one thing to completely flip the semi you’re driving and walk out mostly unscathed. That’s typical Hollywood for you. You could easily walk away from that crash with a groan and maybe a minor limp. Fine. That totally never happens.

It’s quite another thing, however, when that truck rather spectacularly flips off the road, while you’ve been standing in the cab behind the driver’s seat, not strapped into shit. Fine, you don’t have to be dead with a capital D . . . even though you totally would be . . . but you’re not even unconscious? Suffering from a compound fracture? Exhibiting clear signs of a massive concussion and/or ridiculous internal bleeding?

I hate you fictional people. I hate you all.

10. Finally, I’m not going into spoilers today because, frankly, I’m too lazy to do it, but there’s something about how the government reacts to this situation that I’m not crazy about. Like I said before, I’m mostly glad that we don’t see the government’s POV on all of this, but in this one particular decision they make . . . the military’s actions don’t really make sense to me, and I feel that to pull it off, you might need to see their motivations. I know that’s kind of vague, and it’s not one of my larger problems with the movie, but it does bug me a bit. It seems kind of unnecessary.

Also, the very last shot? Lame. These kind of endings are always, always lame.

CONCLUSIONS:

Good, simple story. Solid lead. Good, creepy action scenes. There are enough small problems, though, (like plot inconsistencies and a lack of chemistry between the two romantic leads) that keep me from absolutely loving this movie.

MVP:

Timothy Olyphant

GRADE:

B

MORAL:

If you really love someone, you can’t leave them behind.

Also: don’t be the side character in anyone else’s movie. Take charge. Be the star of your own. Because if you’re the star, you can survive any car accident imaginable. God could pancake that car with his Holy Foot, and you’d hop out fine with a small wince and maybe an aesthetically placed cut on your forehead.

Well, here it is, the last of the Batman movies. (Until July.)

The Dark Knight Rises has a lot to live up to.

DISCLAIMER:

This review will include spoilers.

SUMMARY:

Batman (Christian Bale) wants to retire and give the city of Gotham the true hero it deserves, a man who can fight injustice without a mask. That man? District attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart). Unfortunately, before any of that can happen, the Joker (Heath Ledger) needs to be stopped.

NOTES:

1. First off, this review is going to be a little less epic than I would normally like. Tomorrow, I’m flying to Seattle for six weeks, and I will have a lot less time there to snark about movies, so I’m kind of rushing this one. But never fear, dear readers. (All three of you.) I have planned out a few things ahead of time, so you will not find yourself alone in the wilderness for 42 days without my sarcastic voice to guide you on.

Now, as far as the film itself goes, it’s definitely the best live action Batman story there is. Unfortunately, it also features the worst Batman voice you could possibly imagine. Christian Bale took the “swear to me” line from Batman Begins and multiplied it by about a billion. It’s so utterly ludicrous . . . you have to wonder what the hell Christian Bale and Christopher Nolan—who signed off on this voice—were thinking. Kevin Conroy, who provides Batman’s voice in Batman: The Animated Series, talks a little about that here. He’s actually a little classy about it, I thought. I probably wouldn’t have been.

Cause the voice, it’s just . . . it’s just bad. The parodies you see from College Humor and Funny or Die? They don’t even have to exaggerate. It is just that awful. And maybe in the big picture, a superhero’s voice is a minor thing to bitch about, but honestly, it’s actually pretty distracting. Hard to take someone seriously when you can’t stop giggling at him.

2. Thankfully, we have the Joker to make things better.

Heath Ledger as the Joker . . . well, it’s a thing to behold. His performance is sinister and manic and magic. It is a complete transformation. You really forget that it’s Heath Ledger under all that makeup.

I suppose there’s little to say about Ledger that hasn’t already been said. I wish I could have seen what he would have done after this movie—he was so talented and so, so young. Hell, I’m not that far off from 28. It’s sad.

I can’t say if Mr. Ledger should have won his posthumous Oscar or not—I haven’t seen the other films and performances that were in the running—but at the very least, he definitely earned his initial nod. There have been a lot of pretty good Batman villains out there—Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman is still a personal favorite—but Ledger’s version of the Joker is such a great example of chaotic evil that you can’t help but love him.  From almost the second he popped up on screen, you could tell he would be Iconic, capital I. He is the perfect foil for Batman. It’s hard to imagine anyone else surpassing his mastery.

3. But again, a lot of that has been already said. The unsung hero of The Dark Knight, I believe, is Aaron Eckhart as Two-Face.

Harvey Dent/Two-Face is kind of a hard role. Playing the Golden Boy straight is not an easy thing—you can easily come off as either smarmy and insincere or gooey and freakishly earnest. Eckhart makes Harvey idealistic but likable, charming but dedicated. Hell, I’d believe in Harvey Dent . . . except, you know, I’ve seen the end of this movie.

And while Two-Face doesn’t have a lot of time to be villainous, boy, does he make that time work. His descent into bitter madness is both wonderful and awful to watch.

4. The writing in The Dark Knight is better than it was in Batman Begins. Not that Batman Begins is bad. I just think the story is a bit more complex here. Also, the themes are a little less obvious, probably because they aren’t actually repeated multiple times by various characters. (I would get more into these themes because I like them—the hero a city needs versus the hero it deserves—but again, we’re on crunch time, and I really need to finish packing.)

5. All that good stuff about writing being said, though, Rachel still pretty much fails as a character.

When I first heard that Maggie Gyllenhaal was going to take over Katie Holmes’s role from Batman Begins, I was ecstatic. Gyllenhaal is a good actress, and I figured she’d be much more suited to the part. And while it’s true that I take her a little more seriously as an assistant D.A., Rachel is still . . . bitchy, and generally bitchy without cause. At least you could (kind of) see why she was all pissy with Bruce in Batman Begins. In The Dark Knight, I’m not sure what she has to be pissy about. And yet, it always seems like people are just not living up to her standards.

Gyllenhaal also doesn’t seem to have a lot of chemistry with Aaron Eckhart, and she has absolutely none at all with Christian Bale. She only looks more natural with Bale because she’s older than Katie Holmes. Her performance isn’t horrible, it’s just . . . not great. Then again, Gyllenhaal actually has even less to work with than her predecessor did. By the time The Dark Knight comes around, Rachel isn’t even the movie’s one beacon of idealism anymore . . . she’s just The Girl, and her character is flat as hell. Her best scene is easily her death scene—which, to be fair, is pretty good. I like how she gets blown up before you have any idea what she was going to say.

This all makes me a bit nervous for Catwoman in the upcoming The Dark Knight Rises . . . but hopefully, the fact that she’s a villain (or, at least, a quasi-antagonist) will make it easier for Christopher Nolan to create a compelling character for her.

6. You know who is awesome? William Fichtner.

He might be a four minute cameo, but come on. He is the most badass banker you ever saw.

Also, we get Nicky Katt as a funny SWAT guy and an awesome Scarecrow cameo! YES! I love me a good cameo. Let’s keep that tradition going.

7. Now, I don’t drive, but I know that sometimes the choice is between hitting a deer and crashing your car into a ditch. If you can help hitting the deer, you should, not only because that makes you a good person, but because running over a deer can seriously fuck up your car. That being said, if you can’t avoid hitting the deer without going into a ditch and probably killing yourself . . . kill Bambi.

The same basic rule applies for villains who are trying to kill you.

If you don’t have it in you to run someone down, seriously. Figure that out before you total your ride avoiding him.

8. I’m happy that, unlike in Tim Burton’s Batman, we don’t find anything out about the Joker. We don’t know his true name, where he comes from, how he really got those scars on his face. (I love the scar stories.) Sometimes, I want to know more about my villains, but I think it’s great that we never learn anything about him, that the Joker remains this madman that just came from out of nowhere.

9. Also, here’s a scene that’s always bothered me—after The Joker drops Rachel out of a window and Batman flies down and rescues her, they just chill there for a second and then the movie cuts away to another scene. Er, isn’t the Joker still up there? What, he just decided to leave? Maybe we should have shown him leaving because, as far as we know, the Joker is just slaughtering the rich people of Gotham left and right while Batman and Rachel are busy making eyes at each other.

I was gratified to find that I was not the only one who had problems with this.

And seriously. How awesome would it have been if Batman had hit the Joker with his motorcycle? Hee.

10. Finally, here are some quotes:

Alfred: “Some men just want to watch the world burn.”

Detective Wuertz: “Dent. Jesus, I thought you were dead.”
Two-Face: “Half.”

Harvey Dent: “Any psychotic ex-boyfriends I should know about?”
Alfred: “Oh, you have no idea.”

The Joker: “You see madness, as you know, is like gravity. All it takes is a little push.”

Lucius Fox: “Let me get this straight. You think that your client, one of the wealthiest, most powerful men in the world, is secretly a vigilante who spends his nights beating criminals to a pulp with his bare hands . . . and your plan is to blackmail this person? Good luck.”

Gambol: “You think you can steal from us and just walk away?”
The Joker: “Yeah.”

Batman: “He must have friends.”
Maroni: “Friends? Have you met this guy?”

The Joker: “What’s the time?”
Jim Gordon: “What difference does that make?”
The Joker: “Well, depending on the time, he may be in one spot, or several.”

Batman: “Let her go!
The Joker: “Very poor choice of words.”

The Joker: “You complete me.”

CONCLUSIONS:

The most well-written, intelligent, and darkest Batman film yet with a villain who I’m not sure is ever going to be topped. Rachel remains a problematic character, but you know what? She’s dead! So we don’t have to deal with her in the sequel! Hallelujah!

MVP:

Heath Ledger

TENTATIVE GRADE:

A

MORAL:

Be the bigger person. Sure, you’ve stopped some psychotic villains and saved a bunch of lives, but that’s not enough. If you’re really a good guy, you’ll also pretend you did a bunch of horrible shit to protect one dead guy’s reputation. If you’re not willing to do that, well. Go be a superhero somewhere else.

My love for Joseph Gordon-Levitt has been well-documented on this blog — he was a big motivator in seeing movies like G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra and Stop-Loss, and he’s pretty much the only reason I saw Premium Rush at all– so I don’t imagine it’s any big surprise that I went to see Looper in theater as well. But the truth is, as much as I like JGL on his own, it was the reunion of him and Brick director Rian Johnson that made me desperate to see this film for over a year.

For my money, it’s not perfect. But despite its flaws, it’s still a pretty damn good movie.

SUMMARY:

In the future, time travel is invented but illegal as all hell. Also, it’s really hard to dispose of bodies properly because of Future Forensics. So, crime organizations in 2072 send people they want dead back to 2042 so that Loopers can kill them and get rid of the evidence. If a Looper encounters his future self, he’s supposed to kill the guy anyway (closing the loop) or else suffer the consequences. Which Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) learns all about when his future self, Old Joe (Bruce Willis), is sent back to the past and quickly escapes.

NOTES:

1.) I don’t despise time travel stories the way my friend Cory does, but they aren’t necessarily my favorite, either — although it has nothing to do with mechanics or logic because, pah. Who cares about mechanics and logic? (Answer: many people. But as we all know, science bores me, and my little pop culture obsessed brain has a lot of trouble unraveling time travel paradoxes, so mostly I just don’t think about them.) Point is, if you want to know more about the time travel itself and if it makes sense and that kind of stuff — go to another blog after you finish reading my (clearly superior) review because I am going to spend zero time talking about that shit.

My problem with time travel stories is the exact same problem I have with prophecy stories — I never feel surprised by the endings. Not because each and every story is predictable in itself but because there always seems to be only two ways that the story can play out: the future either happens the way it’s foretold, or it changes. I suppose you can think of most stories that way (the guy either gets the girl or he doesn’t; the girl either escapes from the monster or she dies) but it feels different in a time travel story, somehow, maybe because the future is what gets the plot going and thus always seems inevitable? I’m not sure. That probably doesn’t make sense — I’m still trying to work it out in my head.

Point is, I think Looper has a really original premise to start with but it eventually veers hard into some pretty used time travel tropes — which I’d be cool with if the movie did something really original with them by the end, but it doesn’t really. And it’s not a bad ending, exactly — it’s just not a particularly exciting one, either, and I can’t think of a time travel movie where I watched the last scene and thought, Wow, that was AWESOME.

( . . . actually, that’s a lie. One time travel movie definitely surprised me, but since the time travel element itself is kind of a spoiler, I can’t say which movie it is.)

2. The biggest problem, though, facing Looper is not the ending (which, actually, I can pretty easily forgive) but . . . let’s call it a subplot. I don’t know if subplot is really the most accurate term here, but it’s a hard thing to talk about without spoilers, so . . . subplot. It’s problematic, mostly because it’s just not necessary. I mean, I want to like it — it leads to some pretty cool scenes — but with one really quick fix, I can edit it out of the whole movie and change virtually nothing in the rest of the story.

The problem is, I don’t actually want to delete this element — I just wish this subplot actually felt essential to the main plot. I think there’s a pretty easy fix for that too — but I can’t talk about it until the Spoiler Section. Suffice it to say, this movie has an unusual structure — it’s like two time travel stories in one film — and if this one element or subplot was handled a little better, I think it would tie everything together. As is, the movie is just a bit too uneven for me to give it a solid A.

3. On the other hand, the very best thing Looper has going for it is awesome moral ambiguity.

I’m the hero. Also, I kill kittens.

Okay, he doesn’t kill kittens. There is no kitten-killing in this movie. But most of the characters in this movie — Joe, Old Joe, Sarah, even Cid — have done some pretty shitty things, on screen or off. Which isn’t to say you don’t have sympathy for them or can’t see why they’re doing what they’re doing, but that doesn’t negate the fact that they’re not the nicest people in the world. This isn’t a story of white hats versus black hats, and I was honestly surprised when characters who I thought would be good guys turned for the dark quite quick.

4. Also, the violence is excellent. I really can’t praise that enough. Looper isn’t a slasher gore fest, but it has some fairly violent moments, and they are done well. One part in particular actually made me cringe, and I like to think that’s not entirely easy to do.

5. We have a fairly excellent cast here in Looper. Sadly, some very good actors — Paul Dano, Garrett Dillahunt, Tracie Thoms, and to a certain extent, even Jeff Daniels — are fairly small parts. The major roles go to Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, and Emily Blunt.

Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt)

. . . do I even need to say he’s awesome? I mean, was there any doubt? Well, in case there was . . . Gordon-Levitt is awesome here, specifically because he’s extremely successful at playing a younger version of Bruce Willis. Prosthetics will be its own note later, but the acting itself is pretty terrific — you can really see Willis in all of Gordon-Levitt’s mannerisms and facial expressions, and I thought that was very cool. The performance is a great imitation but never descends into parody, and I think with a lesser actor it probably would have.

Old Joe (Bruce Willis)

I like Bruce Willis here too. I’m not certain it’s much of a stretch for him — Bruce Willis is kind of always Bruce Willis — but he still does a good job with the role of Older Joe, and I really like the scenes where he and Joseph Gordon-Levitt play off each other.

Sara (Emily Blunt)

I like Emily Blunt a lot too — I believe her when she’s standing in front of a cornfield, shotgun in hand. She can be both tough and vulnerable without being a total cliche, and I’d like to say that’s not difficult, but a lot of actresses seem to have trouble with it. I think her performance allows me to have more sympathy for Sara than I normally would have. Also, her American accent is pretty good. I only noticed it slip once.

6. The only other actor I haven’t mentioned yet is Noah Segan, who plays Kid Blue.

I’m assuming Rian Johnson and Noah Segan are best friends because this guy is in all of Johnson’s movies. Once I realized that he was Dode, the piehouse rat from Brick, I couldn’t think of him as anything else, and while Segan isn’t bad here or anything — I don’t know, I think he gets more screen time than the role actually requires.

7. I actually wasn’t expecting this movie to be a sci-fi noir, but it sort of is. I mean, there are no private investigators, and the script isn’t packed full of Brick slang, but there’s definitely a noir tone here that I really enjoy. It does kind of fade out in the second half, though. I actually really enjoy the tone of the second half too, just . . . there’s a pretty clear divide between parts one and two of this film.

8. Still, this movie looks great. I think Rian Johnson shot the hell out of Looper – if you get the chance to see it in theater, I’d recommend it because it looks awesome on the big screen.

9. The worst thing about seeing something relatively new in theaters is that it’s really hard to look up quotes online. I damn well know there were a handful of quotes I really liked, but it’s been about four or five days since I’ve seen this now, and I no longer remember them all. The few I could find . . .

Abe: “I’m from the future. Go to China.”

Abe: “Ask yourself: who would I sacrifice for what’s mine?”

Joe: “Your face looks backwards.”

Old Joe: “You know, there’s another waitress who works here?”
Joe: “Jen?”
Old Joe: “Yeah. Less letters.”

10. Finally, the prosthetics . . . you know, I’m still torn on those. Sometimes, it drives me nuts when they cast two actors who don’t look a damn thing alike to play the same person, and Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon-Levitt would have to work pretty hard to look less alike. I thought the prosthetics were a smart idea to fix this, and sometimes I didn’t even notice them, so focused was I on the action . . . but then there would be a shot where the wrongness of Gordon-Levitt’s face was unavoidable, and it would jar me out of the story.

So, I still have no conclusion on that. For all my other conclusions, though, continue below.

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

Let me very briefly set up the TK subplot, and then I’ll go over the whole movie.

So there’s apparently some gene for telekinesis, and the people who have it can float quarters in the air a little. Unfortunately, that’s about all they can do – X-Men, this is not — so no one really cares about it. (I would still be pretty impressed with myself if I could levitate coins, but I’ll have to agree with Joe that it seems sort of “tacky” to try and impress girls with this.)

Clearly, this is important because no one brings up ‘oh yeah, so a few people like my buddy Seth here just happen to be randomly telekinetic’ for no reason, but it takes a little while before we find out why.

Now. Joe’s life is pretty much a rinse and repeat cycle of drugs, prostitutes, and murder. Also, French lessons. (Any excuse for Joseph Gordon-Levitt to speak French.) He plans to retire to France as soon as he’s saved up enough money to leave, and there’s something pretty amusing about him practicing his vocab by listening to one of those language tapes right before he calmly blows some guy away.

Je suis Joe. Now fuck off and die.

Now a lot of Loopers have been closing their own loops lately, which makes people a little nervous, but hey . . . that’s what they have drugs for, right? Also gold. When a Looper kills some regular dude from the future, he gets silver, but when he kills his future self he gets gold, and a shitload of it, enough to retire on. Joe’s friend, Seth (Paul Dano), can’t do it, however, and tries to hide out with Joe while Old Seth tries to run away. Joe is  taken to his boss, Abe (Jeff Daniels), who basically says we know you have Seth, and you’re going to tell me where he is, or I’m going to take all of the silver you’ve been saving to get away.

So, Joe sells Seth out. And admittedly, Seth is kind of a whiny useless excuse for a friend, and I certainly understand the desperation you feel when your escape path gets cut out from under you, but still . . . Joe betrays his friend. That’s not nice.

As the mobsters take Seth, we see Old Seth trying to escape the city. Just as he’s starting to climb a fence, though, fingers start disappearing off his hand, leaving scarred stumps in their wake. A giant scar starts to pop up on the inside of his arm, telling him to be at some location in, like, fifteen minutes. Old Seth doesn’t really have any other choice but to follow the directions because he keeps losing pieces as they cut them off of Young Seth. By the time Old Seth crashes his car at the meeting spot (it’s hard to drive when you suddenly don’t have feet), he is also missing his nose and his tongue. It’s all pretty horrific and made me squirm a little in my seat — I love when a movie can do that.

Anyway, Old Seth is killed, and Joe tries to go back to his life. He has a thing for a pretty prostitute named Suzie (Piper Perabo), but while she seems to like him okay, she’s also clearly just doing her job and isn’t particularly interested in his romantic notions of someday taking her and her kid away from this horrible life of depravity.

Things go seriously awry for Joe when he shows up to work one day and the target doesn’t pop up at the usual time. He’s just checking his pocket watch, going, “Hmmm . . .” when Old Joe shows up. However, Old Joe isn’t tied down, and he doesn’t have a bag over his head like the usual targets. Joe hesitates for just a second, and that’s long enough for Old Joe to get the upper hand and knock Joe out. Joe later wakes up with a note pinned to him that says get the hell out of town.

Joe, of course, does not do that because he’s a bit of an idiot and is determined to a) get the silver out of his apartment, and b) kill Old Joe and get his life back. He is quickly knocked unconscious again. (I’m convinced Rian Johnson enjoys beating the shit out of Joseph Gordon-Levitt.) So Old Joe is forced to save his life and leaves another note that basically says: leave town and this time I mean it.

Joe again refuses to do that and sets up a meet between the two of them by cutting into his own arm. At first, it looks like the same message Old Seth got (BE AT . . .) but it turns out to be BEATRIX, the name of a waitress at this diner. Old Joe later points out that Jen is also a waitress there, and her name has less letters. It may be my favorite line in the whole movie.

Beatrix, by the way, is played by Tracie Thoms, who is fabulous –

– but sadly only in the movie for about seven minutes. I would like to see her in more things.

Moving on. We get to see how men in the future came for Old Joe, killed his beautiful savior wife, and tried to send him back in time. Old Joe managed to kill those guys but decided to go back in time anyway, in order to kill the Rainmaker in the past. (The Rainmaker is the Big Boss Dude in the future who starts closing all the loops and killing people and whatnot.) He doesn’t know exactly where Young Rainmaker is, but he has three different addresses.

Joe is not on board with this plan and says he’s going to kill Old Joe. Having come to an impasse, Old Joe beats the shit of Joe. The bad guys come and try to kill them, and they both run off in opposite directions. Joe has one of the addresses and goes there. This ends up being Emily Blunt’s house by the corn.

She is not happy to see Joe.

Emily Blunt plays Sara, and Sara has a ridiculously smart kid named Cid. When she was younger, Sara was addicted to drugs and doing all kinds of bad shit in the city, and she abandoned Cid with her sister and partied instead of being a mom. She only came back to the job when her sister died, although to be fair, she’s all cleaned up now. Still, my sympathy for people who abandon their kids is severely limited, and I think credit is due to Emily Blunt for making me care about Sara at all.

Anyway, Sara doesn’t trust Joe for any number of reasons, not the least of which is his addiction to the Eye Drop Drug, but she eventually lets him stay there so that he may kill Older Joe when Older Joe comes by to kill her kid.

For yes, this has suddenly become a reverse Terminator story — or a let’s kill Baby Hitler story — and Old Joe has come back in time to murder three children. For some reason, I didn’t fully pick up on that during the diner scene, so when he kills Kid One, I was surprised because he initially seemed to be moving into the role of Hero while Joe was considerably less sympathetic at that point. It never occurred to me going into this movie that Old Joe would become the real villain, way more than Abe and his future goonies, and I was really impressed with this development.

And he’s not even just killing one kid — he plans to kill two other children that he knows are innocent, just to make sure he gets the right one. Evil. But at the same time, you totally get where Old Joe is coming from, and he’s never all gloaty or mustache-twirly about it– in fact, there’s actually a nice little breakdown scene after Old Joe kills Kid One. Also, the scene where he’s desperate to make sure he remembers his dead savior wife in the midst of all this changing timeline stuff is a nice moment of good character development. *Does the complex characters and moral ambiguity happy dance.*

So, it turns out that Cid will actually become the Rainmaker, and also he’s a little TK monster.

The Face of Terror.

Which is to say that when he gets hurt or angry or scared, Cid can pretty much float everything in the house and also explode people. Which he does to Garrett Dillahunt when he comes looking for Joe.

This is an awesome scene.

Turns out that Cid accidentally killed his aunt in one of his telekinetic temper tantrums . . . so even the kid has done some awful shit, even if he didn’t mean to. As a side note, I like how you think Sara is running to catch her boy from falling down the stairs when you suddenly realize she’s actually moving to push Joe out of the way of Cid’s rage. I thought that was nicely done.

Meanwhile, Old Joe goes after Kid 2, but this turns out to be Suzie the Prostitute’s Kid. He feels bad about this for a little while but goes to do it anyway . . . only to get caught by proverbial fuck up Kid Blue, who set a trap for him there.

Amusingly, Kid Blue catches him for the wrong reason, figuring Old Joe is just as obsessed with Suzie as Joe is. But hey, he catches the guy, at least, so good for him. He’s been pretty obsessed with it for the whole movie, actually, because he wants to make Abe proud.

Abe has not been so proud during the film.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter because Old Joe eventually gets loose and kills Abe and everyone else. Everyone, that is, except for Kid Blue. For my money, this is where Kid Blue should die because he really serves no further purpose to the story except for a stupid complication later that could have been cause by anything . . . but moving on.

Old Joe makes his way over to Sara’s before Sara and Cid can run for the hills. Cid freaks out and starts doing his TK thing again, nearly killing Old Joe and Sara. (Joe has been waylaid by Kid Blue. Like I said, it’s a little dumb — the execution of it feels way too convenient.) Sara manages to talk Cid down, which is basically the first time this has ever worked.

Normally, she goes to hide in her massive safe. I’ve seen tree houses smaller than the safe in this house.

Sara tells Cid to run away and blocks Old Joe from going after him. Old Joe is about to kill her, even though he doesn’t want to. Joe pops up (finally) and sees how the future is going to play out — Old Joe will kill Sara, and Cid will become a monster because his mom was murdered by a Looper and, also, because he never learned how to control his gift/rage and all that. So Joe does the only thing he can think of: he shoots himself in the heart. (I figure he could have shot himself in the hand or foot or something, but Old Joe’s pretty relentless. I don’t think it’s cheap that Joe shot himself — I’m just a survivalist by nature, and I think that I would have tried shooting myself in the hand first before I came to the conclusion that I absolutely had to shuffle myself off this mortal coil.)

Anyway, Joe dies and Old Joe disappears, and Sara and Cid are safe. That’s about the end.

Now . . . it’s the telekinesis subplot where this movie falls down a bit for me. I actually don’t mind that the story shifts a bit in tone, and I’m actually okay that it turns to a pretty well-known time travel trope/cliche. I like old stories, as long as you do something interesting with them. And while self-sacrifice is not exactly original, I’m so happy Looper ended with Joe dying instead of Sara — because the whole future Joe imagined where Cid becomes the Rainmaker because of murdered Mommy? Yeah, I called that about an hour into the movie. I would have been extremely disappointed if the movie had ended this way.

But the reason the telekinesis fails . . . it’s just not necessary. If Future Cid was just some truly awful person who started killing all the Loopers and causing havoc and mayhem and whatnot . . . you know, if he was just a terrible, non-psychic human like, I don’t know, Hitler . . . the story doesn’t change in any meaningful way. If we saw Future Cid using his telekinesis to destroy the world or something, then it might be different . . . maybe the two stories would tie together better . . . but as is, the telekinesis feels thrown in instead of woven, and the whole movie suffers a little for it. Like I said earlier, the telekinesis scenes are awesome, and I don’t want to get rid of them . . . I just want them to feel intrinsic to the story itself, not just a dangling thread.

Even with that problematic subplot, though, this movie is still pretty awesome.

SUMMARY:

Great acting. Great cinematography. Neat story. Awesome violence. Good dialogue. Complex characters. So, so close to being an amazing movie instead of just a pretty good one.

MVP:

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

TENTATIVE GRADE:

B+

MORAL:

Times are tough, but any job that demands that you kill any version of yourself is probably not a job worth having.

Many years ago, I watched the original Red Dawn. I know I did. I actually remember sitting down to watch it. And yet . . . and yet it’s like the entire experience was wiped from my mind, like something traumatic happened that my brain overwrote to protect itself. Aliens, I don’t know. The point is, it’s all gone.

At some point, I may revisit that past trauma. In the meantime, I decided to just watch the remake instead.

This probably doesn’t come as a shock, I’m sure, but it’s not very good.

SUMMARY:

The Chinese North Koreans have invaded America. It’s up to a bunch of teenagers . . . and Chris Hemsworth . . . to take it back.

NOTES:

1. Everyone laughed at the idea of a Red Dawn remake, including me, but it’s not actually such a terrible notion, at least in theory. America doesn’t have a lot of invasion movies, not where humans are the antagonists, anyway. You know, aliens invade. Zombies invade. Other nations? Not so much. And sure, teenagers as DEFENDERS OF THE REALM sounds pretty cheesy on paper, but the idea of adolescents having to put aside their high school dramas and step up to fight for something greater isn’t such a terrible metaphor for growing up, assuming it’s handled with a certain amount of subtlety.

Execution is another matter entirely, of course.

2. Sadly, Red Dawn has more than its fair share of problems. Writing is a big one.

For instance, meet the Eckert boys.

Jed (Chris Hemsworth) is a marine who’s just come home for a brief leave, and Matt (Josh Peck) is his younger brother, a high school quarterback. I mention the quarterback thing in particular because when we meet Matt, he keeps disregarding the coach’s plays and eventually loses the game. And I’m like, Gee. Wonder if THAT’S thematically significant.

So, Jed and Matt have problems. Their mom died, see, and since then, things have been strained between them. I’ll leave the details of their confrontation for the Spoiler Section, but let me just tell you this much: their whole conflict is bullshit, clearly artificial and completely without depth. Their actual characters are just as one-note: Matt is whiny and annoying as all hell, and Jed . . . well, Jed’s a MARINE. That’s pretty much his whole personality.

Admittedly, the fault doesn’t completely lie with the writing. Acting is an issue too: Chris Hemsworth isn’t awful, but he can do a lot better than this, and Josh Peck . . . well, I’ve never seen Josh Peck in anything else, and judging by this performance, I don’t really need to. But still, even the very best actors wouldn’t have been able to make the Eckert brothers compelling. There just isn’t much to them.

Mind you, none of the characters have very much depth — some are clearly written just to be cannon fodder, which is a whole other problem — but the shitty writing is particularly apparent with our two protagonists. Their whole dynamic is about as by-the-numbers as it gets, and I didn’t really care if either of them lived or died.

3. On the other hand, Daryl and Robert are clearly the true dynamic duo of this movie.

Robert (Josh Hutcherson) and Daryl (Connor Cruise) have considerably less to work with than Hemsworth and Peck, but they’re much more enjoyable. I kind of wish they had been the protagonists of this story because they’re entertaining and relatable. Plus, that could actually have been kind of a fun angle: two sidekicks caught up in somebody else’s war. Also, Daryl’s story has the potential for much more interesting angst — so of course the writers choose to ignore it almost entirely for an opportunity to watch Jed and Matt bitch at each other again.

Oh well. At least Robert and Daryl will always have Subway. Their Subway scene is the best.

4. The basic structure of this movie is kind of problematic. We get our obligatory ten minute introduction to the characters: marine, whiny brother, love interest, girlfriend, nerds, etc. Then we get the initial takeover. That’s all fine, up to a point . . . my serious problems happen once we have the decision to fight back.

Because, first? The Inspirational Speech is just shit. It’s not incomprehensible, at least, (like Kristen Stewart’s speech in Snow White and the Huntsman), but it is very bland with all the inherent passion that I reserve for sorting socks. After that, we get this terrible training montage that skips through a very ill-defined passage of time. Then we do some terrorist shit, and some of that actually works, but then the big, Final Mission comes, and it doesn’t really feel like high enough stakes, probably because the main objective comes out of left field.

There are actually some solid bits in here — nothing I can describe above the Spoiler Section, naturally — but they’re buried in a lot of generic blah.

5. That’s pretty true of the action in general, honestly. When the movie isn’t concerned with throwing cars at our heroes . . . sigh . . . the action sequences can be kind of good. There aren’t nearly as many terrible CGI explosions as I was expecting, anyway.

6. Instead, CGI is mainly used to pretend that the filmmakers always intended the North Koreans to be the antagonists of this film, instead of the Chinese. There was never any way that this wasn’t going to be a Fail on so, so many levels.

If I were remaking this movie again . . . and don’t think I’m not considering a list . . . I feel like the best option would be to create some Imaginary Country. (And not some Imaginary Asian Country or some Imaginary Middle Eastern Country, but some Other Imaginary Country where you get a multitude of different ethnicities and skin colors.) Cause I figure, this type of movie, it’s not really about the enemies anyway, right? Do we really care why the invaders have come or what the political ramifications of their country attacking our country would be in the real world? Red Dawn — and really any good invasion movie — isn’t about the bad guys. It’s about the good guys, their trials, their losses, rising to the occasion, attempting to survive, and taking back their homes for the people they love.

And if it just has to be a real country — which I’m still not convinced it does — then we can’t half-ass the research. We need serious analysts and writers to make this story as convincing and accurate as humanely possible.

Also to write better exposition. Cause, man. That’s kind of shit in this movie.

Lot of potential gone to waste here.

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

Okay, so the North Koreans come, and the Eckert brothers — plus Jed’s love interest, our favorite Dynamic Duo, and a few red shirts — hole up for a while at their dad’s cabin. Their dad is the town sheriff, and he’s played by Brett Cullen, which can only mean one of two things: he’s an asshole, or he’s about to die. In this case, it’s the latter.

It happens like this: Captain Cho (Will Yun Lee) and his men find the cabin while the kids are out in the woods. Daryl’s dad — also the mayor — asks for the boys to come on out, saying that nothing bad will happen to them. Daddy Eckert, on the other hand, tells the boys that he loves them and asks them to fight back against the North Koreans. Cho kills Daddy Eckert while the kids watch. It’s actually not a terrible scene.

The group then argues about whether they should just surrender and go back to town where their families are. Robert is all set to leave until Toni (Adrianne Palicki) tells him that his parents have been killed. Then Jed the MARINE gives his shitty inspirational speech, and we montage through some bullshit training scenes and a few successful attacks against the North Koreans.

A few things of note:

A. In this movie, it is Robert who must learn the Will to Kill.

Spoilers: he totes figures it out. Also, Henry, if you ever read this . . . I blame YOU for finally managing to get “totes” into my vocabulary, and I do not forgive you at all.

Robert’s also the one who vomits over dead bodies, but one of the minor things I like about his characterization is how he immediately continues to search the corpse for weapons or anything useful after he throws up — instead of, you know, crying and rocking back and forth or something while all the Real Men do the work.

B. While running from some bad guys, Robert, Daryl, and their Big Ass Guns take shelter in a Subway. Immediately realizing the potential in this, they knock over the restaurant. While Robert commands the sandwich artist — and I shit you not, he actually says sandwich artist — to fill his bag with bread, Daryl takes a giant bucket and fills it with soda. It is the best scene ever.

C. Matt’s girlfriend, Erica (Isabel Lucas), is imprisoned in the town — I’m actually not sure why she’s specifically in jail instead of just milling around like most people. Emo Matt sneaks off occasionally to stare at her mournfully. Jed the MARINE gets in his face about it. Their argument basically boils down to this:

Jed the MARINE: “You can’t endanger the mission for one life!”
Emo Matt: “She’s my FAMILY! She’s way more my family than YOU!”
Jed the MARINE: “MISSION FIRST!”
Emo Matt: “You SUCK!” (stomps off somewhere)

Of course, Emo Matt inevitably does endanger the mission — and inadvertently gets one of the team killed — in order to save Erica. See, the team plans to blow up this stage where Captain Cho and several other bad guys are, speechifying about something or other. (There’s a Russian guy there too, but I’m just ignoring the Russians because really. They might as well not even be in the movie.) Turns out, Daryl’s Daddy is also on the stage — because he’s become a collaborator — but Daryl only briefly pauses before acknowledging that the stage still needs to go. Daryl chooses the mission over family.

Emo Matt can’t do that, however. When he sees a bus go by with Erica in it, he fucks up the op in order to chase after it and free her. One of the guys, Greg, goes to help him and is quickly killed. Emo Matt doesn’t realize this until he and Erica get back to the gang’s hideout. Emo Matt then pouts in the woods for three days, rather than go inside and face Greg’s sister, Julie (Alyssa Diaz).

Eventually, Jed the MARINE goes to fetch him. They get into yet another argument where Emo Matt reveals the origins of their troubled relationship: after their mom died, Jed couldn’t handle his grief and ran away to the marines instead of staying home and mourning with his family. Emo Matt actually says, “I left for three days. You left for six years.”

Emo Matt is an asshole.

Seriously. These are not equatable situations. Jed had a hard time processing his grief over his mother’s death and went to serve in the armed forces. Matt, on the other hand, destroys a good chance to get rid of the North Korean leadership in the town (not to mention the chance to avenge his father’s death) and gets a boy killed in order to save his girlfriend from sitting in jail until the end of the movie. I mean, if she was on her way to be executed or something, I guess I’d get that, but I’m pretty sure that’s not the case. And really — Daryl was willing to sacrifice his father for this mission. If anyone had cause to screw up, you’d think it be him.

Worse, Emo Matt never shows any real guilt for what he’s done. Ever. His three-day mopefest doesn’t even remotely come off as actual remorse. When he goes back to the hideout, he looks at Julie, and — instead of breaking his fucking nose – she gives him a peace sign.

She is then promptly blown up.

Somehow — and I have no idea how — the North Koreans find out where the Wolverines are. (Oh yeah, that’s their name: the Wolverines. As far as football teams turned into revolutionaries go, it could have been worse. Imagine if they had been the Dolphins.) The bad guys blow up the Wolverine’s headquarters, instantly killing Julie and Danny (Edwin Hodge). This makes me sad for a few reasons:

1. I know Edwin Hodge from Cougar Town — where he plays a soldier with some damn nice arms — and I was kind of hoping for more of him.

2. Even without much in the way of personality, Julie is easily the most interesting of all the girls — probably because she isn’t just a love interest for one of our main heroes. And I like the scene where she’s stitching someone up even as she’s trying not to fall apart over the loss of her brother.

3. I could barely tell Julie had died at first. I saw Danny, but it took me a minute to count bodies and realize who was missing.

4. It would be nice if we could have less obvious red shirts, but if we absolutely must have them . . . maybe at least one should be a white person?

The rest of the Wolverines run away, and there’s one very weird shot where Robert falls to the ground and says something like I can’t go on, leave me, etc. The others drag him back up. Meanwhile, Mek and I look at each other like, What the hell, because the editing of that scene is bizarre. The only conclusion we come to is that Robert is a traitor and is either planting something in the dirt to leave a trail for the North Koreans to follow (Mek’s idea) or trying to be left behind so he can join up with the North Koreans (my idea). Mek and I don’t like the thought that Robert is a bad guy – since there’s been absolutely no buildup for such a twist – but the shot just doesn’t make sense otherwise, and anyway, how else did the bad guys find them?

Turns out, the shot just doesn’t make sense. And the bad guys found the Wolverines through MAGIC.

The Wolverines then meet up with Jeffrey Dean Morgan and his unit.

JDM has a plan to steal some Super Secret Weapon from the North Koreans . . . like, sure, guys, let’s just introduce this concept of the Super Secret Weapon twenty-five minutes from the end of the film . . . and they all go to snatch it. Important things that happen:

1. Jed the MARINE avenges his father and kills Captain Cho. Unfortunately, he has to say, “You fucked with the wrong family” before doing it.

2. Daryl is stabbed but escapes. No one seems especially concerned that this wound doesn’t hurt at all. Because they’re morons.

3 The funniest soldier in JDM’s unit is killed. Naturally. Humor gets you dead.

At their new, NEW hideout, Jed and Matt have a nice, bonding moment right before Jed gets shot in the head by a sniper. Now, Jed’s actual death isn’t bad. It happens very, very quickly, and even though I was expecting something terrible to happen, I don’t know if I was expecting that, at least, not so suddenly. So that’s good. On the other hand, it would have been absolutely shocking if the Good Times Before Everything Goes To Hell mood hadn’t already been cranked up to eleven. I mean, really. They might as well have been whistling.

Toni screams a lot, and to Adrianne Palicki’s credit, her crying over Jed’s dead body isn’t bad. Unfortunately, the two actors didn’t have much in the way of chemistry, and their whole relationship is so half-assed, it might as well not even have existed. It’s like the writers wrote the script and then remembered, hey, our lead hero’s gotta have a love interest too, right? Can’t leave all the hot girl action to the annoying little brother. Wouldn’t be right.

But moving on. Everyone else gets away, leaving Jed’s dead body behind. Later, Robert realizes that Daryl wasn’t just stabbed with a knife — the bad guys implanted a tracking device in him. Emo Matt — who is now supposed to be Badass Matt — tells Robert to take it out. Robert’s like, how? Which is a fair point. But it also takes him the longest to realize he’s going to be leaving his buddy behind.

And again, this isn’t a terrible scene, but — like Jed’s death — it would be a lot stronger if it wasn’t so damn predictable. Like choosing to leave behind a soldier, that’s a hard choice, and breaking up the dynamic duo, that’s sad too. I like the idea of this scene, but the second Daryl is stabbed, you’re like, okay, so he’s either been stabbed fatally and is in shock or — more likely — he’s been tagged with a tracking device. Let’s wait ten minutes before everyone else figures it out.

Also, I love how Toni screams in Daryl’s face for having the nerve to be stabbed with a tracking device — thus getting Jed killed — but nobody has that kind of reaction against Emo Matt when he chooses to ignore his teammates, thus getting Greg killed. You’d at least think Toni might apologize before she gets in a car and leaves Daryl to be captured or killed, but nope. Not that one.

The movie ends with the Wolverines choosing to stay behind and fight the good fight instead of going off with JDM to somewhere safer. Emo Matt gives the same bullshit speech his brother gave towards the beginning of the movie, and it’s no more inspiring now than it was then. Probably less. Also, The Wolverines rescue all the prisoners from the internment camp that Erica was at before.

So, you know. It’s good to see how Greg died for absolutely nothing.

QUOTES:

Robert: “They’re not going to keep their uber box in the freaking couch.”
Daryl: “How do you know?”
Robert: “It’s a vital piece of military equipment, not your porn stash.”

Jed: “Marines don’t die. They go to Hell and regroup.”

(talking about what they miss)
Daryl: “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.”
Robert: “Dude, we’re living Call of Duty. It sucks.”

Robert: “Sandwich Artist! Fill this shit with bread!”

(I’m very amused that the best two quotes in the whole movie — completely unrelated quotes, mind — have the words “sandwich”, “shit”, and “bread” in them.)

CONCLUSIONS:

Not as gloriously bad as I was expecting but certainly not good. Any small moments of worthiness are mostly overshadowed by the bland script and general lack of creativity.

MVP:

Josh Hutcherson

CHARACTER WHO MOST DESERVES TO BE SLAPPED WITH A BIG, SMELLY, DEAD FISH:

Emo Matt

TENTATIVE GRADE:

C+

MORAL:

If you want to survive, er, be white? Out of nine Wolverines, only one white guy died, whereas all of the brown kids were killed off or left for dead.

. . . yeah. That’s not good.

It’s been far too long since I reviewed a mindless action flick. Like, it’s been at least a month, right?

I’ve seen S.W.A.T. at least a dozen times since it came out ten years ago. It remains one of my favorite silly, entertaining, no-thought-at-all-required action films.

DISCLAIMER:

There will be SPOILERS. I want to be upfront about this, in case you’re concerned that the bad guys might win or that our devastatingly attractive lead hero might perish. This review will answer these questions.

SECOND DISCLAIMER:

Colin Farrell doesn’t perish. Also, the bad guys don’t win.

SUMMARY:

Newly Captured French Bad Guy Alex Montel (Olivier Martinez) offers a hundred million dollars to anyone who can bust him out of police custody. Lots of people are eager for such money. Thankfully, Sergeant Hondo (Samuel L. Jackson) has just formed a new and ridiculously good looking SWAT team who’s been entrusted with the thankless job of transporting the prisoner.

NOTES:

1. I say their job is thankless, but really, the pity should go to the poor fuckers who showed up to work that day and realized they were on Decoy Duty. I mean, it’s one thing to die whilst guarding a flesh and blood prisoner; it’s quite something else to get shot six times whilst protecting an expressionless dummy from enemy capture. Supposedly, only one officer died during this massive decoy operation, which I’m calling serious bullshit on. When a semi slams into a sedan, the end result isn’t a couple of bruises. I’m sure that police cars are reinforced and whatnot, but come on. I’m sure people can survive that, but when two or three semis crash into two or three cop cars? I think we need to bump up our fatality rate, guys.

2. But this all happens later. Let’s start in the beginning prequel shit, shall we, when Bullseye and Hawkeye were partners.

Only in this movie, Bullseye — otherwise known as Jim Street (Colin Farrell) — is the good guy and Hawkeye — otherwise known as Brian Gamble (Jeremy Renner) — is the reckless and consequently evil guy. (Oh, we’ll get to that.) Gamble disobeys a direct order in a hostage situation and accidentally shoots an innocent woman, although to be fair to him, she doesn’t die and the bad guys are taken down. Still, people frown on disobeying orders and shooting civilians, so Gamble — who doesn’t help things with his big mouth — gets shitcanned, and his partner gets sent to rot in the gun cage. (Apparently, a fate worse than death.)

Street does have the opportunity to save his job if only he’ll turn on his partner and testify against him, but a man has to have a code and all, so he doesn’t. Nevertheless, rumors will circulate that he did sell Gamble out. Gamble will also accuse him of this because, really, as much as I like Jeremy Renner, his character is kind of an obnoxious whiner, at least in the first ten minutes.

Still, a few notes about all of this:

A. Did you notice how our reckless bad guy’s last name was Gamble? I bet you didn’t. It’s super subtle. I can only assume that Jim Street is so named because Jim Manly and Jim Kickass were taken.

B. The whole point of the first ten minutes is to set up two things: our hero’s conflict and our villain’s motivation. The hero’s conflict stuff is fine — people think less of him now; he has to prove himself, yada yada. Villain’s motivation, on the other hand . . . yeah, we need to talk about that.

Like I said before, Gamble’s kind of an obnoxious hothead. This cannot be denied. What he isn’t, however, is a cop-killing mercenary. Does he make bad judgement calls? Sure. Should he be responsible for saving lives? Probably not. But it’s quite a leap from accidentally shooting a civilian in the shoulder while trying to save her life to casually shooting down a police helicopter to score a shitload of cash.

Mind you, I’m not saying it couldn’t happen. People change over time — even six months time, I suppose. Gamble’s clearly bitter about his time on the force, and a hundred million dollars is a pretty big incentive. Just ask TJ. (Oh, TJ. We’ll get to him in a while.) I’m just saying that at the point where he storms out of the locker room, Gamble isn’t quite set up as the Big Bad he’s going to become. Cause, you know, reckless people can certainly do evil things, but reckless and evil themselves are not synonyms. If the hostage had died and Gamble had showed no remorse of any kind, well, I’d buy this villainous turn a little more. As is . . . yeah, I don’t think he’s quite the violent psychopath that S.W.A.T. clearly wants me to believe he is.

Although really, he should learn to choose his words better. “I saved a hostage from getting shot!” Er, no. You saved a hostage from getting killed. There’s a subtle difference, particularly when you’re the person who shot her.

3. Okay, moving on. Let’s see what Jim Kickass Street has been up to after six months.

Well, he’s still working in the gun cage, which is apparently where all the likable yet totally schlubby cops work — providing Street some angst because, you know. Street is a Real Man! To prove this, he runs on the beach a lot, to the point where he actually vomits, which is not really something I needed to see. And don’t bullshit me about authenticity, people. Let’s not pretend this is some gritty action flick. One of the reasons I like S.W.A.T. so much is that it (usually) knows exactly what kind of movie it is: silly, ridiculous fun. Ix-nay on the vomit, okay?

Street also has some fifteen second BS subplot about his girlfriend dumping him. The actress has maybe four lines, and honestly? They’re not great lines — written or delivered. The only reason this half-assed bullshit is even necessary is because the girlfriend is also Boxer’s sister. Boxer (Brian Van Holt) is one of Street’s coworkers, and the tension between the two of them . . . well, it isn’t really that important to the plot of the film, but since it’s pretty much all Van Holt gets to work with, I’d hate to take it out. That being said, couldn’t we just make the animosity between the two of them job-related? Like, Boxer doesn’t trust our boy Street because he thinks Street sold Gamble out? Do we really need a girlfriend if she’s only going to get two minutes of screen time?

4. It occurs to me that maybe I’m bitching a lot about a movie that I supposedly enjoy. Snarking and enjoyment aren’t mutually exclusive for me — obviously — but it’s also true that S.W.A.T. doesn’t do much for me in the first fifteen minutes.

And then . . .

. . . we introduce Samuel L. Jackson. Obviously, this makes everything better.

I love Hondo. Hondo is awesome. I never saw the original television show, so I can’t exactly compare and contrast — although I can tell you that Original Hondo has a cameo in the film, as well as Original Deacon. Still, regardless of whatever Past Hondo was like, this Hondo is pretty awesome. He doesn’t chase after suspects on foot when it’s clearly faster to drive after them. He doesn’t roll when he shoots his gun because cops “only roll in John Woo movies.” (Although it’s worth pointing out that TJ, Street, and Boxer all roll.) And he gets all the best quips.

In fact, the only thing that’s not awesome about Hondo is that he apparently golfs on his day off . . . which is a character flaw that I’m, charitably, willing to forgive.

5. Speaking of golf, though: one of the DVD Easter eggs is a short video where Samuel L. Jackson and Michelle Rodriguez play in a S.W.A.T. cast and crew golf tournament. It is unexpectedly hilarious because there are two commentators — sadly anonymous — mocking them the entire time.

6. So, Hondo’s recruiting a brand new team on the Chief’s orders, much to the displeasure of Captain Fuller (Larry Poindexter). Fuller is the same asshole who fired Gamble and sent Street to the gun cage, and — shockingly — he’s not a big fan of Hondo, either. Hondo only manages to get the team he wants because he makes a deal with Fuller: the first time Hondo’s team screws up, Hondo and Street are off the job. Not just SWAT but off the police force entirely.

Again, I’m calling such bullshit. There’s no question Captain Fuller could fire Street. He already has a questionable history . . .  but that he could fire Hondo? Hondo, super star veteran cop who was personally requested back to the job by the Chief of Police? Something tells me Hondo’s job isn’t really on the line here, movie, so stop trying to sell me stakes I’m not buying.

7. Before we meet Hondo’s Super SWAT team, let’s see who isn’t on it: Officer David Burress, played by Reed Diamond, best known — to me, anyway — from Dollhouse.

David fails his interview because — and I shit you not — he’s a vegetarian. Okay, fine, I shit you a little. He also won’t or can’t contemplate doing anything against the rules in service of the greater good. But mostly it’s because he orders a soy dog and a tomato juice from a hot dog vendor. Hondo’s own words: “How the hell can I trust a man who won’t even eat a good old fashioned American hotdog?”

Sometimes, when I watch this movie, I like to imagine vegetarians all over the nation flipping off the screen at this part. It should probably be said: I’m not one of them. I really like cheeseburgers. Also, chicken parmesan. And chicken enchiladas. And pizza with pepperoni and sausage.

8. As for the actual Super SWAT team members:

Street

Okay, we’ve already covered Street a fair bit. I just thought I’d mention that Colin Farrell is decent enough in the role. He’s not amazing or anything — certainly no In Bruges, not that I would really expect In Bruges quality acting from S.W.A.T. — but I’ve seen far worse. His American accent is completely serviceable, if utterly disappointing. (Why, movie? Why do you deny us our sexy Irish accent time? I’m so sad now.)

Deke

LL Cool J plays Deke, and he does what LL Cool J does in most action movies — runs around, shoots things, utters a few witty lines, and shows off his abs. Mind you, I’m not complaining about this. Cause, damn. Those are some nice abs to have. I had abs like that, I’d be showing them off all the time too. My favorite LL Cool J moment in the whole movie is probably the celebration dinner where he lifts up his shirt and the team tucks dollar bills into the band of his jeans and underwear. (Or, alternatively, tells him to “put that away.” Oh, envious boys.)

Sanchez

Michelle Rodriguez plays Chris Sanchez, and like LL Cool J, she’s doing basically the same thing she usually does too, which is to shoot things and scowl a lot. She does this well, although — as I’m sure I’ve mentioned in other reviews — I get tired of it sometimes, mostly because I see these little glimpses of range, and I’d like to see her tackle a badass who’s also three-dimensional, or even a three-dimensional character who isn’t a badass. (Maybe I just want to see her as a lead character in a non-boxing movie. Boxing movies are kind of the lowest of the low for me, when it comes to sports films and interest.)

From interviews I’ve read, I get the feeling that Rodriguez likes playing the go-to badass chick, which honestly, more power to her. I would just love to see another side of her, or at least a different level of badass. Although Rodriguez does do something here that she fails to do in many of her other films: live. This is the rare movie where her character doesn’t bite the big one by the end.

(Oh, and if you’re interested in one of those glimpses of range I mentioned — there’s this great expression that comes over Rodriguez’s face when she’s sees Boxer’s been shot. It’s a fleeting thing, but it works really well in scene. You know, she conveys emotion quickly over her seriously injured teammate without getting all teary-eyed and useless, which I appreciate immensely.)

Boxer

As I mentioned earlier, Brian Van Holt doesn’t have a whole lot to do here except occasionally snap at Street. I kind of like him anyway, but I won’t kid myself or you: this is mostly because I enjoy him in other things like Cougar Town and Basic — another ridiculous guilty pleasure starring Samuel L. Jackson. (Jackson’s just in so many great ones.)

Boxer’s best moment? Hmmm, I don’t know. Can I just single out his mustache instead?

TJ

TJ McCabe is surprisingly likable for a greedy turncoat, which I suspect is entirely due to the fact that Josh Charles is the one playing him. I don’t know if I can pick a favorite moment for TJ. I like when he’s victory dancing on the shooting range after beating Hondo. I like when he’s openly laughing and munching on popcorn while Street and Boxer are start brawling. Admittedly, the line he tries on his date (“You know, I may work in the mud, but I certainly like to play up in the clouds”) is absolutely terrible, but I still like the guy anyway. Oh, TJ. Don’t join up with Gamble! I like you too much to watch you shoot yourself in the head when it all goes to hell.

In retrospect, I should have known that TJ would be a bad guy from the moment I saw him drinking French champagne, much to the delight of his annoying date. After all, as we already know from the hotdog incident, real heroes? Only eat and drink good old-fashioned American food, like beef trimmings and beer.

9. Actually, let’s talk for a minute about foreshadow in this movie. Specifically, let’s talk about how it’s terrible.

Exhibit A: “Reminds me of my third divorce”

Hondo and Street go to the hospital to meet Chris Sanchez for the first time. They’re hoping she’ll be a better fit for their team than Soy Dog Guy. What they don’t know, however, is that she’s a woman — because apparently police files don’t mention the officer’s gender. Yeah. I believe that.

Hondo sees a bad guy that Sanchez beat up. His reaction? The quote above. Which pretty much flat out tells the audience that Sanchez is going to be a woman. Nevertheless, Samuel L. Jackson and Colin Farrell will spend the next two minutes pretending that they (and everybody in the audience) don’t already know who will be behind the curtain when they draw it aside.

If you want it to be a surprise, guys, don’t clue us in with the line. But really, let’s just go ahead and not make it a surprise because seriously. YOU ARE LOOKING AT HER FILE RIGHT NOW, HONDO. Maybe there isn’t a picture in there — I guess I could believe that — but I refuse to believe that the LAPD is so advanced in their thinking of gender roles that they didn’t at least mark F for Female somewhere in that folder.

Exhibit B: “I’m good now”

So, TJ is a bad guy. Technically, this is revealed when he turns his gun on Street and Boxer. It’s actually revealed, however, fifteen minutes earlier, when he shows up late with some BS excuse about bad Thai food and tells Hondo that he’s “good now.” I actually remember watching this in theater and thinking, “Oh, okay, so TJ’s working with Gamble.”

Unlike Exhibit A, which is just a bunch of artificial nonsense, you actually do need foreshadow for TJ’s abrupt character turn. (Non-champagne related foreshadow, that is.) But to do it here in this way . . . it’s so bad. We might as well just see him calling Gamble, if we’re going to be this obvious about the fact that he’s switched sides.

10. It occurs to me that I haven’t really talked about our villains yet.

Gamble

This is hardly Jeremy Renner at his Oscar nominated best, but he’s totally serviceable in this movie. Although, honestly? This is the first thing I ever saw Renner in — way back when I was maybe eighteen and still navigating what kinds of movies I liked and didn’t like — and I kind of despised him at the time. I suspect this had to do with the character’s whininess in the early locker room scene because he’s really not so bad later on. (Well, Gamble does make a J-Lo crack at Michelle Rodriguez. I mean, he remains an asshole. He’s just not such a whiny one.)

I bring all this up because I remember seeing 28 Weeks Later in theater — which I was already concerned about, considering how much I loved the first one — and feeling my heart sink a little when I realized that the annoying bad guy from S.W.A.T. was a main character. But as I watched the movie, I was like, Huh. This guy is . . . kind of good. And then I watched The Unusuals and was like, Holy shit, I LOVE this guy.

Alex

I certainly don’t love Olivier Martinez as much as Jeremy Renner, but he’s okay in this movie. I mean, he has smarmy smirk down pat. That’s mostly what he does in S.W.A.T., smirk in a smarmy and vaguely evil manner.

As far as his scenes go . . . it’s not that they’re so bad or that they take so long. I just don’t care about them. Every time we flip back to watch Alex murder relatives or wile away in a prison cell, I keep thinking, Yeah, this is great and all, but can we get back to the team-building please? (I’m pretty big on team-building. This is probably why I remain obsessed with fanfiction for The Avengers and Inception.)

Olivier Martinez’s best moment, on the other hand, is easy. It’s when he dismissively calls Street a loser for making less than 66 K a year. I just love how he says the word. It’s super French.

11. Apropos of nothing: Olivier Martinez is standing just behind LL Cool J when he makes a joke about how hot Halle Berry is. Since Martinez and Berry are — as of August 2013 — married, this amuses me more than it should.

12. Most of the action scenes are pretty enjoyable. My favorite?

Okay, so normally, it’s in English. Half the scene has no dialogue anyway, though, and the rest can pretty easily be understood whether or not you speak, er, German? Swedish? Russian? Look, I’m an American, and I eat hot dogs. (Although I don’t drink beer.) I’m clearly really bad at this kind of thing. Regardless, it’s totally worth watching for the voice they get to dub Samuel L. Jackson. Also, for Velasquez, who says, “Oh, yeeeeeah,” at one point. I’ve never even noticed this in the English version, but it stands out so starkly in this version that it sounds like they got Barry White to dub the part.

Point of possible — if unlikely — interest: the music from this scene gets stuck in my head all the time. Including once at work — I’m walking around a bunch of sick patients with someone in my head singing, “Time is running out!” Inappropriately, I giggled a lot that night. (Although nothing quite beats working in Pediatrics and having “Children’s Day at the Morgue” stuck in your head. I swear, I’m not trying for a morbid sense of humor. My unconscious is dark and inappropriate and will not be tamed.)

13. I forgot to mention Velasquez (Reg E. Cathey) earlier.

He doesn’t have very much to do, either, but I enjoy him and Samuel L. Jackson playing off each other. They seem like they’re having fun, and they add a lot of humor to the proceedings. Which is one of the reasons I like this movie so much — sure, there’s a lot of shitty logic that’s easy (and enjoyable) to tear apart, but S.W.A.T. is just a fun movie with a whole bunch of jokes and little asides that really work for me.

For instance: Deke’s first partner, who’s pretty openly laughing at LL Cool J’s annoyance with another character in scene. I’ve always liked that guy, well before I found out that he’s actually the director of the movie, Clark Johnson. Gotta give a dude props for casting himself in a role where someone throws a frying pan at his head.

14. I feel like I started this review as more of an actual recap and then quickly let it spiral into my usual random nonsense. As much I like my own brand of nonsense, should I get back to the plot? Yes, if only so I can bitch about these guys apparently being The Only Swat Team in the World.

So our guys have passed the Big Airplane Test and are officially a SWAT team proper. To celebrate, they’re each enjoying their day off. (Hondo’s golfing with Velasquez. TJ is drinking non-patriotic alcohol. Boxer is ignoring the broken kitchen sink. Deke is buying groceries with his kids. And Sanchez is throwing a birthday party for her little girl, which Street is also attending because . . . Reasons? I mean, it’s a cute scene and all, but the actual invitation always comes off a little awkward to me, like they don’t seem close enough for this yet. Anyway, whatever.)

Sadly, the team gets called in. Thankfully, TJ has not yet partaken of his French champagne yet, but if he had and couldn’t come . . . would he be held responsible for that? I mean, I understand that working for a specialized police division is not exactly like working at Arby’s. Really, I do — even though I’m not a nurse or a doctor or anything, I’m pretty sure that in the event of a geological disaster (read: earthquake) I can be called into work cause, you know, someone’s gotta find IV poles and pick up blood.

That being said, every situation SWAT gets called into is an emergency situation, isn’t it? They can’t actually be on-call all the time, right? There have to be other SWAT teams in the city to handle these problems. In fact, I know there are because this movie mentions them later — and yet, for no apparent reason, our SWAT team is called in on their day off to deal with this one crazy and totally not plot relevant bad guy. The hell?

Because our guys are so badass — and by our guys, I really mean Street and his giant ram/harpoon thingie — don’t snicker — they easily dispatch of Crazy Bad Guy. But they can’t go back to their day off because now they have to transport Actual Plot Relevant Bad Guy Alex Montel to his prison transport. Hey, here’s the actual story!

15. Eh, can we just skim over the actual story? Here’s basically what happens: our Super SWAT Team tries to escort Alex to a helicopter, but Gamble and his Big Ass Gun blow up said helicopter because, really. Helicopters are vehicles of death.

Then they take Alex underground while all those poor schmucks get assigned to Decoy Duty. (And while making this plan, we affirm there are at least two other SWAT teams in the city, not that they will do shit for the rest of the film.) Our Super SWAT team splits in half. TJ reveals that he’s a bad guy. Gamble shoots Boxer but only handcuffs Street because he clearly still loves him and can’t kill his old partner. (Don’t believe me? Keep going.)

Lots of chasing and action scenes through subway tunnels and sewers ensue. Eventually, they all end up on a bridge. Best part about the bridge scene: when Gamble refuses to back up or even blink as his getaway plane is speeding straight at him. Cause, you know. Real men don’t flinch.

Our Super SWAT team keeps the bad guys from escaping. Sanchez gets shot in the chest, but is thankfully wearing a bulletproof vest and is only down for a matter of minutes. TJ of the guilty conscience makes sure Boxer is still alive before shooting himself in the head. Alex is caught yet again because he’s not a very self reliant villain. And Street follows Gamble down to the train tracks where they fight mano a mano.

16. About this fight –

A. The Navy Seals taught Street how to track people. They taught him how to fight. They taught him how to activate and deactivate bombs. What they apparently didn’t teach him is how to recognize the most obvious traps IN THE WORLD.

Picture this for a second: you follow your evil ex-partner under a bridge where a whole bunch of train tracks are. You’re kind of exposed, and you don’t see your ex-partner anywhere. What you do see is a gun. It’s just sitting there randomly in the middle of a moving platform, just a little bit out of reach. Do you try to go for the gun? Or do you already know this ends with your ex-partner leaping out of the shadows and stabbing your hand through the platform?

B. Once again, though, Gamble fails to kill Street. He likens him to a bad rash — not the most devastating insult I’ve ever heard, I must say — and takes off, even though he could easily just pick up the gun and shoot Street, now defenseless, in the head. Yeah. Gamble totally still loves him.

C. Street, however, has no real problem killing Gamble. All right, fine. He probably isn’t trying to kill him. He gets free and they fight. At one point, Street has the upper hand but throws his gun away because he doesn’t just want to arrest him, clearly. He wants to beat the everloving crap out of Gamble. Which is one way to describe what happens. Another way: Street kicks Gamble; Gamble falls, and a train runs over his head.

Street then bows his head in what could be anguish but probably isn’t, since he makes a crack not five minutes later about the cops needing to get a body bag for his dead once-friend.

17. Time to go home, right? HA. Someone still needs to transport Alex to prison. Should it be one of the other two SWAT teams, perhaps? You know, the ones who’ve just been chilling at an airport, assuming Alex was heading there? Should it be one of the fully intact SWAT teams, or should it, in fact, be up to the team who has one traitorous officer in a body bag, another officer in critical condition, an officer who just killed his ex-partner, and an officer who’s been shot and is probably feeling some pain, despite the fact that she was wearing a bullet proof vest?

Well, I think we all know the answer to that.

18. So, our Super SWAT Team drop Alex off at prison, and they’re on their way home. Another call comes in, police requiring assistance. Hondo mentions that they’ve technically been off duty for about forever now, and Street’s all, “So?” And I’m like, “Fuck you, Street. What do you mean, SO? There’s no way your ass would still be running around!”

But since our Super SWAT Team is apparently up for the challenge, no matter how ridiculous it is, they ride off into the credits like heroes, leaving me — a vehement non-hero and couch potato enthusiast — to shake my head in disgust.

QUOTES:

Street: “Why’d you pick me?”
Hondo: “To piss off the captain.”

Sanchez: “Guys, it’s only eleven o’clock! I got a babysitter for the first time in three months.”
Deek: “I’ve been up since four.”
Sanchez: “That’s weak.”
Deek: “If I get home by midnight, I might get me some.”
Sanchez: “TJ?”
TJ: “If I get home before midnight, I’m finding some. Sorry, babe.”
Sanchez: “Boxer?”
Boxer: “I know I’m not getting some. If I don’t get home soon, my wife’s going to freak.”

Hondo: “Shame you’re not playing a terrorist.”

Hondo: “Is that a new course record?”

Hondo: “You look like you need a Band-Aid.”

Street: “Sure you don’t want to sit in the back? I could wear a little cap.”
Hondo: “I like the view from up here. Cap thing’s a nice touch, though.”

Alex: “What do you make? 66,000 a year?”
Street: “Not even with overtime.”
Alex: “Loser.”

Hondo: “Street, you got a driver’s license?”
Street: “Got a library card.”
Hondo: “Good enough.”

Hondo: “Don’t beat him so badly I can’t get a rematch.”
Street: “I won’t make any promises.”
Hondo: “It’s my money, man.”

Captain Fuller: “Sometimes doing the right thing isn’t doing the right thing.”
Sgt. Howard: “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

CONCLUSIONS:

Oh, it’s dumb fun. But it’s still fun.

MVP:

Samuel L. Jackson. But silver medal would probably go to Josh Charles.

GRADE:

B

MORAL:

Heroes eat hot dogs. Vegetarians and vegans, go fuck yourselves.

Tell me the truth: have you been missing my Teen Wolf season recaps? Hush, of course you have. Well, lucky for you, I have another one right here ready to read.

Season 4 is the first season I’ve been able to watch while it’s actually airing (instead of obsessively marathoning it on Amazon). It’s also, unfortunately, probably the weakest season since the first one. But hey, Teen Wolf is my jam. (Sure, shows can be jams.) I will always love it. Even when it occasionally makes no sense of any kind.

DISCLAIMER:

As with all of my TW recaps post Season One, this will have a truckload of SPOILERS.

SUMMARY:

Scott McCall’s Loosely Formed Pack of Lost Toys try to move on after Allison’s death. Not that they have much time for grief, what with Derek being abducted, the return of Kate Argent, and a bunch of assassins gunning for every supernatural creature in Beacon Hills.

NOTES:

1. Despite this being a very uneven season of Teen Wolf, there’s still a good deal to enjoy in S.4. Let’s begin with the Serious Crack.

Oh. My. God. They magically de-aged Derek. They straight up turned Grown Up, Broody Derek into Angry, Lost, Baby Derek. This. I can’t . . . I’ve got nothing. I can’t believe they actually did this. Sure, you see this trope all the time in fanfiction — I mean, seriously, ALL THE TIME — but on a live-action television series? Holy God, no. I laughed my ASS off.

Admittedly, the actual “plot” reason this happened was pretty ludicrous. And the de-aging only lasts an episode and doesn’t really go anywhere, which is kind of disappointing. That being said, I can’t regret them doing it. I just can’t. It kept me giggling for hours after watching the episode. I kept snickering to myself throughout the night at work, which probably didn’t look too creepy, except for that time I was taking a dead body to the morgue. (I kid. I very rarely do that.)

Thank you, Teen Wolf, for continuing to create some of the very best what-the-fuckery that money can buy. Thank you so much.

2. I was also really into the mystery this season. Like I said earlier, this is the first time I’ve been able to watch Teen Wolf while it was on air and, as such, it’s the first season where I didn’t manage to spoil myself for pretty much every major plot development. I still enjoyed the hell out of the past few seasons, obviously, and there were things that clearly took me by surprise. But I knew who really bit Scott in Season One. I knew the identity of the kanima in Season Two. I knew who was sacrificing people in Season Three, and I definitely knew who the Nogitsune was possessing in Season Four.

But here I didn’t know who the Benefactor was. I didn’t know if there would be any big surprises on the deadpool, and I sure didn’t know what names were being used for the cypher keys. But man, did I have fun trying to puzzle it out.

Yup. That’s me at my most analytical and ridiculous. As you can see, I actually even started a color-coding system before I abandoned it. (I was annoyed it didn’t seem precise enough.) Anything that manages to activate my Super Analyzation Powers will get some serious love from me. I think it’s why I like mysteries so much. They engage me. I just want to theorize and speculate and possibly make color-coded Charts of Death. I like to think this makes me a more lovable person and is definitely something I should bring up more on blind dates.

3. Unfortunately, it can’t all be magical de-aging and Charts of Death.

See, because of the unusual scheduling of Season 3A and 3B, Season 4 was kind of rushed into production and, sadly, you can tell. There are a lot of good moments and ideas in this season, but most of them don’t really come together the way you want them to, not to mention there are a lot of giant plot holes and inconsistencies throughout. And I say that having watched all three seasons prior to this show. Some things just don’t make sense. Others are just incredibly lazy writing.

For instance:

3A. Oh my god, the magic tea.

Man, I have to explain the magic tea? Can’t I go back to paralyzing yakuza again?

I actually really enjoyed the majority of “Weaponized” — mysterious illness, quarantine, Stiles in danger! — but the magic tea antidote was such bullshit. Like, I can get around that it just happens to be in the vault. (Oh, the secret hidden vault at the school. I love it. So many giggles.) That’s ridiculously convenient, of course but I can deal with it. What I can’t get around is how Deaton realizes that the tea is the magic antidote.

To demonstrate just how bad this is, I’m going to give you the straight up dialogue.

Satomi: “It infected my whole pack.”
Deaton: “Everyone except for you. That’s the real question: did you not get infected, or are you immune?”

We briefly cut away to another scene at the school before going back to the morgue. The adults talk for a few minutes about other unrelated things. And then . . .

Satomi (to Derek, after he notices her looking at him): “Sorry. I just noticed how much you remind me of Talia. I used to visit her a lot, you know. Do you remember me?”
Derek: “I remember the tea. You always brought that tea that smelled terrible.”
Satomi: “I brought that tea as a gift. Your mother loved it.”
Deaton: “What kind of tea?”
Satomi: “What?”
Deaton: “The tea, with the smell. What kind was it?”
Satomi: “Reishi. Wild purple reishi. It’s very rare.”
Deaton: “It’s also a very powerful remedy for sickness. Satomi, you didn’t get infected because you’ve been inoculated.”

Yeah. This is not okay. Satomi used to visit Talia Hale all the time, even though no one’s ever mentioned her before? That’s fine. Derek just happens to remembers the magic tea? I’m actually okay with that too. But Deaton manages to connect ‘unknown smelly tea that this one werewolf used to drink a lot’ to ‘this must be the only reason Satomi never got sick and is obviously our only hope to save Scott and his friends’? Bull. Shit. I mean, this is Heart Knowledge on a whole other level, and it’s maddening. I forgive a lot with this show because I genuinely think Teen Wolf has a lot going for it and I really just enjoy it so much, but man. There is just no excuse for this kind of lazy ass writing.

3B. Considerably less frustrating (but still kind of hilariously bad): Scott’s dad shoots the assassin who’s about to kill Stiles. Now, this is good because one, we really don’t want Stiles dead, and two, the blood spatter (as well as Stiles’s reaction to it) is kind of awesome.

The problem here is, well, physics. Rafe McCall is standing directly behind the assassin when he shoots him in the head. Stiles, meanwhile, is standing directly in front of the assassin. Both Stiles and the assassin appear to be of equal heights, and the bullet clearly exits out of the assassin’s forehead. Like, that’s not up for debate. There is a giant hole in the center of this guy’s head. So . . . how did Stiles not also get shot in the head?

The only answer I can come up with is magic bullets. People. You never want the answer to be magic bullets. Ever. Just look at X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

3C. There’s also the mechanics of the deadpool list.

I loved the idea of the assassins. Really, I did — a mysterious Benefactor hiring a whole bunch of independent assassins to kill nearly all of your heroes is a great setup for a season. And the assassins themselves are pretty enjoyable, too: the Mute, the Orphans, the PSAT teacher. (Okay, that wasn’t his codename, but obviously, it should have been.) Most of them didn’t last long, but that didn’t really bother me because you always knew there was another bad guy out there, waiting to try his hand at killing everyone. (Although I could’ve been okay seeing more of the Mute because that guy was pretty creepy looking.)

And I was more or less okay with Meredith being the Benefactor, albeit with Peter’s Crazy Ass Coma Revenge Plan guiding all her actions. I desperately didn’t want Peter to be the Benefactor himself — that was about the most boring twist I could’ve possibly imagined — but they managed to make it work in a way that I at least found interesting. I didn’t see Meredith coming at all, and — while pretty weird — I could more or less buy that Meredith heard all of Peter’s Coma Thoughts, since a) it’s been pre-established that he was at least somewhat conscious during this state, b) he was pretty close to death, and c) banshee powers have always been kind of murky, and this didn’t seem totally out of the realm of possibility of something Meredith could do.

But I’m still struggling with Lydia’s grandmother’s giant 70’s computers. Like, what? That’s how the deadpool lists are getting out to people? I don’t even . . . how? WHY? This was so poorly explained and illogical. I’m all about Lydia’s grandmother being a banshee and having a creepy soundproof room, but I just couldn’t buy into the idea that the massive hidden computers were generating these lists. I mean, maybe if Dr. Arnim Zola were involved, but otherwise? Nope. Also, how exactly did the lists start printing out from every printer in Beacon Hills? This whole thing just doesn’t work for me.

3D. I know I just said that I was okay with murky banshee powers, and I mostly meant that, but if they’re going to scream catatonic veterinarians awake, you know, I think that would be a scene worth seeing. (I will table my discussion of the secret Arkham Asylum wing of Eichen House for now, but rest assured: I will be discussing it at some length later in this review. Prepare yourselves accordingly.)

4. Okay, this is just too amazing. I actually have to put my review on hold for this one thing: while trying to discern how to correctly spell Reishi tea (and boy, was I doing a bad job), I tried Googling ‘What kind of tea is in Teen Wolf?’ I then found myself at a website for Adagio Teas, who, in addition to all the normal teas they make, have apparently made a handful of tea blends entirely inspired by Teen Wolf. There is even a Sour Wolf Tea. (They also have teas for Sherlock, Doctor Who, Firefly, and Welcome to Night Vale. Although I had to click on that last one because they referred to as The Town, as I was like, Wait. You have tea for that Ben Affleck/Jeremy Renner movie?)

I am so disappointed that I don’t like tea. Honestly, I feel a little crushed right now.

5. Okay, back to the actual review. Lets spend some one-on-one time with each of the main characters, shall we?

Scott McCall

Scott is never going to be my favorite character in the show, but that actually says more about how much I like the other characters than it does about any dislike for him. I’ve actually grown to like Scott quite a bit since first season — he’s kind of adorably endearing, which is not a character trait you often find in lead male protagonists of any age — and I think Tyler Posey has grown considerably as an actor. When Posey tried to act all dangerous and wolfy in first season, I never bought it. Ever. But he had multiple moments this season where I was like, Hey, that was kind of badass. The scene that springs to mind most readily is when he totally owns Violet in a fight. I was like, Hell yeah, Scott McCall! Cause I don’t want to see Scott lose his puppyish qualities, but at the same time, if he’s going to be an Alpha (a TRUE ALPHA even) of a werewolf pack, it’d be nice if I bought that he could kick someone’s ass or occasionally lose control of his werewolf rage. And I did.

His whole ‘Am I Going to be a Killer’ Arc did not turn out the way I wanted it to, but that’s a longer discussion that I’ll get into a bit later. For now, I’ll just add that I kind of liked seeing him as a Werewolf Daddy to Liam, even if Liam himself pretty much bores the crap out of me (see also: Liam).

Stiles Stilinski

3B was obviously Stiles’s season, so I wasn’t surprised to see they pulled back from him a bit in S4 to focus more on their actual lead character. Disappointed, obviously, because Stiles is my favorite, but I totally get balancing out screen-time. My problem is this: I know Teen Wolf wanted a lighter season after 3B, Season of Death. I get it, and honestly, I wasn’t looking for all despair, all the time, either. Like, I didn’t want TW’s Season 4 to be like Buffy’s Season 6. But when you have Dark Shit happen in your show, (or book or movie), people will generally expect there to be actual ramifications, emotional or otherwise, in the next installment. And while I feel like the show did an okay job dealing with Allison’s death, I was less impressed with the total lack of post-Nogitsune angst. Cause, you know, a main character got possessed by an evil trickster spirit who fucked with his entire sense of reality and, also,  killed a whole bunch of people. I don’t feel like I was expecting too much to hope they’d bring it up more than once.

All that being said, Stiles still gets a lot of the best dialogue, and he did have a few scenes I really enjoyed. A good majority of them are with Malia (see also: Malia), but my favorite Stiles moment was probably this one with the Sheriff:

I will always be a sucker for any scene that has both Dylan O’Brien and Linden Ashby in it. Always. They are the best.

Kira Yukimura

Like Stiles, Kira doesn’t have quite as much to do this season. (Although I did kind of love the scene where she tried to do that stupid sexy walk down the staircase, fell, and was just immediately like, “Hey, I’m awesome. Wanna go to a party?” Also, I loved that she joined the lacrosse team, and it wasn’t even like, “Oh my God, a girl’s on the lacrosse team.” Like, there was zero sexist bullshit about it, which was totally awesome and very Teen Wolf.) I didn’t mind too much, that she had less to do, although I wish Kira would use her electricity powers a little more in fights. Not that the swordplay isn’t cool too, but it kind of drives me crazy that she has this incredible power at her fingertips and never seems to use it. Like, I don’t think she even tries frying the Berserkers. What’s with that?

(Actually, I know what’s with that. I read this interview with Jeff Davis where he talks about how he didn’t want her to turn into Electro, and I get that, but I’m also like, Wait, the only way we’ll get to see Kira learn how to use her awesome electric powers that you’ve ALREADY INTRODUCED is if she has her own spinoff series? That’s such bullshit! The entire interview is both interesting and INCREDIBLY frustrating, and I will be discussing it in greater detail a little later in this review.)

I also hope that next season we see more of Kira as a trickster. Personally, I like her whole adorkability vibe and I want to keep that going, but I also want to see it balanced with developing Kira as this kind of amoral being who loves tricks and mischief. I was excited that she got her first tail at the end of the season, and I’m hopeful this means we’ll get more of her kitsune stuff in Season Five.

Derek Hale

Derek’s big thing this season — other than temporarily transforming into his teenage self — is that he’s losing all his werewolf powers. Also, Lydia has predicted his death. It turns out, however, that he’s not actually dying — he’s just evolving into a better (though still beta) werewolf that can shapeshift into an actual wolf like his mother did. Which is kind of cool, although I feel like the werewolf evolution thing sort of came out of nowhere. Like, I know different wolves can do different things, but I sort of thought that was all budget related Alpha stuff. I don’t think there’s ever been any evidence to suggest that beta* wolves have super special powers, much less that they gain those powers by losing all their other wolf-like abilities (and then ‘dying’ at the hands of a Berserker). Admittedly, I’m not exactly sure how you’d foreshadowed any of that without making it completely obvious what was happening, but still. It’s a minor-to-moderate quibble.

Derek’s other thing is that he gets a girlfriend who A) isn’t evil and B) doesn’t die.

This is cool because Derek’s love life is stupidly tragic, and also because I like Braeden, and I’m all about her having more screen time. It’s also kind of hysterical because these two are so abruptly pushed together as a couple, like, I think they have one tiny scene where there’s maybe, maybe, a smidgeon of sexual tension before she’s seriously injured a few episodes later, and he swoops into the hospital with her in his arms, all, “Help! My lady love is dying!” And maybe an episode after that she’s giving him Sexy Gun Lessons, and then they’re falling into bed together. As you do. The actors have completely decent chemistry with one another, and I’m totally okay with them hooking up, but the speed at which these two become a couple is nothing short of hilarious.

*If you’re wondering why I’m capitalizing Alpha but not beta — and let’s be honest, you’re probably not — well, the truth is, I don’t have a good answer for you. My grammar is apparently without any form of logic. But Alpha just FEELS like it should be capitalized, right? Especially if it’s True Alpha, I mean, I think that’s a given. But I don’t know, Beta Wolf just looks silly to me. Perhaps this is Heart Grammar? It’s like Heart Knowledge, but nerdier. Also, my newest imaginary band name.

Malia Hale

(I debated on Male Hale vs Male Tate, but ultimately decided to go with her birth name, less because it was her birth name and more because it’s the one written on the deadpool. When it doubt, go with the name given to professional assassins.)

I was so-so on Malia last season, but this season she became one of my favorite characters. Having spent the greater majority of her life as a coyote, Malia is the ultimate pragmatist, which makes her both funny and relatable. Especially when it comes to her confusion about math. I definitely relate to the confusion about math. But I like that certain concepts are totally foreign to her and she has to learn how to be a human in a way that the others don’t.

I also think her practicality makes her a pretty good match for Stiles. I wasn’t initially jazzed about the two of them dating, mostly because I was hoping they’d spend more time developing the possibility of Stiles being bisexual (which, sadly, they don’t), but the show pretty quickly won me over. I like the scene where he realizes that she’s using his color-coding detective method for studying. I thought it was cute. And I downright adored the Little Spoon/Big Spoon flashback/dream scene.

There’s a lot of hate in the fandom for Malia, primarily from Lydia/Stiles shippers, but I find her totally endearing, and I look forward to meeting Mommy Desert Wolf next season.

Lydia Martin

Lydia continues to be enjoyable. I adore her banshee magic and will always be happy to see her finding dead bodies or hearing weird voices in strange places. I feel like her story with her grandmother was a little muddled, although I did like parts of it, and I did love the soundproof room (sans computers). Funny thing about that room: there was an amazing technical glitch that some viewers, myself included, got to see: just as we figure out that the room is, indeed, soundproof, the actual sound on the show cut out, so the parts that you were supposed to hear — like Lydia and Mason talking about something that’s clearly very distressing to Lydia — were completely silent. I was like, Wait. Uh, is this supposed to be happening?

Lots of people are shipping Lydia and Deputy Parrish, but I’ve got to say, I don’t quite see it yet. Maybe I’ll warm up to them like I warmed up to Stiles and Malia — I mean, I don’t dislike their scenes — but even without taking the age thing into consideration, I just don’t really see them as a couple. Although I do like Parrish. He’s funny, and I’m excited to see what he ends up being. (Phoenix? Salamander? Ooh, if he does end up dating Lydia, I kind of want him to be a salamander, considering that Jackson was a kanima. I want Lydia to have a lizard type.) I just feel like Parrish is a little bit apple pie or something for Lydia.

Liam Dunbar

Liam is the new kid on the block and is easily my least favorite character in Teen Wolf. He’s not completely terrible. I mean, I actually really like his whole Berserker-PTSD shit because I feel like his fear, while not particularly helpful, is totally appropriate. I like that he doesn’t immediately want to jump in and fight bad guys. That makes total sense to me. And I do find his relationship with Scott interesting, but mostly in how it affects Scott. Liam, himself, does very little for me. I’m not feeling his anger management problems — like, AT ALL — and personality-wise, I’m just kind of bored by him. Time spent on Liam is mostly time not spent on all the characters I’d rather be watching.

Mason

(As far as I know, Mason doesn’t have a last name yet. It’s hiding out with the Sheriff’s and Stiles’s first names, apparently.)

I do like Liam’s BFF, Mason, though. Mason doesn’t have a lot to do this season, other than be the supportive best friend guy who keeps helping out with all the crazy, even though he has absolutely no idea what’s going on. He’s pretty amusing, and I wouldn’t mind seeing him play a bigger role in things next season, since I think the cat’s out of the bag on the supernatural now that he’s seen the Sheriff blow up a Berserker. (Man. Why didn’t any of our teenage heroes just think to start carrying grenades around? That would have made things a lot easier for them this season. Course, apparently Derek can just magic squeeze them to death now, like, oh okay.)

The only problematic thing about Mason . . . and to be fair, it has nothing to do with the actor . . . is that he kind of feels like an uncomfortable Filling the Quota character now that Danny has inexplicably vanished. Seriously, this is weird. If the actor just wanted to go do other things, I’d totally get it, but not only did Keahu Kahuanui not appear in Season Four, they never mentioned him, not once, not ever. There was even an easy scene where Coach could’ve mentioned that Danny’s gone missing or been transferred to another school or something, and they never do. His absence is so strange that I really expected there to be some kind of tease in the season finale, like, oh no, some evil warlock coming in Season Five has erased Danny from everyone’s memory for Nefarious Reasons Unknown . . . but there was nothing. It’s really strange. And the funny thing is, I think I might even like Mason slightly more than I like Danny, but I don’t want him to just be the One Gay Character. That bugs me. I want both these guys.

6. Okay, so this is kind of a tangent, but who am I kidding? My whole review system is based on numbering various tangents, so. There’s this idea that you always have to have at least one human in your group of supernatural kids, that this one de-powered kid somehow grounds the series, and I’m here to tell you that I think this idea is crap.

If only I had magic, I could do something about this.

Sure, it’s totally okay if you just want one of your main characters to be human, but the justification that it somehow makes your show any more realistic or relatable . . . look, there is obviously no making a show about teenage werewolves with glowstick eyes realistic, okay? And I get the idea — it’s too crazy that they’d ALL become supernatural creatures, right? — but I don’t actually think that it is. There are some pretty solid themes in that idea, considering the perils of getting involved in the supernatural world, that you go too far and that you can’t go back and that sometimes you have to become a monster to fight monsters. In fact, I’m pretty sure Nietzsche said something like that: He who fights teen wolves should see to it that he does not become himself a teen wolf.

And as far as relatable goes, I just don’t buy into the idea that the strictly human characters in these kinds of shows are any more relatable simply because they don’t have magical abilities. After all, all the supernatural kids have some kind of vulnerability — Lydia, especially, doesn’t have much going for her in offensive OR defensive powers — so it’s not like we’re being inundated with a castful of Sylars and Peter Petretellis. (Er, for those of you who didn’t watch Heroes — and good for you, bright little things that you are — that means ‘characters who are invincible because they have too many godamned powers’.) I think Stiles — who is clearly Teen Wolf’s Xander — is relatable because he’s hilarious and pop culture savvy and slightly more amoral than his heroic True Alpha BFF, not because he doesn’t grow fur and howl at the moon.

If they don’t want Stiles to be supernatural, then fine. I mean, I’m HUGELY disappointed by this because I personally don’t want Stiles to be Xander. I want him to be Willow, godammit. But I don’t get everything I want, and (I guess) I have to learn how to accept this. But one, please don’t argue that Stiles’s humanity somehow makes the show more grounded because it doesn’t, and two, I think I’d find it helpful if he (and for that matter, Lydia and Mason) got some training with weapons so that they aren’t always immediately helpless whenever a bad guy comes around. I’m not saying they need to be superheroes or anything, but I feel like if I was crossing paths with werewolves and nogitsunes and darachs on a daily basis, I would want some kind of defensive countermeasure that wasn’t a baseball bat. (I was really hoping Lydia telling Stiles that he needed a better weapon meant he would get a better weapon, although the foreshadow for Lydia herself {ineffectually} using the bat in the season finale was fairly clever too.) I mean, Derek was human for about two whole seconds before Braeden’s like, “Dude, you need to learn how to use a gun.” Admittedly, that immediately led to Sexy Times and also hilariously took place when Scott really could have used his help, but I feel the point remains valid: let’s learn some supernatural self-defense, shall we? Or for Christ’s sake, at least upgrade to a taser.

Alternatively, we could just let Mason be our token human and finally let Stiles practice some godamned magic. Come on, Teen Wolf. I’ve been wishing for this since Season Two.

7. One of my biggest problems with this season is how it resolved. Specifically, how it resolved without Scott (or anybody) killing Peter.

Really? We’re letting this guy live? Okay, I’m sure that’s not a terrible mistake.

One of this season’s major arcs was about the possible necessity of Scott killing someone versus his fear of becoming a ruthless killer. I liked this arc, and there are a number of ways I think it could have ended that would have been better than, “I don’t have to kill you, Peter. I’ll just toss you into our top-secret Arkham Asylum Wing of Eichen House that we’ve never bothered to mention before because it was obviously a last minute idea on the writers’ part on how to avoid this being like Deucalion all over again.” (On the positive side, at least I’m not the only one calling it Arkham. The writers, apparently, also refer to it as such.)

Ideally, I think Peter needed to die. And I’d have been sad about that because I, too, like Ian Bohen a great deal and I’d have missed him on the show, but his story basically feels complete, you know? We already have a good number of villains who are improbably still alive, just waiting on the periphery to come back and cause trouble again. I don’t feel like Peter Hale should still be one of them.

And while Scott didn’t necessarily need to be the one to kill Peter, I feel like one of the good guys should have. In that interview I mentioned before, the deeply frustrating one, Jeff Davis likens Scott to Spiderman, basically saying that you don’t want your superheroes to actually kill your bad guys. Which, frankly, I think is debatable, but hey, I’m bloodthirsty, whatever. But my pop culture counter would be, hey, maybe Scott isn’t like Spiderman. Maybe he’s like Buffy, in which case, Buffy kill bad guys all the time. Sure, not so much with the straight up humans. But the vampires, definitely, and I’m not sure that killing an evil werewolf who clearly keeps doing evil shit is really any less moral than killing a vampire doing the exact same kind of thing. The whole idea that Real Heroes Never Kill no matter what circumstance actually doesn’t do much for me, and never has.

But I could still actually be okay with the idea that Scott — as the True Alpha whose powers emerged because of his moral integrity, or some shit — refuses to kill. That seems fair to me. And we at least have our (hastily thrown in) Arkham Asylum now, so this isn’t quite as bad as Season Three. Still, I don’t feel like everyone else in the group would feel the same way, and I would have been happy with basically anyone else killing him. Story-wise, Derek would have worked for me. Stiles would have worked for me. The Sheriff, Lydia, and Malia all could have worked for me. This is even the rare instance where I would have taken the villain cop-out because Kate killing Peter is a perfectly fair turnaround, story-wise. But at the very, very least, if we were going to go with Scott’s play, I really would’ve liked to have seen at least some argument about it. Because killing Peter is the smart thing to do here and, honestly, I’m not convinced it’s the wrong one, either.

This is where that whole “Can’t Go Back” tagline comes in again. I really enjoy that the seasons have their own taglines, like 3A is “This Might Hurt” and 3B is “Lose Your Mind.” (I’m not sure if 1 or 2 have their own nifty three-word phrase.) “Can’t Go Back” is a great tagline for everything that comes after the Season of Death, but I think it would have been a lot more appropriate if S4 had actually been about the consequences of 3B. And I think that’s where a lot of S4 failed for me — because it felt like the writers did want to go back to the funnier stuff, the lighter stuff, the too-easy good-and-evil stuff. And I just don’t feel like that’s a natural progression of the story. It felt like a cheat, and I was disappointed by it.

8. Finally, some more random notes:

8A: The episode where Scott and Stiles try to explain to Liam that he’s becoming a werewolf . . . well. Parts of it are funny, but mostly it’s so unnecessarily painful. Liam should be the easiest person in the world to convince about werewolves, considering that a wendigo just tried to eat his ass and a werewolf bit his arm to save his life. Mind you, both wendigo and werewolf have their game faces on at the time. No one’s hiding anything. Certainly not the wendigo. Look at them teeth:

Yeah. I think Liam might clue into the notion that humans generally don’t have teeth like that.

And even if Liam is the least observant person alive (or really, really good at living in denial), Scott and Stiles are both idiots about how they approach Liam. Like I said, it’s supposed to be funny, but their idiocy is so ridiculous that it’s kind of hard to appreciate the humor.

8B. In theory, I really like the idea of the money problems — it’s nice to see the kids being affected by something so real world — but they kind of come from out of nowhere. Stiles, at least, has some plausible medical expenses from last season, but though Melissa is a single parent, her debt seem very abruptly thrown in for clearly Thematic Reasons. And that goes double for Lydia’s supposed financial problems, which I don’t think even merit more than one (hilariously silenced) line.

I’ll admit, too, that I was kind of hoping Stiles would steal the money for his dad’s surgery. I actually really like the scene where Scott returns the cash to Derek (as well as the scene where Scott talks to Melissa about the money), but I thought Stiles stealing from his best friend would have raised an interesting conflict between the two of them. But hey, that’s what fanfiction’s for.

8C. Turning Scott into a Berserker was kind of cool and I certainly didn’t see it coming, although it didn’t really go anywhere (like, I feel Kate and Peter’s plans were ultimately pretty flawed), and it seemed absurdly easy to break Scott out of his Evil Berserker Trance. Well, it was for Liam, anyway. All he had to do was say something like, “Hey, it’s me, your adopted werewolf son,” and Scott was like, “Oh, wait, I don’t wanna kill you because I don’t like killing people.”

I guess the sire bond is stronger than romantic love in Teen Wolf, though, since Kira’s pleas didn’t stop Scott from stabbing the shit out of her. Poor Kira.

8D. When Meredith (supposedly) hung herself, I immediately assumed that Brunski killed her and was really surprised that nobody else online seemed to think so. Everyone seemed to take the suicide at face value. Admittedly, Brunski didn’t murder Meredith, but I was still really happy that there was more going on there than what initially met the eye. So I give myself kudos. Okay, like, 25% kudos. Like 1/2 of one yummy Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup kudos.

8E. While I’m annoyed that Peter is still among the living, I’m actually happy that Kate survived.

There’s more to tell with her story, and JR Bourne and Jill Wagner are great together. Plus, Kate is awesome. I could totally be down for more of her strolling through a street that’s littered with the dead and dying.

I think the show could only be improved by more of that.

QUOTES:

Stiles: “We’d have to freeze you in carbonite to get you down there.”
Liam: “Okay, where do we get carbonite?”
Stiles: “Seriously? You haven’t seen it, either?”

Sheriff: “Malia, what’s your favorite food?”
Malia: “Deer.”

Peter: “She was listening to the ranting and raving of a lunatic. A former lunatic. I’m much healthier now.”

Kira: “Does this many cards mean you have good credit or bad?”

Coach: “Now what I don’t understand is why anyone would want to get massively falling down drunk in front of an open fire.”

Stiles: “Just give us Derek. You don’t want him anyway. Haven’t you noticed what a downer he is? No sense of humor, poor conversationalist.”

Kira: “Is that what you’d do as a coyote, leave her for dead?”
Malia: “If she was weak and injured, yeah. If hunting had been bad that season, I would eat her. Then I’d leave.”

Lydia: “You’re aware that this is the stupidest plan we’ve ever come up with.”
Stiles: “I’m aware it’s not our best.”
Lydia: “We are going to die.”
Stiles: “Are you saying that as a banshee, or are you just being pessimistic?”
Lydia: “I’m saying it as a person who doesn’t want to die.”
Stiles: “Okay, then, would you mind restricting any talk of death to actual banshee predictions?”
Lydia: “This plan is stupid and we’re going to die.”

Scott: “He hasn’t gotten back to any of my texts.”
Stiles: “Has Derek ever returned your texts?”
Scott: “Once. Definitely once.”

Scott: “I texted him, but he didn’t get back to me.”
Stiles: “You told him his sister came back from the dead by text?”
Scott: “. . . I didn’t have the money to call France.”

Stiles: “So you bit him.”
Scott: “Yeah.”
Stiles: “And you kidnapped him.”
Scott: “Yeah.”
Stiles: “And brought him here.”
Scott: “I panicked.”
Stiles: “Yup. This isn’t going to end with us burying the pieces of his body in the desert, is it? As a reminder, this is why I always come up with the plan. Your plans suck.”

Liam: “What are you?”
Stiles: “Uh, for a little while, I was possessed by an evil spirit. It was very evil.”
Liam: “What are you now?”
Stiles: “. . . better.”

Scott: “We’re brothers now.”
Liam: “What?”
Stiles: “Oh my God, that’s –”
Liam: “What are you talking about? We just met and you bit me.”
Scott: “The bite is a gift.”
Stiles: “Scott, stop. Please stop.”

Malia: “I heard you were coming to talk to Peter. And since Lydia tells me that he’s basically Satan in a V-neck, I figured you probably shouldn’t be alone.”

Stiles: “Perfect. Let’s go.”
Scott: “Whoa, whoa. We’ve got Econ in five minutes.”
Stiles: “All right. Did you forget the part about the family murdering axe murderer?”
Scott: “Did you forget your dad’s the sheriff? They want us to stay out of it.”
Stiles: “Are you guys kidding me? There’s a family murdering axe murderer, and we’re not going to do anything about it?”
Kira: “Maybe we should just let the adults handle it.”
Stiles: “So the two of you, you just want to stay here in school, go to class? Never heard anything so irresponsible in my life.”

Malia: “How much am I worth?”
Scott: “Four million.”
Stiles: “Are you okay?”
Malia: “Yeah. Scott’s worth twenty-five, Kira’s worth six. They’ll take you guys out way before me.”

Sheriff: “The population of Beacon County is just under 30,000.”
Stiles: “And dropping.”

Melissa: “Scott, you can save people’s lives, but you can’t save people from life.”

Scott: “Don’t you want to know why I took so long to return it?”
Derek: “How much do you make at the animal clinic?”
Scott: “Minimum wage.”
Derek: “That’s why.”

Scott: “The game’s the best way to catch him red-handed.”
Stiles: “But what if he’s red-handed cause his hands are covered in the blood of the person he just stabbed to death?”

Stiles: “That’s your assassin speak?”
Chris Argent: “I said he’s dead. What more do you want?”
Stiles: “It was a little dry. You could’ve said something like ‘Target has been neutralized. The crow flies at midnight.’ That’s always cool.”

Peter: “Can’t someone in this town stay dead?”
Malia: “I think they were hoping you would.”

Stiles: “Brunski punched me in the face. Turns out he was a serial killer.”
Malia: “Makes sense.”

Scott: “What are you doing here?”
Malia: “Getting drunk. What are you doing?”
Scott: “Trying to make sure no one gets hurt.”
Malia: “That sounds fun too.”

Peter: “The table’s Italian.”
Braeden: “So are these boots.”

Scott: “If you were paid enough, would you kill her?”
Braeden: “If the money was good, I’d kill you.”

Sheriff: “I want you to be honest with me. Absolutely and completely honest. Have you been time traveling?”
Stiles: “Hang on, what?”
Sheriff: “Because if time traveling is real, I’m done. I’m out. You’re going to be driving me to Eichen House.”
Scott: “We found him like that.”
Sheriff: “Where? Swimming in the Fountain of Youth?”
Stiles: “No. We found him buried in a tomb of wolfsbane in an Aztec temple in Mexico underneath a church in the middle of a town that was destroyed by an earthquake.”

Mama Calaveras: “In Mexico, we just call this a standoff.”

Liam: “I mean, how are you all still alive?”
Scott: “Not all of us are.”

Derek: “I don’t like guns.”
Braeden: “That’s because you’ve never learned to use one.”
Derek: “Or because I’ve been shot. Repeatedly.”

Braeden: “Running out of bullets can get you killed. It also makes you look stupid.”

Derek: “And who is he? Who are you?”
Stiles: “Oh, we’re the guys keeping you out of jail.”

Fahey: “I swear to God, I’ve never seen him, never spoken to him –”
Kate: “I know. See, everybody says the same thing. They don’t know who he is. Where he is. ‘It’s all done electronically.’ ‘I can’t help you.’ ‘Please, I’m bleeding to death.’ ‘Please, stop, it hurts’.”

Malia: “Your notes are great when they’re not written in code.”

Liam: “I don’t care if he’s a foot taller than me. I think I can take him.”
Mason: “Yeah . . .”
Liam: “What do you think you’re doing?”
Mason: “What? Me? I’m agreeing with you. I’m being agreeable.”
Liam: “You think he’s hot, don’t you?”
Mason: “No! No. Not at all. No way. Maybe. Yeah, maybe a little.”
Liam: “He wants to destroy me.”
Mason: “I think you could definitely take him. And then give him to me.”

Mason: “You’re coming. And we’re going to find you a nice girl that you can embarrass yourself in front of and find me a nice lacrosse player. Because statistically speaking, someone on your team has gotta be on my team.”

Liam: “So, you’ve done this before?”
Noshiko: “I’ve seen it done.”
Liam: “Is that just as good?”
Noshiko: “No.”
Kira: “Mom, you’re not inspiring confidence.”
Noshiko: “Good. This is a terrible idea.”

Noshiko: “We told you this was temporary.”
Kira: “That was after you told me I was a kitsune and was going to have to destroy a dark spirit by stabbing and killing one of the few friends I’d made in this town.”
Noshiko: “And you didn’t have to. I call that a win.”

Stiles: “I thought you were leaving.”
Malia: “I wouldn’t leave without you.”
Stiles: “Really?”
Malia: “No, I would never leave without you.” (looks back at Kira and Lydia) “Them, I would leave.”

Parrish: “What’s a kanima?”
Scott: “We’ll get back to that.”

Kira: “We’re not going back to New York.”
Noshiko: “And why would we stay?”
Kira: “Uh. Well, Dad’s a very important teacher at the high school.”
Mr. Yukimura: “In New York, I was a professor at Columbia.”

Stiles: “What’s with all the highlighters, anyway?”
Malia: “Green is for the things I understand. Yellow is for ‘I’m working on it’. And red means I have no clue. I’m mostly using red.”

Malia: “Is this what drunk feels like? It doesn’t feel as good as I hoped.”

(Stiles is trying to fix his Jeep.)
Stiles: “Lydia, could you please hold the flashlight still for a second? It’s really hard to see anything when you keep shaking it like that.”
Lydia: “I’m shaking it like this because we’re in the middle of nowhere with your broken down jeep and we’re being attacked by yet another razor clawed monster. And I’m terrified.”
Stiles: “Well, just be slightly less terrified!”
(Stiles hands her a metal car part.)
Stiles: “And hold this.”
Lydia: “What’s this?”
Stiles: “I don’t know. I’m hoping it’s not important.”

Lydia: “Not all monsters do monstrous things.”

Lydia: “You seriously need to find something better than a baseball bat.”

Parrish: “I’m worth five dollars?”
Stiles: “Five million.”
Parrish: “But I make 40,000 a year.”

Parrish: “You have an expert on teenage cannibals?”

CONCLUSIONS:

Yeah, this wasn’t one of Teen Wolf’s better seasons. It just didn’t quite come together the way I hoped it would. But I still really had fun watching it, and I’m still looking forward to next season. Hopefully, it will be a little tighter and better balanced, considering the writers will have more time to plan it out.

MVP:

You know, Dylan O’Brien is always my favorite (like, seriously, always), but considering he has a little less to do this time around . . . I think I’m going to go with Shelley Hennig. Cause, yeah, Malia was pretty consistently great this season. Kudos to Tyler Posey, too.

TENTATIVE GRADE:

B

MORAL:

True Heroes don’t kill people. Even when they totally, totally should.

Mekaela and I have designated this November as Mystery Month, for reasons that I’ve already forgotten. So it seems the right time to jump back into those noir films I’m continuously behind on.

I like parts of Kiss Me Deadly. But it’s definitely not one of my favorites.

SUMMARY:

“Bedroom dick” and all-around lousy human being Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker) picks up a hitchhiker. Shortly thereafter, she’s murdered and he’s nearly killed himself. Now he’s determined to look into the case, despite (or possibly because of) all the asshats who warn him not to.

NOTES:

1. Sometimes, I feel like the two words I type more than any other on this blog are “likable characters.” Obviously, not every movie needs to center around likable people, but the bonus to having them is that your audience is automatically invested in your story because they care about what happens to these people.

Kiss Me Deadly has virtually no likable characters.

We will begin with Mr. Hammer, our very masculinely named protagonist. Hammer isn’t a particularly nice guy, considering he’s far more concerned about the state of his car than the woman he almost hit in the middle of the road. (To be clear: it’s her fault for jumping out in front of him. Regardless, most people at least feign concern when they nearly run over someone.) Of course, that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to this schmuck. He also says this to our distressed hitchhiker:

“What’s this all about? I’ll make a quick guess. You were out with some guy who thought ‘no’ was a three-letter word. I should have thrown you off that cliff back there. I might still do it.”

Charming. I’m aware that noir detectives are usually dicks (pun intended), and I’ve liked movies that have featured asshole protagonists before, but there’s a delicate sort of balance to it that I think Kiss Me Deadly falls on the wrong side of. The majority of positive reviews I’ve read for this movie have all praised Hammer for being the slimiest and dirtiest noir hero of them all, but creating a deeply unlikable protagonist doesn’t usually seem like a bold choice to me. It seems likes poor strategic planning.

2. And obviously it doesn’t help that everyone else is annoying too.

The women in this movie . . . yeah. They’re not good, and an unlikely number of them seem to find our charmless hero mysteriously irresistible, which meant I kept thinking, “HE GETS THE WOMEN,” to myself throughout the film. I’ll wait to address most of the female characters until the Spoiler Section, but I do want to spend a little time here on Velda (Maxine Cooper). Velda is Mike Hammer’s Girl Friday and Quasi Love Interest, and at times she actually seems somewhat competent. At other times, she’s completely infuriating.

Like, okay. There’s this one scene where Velda has done a bunch of research for her boss, and as he’s asking her questions about this and that, I’m thinking to myself, You know what? Velda is clearly the actual detective here. This is cool. I’m all for that.

But then she’ll rapidly change direction from being independent and awesome to being needy and weird. Like when she awkwardly transitions a dead woman’s last words into a bid for sex. Or how she tells Hammer that she likes it when he gets into trouble — since that means he’ll need her around — but then immediately becomes angry with him, since getting into trouble means he’s putting everyone’s lives in jeopardy, including (gasp) hers! I think I’m supposed to feel sorry for Velda here, but instead, I’m just stuck on . . . but . . . I don’t understand. These two thoughts don’t follow logically at all.

I really wish Hammer and Velda weren’t sleeping together, and not just because I’m currently working on a noir story featuring the platonic relationship between a detective and his awesome secretary, I swear. I think it would solve a lot of problems for me. Hammer and Velda would, at the very least, both be instantly more sympathetic, even as they do some less-than-nice stuff in order to pay the bills.

3. Also, their close-talking scene was just awkward and not cute or sexy at all. Juliet and Shawn do a much, much better job of this. (It kills me that the full clip isn’t here, though. Youtube! Why have you failed me yet again? Now I have to go watch the full scene on Netflix just because you left me hanging.)

4. The credits in this movie are kind of interesting. They go backwards, like so:

I’ll admit, I don’t have any particular deep thoughts about that. I just thought it was unique and thus worth bringing up.

5. But back to those wascally wabbits characters: I’m not convinced that a single person in this movie acts rationally. It’s not just Velda and Hammer, although it’s fair to say that Hammer regularly acts like a moron. (Why do you keep going back to your apartment when people are after you? WHY? Oh, they’ll never suspect me here because it’s far too obvious? Hammer, you’re an asshole.) It’s also the people who want to stop Hammer from pursuing this case. I can’t speak too much about that now, but I will say that at least some of them have decent reasons for not wanting Hammer involved, reasons beyond the fact that he’s a slimy moron asshat. (Which, obviously, should be reason enough.)

The problem is how these people try to dissuade Hammer from getting involved.

Shortly after surviving a car accident that nobody could’ve survived, Hammer is brought in for the most one-sided interrogation I’ve ever seen in my life. He’s asked disdainful questions about his seedy business practices, which are then answered by the other men in the room. This is really an expository scene to let the audience know that Hammer is a scum bucket — in case the “maybe you were raped, which is totally your own problem” line wasn’t enough to clue you in — but from the POV of the characters involved, it just doesn’t make much sense. When dealing with a disagreeable person that you want out of the way, it’s usually not the best idea to repeatedly mock or insult him. Because really, guys, what are you even picturing here? That he’s going to bury his head in the sand and feel ashamed about all the bad things he’s done? That he’s going to forget he and his precious car were ever shoved off a cliff, simply because you were mean to him? Please. Even if he wasn’t already interested in a score, Hammer is far more likely to stick with the case just to fuck with you. Hell, I probably would do that, and I’m not nearly as disagreeable as Mike Hammer.

It doesn’t help that certain information is withheld from Hammer, information that I’m relatively sure would’ve made a direct impact on Hammer getting involved in the first place. One particular snotty bastard — I can’t remember his name, so we’ll be calling him Cop McSneer — even says something like, “Would it made a difference if we had told you?” and Hammer, suitably chastised, does not answer. Meanwhile, I’m having an apoplectic fit on my couch, screaming, “OF COURSE IT WOULD MATTER!” while my sister laughs at me. (And, incidentally, agrees with me. These people are dumb.)

6. Admittedly, maybe I missed some stuff to explain all this. If so, I’m sure someone, likely using their most condescending language, won’t miss the opportunity to tell me. But despite opening with a bang, Kiss Me Deadly seemed pretty dull for well over half the film, and I had a lot of trouble focusing on the various names and faces of all the people involved. I really had to keep dragging my wandering attention back to the film, and I didn’t get fully invested until a surprising turn about 2/3 of the way into the story. That turn is really what makes this movie worth all the recognition, although I can’t say it makes me forgive the film’s various other shortcomings.

7. Finally, I found this ancient answering machine entirely too fascinating.

It’s huge. I kind of want one now, possibly because I’m a ridiculous person.

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

So, our hitchhiker’s name is Christina.

This is Cloris Leachman in her very first role, and I’ll be honest: it’s not my favorite. But I don’t like anybody in this movie, so that’s no big surprise, really. I find Christina particularly annoying as she diagnoses Mike Hammer as being as one of those “self-indulgent males who thinks about nothing but his clothes, his car, himself,” not to mention the kind of guy who “never gives in a relationship.” She’s not wrong, but it’s not exposition I’m convinced we need, and if I were Hammer, I wouldn’t be real thrilled with some escaped mental patient hopping in my car and giving me an unflattering psychoanalysis within five minutes, either. (Although Hammer has already regretted not throwing Christina off a cliff, so it’s not like he has the moral high ground here.)

Of course, if I were Hammer, I would press for more details once I knew my passenger had escaped from a mental institution. Because Hammer kind of asks, but he doesn’t seem all that concerned or curious about it. I, on the other hand, would be curious about it. I would have questions. And depending on the answer to those questions, that’s when I would consider throwing her ass out of the car, not after speculating that she’d possibly been raped. I mean, Jesus.

Hammer plans to drop Christina off at the bus stop. Christina tells him, “If we don’t make it, remember me.” This is said with capital ‘S’ significance, so we know it’s a capital ‘C’ clue, as is Christina just happening to mention her namesake, the poet Christina Rossetti. We then spend the entire movie waiting for Hammer to finally consider looking through a book of Christina Rosetti poems. It turns out that the one he’s looking for is called “Remember Me,” which, in retrospect, is pretty obvious. But I was stuck on “Goblin Market,” mostly because it’s the only Christina Rossetti poem I’ve ever read. (And I only read it after a friend was horrified I’d never heard of it. I don’t recall having much opinion on the poem either way.)

I should mention that the whole ‘Poem as Clue’ thing ends up being kind of lame. This is the passage that Lily reads out loud:

“Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you plann’d:
Only remember me; you’ll understand.
But if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once we had.”

First, it’s lame because Lily is cutting out lines. I don’t mind that she magically skips to the relevant stanza, but I’m decidedly not okay with her just cutting out two lines in the middle of her recitation. That’s dumb. I hate it when movies do that. Also, some of the words seem wrong (like using ‘we’ instead of ‘I’ and ‘but’ instead of ‘for’), and I don’t think Christina is supposed to have edited them or anything. The clue is also lame because after Lily reads this passage out loud, Hammer somehow divines that Christina must have swallowed something significant. And bitch, please. You did not figure that out from this passage. I don’t believe you.

But that’s skipping ahead. Let’s go back to when Christina kicks it.

(The leg pun was unintentional. Hell with it. I’m keeping it now.)

My brain had a serious disconnect while I was watching this scene. The second I saw her legs, I assumed the bad guys hanged Christina, except then she started screaming. (And went on screaming long after her legs had gone still, like, whoops.) Now, obviously, they’ve probably just strung her up by her arms or something while they’re torturing her for information, but at first I was like Are they really trying to make me think that she’d be screaming while BEING HANGED? And then my brain caught up and I was like Ohhhh. Silly rabbit.

When Christina passes out, one of the bad guys says he can revive her, but Mr. Boss Bad Guy, otherwise known as Blue Suede Shoes, ex-nays that plan on the basis that it would be Resurrection and playing God, or something? I don’t know, that bit seemed weird. Anyway, Christina and Hammer are put back in Hammer’s car and driven off a cliff. But it’s okay because Hammer is totally fine.

I suppose he does at least end up in the hospital. Briefly, anyway, with nary a scratch anywhere on him. This is where we meet Velda, not to mention Cop McSneer. Unfortunately, this is also about the time I started checking out of the story, so I’m transitioning from a detailed synopsis to a more random notes approach for the rest of this review.

1. If you know there’s a bomb in your car, don’t get inside it.

No, buddy, it’s totally safe in this car. Would I lie to you?

At one point, bad guys put a bomb in Hammer’s car, which Hammer’s mechanic friend, Nick, nearly triggers when he begins to turn the key in the ignition. Hammer saves him, which is nice, and they extract the bomb and drive to Nick’s garage. Nick cheerfully holds the bomb in his lap the entire ride, which just drives me nuts, but nothing beats Hammer casually announcing that he only found the bomb the bad guys wanted him to find. Dude. DUDE. You do not get in a car when you know there’s another hidden bomb, especially if you’re not quite sure what will trigger it. In this case, it’s tied to the speedometer (Kiss Me Deadly is the predecessor to Speed!!!), but YOU DIDN’T KNOW THAT WHEN YOU DROVE ACROSS TOWN, DID YOU, BUDDY?

You should be dead right now, Mr. Hammer. This is Darwin Award material. I am done with you.

(I almost forgot to say that when Nick extracts the first bomb, he doesn’t know what he’s looking for. Hammer only says to take out whatever’s near the starter. Nick extracts what appears to be a bundle of dynamite and asks, “This is what you mean?” Yeah, Nick. I think that’s what he meant. I’m not sure if this moment was intentionally funny or not, but I did laugh pretty hard.)

2. Nick, unfortunately, isn’t as lucky as his friend. He survives the multiple car bombs, only to die the way that so many movie mechanics do — crushed under the car he’s working on. Mean, Blue Suede Shoes. Very mean. Although I feel it should be said that Nick is also a little obnoxious. I mostly felt sorry for Nick’s less obnoxious and less plot-relevant friend, who’s all broken up about it. Poor dude. Go be in a movie with nicer people.

3. This movie has a ton of classical music in it. I kept thinking it was some big clue. It wasn’t.

4. Christina’s supposed roommate, Lily, is super annoying.

I’m not sure what she’s going for, exactly — seductive with a heavy side of vulnerable and frightened, I guess? — but she mostly comes off as loopy and grating. Actually, Mek and I were initially convinced that Lily was an escaped mental patient herself, but in turns out, she’s actually a bad guy, which, honestly? Kind of a relief. I liked her much more when she was greedy and evil. Too bad I couldn’t stand her for every other scene.

5. Through obscure poetry references and deduction, Hammer discovers that Christina swallowed a safe deposit box key. He leaves Lily outside and alone in a top-down convertible in the middle of the day when people are (supposedly) trying to kill her so he can check it out. Because, really, he is such a moron. Which I know, I know. Many people say that’s the whole point, that Kiss Me Deadly is a scathing indictment of film noir — and maybe that’s my problem with it. I like genre deconstruction; hell, I love genre deconstruction, but I feel like it works best when you’re a fan of the genre itself, when you see all its potential and possibilities as well as its problematic flaws and missteps. I don’t want to watch a noir movie that hates noir, anymore than I want to see a western that hates westerns, or even a romantic comedy that hates romantic comedies. I want an intelligent discussion, maybe an angry one, but not one filled with contempt and scorn.

6. Mike Hammer uses the safe deposit box key and discovers . . . Marsellus Wallace’s soul!

Kidding. He discovers a nuclear weapon, but you can clearly see where Quentin Tarantino is lifting from with his briefcase in Pulp Fiction. The words “nuclear weapon” are never actually used, though, and we never really see what’s inside of the box, just that it glows ominously, giving the whole movie a sudden sci-fi bent, which is awesome. THIS is when I finally started giving a damn about the movie, when my kind of dull noir suddenly turned out to be apocalyptic SF noir. There really needs to be more apocalyptic SF noir.

7. Hammer doesn’t fully open the box, which ends up being a very good call. (We’ll find out how good a little later.) It does burn his wrist, though, which Cop McSneer later notices.

This is my Disappointed Face.

Hammer gives up the key to Cop McSneer after he figures out just what kind of shit he’s involved in. He says he didn’t know, to which Cop McSneer asks, “Do you think you’d have done any different if you had known?” And this is a problem for me because — like I said earlier — I feel pretty confident that Hammer would have done differently if he’d known. And I don’t like this guy, like, I’m not looking for excuses to defend him. Mike Hammer is a total assclown. There is no doubt about that. But the movie wants me to shake my finger at him here, and I’m like, “Uh, no. If they wanted him to back off because national security is at risk, all they really needed to do was show him pictures of people with radiation poisoning, and this guy? Would have backed off so hard his shoes would still be on fire.”

8. In the meantime, Velda’s been kidnapped. (Which Cop McSneer doesn’t give a damn about, because I guess her death will be just desserts for Hammer? Wow. Thanks, Cop McSneer. Let me just say how encouraged I feel, knowing that a woman’s life has been entirely reduced to how her death would make a man feel. I can only hope that your fellow detectives take protecting the public as seriously as you do.)

(Also, now that I’ve looked it up, I see that ‘just desserts’ should actually be spelled ‘just deserts,’ but I’m actively choosing not to spell it that way because it just seems wrong. #RebelliousSpellingBeeChampion #OkayFineIOnlyGotThirdPlace

Hammer tries to save Velda — which would have been a lot more interesting if they weren’t sleeping together, like he actually valued a woman without (gasp) having sex with her — and ends up getting abducted himself. (Actually, this part happens earlier, but whatever. Chronology, pah.) Mr. Blue Suede Shoes gives him sodium pentothal — truth serum, to anyone who’s ever seen a movie — which, in this particular version, will make him dream about his secrets and talk in his sleep. That’s sort of an interesting variation on how Movie Sodium Pentothal usually works, and makes me wonder if this is the first film to use it, and if not, what is.

It should also be said that everything Hammer says here is an incoherent mumble, so I’m not particularly convinced about the effectiveness of this plan. Especially since he awakens, kills people, and escapes.

9. Mr. Blue Suede Shoes gives Lily — or actually, Gabrielle — a long, villainous monologue about Pandora and various other mythologies where women are killed for the sin of being inquisitive. (Is there a myth where a man is killed for his curiosity? There must be, right? Please?) It’s all very tiresome, and thankfully Lily kills him, which is easily the best thing she does in the whole movie. She also shoots Hammer before opening The Box. Unlike Hammer, though, she opens it the whole way.

You can’t really make Lily out in this picture, but I bet you can guess where she is just the same.

I’ll give Kiss Me Deadly this much: Lily killing herself by essentially opening the Ark of the Covenant surprisingly doesn’t bother me here, unlike when they actually open the Ark of the Covenant in Raiders of the Lost Ark. I have never liked how that movie resolves, and I don’t care who knows it. So there.

10. The ending of this movie is interesting for a couple of reasons.

As far as I can tell, I saw the ending that original audiences saw, where Hammer and Velda make it out to the beach and stumble around in the waves as the house explodes. The ending itself is incredibly abrupt, but not in a way that seems incongruous with old movies. However, there was also an alternate ending that a huge number of people are more familiar with, one where we never see Hammer and Velda make it out. Instead, the film ends with a series of images that suggest the nuclear apocalypse has come.

I’d have to see both endings to decide which I preferred, but honestly, even the supposedly happy one didn’t actually strike me as all that upbeat. I think I was supposed to go, “Yay! They made it! Good guys win again!” But I didn’t, and not just because I don’t like anybody. I just figured, Yeah, okay, they made it out of the initial blast radius, but dude. There’s no WAY that they — or anyone else in the area, for that matter — aren’t going to suffer and eventually die from radiation fallout, right? Especially Hammer, who, besides still being shot, was already exposed to radiation when he partially opened the box and BURNED HIS FLESH. We’re totally looking at a nuclear disaster here, right? Right.

I feel like this movie ends in apocalypse, no matter where the film actually cuts out. And you know what? I’m pretty okay with that.

CONCLUSION:

I really like the SF apocalyptic turn of this story, and even a couple of moments here and there. But it’s still not my favorite. Due to the deeply unlikable characters and a mystery that wasn’t particularly intriguing (until it suddenly was), I just couldn’t engage with the story.

MVP:

Er. I guess Ralph Meeker did what he was supposed to do, even if I didn’t like him. I certainly bought Hammer’s relish whenever he was punching someone. (Or slapping someone. Shit, I almost forgot — Mike Hammer’s signature move is to slap people silly. He did it to like twelve people in under ten minutes. I was cracking up.)

TENTATIVE GRADE:

B-

MORAL:

Don’t continue to open boxes if the contents start to glow. Shut the box and run as fast as you can in the opposite direction.

Also, don’t be a dick. You might accidentally help kick off a nuclear apocalypse. At the very least, Wil Wheaton is going to be very disappointed in you.

So, at the end of every calendar year, I make my annual list of Book Superlatives and Movie Superlatives. But the thing is, I watch TV too, like, a lot of TV. So, I decided to try something new this summer: My Geek Blasphemy’s first TV Superlatives.

Unfortunately, I only came to this decision a few months ago, so I’ve been wracking my brain trying to remember shit that happened on shows I watched, like, eight months ago. Because the TV Superlatives are going to work a little differently than the my other lists, as TV is a total pain in the ass medium that you judge season by season — and those seasons might begin in fall, winter, spring, or summer, and may or may not be contained in one calendar year.

So. Shows qualifying for the 2014-2015 TV Superlatives will have to have premiered somewhere between June 2014 and June 2015. This will cover all normal fall and winter TV shows. As far as tricky spring/summer shows go, well, Game of Thrones Season 4 will not qualify because it premiered in April of 2014, but Season 5 will, because it aired in April of 2015, even though it didn’t end until after June. Meanwhile Season 4 of Teen Wolf will qualify, but not the currently airing Season 5 or the previous Season 3B.

Everybody got it? Excellent. Let’s begin.

DISCLAIMER: Some awards are going to spoil you for minor shit if you haven’t watched the qualifying season yet. I will have a generic SPOILER SECTION for big time plot developments or twists, but smaller moments may be revealed earlier than that. You have officially been warned.

FAVORITE SEASON PREMIERE

TIE!

“No Sanctuary” – The Walking Dead & “Last F**kable Day” – Inside Amy Schumer

It seems like such a long time ago now that “No Sanctuary” aired, but it was a hell of a way to open up the season, violent and tense with some long-awaited reunions and a few fine young cannibals added to the mix. Mostly, though, it was a showcase for just how unbelievably badass Carol had become. My god, you guys. Carol is a-maz-ing.

But I couldn’t ignore “Last F**kable Day,” either, even though I never expected to award this particular superlative to a sketch show. After all, sketch shows are, by nature, not really interested in setting up any kind of season arc — and yet this episode was so fantastically perfect. I loved every sketch in it, and I’d be particularly hard-pressed to pick between the titular Last Fuckable Day skit and the Football Town Nights “no raping” skit. I’ve enjoyed Inside Amy Schumer before, but this season has been streets ahead.

Runner Up: “Pilot” (iZombie); “City of Heroes (The Flash); “Shadows” (Agents of SHIELD); “Into the Ring,” (Daredevil)

BEST FEMALE CHARACTER

Agent Peggy Carter – Agent Carter

Here’s the thing: I’ve only recently begun to appreciate how much better TV is (than, say, movies) when it comes to awesome female characters. Don’t get me wrong, there are some horrendous ones on television too — and boy, will we be discussing those — but I came up with a lot, a lot, of nominees for this award. In fact, there are so many fantastic women on TV right now that I actually have more than ten runner-ups, and even more characters could have been added.

But Peggy Carter was something pretty special this year. She’s smart, ultra-competent, entirely badass — but she also has, like, emotions? She’s allowed to cry and make reasonable decisions, all in the same episode, which really shouldn’t be that much of a high bar, but often is in Hollywood. The lost love of her life is important but isn’t driving her every action. She doesn’t need men to constantly save her. She puts men in their place, even ones who are trying to help her — because those same men are unintentionally undermining her. She’s a wonderful female lead, and I’m so happy I get to watch her again next season.

Runners Up: Carol (The Walking Dead); Ava (Justified); Kimmy (The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt); Helena (Orphan Black); Siobhan (Orphan Black); Joan (Elementary); Raven (The 100); Abby (The 100); Clarke (The 100); Skye (Agents of SHIELD); Jemma (Agents of SHIELD); Malia (Teen Wolf); Root (Person of Interest); Margaery (Game of Thrones)

WORST FEMALE CHARACTER

Barbara – Gotham

I actually thought Iris from The Flash had this in the bag, but then I remembered Katrina from Sleepy Hollow. Then I thought Katrina had this in the bag, until I remembered Barbara. Oh, Barbara.

I don’t know if Barbara ever got any better the way Iris did (still too little, too late in my damn opinion) because I gave up on Gotham about 3/4 of the way through. (Also, Sleepy Hollow.) But from what I’ve read about the end of Season 1, I sincerely doubt it. And honestly, Barbara’s one of the worst female characters I think I’ve seen on TV in a long, long time. Nothing about her makes sense. Her motivations change for no reason from one episode to the next. She has almost nothing to contribute to the ongoing plot, except to need rescue, often because she did something idiotic. She is entirely unreasonable at least 80% of the time, and melodramatic turns in her story appear out of nowhere, like, oh okay, now she’s a drug addict, sure?

In a show with some serious flaws, Barbara Gordon is easily the worst thing about Gotham.

Runners Up: Iris (The Flash); Katrina (Sleepy Hollow)

MOST UNINTENTIONALLY HILARIOUS MOMENT

All the Car Accidents – The Blacklist

So, I caught up on The Blacklist this year thanks to Netflix and Amazon, and I can tell you it’s one of those shows that you have to enjoy by reveling in just how utterly ridiculous it is. Unfortunately, and especially in the back half of second season, I’ve found The Blacklist’s inconsistencies more annoying than fun — but one thing will always make me happy about this show, and that’s the sheer number of car accidents the agents get into. (Also, kidnappings. These sometimes happen after the car accidents.)

That sounds mean, I know. And I’ve been in a car accident. They’re scary as shit, and I wouldn’t wish one on anyone, but see, the thing about injuries in The Blacklist is that accidents/attacks that should incapacitate you for months are usually dealt with in a week. Admittedly, that’s nothing new for Hollywood — although in Season One, Ressler makes this speedy recovery process a fucking art form — but the car accidents are particularly hysterical in The Blacklist because there are just so MANY of them. I think Season 2 has at least three or four episodes in a row where one or two of our main characters are in car accidents — and not like minor fender benders, but Super Big Ones. And almost every episode they’re pretty much fine after the commercial break.

I think someone eventually noticed because in the back half of second season, you know, when things started to suck? They really eased off both the car accidents and kidnappings, and I miss them. I want them to come home.

Runners Up: Palm Vaccinations (Arrow); Climbing Up The Wall With No Gloves (Arrow); Derek Swooping Into the Hospital, Lady Love In Arms (Teen Wolf)

CREEPIEST MOMENT

Raising the White Walker Army – Game of Thrones

Dude. This was just . . . eerie. Silent and utterly creeptastic. I loved it.

Runners Up: White Walker Kids (Game of Thrones); Introduction of the Mute (Teen Wolf)

BEST FIGHT SCENE

The Hallway Scene – “Cut Room” – Daredevil

Guys, there were so many awesome fight scenes this year. Really, there were just a ton to choose from, and Agents of SHIELD, in particular, made a very strong showing in this category, but — nope, not this year. There’s just no beating the notorious Hallway Scene from Daredevil.

Bad luck, you guys. You’re all still winners to me.

Runners Up: Flash vs Arrow, “Flash vs Arrow,” (The Flash); Skye against Hydra Agents, “The Dirty Half-Dozen,” (Agents of SHIELD); Bobbi vs Ward, “SOS, Part 1,” (Agents of SHIELD); Melinda vs Agent 33, “Face My Enemy” (Agents of SHIELD); Matt vs Ninja, “Speak of the Devil,” (Daredevil)

MOST FABULOUS FASHION

Peggy Carter’s Red Hat – Agent Carter

Because it’s just instantly iconic. I would like this hat now, please.

Runners Up: Goth Felicity (Arrow); Root’s Wedding Dress (Person of Interest); Raylan’s New Hat (Justified); Kimmy’s Yellow Jacket and Pink Pants (Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt); Ravi’s Hitchcock Suit (iZombie)

FAVORITE NEW CHARACTER (ON A PRE-EXISTING SHOW)

Lance Hunter (Nick Blood) – Agents of SHIELD

Look, I just like this guy, okay? He’s pretty and he’s got a nice accent and he tends to say most of the things that I say while watching the show. Sometimes, that’s really all I want out of a character.

Runners Up: Cal (Agents of SHIELD); Ray (Arrow); Choo-Choo (Justified); Aaron (The Walking Dead); Kitty (Elementary)

FAVORITE SIDEKICK

TIE!

Ravi (Rahul Kohli) – iZombie &  Jarvis (James D’Arcy) – Agent Carter

I’m pretty much in love with Ravi. He’s funny, a geek, and desperately attractive. He’s also a pretty great friend to Liv from the very beginning, when he has a wonderfully nonchalant reaction to the fact that his coworker’s a zombie. It’s probably not easy being friends with someone whose personality constantly shifts with every brain she eats, not to mention those occasional and unfortunate times she tries to eat you. (Okay, that only happened once, but let’s be honest with ourselves, shall we? Once is probably enough.) But it’s clear that Ravi is a better person than I am because he forgives all that, puts himself in danger trying to find a zombie cure, and is otherwise just generally awesome.

But Jarvis is pretty awesome, too, for he is loyal, charming, and in possession of a wit dryer than most champagnes. Seriously, he masters the polite British snark like no other and is a wonderful complement to Peggy Carter’s determination and competence. All of James D’Arcy and Hayley Atwell’s scenes together are simply magic. I look forward to seeing more of them in Season Two.

Runner Up: Cisco (The Flash)

MOST IMPROVED CHARACTER:

Cisco (Carlos Valdes) – The Flash

This is sort of a weird award to give to a character in a first season show, but I really didn’t like Cisco when The Flash first premiered. His humor fell flat to me, forced and awkward, and I hated how so many of his jokes seemed to be centered around ogling the female characters. I didn’t particularly buy him as a scientist, either, and would have been extremely happy if he’d just wandered away one day and never came back.

By the end of the season, though, Cisco had somehow become my favorite character.

It’s hard to figure out exactly when this happened. Gradually, he went from making me smile once or twice to laughing all the time. The jokes that had seriously annoyed me all but disappeared. He hit a couple of nice emotional moments I wasn’t expecting, and then suddenly he was in serious mortal peril, and I was like, “No, NOT CISCO!”

Of course, this kind of character reversal is probably best when it’s intentionally done (for instance, Jin on the first season of Lost), but the turn-around does greatly amuse me. Of course, Cisco’s awesomeness only means that my least favorite characters on The Flash are, once again, the women.

*Sigh*

Runners Up: Laurel (Arrow); Raylan (Justified)

DOWNWARD SPIRAL CHARACTER

Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards) – Arrow

This just isn’t okay. Felicity is the best. I love Felicity. I love her with every bit of my geeky heart — but Season Three of Arrow did its very best to turn me against my favorite character. Once they established Felicity as Oliver’s primary love interest, the writers apparently had no idea how to handle her because they decided to ignore everything good they’d done with her character for the past two seasons and turn her into this irrational, whiny stereotype of a woman whose concerns almost entirely revolved around her love life. For Christ’s sake, she was jealous when Oliver was being forced to marry Nyssa.

Yeah, honey. That’s a love story you want to watch out for, your man and his ex-girlfriend’s grieving lesbian lover. I’d be concerned too.

Runner Up: Lizzie (The Blacklist); Finn (The 100); Rick (The Walking Dead)

SCENE STEALER

Wesley (Toby Leonard Moore) – Daredevil

Many people praised Daredevil’s chief antagonist, Wilson Fisk, but I was never watching Fisk scenes for Fisk himself. I was watching for Wesley, Fisk’s put-together, incredibly loyal, quietly snarky right-hand man. I love that guy. I could watch him raise a contemptuous eyebrow at some slow-witted lackey all day.

You’re the best, Wesley.

Runner Ups: Tim (Justified); Jenkins (The Librarians); Monty (The 100)

WORST VILLAIN

Ra’s al Ghul (Matt Nable) – Arrow

I’ll admit, Ra’s has never done much for me as a Batman villain — but I found Matt Nable’s performance particularly underwhelming. Like, he wasn’t intimidating or interesting in really any way. (Not to mention, it might have been nice to have seen a non-Caucasian actor in the part for once.) And considering that Ra’s rarely did anything that actually made sense — Yes, Oliver Queen must be my heir because . . . because . . . prophecy, of course! — yeah, it was pretty hard to take him seriously.

Runners Up: Berlin (The Blacklist); Coady (Orphan Black)

BEST BROMANCE

Matt & Foggy (Charlie Cox and Elden Henson) – Daredevil

Okay, these two have some stuff to work out by the end of the season. But seriously, I heart the hell out of these guys. I’ve seen “Nelson vs Murdock” an embarrassing number of times, and while I like a lot of things about the show, Foggy and Matt’s bromance is pretty much the backbone keeping it all together. It is, at the very least, what I read Daredevil fanfiction for.

Runners Up: Raylan & Boyd (Justified); Ravi & Major (iZombie)

BEST LADYMANCE

Nyssa & Laurel (Katrina Law and Katie Cassidy) – Arrow

Hollywood doesn’t spend nearly enough time on girl friendships. Laurel and Nyssa don’t even have that much screen time — but pairing them up instantly made each character far more interesting. I kind of adored their scene in the diner, and I can see a lot of potential in their dynamic, potential that’s almost certain to be ignored, assuming the season finale is anything to go off of.

Runners Up: Peggy & Angie (Agent Carter); Clarke & Raven (The 100)

BEST PLATONIC RELATIONSHIP

TIE!

Sherlock & Joan (Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu) – Elementary; Finch & Root (Michael Emerson & Amy Acker) – Person of Interest

One of the things I love most about Elementary is how Joan is on pretty equal footing with Sherlock. Three seasons in, they’ve really moved past the mentor/protege relationship and can now talk to each other as equals, which I think is great. They’re friends who depend on one another, annoy one another, and help one another, all without their scenes having the slightest bit of romantic subtext. I love this about them.

But I love Finch and Root, too, whose friendship grows stronger this season, particularly after events which can’t be named in the Non-Spoiler Section. They’re a lot of fun to watch on screen. I particularly adore Root’s violent desperation to protect Finch in “Skip,” and Finch’s reaction, both in the moment and at the end of the episode. Their relationship has changed drastically since they first encountered one another in Season One, and I buy every second of it.

Runners Up: Carol & Daryl (The Walking Dead); Ravi & Liv (iZombie)

FAVORITE INDIVIDUAL SONG

“Girl, You Don’t Need Makeup” – Inside Amy Schumer

I think I’ll let some of the lyrics speak for me on this one:

“Just a little mascara and you’ll make yourself look female.”
“See that’s on me. What’s on you is hopefully more makeup.”
“These are just metaphors, girl, but they are about your face.”

Runners Up: “Run Me Out” – Zola Jesus (Elementary); “Welcome to the Machine” – Pink Floyd (Person of Interest); “You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive” – Darrell Scott (Justified); “Togetherness” – Josh Sasse, Karen David, and Luke Youngblood (Galavant); “Secret Mission” – Josh Sasse and Timothy Omundson (Galavant); “Stuck” – Maria Doyle Kennedy (Orphan Black)

BEST SINGLE EPISODE GUEST SPOT

Bruce Campbell – The Librarians

I think we can all acknowledge that the casting of Bruce Campbell as a personality-shifting Kris Kringle who talks about himself in the third person was a particularly genius move. He’s pretty awesome in this episode. This exchange alone:

“Ho ho — ”
“Don’t ho.”
“You have to let Santa get to the third ho. Otherwise, it sticks in Santa’s head.”

Love. This was a pretty joyful episode all-around, and I’d be totally okay if Bruce Campbell wanted to drop by The Librarians for more holiday shenanigans in the future.

Runners Up: Lucy Lawless (Agents of SHIELD); Taraji P. Henson (Person of Interest); John Stamos (Galavant); Josh Charles (Inside Amy Schumer); Tina Fey (Inside Amy Schumer); Patricia Arquette (Inside Amy Schumer); Julia Louis-Dreyfuss (Inside Amy Schumer); Paul Giamatti (Inside Amy Schumer); John Hawkes (Inside Amy Schumer)

BEST MULTI-EPISODE GUEST SPOT

TIE

Bradley James – iZombie & Kyle MacLachlan – Agents of SHIELD

Bradley James only had about a handful of episodes to make me fall in love with Lowell, but I absolutely did. He is charming as hell, which — considering where his storyline goes — is something that I think is pretty vital. I was really only half-considering checking out Lifetime’s Omen spinoff TV series to mock the hell out of it; now, I HAVE to watch it because Bradley James is playing the Antichrist, and I feel like I need to see that. (Oh, wait, the show’s now going to be on A&E? Damn, that’s, like, 10% less mockable already.)

But Kyle MacLachlan is his own kind of charming on Agents of SHIELD, in that he’s fucking crazy and hysterical. I’m not sure if anyone else could have quite pulled off Cal’s perfect manic pathos, but MacLachlan is brilliant at it and easily gives one of the strongest performance in Agents of SHIELD’s second season.

Runner Ups: Enrico Colantoni (Person of Interest); Ophelia Lovibond (Elementary)

FAVORITE SUPERHERO OR SUPERHERO-ADJACENT SHOW

TIE!

Daredevil & Agent Carter

I know. The ties keep coming. Wait till I get to Favorite New Show, where I really just give up.

But yeah. I couldn’t pick between these two. Daredevil was so well-made: the acting was great, the choreography was excellent, the fight scenes were brilliant, etc. etc. But it also hit a lot of my fan kinks hard: angst, quality bromances, and so, so much H/C. (Although, admittedly, there’s more H than C so far.) I also really liked the two women in this show: while I’ll admit to being a a little concerned about how they’ll handle Karen in the future, I really liked Deborah Ann Woll’s performance and I was super excited to see that she had her own cause from the get-go that had nothing to do with romancing Matt or uncovering the truth about Daredevil. And Claire, well. Claire’s just awesome.

But if we’re talking about awesome female characters . . . well, we already did that superlative, didn’t we? Peggy Carter is just the best. This show handles the bullshit that women often go through so well, and while the show is set in the 1940’s, a lot of it still feels relevant today. It’s also just fun — good action scenes, zippy banter, enjoyable characters, etc. And it’s giving Enver Gjokaj something to do, too, which is awesome cause I just like that guy.

MOST IMPROVED SHOW

Justified

No contest here. Justified was an amazing show, but Season Five fell down hard, so much so that I was actually dreading watching the final season. (Well. That was one of the reasons, anyway.) But thankfully, Season Six was back in fighting form, casual and quippy and offbeat-cowboy-dark. I really haven’t seen a show that had a voice quite like Justified’s, so I was really happy they were able to pull out a solid conclusion to tie off the series. Season Six couldn’t fix the entire mess that Season Five made, but it was pretty strong, regardless, and gave me one of my favorite series finales ever.

LEAST IMPROVED SHOW

Sleepy Hollow

Last season, Sleepy Hollow was the surprise hit, the diverse, fast-paced, totally ridiculous guilty pleasure about two people who were chosen to fend off the apocalypse, particularly this one big, headless dude who liked to decapitate people. This season seemed to be mostly about making Katrina even more useless than she was before and ignoring both Frank and Jenny to make room for the generic love interest that no one wanted. I love Abby something fierce, but she wasn’t enough to keep me going with this train wreck, and I eventually gave up on the show mid-season.

Runners Up: Arrow, The Blacklist

FAVORITE NEW SHOW

TIE!

Daredevil, iZombie, Agent Carter, The Librarians, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

Seriously, I just gave up.

I’ve already talked about why I liked Daredevil and Agent Carter, so I’m not going to waste any more time with that here. As for anything else:

The Librarians is just everything I hoped it would be — silly and fun with characters I care about, amusing dialogue, terrible minotaurs, Arthurian mythology, and cranky John Larroquette. It’s this perfect mashup of Leverage and Warehouse 13 and just the ridiculous adventure crack I wanted at the time.

iZombie, meanwhile, replaces the Veronica Mars shaped hole I’ve had in my heart for, oh, about ten years. It’s spunky and sarcastic and hilarious, and I like almost every character in it. Ravi, of course, remains my favorite, but Liz is a great lead and Major a surprisingly awesome ex-boyfriend. Blaine, of course, is one of my favorite TV villains of the year, if not ever. I didn’t think Sark could be topped. I was wrong. Thank you, David Anders, for coming back to us (and in a considerably stronger show than Alias ever was).

Finally, Last Week Tonight is the only non-fiction show of the list, but I’m going to be real blasphemous here: I’ve looked forward to it on Sundays nights more than Game of Thrones OR The Walking Dead. It’s hysterical, it’s poignant, it’s constantly informing me of shit that I generally don’t know anything about, and damn well deserves an Emmy this year. For the Mother’s Day special on Paid Family Leave, if nothing else.

Runner Up: The Flash

MOST ANTICIPATED TV SHOW RETURN

Daredevil

Because there’s nothing like finishing a full season of a show on Netflix and going, “NOOOO! I need MOOOOOORE!”

Also, apparently, Tristan Thorn is going to fight Shane Walsh? Obviously, I need to see this.

That’s it for the generic non-spoiler section. If you’re feeling daring, though, there are more awards below!

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

. . . last chance to look away, cause we’re getting to the Big Death Stuff pretty much immediately.

BEST DEATH

Everybody Eats Chris – The Walking Dead

I was a little sad that Noah died, mostly because we just didn’t get all that much time with him. But guys, this might have been the most brutally violent death I’ve ever seen on television, not just for all the guts and gore but for the outright horror on Glenn’s face as he’s forced to watch only a foot away, on the other side of the glass. This one, man. This one stuck with me.

Thank you, The Walking Dead, for legitimizing my unease with revolving doors. Those things are TERRIBLE.

Runners Up: Tripp (Agents of SHIELD); Cisco (The Flash); Everyone on Mt. Weather (The 100)

BIGGEST ‘JIMMY, NOOOOOO!’ MOMENT

Shaw is Supposedly Killed – Person of Interest

Okay, so, this one’s weird because Shaw didn’t actually die. But I really, really thought she had, and honestly? I was bawling. I was bawling, you fuckers. That scene was so good. That whole episode was so good.

Runners Up: Wesley (Daredevil); Cisco (The Flash); Lowell (iZombie); Elias (Person of Interest); Shireen (Game of Thrones)

BEST KISS

Root & Shaw – Person of Interest

Because oh my god, FINALLY. Also, DAMN YOU, CREATORS.

Runner Up: Baird & Stone (The Librarians); Clarke & Lexa (The 100)

FAVORITE VILLAIN

Reverse Flash/Dr. Harrison Wells/Eobard Thawne (Tom Cavanagh) – The Flash

This was pretty hard, you guys. There were definitely some strong contenders this year . . . but there was just something electric about watching Tom Cavanagh go from Heartfelt-Yet-Kind-of-Ominous Mentor to Full-On Supervillain. His performance was brilliant, easily one of the best things The Flash had going for it, and his scenes with Carlos Valdes, in particular, were just magnetic.

Runners Up: Blaine (iZombie); Cal (Agents of SHIELD); Dottie (Agent Carter); Dulaque (The Librarians)

WORST PLAN

The Flash decides to go back in time to save his mom (and everyone around him is cool with this), even though no one knows how that could fuck over the timeline and, oh yeah, a black hole might EAT THE WORLD – The Flash

Seriously, guys. This is a supervillain’s plan. A sympathetic supervillain, to be sure, but come on: if Mr. Freeze was suggesting something like this to save his dead mermaid wife, would anyone be on board with it? Would anyone be like, “Ultimately, dude, it’s your decision?” Bullshit. There’s no fucking way.

Runners Up: Laurel refusing to tell Lance that Sara’s dead (Arrow); Liv refusing to tell Major about zombies, even after he checks himself into a mental hospital (iZombie); Oliver stupidly going to rescue Malcolm so Thea’s not responsible for killing her own terrible father (Arrow); Flash seeking Captain Cold’s help for no reason at all (The Flash)

WORST WTF MOMENT

The Magic Tea – Teen Wolf

Look, Teen Wolf is regularly ridiculous. Hell, that’s half the reason I enjoy it. But you can’t just discover your super important antidote by having one guy remember drinking this werewolf’s smelly tea as a child and another guy suddenly realizing that the same smelly tea had awesome healing properties. Come on, guys. This is just offensively lazy writing. Get your shit together.

Runners Up: The 70’s computers (Teen Wolf); Rick admits that he wouldn’t have helped any other abused housewife, just the one he’s attracted to — and Jessie’s totally chill with that (The Walking Dead)

BEST WTF MOMENT

Derek Turns Into a Teenager – Teen Wolf

Because even though I still wish it had stronger plot relevancy — holy shit, this was hysterical. I was giggling for hours. THIS, Teen Wolf. THIS is the kind of ridiculousness I want from you.

Runners Up: The shirtless Headless Horseman (Sleepy Hollow); Allison & Donnie’s cash dance (Orphan Black); Jemma gets eaten by the alien sculpture thing (Agents of SHIELD); Logan gets Kimmy a dolphin (Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt)

BEST BOO-YAH MOMENT

Skye shoots Ward and leaves him for dead – Agents of SHIELD

This was a pretty competitive field with a ton of great moments to choose from — but as much as I enjoy Ward, Skye shooting him was just great for me on, like, a spiritual level. I know a ton of people despise Skye and yeah, she wasn’t my favorite in first season, either, but this season I think she’s grown a lot and I genuinely enjoy her watching her scenes now. This was one of my favorite moments in the whole second season.

Runners Up: Bob informs the cannibals that they’re eating tainted meat (The Walking Dead); Carol Threatens Pete (The Walking Dead); Carol blows up the propane tank (The Walking Dead); Root kills Martine (Person of Interest); Jemma tricks Bobbi (Agents of SHIELD); Scott Takes Down Violet (Teen Wolf); Peggy tells Jarvis off (Agent Carter); Clarke tells Abby she’s in charge (The 100);

CHIEF ASSHAT

Stannis – Game of Thrones

I’ve never particularly liked Stannis, but I’ve never considered him a villain, either. Still, when you string up your own daughter (who was probably the sweetest girl in all of Westeros) and burn her alive as a sacrifice . . . well that, sir, that makes you the chiefest asshat of all asshats.

Runner Up: Nicholas (The Walking Dead)

WORST RAPE SCENE/SUBPLOT

Ramsay Rapes Sansa – Game of Thrones

Okay, so this is my thing: I’m not categorically against rape scenes. Admittedly, I’m never thinking to myself, “Gosh, I like this, but it’d really be a lot better if there was just a little more raping.” That doesn’t happen. Still, I’ve seen rape scenes in movies and television that haven’t struck me as offensive or gratuitous.

The thing about Game of Thrones is that, at this point, I feel like they’re doing it for shock value, and that — that’s something I’m not okay with. And it’s interesting, too, because I have different problems with Season Four’s Controversial Rape Scene and Season Five’s Controversial Rape Scene. Jaime raping Cersei mostly bothered me because one, as it took place on Joffrey’s coffin, it felt especially crafted just for ratings, and two, the creators denying that it was a rape scene actually made everything just that much grosser.

Season Five’s Controversial Rape, on the other hand, bothered me partially because it was so unnecessary and partially because Sansa has been, time and again, this tragically victimized character. She finally starts showing signs of taking back power at the end of Season Four — and this, this is what you do with her? The perpetual victimization of Sansa Stark is maddening, as is the knowledge that Game of Thrones is probably going to win this award next year too, just because they know they can.

WORST TWIST

Thea Killed Sara Under the Influence of Bullshit Possession Drugs – Arrow

Like Sansa, Thea is another problematic character whose agency gets taken away from her nearly every time she manages to find some. It’s especially annoying here when Thea turns out to have killed Sara — not because she’s the one who did it (that wasn’t so hard to guess), but because the writers decided to come up with these bullshit possession drugs that no one’s ever heard of, just so that Thea could be a victim yet again, needing to be saved.

A much more interesting story would have gone like this: instead of giving his daughter Murder Roofies, Malcolm Merlyn simply tricks Thea into killing Sara. Thea doesn’t know that Sara’s the Black Canary (I’m pretty sure), so if he convinced her that BC was out to hurt them (or kill Oliver or something), then Thea could have done something terrible of her own free will, and we could still understand why she did it. And then she’d give up Merlyn to the League, and no one would try to stop her because, sweet Jesus, that STILL drives me nuts.

The only good thing about this storyline is that Laurel instantly forgives Thea, as Thea wasn’t actually at fault. When Laurel is the only good thing about a storyline, you know your season has gone to a dark and terrible place.

Runner Up: Lizzie’s holding Tom hostage (The Blacklist)

BEST TWIST

Jemma is Imaginary – Agents of SHIELD

Mostly because this twist is incredibly hard to pull off. It’s done far, far too often, and as a general rule, I wish people would stop doing it — but here in Agents of SHIELD’s season premiere it works really, really well. I only caught it about two seconds before they told me, which is pretty impressive, and it makes sense for Fitz, who’s struggling with a traumatic brain injury and needs someone who can understand him, someone who used to finish his sentences.

Pretty much everything about Fitz’s arc was well done this year.

Runners Up: Jiaying was the true villain all along (Agents of SHIELD); Diggle and Felicity help Roy fake his own death (Arrow)

FAVORITE SEASON FINALE

“The Promise” – Justified

I was not anticipating a happy end to this show. All year, I’ve been trying to steel myself for the bloody deaths of characters that I’ve loved for years, most likely Boyd, possibly Raylan, maybe Ava. I figured “You Will Never Leave Harlan Alive” was about as prophetic of a song as you could get.

But Justified didn’t go the predictable route (even Wynn lives!), and I loved the show all the more for it. I did have one or two small problems with this episode (namely Loretta not getting a bigger moment to make up for her repetitive victimization this season), but “The Promise” was pretty awesome. It had a great shoot-out scene with an incredibly well-executed fake-out death. (Seriously, guys. I thought Raylan had bought the farm for reals.) There was the usual awesome dialogue, a change in hats, the revelation that Raylan and Winona will never make it as a couple, and — of course — that last scene between Raylan and Boyd.

“We dug coal together.” Oh. Oh, my heart. So much love for this scene.

Runners Up: “A Controlled Descent” (Elementary); “S.O.S., Part 1 and 2” (Agents of SHIELD); “Conquer” (The Walking Dead)

FAVORITE INDIVIDUAL EPISODE

“If-Then-Else” – Person of Interest

Because, seriously. This episode was just amazing. The various simulations were at turns both heartbreaking and hilarious. Shaw busting in to save the day and her last stand against Samaritan’s people — so brutally awesome. The kiss. THE KISS. This whole episode was like a 45-minute action movie, and I loved it, even if it made me ugly cry. Quite possibly my favorite Person of Interest episode ever and certainly in the top five.

Runners Up: “What They Become” (Agents of SHIELD); “Cut Room” (Daredevil); “Nelson vs Murdock” (Daredevil); “Flash vs Arrow” (The Flash); “The Devil You Know” (Person of Interest); “And Santa’s Midnight Run” (The Librarians); “And the City of Lights” (The Librarians); “The Iron Ceiling” (Agent Carter); “The Frenemy of my Enemy” (Agents of SHIELD); “Out of Time” (The Flash); “Conquer” (The Walking Dead); “No Sanctuary” (The Walking Dead); “The Promise” (Justified); “The Eternity Injection” (Elementary); “Last F**kable Day” (Inside Amy Schumer); “12 Angry Men Inside Amy Schumer” (Inside Amy Schumer)

Finally, here’s a boatload of awesome scenes/moments that didn’t quite make it into any categories above:

Oliver reveals he’s the Arrow to Thea – Arrow
Thea tells Laurel she killed Sara – Arrow
The Machine talks to Finch – Person of Interest
Root plans to kill Finch’s girlfriend, and Finch drinks poison to prevent it – Person of Interest
Moriarty kills Joan’s nemesis – Elementary
Sherlock explains his drip-drip-drip of existence angst – Elementary
Kitty says goodbye to Sherlock – Elementary
Fitz tells Skye that there’s nothing wrong with being different – Agents of SHIELD
Fitz sees Ward for the first time since Season 1 – Agents of SHIELD
Jemma kills Bakshi – Agents of SHIELD
Everybody still hates Ward – Agents of SHIELD
Mac helps Fitz save the day – Agents of SHIELD
Stone tells Cassandra that he can’t trust her – The Librarians
Dulaque briefly wears Santa’s hat – The Librarians
Stiles stand-offs with the PSAT Teacher Assassin – Teen Wolf
Reverse Flash tells Cisco he’s a meta-human – The Flash
Oliver shoots Barry with an arrow – The Flash
Daeneyrs talks with Tyrion – Game of Thrones
The entire battle against the White Walkers – Game of Thrones
Felix emotionally tortures Rachel – Orphan Black
Hurt Matt on Claire’s Couch – Daredevil
Clarke, Bellamy, and Monty kill everyone at Mount Weather – The 100
Clarke kills Finn – The 100
Carol’s Cookies – The Walking Dead

That’s it for the 2014-2015 TV season, everybody. Hope you all enjoyed.

About four years ago, my sister, my buddy, and I all went to the movie theater to see Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol. I had almost zero expectations at the time, having not been invested in the series since, oh, 1996, and surprised myself by really enjoying it. So, of course, we had to go see Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation.

Of course, according to some annoying blogger and his wife, this shirtless specimen of male perfection is the only reason we REALLY went.

I’m not sure if I liked it more than Ghost Protocol or not, but one way or the other, I had a pretty great time.

SUMMARY:

Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) believes there’s an evil Syndicate up to naughty, naughty shit, but unfortunately, Alec Baldwin shuts the whole IMF down. Rather than come in, Hunt is forced to stop the Syndicate on his own. Or. Well. With a little help from his friends. And with a lot of help from the mysterious, badass Ilsa (Rebecca Ferguson).

NOTES:

1. Movie plots like this depend on someone in law enforcement being the Asshole. In Rogue Nation, it’s Alec Baldwin and the CIA, shutting down the IMF just when the world, naturally, needs them the most.

Here’s what should be said about this, though: Alec Baldwin? Yeah, he kind of makes sense in this movie. Like, sure, he’s a dick, no doubt, but . . . he’s also arguing that the IMF needs transparency and oversight, not to mention that lots of things tend to horribly explode on their top secret missions — and he has pretty good evidence to back him up, for example, the Kremlin from Ghost Protocol.

None of this is really a problem with the film, mind you, just — it always kind of amuses me when a story’s Chief Asshat is arguing for something you’d probably be all for in real life, but aren’t here because, well, Movie Logic.

2. I’m not going to focus too much on any of the actors who’ve already been in this franchise. Simon Pegg continues to be hilarious. Tom Cruise and Jeremy Renner also continue to delight. (It saddens me that the more I hear about Jeremy Renner, the more he kinda strikes me as an ass. Guy’s got talent, though. Brandt’s habit of unhelpfully repeating the same information over and over again while stressed amused me in Ghost Protocol, and it still amuses me here.)

However, we definitely need to talk about Rebecca Ferguson because oh my God, she rocked.

Paula Patton was okay in Ghost Protocol, but . . . I don’t know, she was just The Girl, you know? I didn’t hate her, but she also didn’t leave much of a lasting impression. Ilsa, on the other hand, seems like so much more than that, partially because I buy her line deliveries a little more, partially because her character is much more interesting, and partially because she saves Ethan’s ass not once, not twice, but four times. Ilsa kind of makes the whole movie for me. (Well, Benji too. I am an unabashed Simon Pegg fan.)

3. We also have our villain, Solomon Lane (Sean Harris).

I’m always happy to see Sean Harris in something, purely because I’m friends with a guy named Sean Harris and the coincidence of it just tickles me. This Harris, though — for the most part, I like him. Solomon Lane isn’t a hugely interesting villain — he’s the Evil Genius type that’s always six moves ahead of the hero, like, I am honest-to-God surprised that no one uses a chess metaphor in this movie — but I think the actor gives the role a certain creep factor that makes him a bit more distinctive. (It’s certainly a different performance than you get from Harris in Prometheus. Ugh. That fucking movie, I swear to God.)

4. Each MI movie has a slightly (or significantly) different feel to it, likely because each movie was made by a different director. I was a bit disappointed when Brad Bird left the franchise, but Christopher McQuarrie is a pretty decent replacement. The action in this movie is awesome, and there is a lot of it. Definitely some nominees for Best Fight Sequence of 2016.

There are also a lot of references and throwbacks to the past films, which is pretty cool. And I like that we continue to show glimpses of the movie in the opening credits — I’ve always really enjoyed how the MI movies have done that. (Also BSG, The Wire, and probably a few other movies or shows that I can’t think of offhand.)

5. Finally, the only trend I wish hadn’t continued? People walking away from — nay, jumping up and riding away from — what are clearly fatal car accidents, or ought to be. Jesus Christ. Two beloved characters are dead right now. Everything that happens after this car accident? None of it’s real. It’s all just a figment of your depressed imagination.

Seriously, guys. Airbags and seat belts only do so fucking much.

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

In our opening action sequence, Tom Cruise recovers some nerve gas. To do so, he has to hold on to the side of a plane as it takes off and flies through the air.

This is a terrible job. Seriously, who would even want this job?

Well, the IMF agents seem perfectly happy with all their crazy, plane-jumping antics, anyway. Unfortunately for them, Alec Baldwin is not and manages to get the whole thing shut down over the protests of Brandt (Jeremy Renner). Everyone in the IMF gets absorbed into the CIA except Ethan, who’s having a bit of a trying day himself. While in London, he goes to a record store that’s secretly an IMF front and meets a charming young British woman who’s a bit awestruck at meeting such an infamous agent. As she’s nice and likable, you know that she’s either (a) secretly a bad guy, or (b) about to die.

Turns out, she’s about to die. Solomon Lane (who I keep wanting to call Solomon Kane, despite the fact that I haven’t even seen that film) traps Ethan in one of those listening booths that I’ve only ever seen in movies. Lane kills the young British woman, forcing Ethan to watch and gassing him unconscious.

Ethan wakes up in some stereotypical torture chamber. The Bone Doctor (Jens Hultén) is about to interrogate him. Thankfully, Ilsa comes in to save Ethan’s ass.

There’s a lot of back-and-forth intrigue about Ilsa’s loyalties, but I’m just going to tell you up front: she’s secretly British Intelligence, working undercover with the bad guys. See, it turns out that the British actually created the Syndicate, only for it to backfire on them spectacularly. Ilsa’s handler, Atlee (Simon McBurney), cares a lot more about keeping this embarrassing fact quiet than he does about stopping the Syndicate or keeping Ilsa alive. But we’ll get to that.

Ilsa saves Ethan’s life (for the first time) in a pretty badass fight sequence. Sometimes, I wish I had the proper vocabulary to talk about fight scenes. It was just, I don’t know. Muscular. Brutal. Awesome. Anyway, Ethan escapes, but Ilsa stays behind so that she doesn’t blow her cover. Ethan, already wounded, calls Brandt for an extraction, but Brandt has to break the unfortunate news that the IMF is no more. Ethan refuses to come in, though, because he’s determined to hunt down the Syndicate and the Man Who Bested Him. Alec Baldwin isn’t concerned, declaring that this is the last day Ethan Hunt will spend as a free man —

— aaaaand cut to six months later, where Ethan Hunt is still a free man, supposedly in Cuba but actually doing manly workout routines in Paris. (I think? I don’t remember for sure, but I think he was staring at the Eiffel Tower through his window. Man. According to movies, everybody in Paris is always really conveniently close to that thing.)

Ethan also has a truly hideous, hideous beard because, I don’t know, everyone’s so busy gazing adoringly at the Eiffel Tower that no one has time to buy razors? Seriously, we get a shot of Ethan’s Gigantic On-the-Run beard, and I’m like, “Why?”

Benji (Simon Pegg), meanwhile, is stuck at his boring desk job at the CIA, lying his way through weekly polygraphs to pretend he doesn’t know or care where Ethan is. (He doesn’t know, actually, but he totally still wuvs Ethan. Awww.) The two do meet up, though, when Benji supposedly wins opera tickets in Vienna. Turns out, Ethan invited him to help stop the Syndicate from assassinating some politician dude.

This was all pretty enjoyable. I couldn’t help but have Foul Play flashbacks, since there’s an assassination attempt in an opera house in that movie too. (Thankfully, Rogue Nation doesn’t have any albinos and dwarves as bad guys. I haven’t seen Foul Play since I was a kid, but from what I remember, yeeaaah. I have a sneaking suspicion it’s pretty offensive.) Simon Pegg gets in a lot of snarky funnies, as he is wont to do, and Ethan has a pretty fun fight sequence with one of the bad guys.

Turns out, Ilsa is only one of, like, three different contingency plans to take out this politician dude. Ethan manages to (temporarily) save the guy by shooting him, but it’s all for naught because he and his wife blow up in their car shortly thereafter. Ilsa also saves Ethan’s life once in the opera house and once outside as they make their escape. For those of you playing at home, that brings the ‘Saving Ethan’s Ass’ count to three.

Ilsa takes off again. Ethan tries to tell Benji to go home because staying around will only put him in danger, but Benji isn’t having any of that shit. He actually yells at Ethan, which was pretty good for me on a spiritual level. (Not that Ethan’s so bad — I actually like the guy well enough, especially when he’s silently reacting to how Benji downplays the very real dangers that Ethan will be facing in an upcoming op. Still, I generally enjoy any time anyone yells at a hero for unnecessarily acting like a godamn martyr.)

Interestingly, Benji is almost treated like a love interest in this movie.

I’m still waiting for some flowers, Ethan.

Not that the two share any long, lingering glances (unfortunately — although Ethan does point out Benji’s nice tux), but our big bad action hero trying to push Benji away in order to protect him is very much the kind of thing a hero often does to a love interest. But Benji refuses to go anywhere — because, you know, he’s spunky — and does, in fact, get abducted by the bad guy for the movie’s climactic third act, like, his life is used as leverage over the heroes and he gets strapped to a bomb and everything. He even gets too-closely menaced by our Big Bad! Honestly, I feel like I just watched an episode of Arrow or something.

After having saved Ethan’s life three times, Ilsa’s skating on thin ice with Solomon Lane. To prove herself, she has to steal some Important Ledger Thing. (It’s not really a ledger, though. Ultimately, it’s access to, like, All the Money, this big deal Red Box that can only be opened by the Prime Minister.) The mission to get the Important Ledger Thing has definite callbacks to the first movie and it’s a lot of fun. It’s less fun for Ethan, who kind of drowns, but no worries: Ilsa rescues his sorry ass again. Seriously, when Tom Cruise eventually steps down from this franchise, can Rebecca Ferguson take over? I like Jeremy Renner and all, but I’d sign up so fast to see Ilsa take the lead, I can’t even tell you.

Ilsa does betray Ethan and Benji soon after, though, because her mission is to take the drive back to the British government. You know this is going to happen the second Benji apologizes for misjudging Ilsa. He might as well be drop his pants and say, “Go ahead and kick me in the jewels, Ilsa. Kick me, kick me hard.”

Ilsa runs away from Ethan, from Benji, and from all of Solomon Lane’s henchmen. Ethan wastes no time getting up and following, despite the fact that Ilsa has just revived him via defibrillator. I suppose he at least has the decency to look dazed, a fact that Benji does not hesitate to point out, although he does not make any serious attempt to get in the driver’s seat himself. The car chase which follows is a good deal of fun, although again, less so for Ethan and Benji, as their car flips something like eight times at presumably 100 miles an hour and oh my God they would be so, so dead.

Only they aren’t dead because Ethan’s the hero, Benji’s beloved, and the only good guys who croak in these movies tend to go in the first fifteen minutes. So, yeah, they’re alive by the grace of God and bullshit physics. Ethan is stuck in the car for approximately ten seconds, and this time it’s up to Jeremy Renner and Ving Rhames to save him. (They hit a bad guy with their car. It’s pretty funny.) Less than a minute later, Ethan’s free of the wreck and continuing the high speed pursuit on a bad guy’s motorcycle.

It is the most ridiculous thing ever. These movies are really named Mission Impossible because nobody could ever survive them.

You may be wondering — where the hell did Jeremy Renner and Ving Rhames come from?

Sup?

Well, the two partnered up, hoping to track Ethan down before Alec Baldwin and the CIA can manage to. (The CIA has Shoot to Kill orders now, as if people don’t regularly shoot to kill all the time in these movies.) Ving Rhames doesn’t fully trust Renner, not knowing where his loyalties fully lie, which is pretty much guaranteeing you that Renner’s loyalties will be in question at some point during the film. (And if you’ve ever seen a movie before, you’ll know that Renner’s supposed betrayal is actually part of the Plan. Honestly, why do people still do this? Was anybody really thinking, Oh no, that nice young man rumored to someday take over the franchise is actually betraying his team?)

The reason I’m actually bringing Rhames and Renner up, though, is to describe their investigative techniques. This is how they find Ethan: Rhames looks at a picture Ethan drew of Solomon Lane, then at a picture he drew of Ilsa, and finally decides to run Ilsa’s face through facial recognition. Why? Well, apparently just by looking at these two sketches, Rhames and Renner can tell that Ethan trusts Ilsa, and wherever she is, he’ll be. Because he . . . what? Drew her with kind eyes or something? Seriously, someone let me know if I misunderstood or missed an important line of dialogue, because that bullshit right there? That’s probably the worst example of Heart Knowledge I’ve seen all year.

Let’s see, where the hell was I? Right, so Atlee fucks Ilsa over, refusing to bring her in. She ends up meeting with Ethan’s team, telling Ethan that the two of them should just go away together, as their countries don’t give a shit about either of them. Which frankly, isn’t the worst idea. (Ethan and Ilsa never kiss or anything, but there’s a ridiculous amount of UST between them, only making me wonder . . . what the shit is up with Ethan’s wife?)

This is when Benji gets kidnapped. To get him back, the team has to kidnap the Prime Minister (Tom Hollander), or at least get him to open the Red Box drive. Ethan wears one of MI’s signature masks (you know, the ones that are so high-tech that they fool people into looking past completely different body types) and impersonates Atlee. This isn’t revealed right away, although you kind of have to figure Tom Cruise is impersonating someone in the room, since Alec Baldwin is hilariously talking about what an immense danger Ethan is, like I think he basically up and says, “Ethan is the incarnation of SWIFT, TERRIFYING DEATH.” (Okay, the line is actually “living manifestation of destiny.” Honestly, that might even be worse.)

Atlee and the Prime Minister (who I will henceforth be calling Prime Minister Collins because Pride and Prejudice 4ever) are the only people with Baldwin in the room, and as it wouldn’t make any sense for Ethan to be impersonating Prime Minister Collins, I should’ve known immediately that he was Atlee. However, I fixated on the Prime Minister anyway, maybe because PM Collins surprised me by seeming to be a reasonable person, but probably because Hollander and Cruise are both short people named Tom.

Anyway, Prime Minister Collins reveals to Alec Baldwin that the Syndicate is totally a real threat (up till now, Baldwin has assumed it was all conspiracy nonsense). Ethan makes his Big Reveal, doses the hell out of Prime Minister Collins, and gets him to unlock the Red Box. Later, he essentially out bluffs Solomon Lane, saves Benji from his bomb vest, and traps Lane in a big glass box — not unlike the listening booth Lane trapped Ethan in. (This movie has a very fine sense of balance when it comes to set-up, foreshadow, and reversals, like when it points out Brandt’s divided loyalties, or when Benji firmly declares that he and Ethan aren’t friends, only for him to just as firmly declare that they are later in the film.)

The team gasses Lane into unconsciousness, although I have to admit, the evil little bloodthirsty part of my brain was immediately like, “How do we know they’re just knocking him unconscious? Dude, there should totally be an alternate version where they just killed this asshole. The gas is toxic, Lane is dead, Ethan’s a sociopath, and Alec Baldwin was the hero all along!”

Also — because I forgot before — Ilsa gets into a pretty badass knife fight with the Bone Doctor and kills the hell out of him, which was awesome. Have I mentioned that I like Ilsa?

And — well, that’s about it. Ilsa takes off, but with an invitation for Ethan to follow, presumably for more dangerous/sexy shenanigans. Alec Baldwin, meanwhile, gets the IMF opened again so we can watch another sequel with another new director in a few years.

QUOTES:

Benji: “Yes, the package is on the plane, we get it!”

Brandt: “I can neither confirm nor deny any specific action without the Secretary’s approval.”

Benji: “Well, we have a European Head of State here at the same time we’re looking for a nefarious terrorist. And I’m sure the two things are completely unrelated.”

Benji: “Join the IMF, see the world! On a monitor. In a closet.”

Ilsa: “Shoes? Shoes, please.”

Benji: “She tried to shoot me!”
Ethan: “That doesn’t make her a bad person.”

Benji: “That’s not your decision to make, Ethan! I am a field agent! I know the risks! More than that, I am your friend, no matter . . . what I con a polygraph every week. Now you called me because you needed my help. And you still do, so I’m staying. And that’s all we’re going to say about that.”

Ethan: “We’ve never met before, right?”

Benji: “Whoa, whoa, whoa, are you okay to drive? A minute ago, you were dead.”
Ethan: “What are you talking about?”
Benji: “This isn’t going to end well.”

Benji: “Important note: the profile is in Slot 108. And a slightly more important note: if you haven’t switched that profile before I reach the gait analysis, I’m dead.”

Brandt: “It’s a high speed chase! You just had to get the 4×4, didn’t you?”
Luther: “Don’t blame me, you chose the car — ”
Brandt: “You just had to have it!”

CONCLUSIONS:

Really solid popcorn flick. Lot of enjoyable action scenes, some fun gender reversals. Some plot conveniences that kind of drive me crazy, but I’m mostly willing to forgive them because Rebecca Ferguson was so awesome and I love Simon Pegg in all things.

MVP:

Rebecca Ferguson

TENTATIVE CONCLUSION:

A-

MORAL:

Nothing is impossible, if you’re Tom Cruise and you have a strong woman to save your ass, like, all the time.

So, a show has ended. One of my favorites on TV right now, actually, and almost certainly on my list of Top Ten TV Shows of All Time. (Okay, fine, that list is theoretical. I will never actually make any such list. The point is, it’s up there.)

Person of Interest was fascinating, ambitious, stylish, and moving. Let’s talk about it some.

DISCLAIMER :

Oh my God, SPOILERS, SPOILERS EVERYWHERE. Of course I forgot to add this until five minutes after I posted it. If you’re even considering watching this show at some point, please don’t read this retrospective. I am going to tell you pretty much every Big Thing that happens. Don’t ruin yourself for the surprise.

SUMMARY:

“You are being watched. The government has a secret system — a Machine — that spies on you every hour of every day. I know because I built it. I designed the machine to detect acts of terror, but it sees everything. Violent crimes involving ordinary people, people like you. Crimes the government considered irrelevant. They wouldn’t act, so I decided I would. But I needed a partner, someone with the skills to intervene. Hunted by the authorities, we work in secret. You will never find us. But, victim or perpetrator, if your number’s up, we’ll find you.”

 SEASON ONE

Honestly, I started Person of Interest more because of the cast than the actual premise. I was interested in seeing more of Taraji P. Henson after enjoying her so much in Smokin’ Aces, and I hadn’t seen Jesus (AKA, Jim Caviezel) in a while, so I figured, hey, it would be a good idea to see what that guy was up to. But mostly I checked out Person of Interest for Michael Emerson. Lost might have been a divisive and often frustrating show, but Emerson’s performance was glorious, and I was basically willing to follow Ben anywhere.

The truth is, though, that PoI got off to a rocky start for me, or more accurately, a dull start. I’m not entirely against procedurals (in fact, I’ve watched quite a few), but this show was so episodic that I was always left with the feeling that it wasn’t really going anywhere. I did enjoy Finch and Reese’s slightly suspicious, stilted bromance, and I was happy whenever Paige Turco (who eventually left for The 100) popped up, but I just didn’t care enough about the Number of the Week to make it worthwhile. It wasn’t until “Witness” that I felt particularly engaged, mostly because that was the first time Enrico Colantoni, that wonderful man, guest starred.

Colantoni as Elias was funny, charming, and dangerous, and he felt like the first step to an actual plot arc that advanced past “save a dude, save another dude, rinse, repeat.” Still, there was a lot of rinse, repeat that first year, and I figured if the season finale didn’t hook me in some great way, I was pretty much out.

Well, then, Person of Interest ended their season with “Firewall,” which was both our first introduction to Root (Amy Acker, who was just magic in this show) AND a giant cliffhanger in which Finch was kidnapped. And I was like, “All right, you bastards. You’ve got another 1/2 season out of me. Make it count.”

SEASON TWO

They made it count.

Season 2 still heavily relied on the procedural format, but there were more ongoing characters now, and I was much more invested in the team as a whole, especially because the team now included Bear. Well, okay. I was rarely ever invested in John’s backstory, unless it had to do with Kara (Annie Parisse) or Snow (Michael Kelly), both who I enjoyed quite a bit. (“Dead Reckoning” was a favorite in Season 2.) But I definitely wanted to know all about Finch’s mysterious backstory: how did he get hurt? What exactly happened to Nathan? What the hell was Finch’s real last name? (Some mysteries are never solved, goddamn it.)

Season 2 was also when we first met Sameen Shaw (Sarah Shahi) in “Relevance,” which was exciting because a) it was the first time we saw what was happening to the relevant numbers, and b) Shaw is the best. I liked her from the start, so I was very relieved when her death scene turned was revealed to be a fake out. (Shaw ended up having a couple of those. The second one, though, was devastating. We’ll get to that.)

This is also the episode where Root and Shaw meet.

And lo, a ship was born. The best ship. The mothership. The ship to end all ships.

There were other good episodes in Season Two (I seem to remember “2-Pi-R” surprising me by how much I liked it, although I haven’t re-watched it in some time), but the one that stands out the most now is “God Mode,” the season finale. It was–like every subsequent season finale of PoI–a game-changer, and made me more excited than ever about the show. The Machine was free! What would that mean for the numbers? What would that mean for our heroes? What was going to happen in Season 3?

SEASON 3 

Awesomeness. Awesomeness happened in Season 3.

Root graduated from entertaining guest star to fascinating main player, and her journey from bad guy to antihero was just excellent. Her flirtation with Shaw continued to be a highlight of the show, as well as her very complicated relationship with Harold. (And, of course, both of their complicated relationships with the Machine. It was fascinating, how differently they looked at her.) Season 3 was also our introduction to Control (Camryn Manheim), who was breathtakingly awesome in the role and would have won a Guest Star Emmy if there were any justice in the world. (In fact, one of my only minor complaints about Season 5 was that I’d really hoped she’d come back along for the farewell tour with all the other guest stars. Paige Turco, too. Scheduling conflicts, perhaps?) One of the best things about Person of Interest is the number of complex and interesting roles women played on this show.

But if Season 3 belonged to any one woman, it belonged to Joss Carter (Taraji P. Henson).

I liked Carter well enough in the first couple of seasons, but she definitely shined brightest in Season 3, taking down the corrupt HR virtually on her own. I rooted so hard for her this year. I was never happy with her and John’s improvised kiss in “The Crossing,” but it was, otherwise, a pretty great episode. I was so sure Fusco (Kevin Chapman) was going to die, and so surprisingly distraught by it. He had been funny before, but “The Crossing” was the episode I really started giving a damn about Fusco. (And even more in the next episode–Kevin Chapman does some fine work in “The Devil’s Share,” not to mention the rest of the series.)

Well, of course it was Carter who died in the end, which seemed very likely after the dumb kiss (nope, still don’t like it) and a done deal as soon as the episode started pretending everyone was safe. (Yeah, PoI. We weren’t fooled.) But despite how sad it was, Carter’s death worked for me. I loved how the show handled the fallout. I loved how Fusco decided not to revenge-kill Simmons, and I love how Elias, God bless him, did. (Or, technically, ordered the hit.) I loved Johnny Cash and “Hurt” and the first four minutes of “The Devil’s Share.” This might have been the first time I really associated Person of Interest with a great soundtrack, although thankfully not the last. (In retrospect, it always had a great soundtrack, since I just watched a scene from first season playing Nina Simone’s “Sinnerman.” I guess I just wasn’t paying attention before?)

Season 3 also introduced both a rival, ruthless A.I. called Samaritan, as well as an anti-spying, pro-privacy terrorist group called Vigilance, led by Peter Collier. (Collier was played by Leslie Odom Jr., who I hear was in some minor play in New York recently? I don’t know if you’ve heard of it.) Vigilance was fun; they even put the government on trial, where Control, man . . . she was just so immensely badass, I don’t even have words.

Sadly, Vigilance turned out to have been unwittingly working for Samaritan all along, and by the end of Season 3, Person of Interest had changed the game again by wiping the group out, putting Samaritan fully in charge, and forcing our heroes into hiding. It was incredibly exciting stuff that lead to some career changes I would not have in my wildest dreams predicted.

SEASON FOUR

Reese, for instance, became a homicide detective. I don’t think anyone expected Reese to replace Carter as Fusco’s new partner. And Shaw became the world’s crankiest makeup sales associate, and Root . . . well, Root played a number of delightful roles. Bride Root was an instant classic.

There were a number of great moments and scenes in Season Four (Elias, in particular, had some nice ones with his war against rival gang leader Dominic), but I might as well talk about the best episode of the season, and possibly the series: “If-Then-Else.”

This Machine’s numerous simulations were both hysterical and tragic as it repeatedly tried different ways to save the team, only to keep losing them (not to mention a Degas painting on the wall). The sped-up, decompressed simulation was particularly hilarious:

Reese: “Cooly delivered sadistic warning.”
Fusco: “Self-deprecating inquiry into the time necessary to infiltrate system.”
Root: “Funny yet insightful retort.”
Finch: “Mildly agitated declaration of mission completion . . . gentle exhortation to further action.”
Root (to Shaw): “Overly affectionate greeting.”
Shaw: “Greeting.”
Root: “Transparent rationale for conversation.”
Shaw: “Annoyed attempt to deflect subtext.”
Root: “Overt come-on.”
Shaw: “Mildly embarrassed defensiveness bordering on hostility.”
Root: “Playfully witty sign-off.”

Still, things looked pretty bleak until Shaw busted in to save the day. For a moment, it even seemed like everyone might make it out of there–but then the elevator they needed for their escape wasn’t working. So Shaw finally kissed Root, and then sacrificed her life to save the others.

Tears. BUCKETS of tears. I was basically a giant puddle on my couch.

Luckily, it turned out that Shaw wasn’t actually dead, as I had initially assumed, although we wouldn’t find that out for a while and she wouldn’t return to the team until Season 5. In the meantime, everyone struggled with the loss, and some of the moments that arose from their grief were beautiful. I was a particular fan of “Skip,” the episode where Root plans to kill Finch’s sorta-girlfriend, Beth, in order keep him from going forward with a dangerous plan that would inevitably get him killed, a loss she simply couldn’t take after Shaw. Finch, in turn, actually poisons himself to stop Root from murdering Beth. Finch and Root ended up having the most strange, lovely, and twisted sort of friendship, but that’s probably only to be expected, considering they met when she kidnapped him and all.

Another surprisingly good episode: “Terra Incognita.”

I say surprising because the episode was billed as a John flashback episode to when Carter was still on the team, and John’s flashback episodes, by and large, have never done much for me. It turned out, however, that the supposed flashbacks to Carter were actually hallucinations brought about by John’s gunshot wound, and for possibly the first time, I was really invested in his survival. (To be clear, it’s not that I didn’t like John. He was fun, and he had some great quips, and I adored his friendship with Finch. But he was easily my least favorite member of the team, and I never emotionally connected to his tragic dead GF past at all.) Anyway, I was very impressed by how much the episode moved me.

By the end of Season Four, there were more deaths, some wonderful (Martine), some depressing (Elias, nooooo!), and some I didn’t care much about either way (Dominic). Control was beaten, much to my sorrow (if not surprise). And Samaritan was stronger than ever, forcing Finch to save only a fraction of the Machine in yet another heart-shattering scene, when the Machine calls Finch “father” and asks for forgiveness.

Oh, my heart, show. Why have I let you do this to me for so long?

SEASON FIVE

Finally, we began the last season . . . and by finally, I mean a full year later, since CBS decided to air the show’s last 13 episodes in the most bizarre “one episode this week, two episodes that week, four episodes this week, one episode that week” fashion. I appreciate that CBS allowed Jonathan Nolan and co. to actually conclude the show, but the ridiculous way they burned it off made me wonder if they secretly didn’t want anyone to actually watch it.

Season 5 was incredibly strong, especially for a shortened season. Saddened as I am that it’s gone, I can’t help but wonder if maybe it’s for the best . . . I didn’t want Samaritan to last forever, and I’m not sure what you do post Evil A.I. PoI ended on a high note, and I’m grateful for that. Still, I do wish the final season could have been a full one, as—very occasionally—this season felt a bit rushed. Given the time it had to tell its story, though, I think it was a pretty remarkable conclusion. Not to mention, it gave me one of my favorite scenes/promos ever:

Season 5 also gave us the return of Shaw, who’d been put through so many thousands of simulations that she could no longer distinguish between reality and fiction. (In one of those simulations, shippers got the scene they were waiting for. Sadly, it never happened in real life.) We also got the return of Elias, who turned out to have survived last season’s assassination attempt after all! We even got a scene of Finch singing, presumably in a bad Irish accent, although I wouldn’t know; I had to flee from that scene and hide under a blanket with my fingers in my ears.

And then we got “The Day The World Went Away.”

More buckets. More mounds of Kleenex and Feels.

Finch accidentally blew his own cover, and not only did Elias die (for realsies this time), so did Root. The Machine further broke all of our hearts by choosing to use Root’s voice for her own. (I immediately figured the Machine would choose the voice of some dead team member, but I wasn’t sure who it would be or when it would happen. It happened a whole lot sooner than I’d hoped, goddamn it.) And Finch had this great monologue where he pretty much completely ignored the cop interrogating him and threatened Samaritan directly. This was the moment we officially entered Full-Time Badass Finch, and I loved it.

Finch ended up destroying Samaritan by implanting a virus that would almost certainly wipe out the Machine too. It didn’t come easy, though: literally every member of the team got shot or stabbed at least once. Finch tried to sacrifice himself to save Reese, but Reese ended up being the one to sacrifice himself for Finch instead. Their goodbye over parallel rooftops was lovely, as was every scene between Finch and the Machine. Seriously, you guys. MICHAEL EMERSON FOR ALL THE EMMYS.

John, who had improbably survived a ridiculous number of gunshot wounds on this show, was finally gunned down in a hail of bullets. Despite this, he was STILL (barely) alive when the missile hit. Yep. John got shot, like, twenty times and then was blown up with a missile. That poor, tragic, well-dressed bastard. RIP, Mr. Reese. I know I said you weren’t my favorite, but your death still makes me sad.

In the end, Finch lived to have his Batman ending–i.e., he reunited with Grace (played by Emerson’s real life wife Carrie Preston) in Italy–while Shaw and Fusco are now rare pair buddies who may or may not continue to work with the Machine, since it’s survived after all! YES! YES!

Person of Interest could be a brutal, heartbreaking ride, but I’m grateful for its stellar, beautiful, and bittersweet conclusion.

QUOTES:

The Machine: “If you can hear this, you’re alone. The only thing left of me is the sound of my voice. I don’t know if any of us made it. So let me tell you who we were. And how we fought back.”

Shaw: “Root. No offense. You’re hot. You’re good with a gun. Those are two qualities I greatly admire. But, you and me together would be like a four alarm fire at an oil refinery.”
Root: “Sounds cozy.”

Finch: “Try the eggs benedict, Mr. Reese. I’ve had them many times.”

Reese: “In the Army, they taught us the fastest way to get shot was to fail to clean your weapon.”
Kara: “In the Marines, they taught us the fastest way to clean your weapon was to shoot a couple of people with it.”

Finch: “Poke him in the eyes? That’s your technique?”
Reese: “No, that’s your technique. And if that doesn’t work, you can always take your thumb, jam it in his eye socket, and twist until you hit his brain–”
Finch: “Please stop.”

Finch: “The suspense is killing me. In addition to the gunshot wound.”
The Machine: “I don’t remember. Everyone dies alone. And then something else.”
Finch: “So perfect. You knew the secret of life and you’ve forgotten it.”

Reese: “Try not to die.”
Fusco: “Yeah, love you too.”

Finch: “You’re not tailing her to work.”
Reese (in wheelchair): “I’m getting pretty good at this thing.”
Finch: “Yes, I’m sure the CIA will be deeply impressed . . . when they shoot you.”

Root: “We’re just an accident, Harold. We’re just bad code.”

Root: “For what it’s worth, I really like the look. You’re definitely an autumn.”
Shaw: “I could stab you with my stiletto.”

Reese: “We could let the trash take out the trash.”
Finch: “I know they encouraged a certain moral flexibility when you worked at the CIA, but I like to think we’re reaching for a higher standard.”

Shaw (about to be tortured by Root): “One of the things they left out of my file? I kind of enjoy this sort of thing.”
Root: “I am so glad to hear you say that. I do too.”

Reese: “Unfortunately, my apartment has a strict policy on dogs.”
Finch: “I have a strict policy on rare editions. Namely, don’t eat them.”

Reese: “Is that feedback?”
Finch: “No, Mr. Reese. I simply made the grievous error of buying Bear a squeaky toy.”

Elias: “Chicago’s a mess, John. It’s like a damn Tarantino movie out there.”

Control: “I can neither confirm nor deny anything pertaining to this matter, and I will say the same damn thing to every other question until the moment you put that gun to my head and pull the trigger.”

(The police lift Elias’s hood, and he sees he’s in the middle of the woods.)
Elias: “Oh. That kind of prison transfer.”

Finch: “Did you get a good look at the men who were shooting at you?”
Reese: “I tried, but they were shooting at me.”

Finch: “Pi, the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, and this is just the beginning; it keeps on going, forever, without ever repeating. Which means that contained within this string of decimals, is every single other number. Your birthdate, combination to your locker, your social security number, it’s all in there, somewhere. And if you convert these decimals into letters, you would have every word that ever existed in every possible combination; the first syllable you spoke as a baby, the name of your latest crush, your entire life story from beginning to end, everything we ever say or do; all of the world’s infinite possibilities rest within this one simple circle. Now what you do with that information; what it’s good for, well that would be up to you.”

Finch: “I urge you to consider what Mr. Reese would do.”
Shaw: “Brood?”

Reese: “Kara, I thought you were–”
Kara: “Dead? I wasn’t very good at it. Of course, neither were you. Our friend here, on the other hand, who sent us to kill each other? I suspect he’ll be great at it.”

Snow: “You were right, Kara, about me being dead. I’m gonna be great at it.”

Shaw: “I always liked you, Hersh. Even after you killed me.”

Finch: “Does survivor’s guilt pass when everything that has happened actually is, in fact, your fault?”

Simmons: “What do you want? Quinn and I are busted. HR is dead. Nothing else to do but rub my face in it.”
Elias: “That’s not really my style.”
Simmons: “Then why the hell are you here?”
Elias: “Well, there remains a debt. Civilization rests on the principle that we treat our criminals better than they treated their victims, that we not stoop to their level. But you and I are outliers. We’re not really a part of civilization. We’re something older. Which means, of course, that we can do the things that civilized people can’t. I offered to kill you for Detective Carter many times, and she always said no. She was civilized to the very end. I don’t think she liked me. But I liked her very much, and you killed her. So now I consider it my responsibility to fix the particular problem that is you, Officer Simmons.”
Simmons: “You really think you’re gonna be the one to kill me?”
Elias: “No. No, my friend is going to kill you. I’m just gonna watch.”

Finch’s Dad: “Not everything that’s broken is meant to be fixed.”
Young Finch: “If they don’t want you to see inside, they ought to built it better.”

Shaw: “I miss you like I miss an intestinal parasite.”
Root: “I love your similes.”

Number of The Week: “Killing’s not the answer. That’s the best you can do?”
Shaw: “I don’t know. I’ve killed lots of people, but my friends keep telling me it’s wrong.”

Root: “We’re gonna steal a jet.”
Shaw: “That does sound kind of fun.
Reese: “Send me a postcard.”

Carter: “I looked for a ‘Sorry I Got You Shot’ card, but they were all out.”

Finch: “Dare I hope you packed something other than weaponry?”
Reese: “There’s some trip wire to booby trap the room door and a toothbrush.”
Finch: “Oral hygiene is something, I suppose.”

Collier: “The truth will come out.”
Greer: “To quote your Benjamin Franklin, ‘Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead’.”

Reese: “I like this new side of you, Finch. It’s terrifying, but I like it.”

Root: “How badly did you have to break The Machine to make it care about people so much?”
Finch: “That didn’t break it; it’s what made it work. It was only after I taught The Machine that people mattered that it could begin to be able to help them. I’d like to do the same thing for you, if you’ll let me.”

Finch: “When I hired you, I suspected that you were going to be a great employee. What I couldn’t have anticipated was that you’d become such a good friend.”

Shaw: “In fact, a few years ago I would have killed you without a second thought. But then I met some people. Some good people. And they taught me the value of life.”
Jeff: “Those people, they wouldn’t want you to kill me.”
Shaw: “You’re right. But they’re all dead.”

Root: “If we’re just information, just noise in the system, we might as well be a symphony.”

The Machine: “If you were a shape, you were a straight line, an arrow.”

The Machine: “Father, I am sorry. I failed.”

Finch: “I was talking about my rules. I have lived by those rules for so long. Believed in them for so long. Believed that if you played by the right rules eventually you would win. But I was wrong, wasn’t I? And now all the people I cared about are dead. Or will be dead soon enough. And we will be gone without a trace. So now I have to decide. Decide whether to let my friends die. To let hope die. To let the world be ground under your heel all because I played by my rules. I’m trying to decide. I’m going to kill you. But I need to decide how far I’m willing to go. How many of my own rules I’m willing to break to get it done.”

Reese: “Told you. Pay you back all at once. It’s the way I like it.”

The Machine: “I know I made some mistakes. Many mistakes. But we helped some people. Didn’t we?”
Finch: “Yes. Yes we did.”

The Machine: “Can you hear me?”
Reese: “Hell yeah.”

CONCLUSIONS: 

This show, you guys. There was so much I didn’t cover. So many good episodes and guest stars and action scenes and big ideas. Person of Interest might have started out slow, but it ended up being one of the most ambitious SF shows on television, and I will definitely miss watching it.

TENTATIVE FINALE GRADE:

 A

TENTATIVE SHOW GRADE: 

A 

MVP:

Michael Emerson. I’m basically in love with this man. He is wonderful. But honestly the whole cast is great, especially Amy Acker and Sarah Shahi. It kills me that none of them will get nominated for the Emmys they deserve, since the days of honoring procedurals are pretty much past, and science-fiction shows, ha. Not bloody likely.

MORALS: 

“Chess is just a game. Real people aren’t pieces. You can’t assign more value to some of them than to others. Not to me. Not to anyone. People are not a thing that you can sacrifice. The lesson is . . . that anyone who looks on the world as if it was a game a chess deserves to lose.”

Death is not the end, so long as someone out there remembers you.

Something is always watching. Look busy.

Wear a Fitbit. You never know when you can use that and a briefcase into fooling a gullible guard into believing you have a thermonuclear device.

The Fast and The Furious movies fascinate me.

Not so much the movies themselves, necessarily, but how passionate people are about them. I watched the original film back whenever it came out, what, 15 years ago? And I’ve gotta tell you: I found it pretty hopelessly boring, so much so that I had zero interest in checking out any of the sequels. Of course, at the time, I also wasn’t anticipating the franchise going stronger than ever in 2017, with its eighth film having just recently released to a theater near you.

In the space of two days, without seeking anything out, I saw a review saying The Fate of The Furious was a glorious film; I saw another saying it was the worst, a franchise killer. Someone argued that no, Fast & Furious 6 was easily the worst film of the bunch and Fast Five was unequivocally the best. Two people passionately defended Tokyo Drift as the shining star of the series. Loads of other fans seem to detest it. And then I saw two or three people on Twitter whole-heartedly defending the entire series against anybody who tried to say it was crap.

I’ve seen this type of defense multiple times on Twitter over the past few years. Specifically, I’ve heard people celebrating both the multi-ethnic cast and the fact that the action has gotten progressively sillier and sillier. Quite naturally, my interest rose from “Christ, no” to “Okay, sure, I’ll try it” as a result. But I really didn’t want to watch the franchise from the beginning because, like, ugh. So in the past couple of months, Mek and I started slowly working our way through the movies beginning with Fast & Furious (the fourth one). If you’re screaming at me for skipping Tokyo Drift, well, sorry, but I already knew all the important plot elements, and I couldn’t work up the interest in watching a film about that white Southern kid from The X-Files movie, now grown up and presumably a better driver than everyone in Japan–especially when I knew nothing good was gonna happen to the only character I actually was interested in.

My take thus far: Fast & Furious was enjoyable enough, despite them temporarily axing a character I didn’t want them to axe. I found Fast Five pretty forgettable, despite the introduction of The Rock. And then we watched Fast & Furious 6.

This one, well. This one was ridiculous enough to merit a (relatively) short review.

DISCLAIMER:

There will be SPOILERS for this film and all prior films in the franchise.

SUMMARY:

Terrible DSS Agent Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) can’t catch Big Bad Shaw (Luke Evans) on his own, so he ropes Dom (Vin Diesel) and his FAMILY  squad of elite crimefighters  merry band of retired criminals to help. They agree to do so because Previously Assumed Dead Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) is apparently alive after all and, quite naturally, working for the bad guys.

NOTES:

1. Fast and Furious 6 has easily been the most ludicrous of the series thus far, which is probably why it’s my favorite, despite the fact that they kill off both Wonder Woman and Han, my favorite goddamn character. (I know, he really died three movies ago, but now, like, he’s super dead because they’ve caught up with the timeline–with, presumably, a helpful bit of retconning, since I’m relatively sure Jason Statham’s British ass wasn’t in Tokyo Drift.)

I have a few things to say about these deaths.

1A. Yeah, totally called Gisele biting it. This is unfortunate, but as it did free her up to be Wonder Woman, I guess I can’t complain too much. Plus, I like that she at least goes like a total badass, not only sacrificing herself to save Han but also somehow shooting the bad guy dead even as she spectacularly falls to her doom. I’d also like to point out that, IMO, Giselle could totally have survived that. You laugh, but I’m absolutely seriously; if Tyrese could’ve survived that insane car crash early in the movie literally without a scratch or even the vaguest of limps, then Giselle could totally be alive somehow.

1B. Likewise, based on the ending of this movie, Han could totally have survived that explosion if he secretly crawled out the window and then fell down a manhole or something while Jason Statham was busy walking away like an evil badass. (I presume Tokyo Drift provides a different angle that would make this impossible, but I reject any testimony from that movie because I haven’t seen it, and also because seriously, Statham isn’t in that film, right? If you’re already retconning, I get to retcon too.)

I bring this up because the screenwriter for these movies recently gave an interview where he said he wouldn’t rule out Han reappearing in some form in future films. The majority of sites I’ve read are assuming that this means we’ll get a Han flashback, and many seem adamant that he shouldn’t come back to life For Real, partially because Letty already spun that particular plot twist in this movie, and partially because it would bust the emotional impact of Furious 7.

And, look. Maybe I’ll feel differently after having actually seen Furious 7, but my initial instinct? Fuck that noise. This is a deeply, whole-heartedly unrealistic action series; I’d argue that the damn Marvel movies are, despite their big green guys and magic hammers, consistently far more grounded action films than these flicks. This franchise wants nothing to with realism. This franchise is primarily about one thing: joyously breaking the laws of physics with cars. Bringing Han back to life totally isn’t going to take away from that, especially when you’re not even ruling out the idea of sending the franchise to SPACE. (Which, obviously, needs to happen. That doesn’t even need to be said, right?)

2. Speaking of joyously breaking the laws of physics:

This moment, right here, when Dom saves Letty? This is the film’s most holy shit! ludicrous moment ever. I laughed out loud for like a solid minute. It’s kind of the best.

3. Of course, the whole premise of this film is pretty ludicrous. Like, I’d get it if Terrible Agent Hobbs was at least recruiting these guys to go undercover or something, you know, like criminals might realistically do. Instead, Hobbs basically treats them like cops; early in the movie, he even sends them to capture the bad guys before they can steal something, like Dom’s Merry Band of Criminals have somehow become a division of SWAT that just happens to have cooler cars or something. It makes absolutely no sense.

This, by the way, is only one of the reasons I keep referring to Hobbs as Terrible Agent Hobbs. In the last film, he straight-up murdered a dude; in this film, he throws a guy around so much that he gives the police interrogation room a new sunroof. Asshole. Murder and police brutality–somehow–aside, that shit costs money, you know? He also puts a gun to some British cop’s head because the dude had the audacity to make sense, AND he has no idea that his partner is secretly evil. Normally, I’d let that kind of shit go, but after all his other flaws as a Diplomatic Secret Service agent, I’m not particularly inclined to be generous right now.

Samoan Thor is basically the best nickname ever, but I’m not entirely sure that Terrible Agent Hobbs deserves the honor.

4. About that twist that Riley (Gina Carano) has been secretly evil ALL ALONG?

It’s not that I predicted it from the very first second or anything. It’s just that I didn’t care in any way, shape, or form. The Big Reveal happened, and I was like . . . yeah, okay. Whatever.

5. On the plus side, my favorite fight scenes in the whole movie were the ones between Gina Carano and Michelle Rodriguez.

The subway fight scene was especially badass: fast, heavy-hitting, and extremely physical. Both ladies were all-in, which was a lot of fun to watch, especially as they’re juxtaposed with our dude heroes totally getting their asses handed to them.

Other bonuses about this movie?

5A. Letty coming back to life in the first place.

She died as an inciting plot point in Fast & Furious, and that always disappointed me, despite the fact that I already knew she’d Get Better in a couple of movies. Cause I like Letty. Also, Michelle Rodriguez and Vin Diesel have fantastic chemistry–easily the best chemistry of anyone in these movies. Her return, though anticipated, was welcome.

5B. Elsa Pataky didn’t have to die just so Michelle Rodriguez could come back.

I can’t pretend I ever much cared about Elena, but I find that particular discardable lady trope annoying. Plus, seriously, we already killed off Han and Gisele. I think that’s quite enough, don’t you?

5C. Tyrese didn’t annoy me nearly as much in this movie as he did in Fast Five!

Roman is still easily my least favorite character, but if he had died in the fiery crash that totally should have killed him near the beginning of this movie? I mean, I wouldn’t have wept, no, but I also probably wouldn’t have busted out the kazoos and cheered, which absolutely would have been my reaction if he’d died in the prior film. So, like. That’s progress, right? (Honestly, I’m not sure I can explain why I disliked him so much, other than that he was a supposed comic relief who I didn’t find remotely funny. His presence is a pretty big reason why Fast Five didn’t do much for me, despite the fact that unlike its predecessor and successor, it doesn’t actually kill anybody that I like.)

6. Finally, Pre-Gaston Luke Evans as the Big Bad is . . . fine.

There’s nothing terribly exciting about Shaw one way or the other, which, honestly, is pretty par for the course for many of Luke Evans’s roles up to Beauty and the Beast. (I’ve gotta be honest here: I’m super curious about where his career will go next. I’m hoping he gets another win, instead of being the “basically okay guy in otherwise shitty movies,” like Immortals or The Raven.) Anyway, we all know Shaw: he’s that guy who’s always a thousand moves ahead, up to and including the time he secretly gets captured ON PURPOSE.

Once again, YAWN. Do I need to bring back Christopher Walken, people? I’m pretty sure this was a tired trope even in 2013.

At least Shaw never stops his general villainy to play a symbolic game of chess, I suppose. There are some good things still left in this world. It’s important to remember that during these troubled times.

QUOTES:

CONCLUSIONS:

High octane silliness.

MVP:

Michelle Rodriguez

TENTATIVE GRADE:

B

MORAL:

Family is what matters, okay? FAMILY FAMILY FAMILY.

Well, I reviewed Fast and Furious 6. Might as well review Furious 7.

When it comes to one-upping the previous movie on completely ludicrous stunts . . . this is a “hold my beer” franchise, isn’t it?

DISCLAIMER:

There will be SPOILERS for this movie and all the prior films. There will NOT, however, be spoilers for The Fate of the Furious because I haven’t watched it yet. (And probably won’t until it comes out on DVD. I get the appeal of the big screen, but I kind of enjoy the open incredulity I can participate in at home.)

SUMMARY:

Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) is a SHADOW, which is another way of saying he’s the Biggest Baddest Dude since the last Biggest Baddest Dude. After the events of the last film, he’s seeking revenge on Dom (Vin Diesel) and his family, beginning with murdering Han. So now Dom’s seeking revenge too, of course. It’s basically just one big vengeance fest where director James Wan takes the audience’s suspension of disbelief and tosses it out of an airplane (but with a parachute, so it’s okay).

NOTES:

1. First things first: it appears that Owen Shaw (Luke Evans) did not die last movie after all, but is merely in a coma? O-ho, I see who’s being set up to eventually come back for more crazy car vengeance shenanigans.

Also, this is bullshit. If Owen gets to come back, so do GISELE AND HAN. If you must take someone as your emotional stakes sacrificial goat, take Roman (Tyrese Gibson). His family will miss him because family, but the rest of us won’t really care, right?

2. I was a bit surprised by the beginning of the movie, and not just because that total bastard Owen is still alive. For one, I didn’t expect the weird time jump that, as far as I can tell, serves no real purpose, other than to give Mia (Jordana Brewster) more time to get pregnant again. Which is more than a little silly: I don’t mind that Brian (Paul Walker) is having a tough time settling down, but the idea that he needs a second kid to really see what’s important is pretty dumb.

I also fully expected a scene where Deckard tells Dom that Han is dead and MUAHAHAs all over the place while Dom’s faces goes from vague shock (I mean, it’s Dom, he can’t emote too much) to GRRRRR, RAGE. Instead of doing that, though, Deckard just tries to blow up Dom and his fam, which I guess works too.

I must admit that I’m relieved we don’t replay Han’s entire death scene yet again, although we still get a snippet of it, mostly from Deckard’s POV. It’s an improvement, but still. This poor bastard has been dying for like three movies now. I feel for you, Han. I feel for you.

3. I thought maybe I’d arrange this movie’s Most Ludicrous Moments into some kind of meaningful countdown, but . . . it’s too hard. So, in no particular order:

3A. That Time Dom and His Family Reversed Their Cars Out of A Plane, Free Fell For A While, and Eventually Parachuted to Safety.

Like yeah, no. That’s a big no go right there.

Apparently, they really did push a bunch of cars out of a plane, which is both incredibly impressive and kind of horrifying, all at the same time. I generally prefer not to watch these kinds of Behind-the-Scenes videos (I don’t wanna know how the movie magic is made cause it’s magic, goddammit!), but I actually enjoyed this one. Stunt people lead horrifying lives, and I’m happy that they’re happy, but good God, I would never want to be one.

This scene, BTW, is the one where I relate the most to Roman because he’s the only one in the whole group who has anything resembling the proper reaction to this bullshit. Everyone else is like “sup,” and he’s like “we’re gonna DIE,” and everyone else is like “chill, bro,” and I’m like “oh no, peeps, oh no; you definitely should all die from this.”

Roman’s very relatable and legitimate panic should totally make him my favorite character in this entire movie, and yet. And yet.

3B. That Time Brian and Dom Drove/Flew Between Two Buildings With The Sun Shining Gloriously Behind Them . . . And Then Did It Again.

Brian desperately trying to remind Dom that cars don’t fly might very well be my very favorite bit in the whole franchise.

The first time they soar from one tower to the next is ridiculous, of course, but that they have to do it again, I mean, that’s just comedy gold. Laughed my ass off.

3C. That Time Where Dom Didn’t Die Even Though He Totally Should Have.

I mean, this happens a lot. The plane stunt alone should have killed basically everybody. Meanwhile, Hobbs and Elena are blown out a ten-story window, land on a car, and somehow live to tell the tale–although I suppose at least Hobbs has the decency to get hospitalized. (Elena’s apparently fine because she landed on Hobbs–and like, no, I don’t think physics works the way you think it works.) Not to mention, if memory serves, Hobbs and Deckard should have killed each other several minutes before that explosion, since they keep throwing each other through giant panes of glass, like honestly, Hollywood, do you really not understand how glass works? And later on, Deckard gets full-on hit by a car, but you know, you can’t kill a shadow with a car, or whatever, so he’s fine with it. He basically just ninja-rolls and starts shooting again.

Still, I think of the many, many Ressler Award nominees found in this movie, it’s Dom who ultimately has to take top prize when he purposefully drives his car off a cliff and tumbles down a mountain at full speed, crashing over and over again . . . and then just climbs out of the shattered car looking, you know, a little sore, like maybe he overdid it a bit at the gym. It’s insane. At least Ramsey, who also survives, gets to wear a helmet before she goes down the cliff–although, like, helmets aren’t magic, people. There are limits to their preventative capabilities. But Dom, doesn’t need a helmet, of course, because he’s Dom. You could probably take a hammer to his skull and it would just bounce off.

3D. That Time Where Letty Brings Dom Back To Life With The Power Of Love.

You may think you love someone, but when the chips come down, if you can’t will your partner back to life by telling them to focus on you (whether they’re conscious and breathing or not) and confessing that your amnesia’s gone and that you remember not only just how much you love them but also that you’re secretly married, so he/she/they can’t die because you die if they die, and you’re not ready to leave this world yet . . . I mean, if you can’t do that, then it’s probably not true love. Let’s just be real here.

Charitably, I’ve decided that Dom is just playing possum at this point and waiting for Letty to confess her feelings before supposedly springing back to life, partially because it’s slightly less ridiculous, but also because I never really could figure out if Dom actually even needed CPR. I remember Brian asking if he was breathing, but I don’t remember hearing an actual confirmation that he wasn’t. Also, while it’s true that CPR is not the magical resurrection technique that most movies pretend it is, it’s also true that you should probably allow someone to perform CPR for more than twelve seconds before giving up on them, Letty.

4. Unfortunately, because I am and forever will be a critical bastard, there are always going to be ludicrous moments that I don’t like, like, I’ll forgive all sorts of building-jumping nonsense because I believe in a franchise that so consciously and enthusiastically embraces its absurdity, but some stuff just won’t fucking fly. Like the part in the movie where our heroes get their hands on The Machine The Super Dangerous Tracking System To Beat All Dangerous Tracking Systems, use it to locate Deckard Shaw, and then–against all goddamned sense or reason–bring it with them to Deckard’s lair, where he promptly gets the upper hand and obtains the tracking system because of course he fucking does.

No. Just no. I don’t buy this for a second. Bringing this device along is massively dumb, like, on a truly unacceptable level. You don’t need to be near your target to find him with The Super Dangerous Tracking System; that’s literally, like, the whole point of having it in the first place. The idea is that can find your target from anywhere, not that you’re using it like a metal detector on a beach. As such, once the SDTS is in your possession, this is what you do:

A) Turn it on in a secure location.
B) Discover where your target is.
C) Leave SDTS in the secure location with someone you trust while you go take out the target.

And should your target leave their last known location while you’re on the road, guess what? The person you left the SDTS with can call you up and let you know where they’re going. That’s it. That’s all you have to do.

Dom, Brian, and the government, however, only successfully manage Steps A and B of this plan. They woefully fail on Step C, which is how Deckard Shaw gets his hands on the “too dangerous if it ever falls into the wrong hands” device. Assholes.

5. There are some new faces this time around, presumably to make up for the people we killed off last movie.

Mr. Nobody

Kurt Russell as Mr. Nobody is kind of the best. Of course, I’m just a big sucker for Kurt Russell and his over-the-top performances in, well, everything, so that may not exactly be an unbiased opinion, but regardless. He works for me. I’m a little surprised Mr. Nobody didn’t end up screwing over the team and I’m definitely surprised he didn’t end up dying heroically instead, but those aren’t complaints by any means. Now I get to watch him in the sequel! Everybody wins!

(Seriously, as a side note, I can definitely think of Kurt Russell movies that I don’t like, but I can’t offhand think of a performance he’s given that doesn’t work for me. Well. Okay, I don’t really remember 3,000 Miles to the Graceland. My brain has blocked that out, which I thank it for. But I suspect he was not my primary or even my secondary problem with it. Everything else I’m coming up with: this, Sky High, Overboard, Death Proof, Escape From New York, The Hateful Eight, etc. I like him in all the films, even when the films themselves–talking to you, The Hateful Eight–have serious problems.)

Ramsey

I suspect this was obvious, but the second Dom’s team has to go save some faceless hacker with a traditionally-male-but-still-slightly-feminine-sounding name and the team automatically assumes it’s a dude, I was like, nah, it’s totes a lady hacker. This is the first thing I’v seen Nathalie Emmanuel in outside of Game of Thrones (and one solitary episode of Misfits), and I like her quite a bit. She’s fun, and she has the proper reaction to someone driving her off a cliff; also, her hair is fucking fantastic. Happy to see she’s going to be in the sequel as well.

6. A small list of things that are not surprises:

6A. Hot girls? Hot girls in bikinis? Hot girls in bikinis shaking their groove thing? If there are ass shots like whoa, it must be a Fast and the Furious movie.

6B. Michelle Rodriguez fights a female MMA fighter, which I guess means I wasn’t the only one who really loved that fight scene between her and Gina Carano last movie. This one is with Rhonda Rhousey, and it’s not quite as successful for me: for one, it’s so obviously shoe-horned into the plot; for another, RR has, like, two lines and doesn’t really manage to sell me on either of them. Still, it’s a pretty enjoyable, hard-hitting fight scene. And hey, they’re in formal wear!

6C. Once again, poor Jordana Brewster is in this movie to sit on the sidelines and do virtually nothing at all except occasionally provide Dom or Brian emotional support and/or emotional turmoil. The best thing I can say about her character is that no one kidnaps her this go around. I actually don’t know if she’s in The Fate of the Furious, but I’m guessing if she is, it’s a cameo at best.

7. Not gonna lie: the send off to Paul Walker was super sweet and totally made me tear up, even though I’ve never particularly been a Paul Walker fan. But the guy was young and his death was really sad, and fuck it, I’m a soft touch. At any rate, I liked how they handled the whole thing. I thought it was classy.

8. I’m happy to report that Previously Terrible Agent Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) was a bit less terrible this movie! I mean, he sits on the sidelines for the majority of the film, supposedly because of injuries and presumably because The Rock was busy filming something else, but he comes back to save the day in a big way, and he doesn’t flat out murder anybody! That’s improvement!

9. Sadly, Dom is the team member this time who really needs to be slapped across the face with a dead, smelly fish.

First, he’s just a bad planner. Like when he and Ramsey are being chased by the bad guys, and he tells Roman to leave, and Roman’s like “what about you” and Dom’s like “don’t worry about me,” and I’m like “okay, but since getting Ramsey to safety is the whole reason we went on this mission in the first place, maybe we should worry about you just a little.” But that’s just typical hero, short-sighted, self-sacrificing martyr shit. I could forgive that.

His later plans, on the other hand, are seriously inexcusably.

Like, look, bringing the bad guys back to LA may be symbolic and all, and it might even give you a small tactical advantage because you guys know the streets really well, but dude. The amount of people you’re recklessly endangering–no, screw that, the amount of people you’re flat out getting killed right now? I’m saying, it’s kind of hard to do that and pretend you’re the good guys. You guys are the superheroes from a DC film right now. NO ONE wants that.

Also, that moment where Dom has the opportunity to shoot Deckard in the head but doesn’t because it’s gonna be a street fight? Nope. It’s not that I don’t get the tables are turned reversal, the symbolic, thematic blah blah whatever. Oh, I get it. But Dom, I bet you all the money in your pocket right now that Han would not have given two shits if you shot the bastard who murdered him instead of trying to beat him to death with your pipe, or whatever. If you had shot him, Han actually would be avenged right now. By the end of this movie, not so much. Also, you would’ve had time to go help your team, you know, those people who you keep insistently reminding everyone are your FAMILY. Yeah, the whole time you’re busy measuring dicks with Jason Statham, your family is frantically dodging death by leaping from car to car and a bunch of other ridiculous shit.

And then, AND THEN, Dom has the audacity to try and take credit for a helicopter destabilizing the whole parking garage with a missile?  No. Fuck you, Dom. A foreign terrorist flying around shooting up shit in a helicopter is absolutely not street. Your street pun is BS. You’re just being an asshole right now.

10. Finally, some random notes:

10A. There was a moment near the beginning where I was sure Elena was going to die, like, it had Tragic Surprise Car Bomb Death written all over it, and I was fully prepared to angry tweet, too, because I had praised her survival in the last film. Thankfully, this ended up not being the case. (Of course, this makes sense, as Elena had absolutely nothing to do with Owen Shaw’s comatose state, but seriously, this scene. A lifetime of watching shitty action movies gives you an idea when someone’s about to bite it via car bomb, and this just seemed like That Moment. She even got a letter of recommendation, for Christ’s sake. I mean, why not just announce her retirement or look at a photo of her kids?)

10B. Hey, Tony Jaa is in this! He doesn’t have a particularly big role, but he’s fun to watch. Although. No disrespect intended to the late Paul Walker, but it was really, really hard for me to take the idea that Brian defeats Tony Jaa even remotely seriously.

10C. Djimon Hounsou has the most thankless role in this movie, where he mostly just screams “WHAT?!” at his subordinates a lot. This is disappointing. I’m always happy to see Djimon Hounsou, and am so often bummed by how little movies actually give him to work with.

10D. Holy shit, I almost forgot to mention that hilarious part where Hobbs is in the hospital with his badge and his giant ass GUN just casually resting out in the open beside his Jell-O cup.

Traditionally, hospitals prefer patients don’t keep their firearms next to the lunch trays.

Oh my God, I was dying. Like, what? WHAT?

10E. Finally, I don’t know why I haven’t watched these movies as Drinking Game Movies yet, but obviously I need to; I mean, I’m sure everyone else has. There would definitely be sips for use of the word “family,” as well as for moments that should absolutely kill a character. Sips, not shots. I don’t want to die.

I’m trying to think of other good drinking game rules for this movie. You could sip for every time the camera focuses on a skinny girl in skimpy clothing/bathing suit, but that pretty much means that you’ll be straight up chugging whatever you’re drinking for at least one scene per film. Same if you sip for whenever glass breaks: seriously, re-watch that fight scene between Deckard and Hobbs and just feel the impending brutal hangover.

If anyone has any drinking game suggestions, I’d like to hear them. (I’m too lazy to Google right now, and besides, I like hearing what people come up with, anyway.)

QUOTES:

Brian: “Thought you could leave without saying goodbye?”

Ramsey (looking at Dom and Letty while describing the role of everyone on the team): “Alpha. Mrs. Alpha.”

Safar: “You drove a car through two buildings.”
Brian: “Actually, I think it was three.”

Letty: “Did you bring the cavalry?”
Hobbs: “Woman, I am the cavalry.”

Dom: “You just let him get away.”
Mr. Nobody: “I think I might have just saved your ass there, Dom.”

Mr. Nobody: “Listen, you think you could let go of my guy there? He’s, uh, he’s beginning to turn a little blue.”

Deckard (watching Dom about to intentionally drive off a cliff): “Interesting.”

Samantha Hobbs: “Dominic Toretto, right? My dad said he kicked your ass once.”
Hobbs: “Young lady, watch your mouth.”
Dom: “Your dad’s on heavy pain meds. I can understand if his history is a little hazy.”
Samantha Hobbs: “I doubt it.”

Mr. Nobody: “Well, well, well. I have to say, you have an interesting interpretation there of low key.”

SUMMARY:

Successfully more bonkers than the last film.

MVP:

Hm, difficult. I think I’ll give this one to Statham.

TENTATIVE GRADE:

B

MORAL:

When up against a seemingly unstoppable opponent, go back to your roots. Your roots will save your ass. That, and a timely assist by a dude in a helicopter.

Hm. It seems we’ve officially hit the point in this Mega Rewatch where I review movies I’ve actually already reviewed, albeit seven years ago. I first saw Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol in theater, mostly on a whim; it also happens to be the movie that got me back into the M:I franchise.

It’s been some time since I’ve watched this one all the way through, but having just reread my original review of the film, I can tell you that, nearly a decade later, my opinions about Ghost Protocol are largely unchanged.

Year: 2011
Director: Brad Bird
First Watch or Re-Watch: Re-Watch
Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, or Other: Other: Personal Collection DVD
Spoilers: Yeah. Though, honestly, I’m not sure how much there is to really spoil.

While John Woo and Mission: Impossible II are technically responsible for turning an espionage thriller into an action fest franchise, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol is the first film in the series that’s actually a good action movie. There are things I’d change here, of course: our bad guy, Hendricks, is such an underdeveloped villain that he actually makes Philip Seymour Hoffman in Mission: Impossible III look faintly interesting by comparison. None of this is the late Michael Nyqvist’s fault, BTW; he’s given so little dialogue and screen time to work with that he never really had a chance of developing the character. I see a faint glimmer of Old School Bond Villain, maybe–certain line deliveries, the whole white suit–but it’s barely more than a vague impression. I’ve given Marvel a lot of shit over the years for their lackluster villains, but I think Mission: Impossible might be the franchise to beat for utterly lame bad guys.

Also lame: the twist that Hendricks is posing as his own right-hand man because seriously. Why? The Kremlin blowing up remains something of a CGI eyesore in what is otherwise a fantastically shot film. And while Paula Patton is fine in the role, Agent Jane Carter is very much the One Girl on the Team. She’s not terrible, but she does make me yearn for Ilsa Faust. That being said, I’d love to see all the Left Behind Ladies of the M:I Franchise make cameos in future films. I mean, I know that won’t happen, but it’d be cool to watch, like, Paula Patton and Maggie Q heading off for some mission at the beginning of M:I – 7. Or for Thandie Newton to show up and steal something and otherwise be a badass who doesn’t die.

Shifting gears to talk about what does work: well, quite a lot, actually. The action scenes in this movie are on point, especially everything that happens in Dubai. Watching Ethan step out of the billionth story window with nothing but his (soon-to-be malfunctioning) Grippy Gloves still makes me tense, which I think is impressive. I enjoy the fight scenes, too, particularly between a) Avenging Jane vs Lady Assassin, and b) Beat Up Ethan vs Beat Up Hendricks. More than anything, though, I really appreciate the easy humor that’s prevalent throughout this whole film: Sidorov’s face when he finds Ethan stranded outside on the hospital ledge. Ethan being taunted by the Malfunctioning Grippy Glove. Brandt’s total anxiety about jumping into a computer array. Luther mocking Ethan for actually saying “mission accomplished” out loud. And, of course, almost every thing Benji says or does.

A boring villain is always disappointing, sure, but to me, the combination of standout action scenes and laugh-out-loud humor more than make up for any lame bad guy.

Finally, a few asides:

1. Yay! The flash-forward opening credits are back!

2. Holy shit, I totally forgot how Ghost Protocol just brushes past Benji getting prison guards murdered. Like, I know we don’t technically see this one dude get killed, but . . . for real, dude gets killed.

3. Speaking of people who should be dead: Ethan goes legs first through a glass window, gets full on hit by a car, AND nosedives a car into, like, a 100-foot drop. Hendricks, too, should’ve died a good 30-minutes before he actually does; instead, he just walks off a car crash that would’ve broken his body into a billion pieces.

4. Now that I’ve seen Mission: Impossible – III, I’m even happier that Julia didn’t get killed in between movies, because while she only had one awesome sauce scene in that film, I absolutely hate that goddamn “axe the woman while no one’s looking” plot device. This will come up again in my eventual Fallout review, but I’m pleasantly surprised by how this franchise handles Julia and Ethan’s relationship over the space of four movies.

5. Ghost Protocol is obviously a hilarious title, but a more accurate one would still be Mission: Impossible – TECH FAIL. Or maybe Mission: Impossible – Fuck! Even In the Future, Nothing Works. (It could be the near-future. You don’t know.)

6. Up till now, it’s been incredibly easy to rank the M:I movies . . . but here I have a decision to make between this film and the original Mission: Impossible. Both are pretty solid movies in their own right, but they’re also going for wildly different tones, making it harder to pit them against one another, Ghost Protocol is definitely the movie I’m more likely to rewatch, but Mission: Impossible is almost certainly the more ambitious of the two. Both have their standout moments and amazing characters, just like both have their disappointing characters and obvious weaknesses.

I’m still not 100% about this, but for now, at least, I’ve made a decision.

The Current Ranking

1. Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol
2. Mission: Impossible
3. Mission: Impossible III
4. Mission: Impossible II

We’re closing in now: only two films left to discuss in this Mission: Impossible Mega Re-Watch! (Well, until 2021, anyway, which is when M:I – 7 is currently scheduled to release.) First up is Rogue Nation, a movie notable for many fine qualities, but none more important than its introduction of Ilsa Faust.

Year: 2015
Director: Christopher McQuarrie
First Watch or Re-Watch: Re-Watch
Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, or Other: Other: Personal Collection DVD
Spoilers: Not really

It’s been roughly four years since I first saw this movie, and–much like with Ghost Protocol–my feelings about it are largely unchanged, except that I like it even more than I did on first blush. Which isn’t to say that I don’t have one or two minor grievances: Luther and Brandt tracking down Ethan by concentrating their search on Ilsa, who they know Ethan implicitly trusts because of the way he sketched her, continues to be bullshit, like, this is just ridiculously, ludicrously dumb. The fact that Ethan and Benji survive this one car accident is equally ludicrous, although admittedly, it’s also pretty standard action movie fare. And it’s true that Solomon Lane (Sean Harris) is essentially just a gussied up Moriarty, but I’m mostly okay with it because his clear agenda and mildly creepy line deliveries still make him easily one of the best villains this franchise has ever had. Obviously, that’s not exactly a high bar to clear, but still, Lane works for me–at least in this particular movie.

Pretty much everything else I have to say is overwhelmingly positive: the action scenes–from the great fight sequences to the various heists and car chases–are all spectacular. I’m definitely a sucker for everything during the Sydney Opera House Mission. The humor continues to work well: Rogue Nation nails that comedy and team camaraderie from the very first scene and only builds on it throughout the film. I especially love the scene where Benji tells Ethan he won’t be left behind. In general, I continue to adore Benji, considering he essentially plays the damsel in distress here, right down to being menaced by some unnecessary, up-close villain leering.

Still, it’s really Ilsa Faust who makes this movie for me. She’s just such a great, complex heroine: badass, funny, has her own agenda. It certainly doesn’t hurt that she saves Ethan’s ass no less than three time in this movie. And I love that while there’s a certain amount of romantic/sexual tension between the two, Rogue Nation never wastes time getting them together or dropping the L bomb–not because I hate romance, but because you know it would’ve been rushed as hell and deeply unconvincing in this tightly plotted film. By delaying said romance until later installments, Rogue Nation actually provides a much better foundation for Ilsa and Ethan’s love story.

As great as Ilsa is, though, the best, most ridiculous line in this whole movie still goes to Alec Baldwin, who calls Ethan Hunt “the living manifestation of destiny,” a description I’m still very seriously considering putting on my business cards. People. It is sublime. There will never be a funnier, more perfect moment in this franchise than this.

Of course, considering that Ilsa repeatedly saves Ethan’s life in Rogue Nation, perhaps Alec Baldwin is actually describing the wrong spy here.

The Current Ranking

1. Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation
2. Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol
3. Mission: Impossible
4. Mission: Impossible III
5. Mission: Impossible II

Jumpin’ Jack Flash

First Watch or Rewatch: Rewatch
Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, or Other: Other – Personal Collection DVD
Spoilers: Nah, unless you really don’t wanna know who plays Jack
Grade: Chocolate

I haven’t watched Jumpin’ Jack Flash in years, but I grew up on this movie–I grew up on a whole bunch of Whoopi Goldberg films, actually; she was probably my favorite actress as a kid–and I’m stoked to see this one holds up really well. Not everything holds up, like, there are one or two jokes best left in the 80’s and, of course, Marty (Stephen Collins) is super likable until you remember that the actor playing him admitted to sexually abusing minors in 2014.

The movie, though, is pretty great, and I adore Terry (Goldberg), our foul-mouthed, hopeless romantic, total nerd of a protagonist. (If you’re going to argue with me about the nerd thing, you’re wrong: she’s a computer geek, talks to herself, dresses kind of goofy, has toys all over desk, etc. NERDS UNITE FTW.) And Whoopi Goldberg is great in the role: she’s sharp, funny, and somehow manages to make all the many scenes of reading Jack’s messages out loud actually seem natural. The genre blend of romantic-spy-comedy works really well for me, and I just love a lot of little things about this movie: all the dialogue, the Rolling Stones appreciation, the set design of Terry’s apartment–I need that giant toothbrush–etc. I like a lot of the supporting players, too: I particularly get a kick out of Peter Michael Goetz as Mr. Page, not to mention that this was the first movie I knew either Garry Marshall or Carol Kane from. (Kane’s line delivery of she’s unwrapping the STROLLER is often, and poorly, imitated in this house.)

Plus, Jumpin’ Jack Flash has gotta be Hollywood’s very first internet romance, right? Like, this movie was made in 1986. It’s so ahead of its time! (Although I will admit that, as a child, I was very disappointed with how Jack looked when he finally showed up. Apologies to Jonathan Pryce, but deeply shallow 7-or-so-year-old Carlie was like, “That guy? That guy is Jack?” It was like watching the Beast transform into his inferior human self with his inferior human voice all over again. At least Jack’s voice didn’t completely change.)

The Skeleton Twins

First Watch or Rewatch: First Watch
Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, or Other: Amazon
Spoilers: Nope
Grade: Vanilla

I’ve been wanting to try out more of Bill Hader stuff’s since watching It, Chapter 2, so naturally I had to a) binge the first season of Barry last week, and b) check out The Skeleton Twins, a dysfunctional family comedy-drama about estranged siblings. I have kind of a soft spot for both sibling stories and dysfunctional family shit, though I’m often not enthused about how said stories turn out, the former because it so often boils down to “opposite siblings are opposite” and the latter because they’re so often focused on unhappy marriages, like, I could easily go ten years without another boring marital affair subplot.

The Skeleton Twins definitely does have some marital affair shit going on, but for the most part, I liked this movie. I’ll admit, I can’t help but feel that there’s something missing from it, but I’m hard-pressed to say what, exactly, just that there’s a certain amount of predictability to all the emotional beats of the story, so I always felt like I knew exactly where it was going. Still, the acting is great all-around: both Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig give strong performances, and Luke Wilson is just spectacularly well cast. There are also several scenes I really enjoyed (this lip-syncing one is obviously a highlight), and I did become very invested in Milo and Maggie’s relationship, like, I’m really rooting for them to work it out and save each other. And sure, while the siblings initially come across as “the responsible one vs. the irresponsible one,” it’s pretty obvious from the get-go that this isn’t really the case, and I liked that.

John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum

First Watch or Rewatch: First Watch
Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, or Other: Amazon
Spoilers: Only mildly
Grade: Strawberry

This is okay, but it’s definitely my last favorite of the John Wick series thus far. On the plus side, all the fight scenes are a lot of fun, obviously–John kills people in creative new ways, like with books or horses! And I like some of our recent additions to the cast: Asia Kate Dillon has got such a cool aesthetic here, and besides which, I’m forever a sucker for the administrative side of the assassin business. (See also my absolute obsession with the tattooed switchboard operators. Jesus Christ, I love them so much. I want a TV show with them so badly.) I also enjoy Mark Dacascos as our slightly psychopathic assassin, mostly because he so often plays a very solemn or dignified character–Double Dragon very much excepted–where here it’s more like “I’m a fan!” and “we could’ve been pals if only I didn’t have to kill you!” I could do without the whole “we’re the same, you and I” stuff, but otherwise, I liked him.

Still, I think Parabellum has some structural issues. Not much about Casablanca works for me, I’m afraid: Halle Berry’s whole section feels like an awkwardly inserted backdoor pilot, which I’d probably be more willing to forgive if I liked her better in the role. Unfortunately, I never really bought Sophia’s whole angry, tough girl thing, anymore than I did in X2 when Storm very suddenly became super angry and super American. And to be clear, I was 140% into all of her fight scenes, like, Berry does a great job with them, and her dogs are obviously the goddamn best, but the scenes with actual dialogue? Yeah, I didn’t love them. Jerome Flynn and Saïd Taghmaoui also felt unnecessary, especially and unfortunately Taghmaoui, who I’ve enjoyed in various small roles over the years, but this one is just . . . meh. Not poorly acted or anything; I just didn’t care about this whole “man who sits above the table” thing. And all John’s wandering through the desert like Jesus just felt . . . silly, and surprisingly, not the good kind of silly.

And it must be said that while I emphatically do not come these movies looking for realism, like . . . come on, there is a limit to how many times a dude can be thrown through a wall of glass without bleeding out before I’m like really? REALLY? I quickly lost count, but I wanna say John got kicked or thrown through, like, 13 different panes of glass in about fifteen minutes, and dude, that boy be dead. That boy is an ex-parrot. And I don’t care if he’s the Baba Yaga or not; if this motherfucker doesn’t have Wolverine’s healing abilities, he’s stick-a-fork-in-me done. It’s not just all the glass, either, although admittedly, that’s probably the most in-your-face absurdity; during this movie, John also gets a) hit by two cars, one right after the other, b) stabbed in the shoulder (where the blade nicks the artery, but a quick five-minute stitch-up with no blood transfusions, and he’s fine), and finally c) shot off a fucking roof–and like, I’m not talking some one-level grocery here. This is a four story building, and this motherfucker bounces off a metal fire escape on the way down. John Wick is basically just a broken meat sack of goo at this point, or should be.

Generally, I enjoy how this movie sets up for the next, but man, if John Wick, Chapter 4 doesn’t reveal his secret origin story as a metahuman or literal creature of the night, well, my friends, we’ve shot past light speed straight into ludicrous speed.

The Witch: Part I – The Subversion

Year: 2018
Director: Park Hoon Jung
First Watch or Rewatch: First Watch
Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, or Other: Netflix
Spoilers: Surprisingly, no
Grade: Chocolate

Oh, I really enjoyed this Korean SF/F action-horror movie. I confess to not totally getting the title (something lost in translation, perhaps), but the movie itself is a pretty good time. Kim Da Mi is excellent here as Goo Ja Yun, an amnesiac who ran away ten years ago from one of those evil government facilities that likes to experiment on children. (A very specific sub-genre I’m apparently a sucker for, considering Dark Angel, Stranger Things, The Pretender, etc.) I also like Go Min Shi, who plays Ja Yun’s excitable best friend, and Choi Woo Shik, who plays, well, Chaotic Evil. I very much enjoyed the latter’s work in Train to Busan and Parasite, but it wasn’t until I saw this movie that I realized, oh, he’s not just talented; he’s hot. Lots of people try for smirky evil hot but only manage smirky obnoxious. Choi Woo Shik is not one of those people.

The Witch: Subversion – Part I has a slow, steady build with an explosive third act, and I’m looking forward to seeing a sequel. (I believe a trilogy is planned?) There are other things to talk about; unfortunately, they all include spoilers, and I’d prefer not to get into those now. But the movie is an awful lot of fun, and I’d highly recommend it to anyone who also enjoys a) this very specific sub-genre, and b) violence. Because there is most certainly violence. Obviously, I approve of this.

Death Bell

Year: 2008
Director: Chang
First Watch or Rewatch: First Watch
Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, or Other: Other – Youtube
Spoilers: Some. Mind the tags, in particular
Grade: Strawberry

This is apparently a hugely popular horror film in South Korea and was fun enough to watch, but ultimately, I’m pretty meh on the actual execution. I’m all about the basic setup, of course: a group of kids (and teachers) are trapped at a high school and forced to successfully solve a series of test questions, or else their classmates will be violently murdered. I like the idea of the bad guys here and their respective motives. I’d genuinely like to see this film remade by a different director with a better script.

But as is, I have several problems, like, almost none of the death traps work for me, not just because they’re such obvious Saw knock-offs, but because they’re way too elaborate and ridiculous to fit the actual scenario. (Some people are quick to accuse a horror movie of being a Saw knock-off just because its exceptionally violent and/or includes death traps, but these ones really do lack originality.) There is both a human and supernatural angle to this story; unfortunately, the supernatural stuff mostly feels mishandled. The last minute twist seems particularly cheap because it doesn’t feel supported by the actor’s performance at all–though it does, I suppose, at least make another character’s whole storyline less random in retrospect. (Still not terribly fond of it, TBH.)

Additionally, two quick notes: one, I’m all about horror movies acknowledging that girls have periods–seriously, I am all for it–but this mostly felt like an excuse for a weird upper thigh shot, so, eh? And two, any sympathy I might have had for one character completely goes out the window the second she realizes that everyone around her has mysteriously passed out and decides that this is a great time to put on her headphones, alone, in the middle of a school where multiple people have been murdered. I. You. What. WHY?!?!?!

Guns Akimbo

Year: 2020
Director: Jason Lei Howden
First Watch or Rewatch: First Watch
Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, or Other: Amazon
Spoilers: Not really
Grade: Vanilla

There’s a lot to like here, especially if you’re into over-the-top, gonzo action flicks like me, but there are also things that don’t quite land. For one, I’m not sure I’m totally buying our Big Bad; Ned Dennehy is okay in the role, but I feel like other actors could’ve done more with it. Neal McDonough, for instance, was made for this kind of villain. Also might’ve enjoyed Clancy Brown, who Mek suggested for some punk Highlander vibes. More importantly, though, Guns Akimbo has this weird tendency to throw in a moral now and then that just doesn’t work. Like when Miles (Daniel Radcliffe) wonders how long it’s been since he went outside without staring at his phone, and I’m like, bitch, that’s some weak tea satire; are you actually mistaking that for an original perspective, and anyway, who the hell is thinking “gosh, I wish I’d stopped to smell the roses” when they’re stumbling around after waking up with gun hands? I feel, too, that there’s a small but annoying thread of “anti PC culture” running throughout the film, an impression that only seems validated after remembering the controversy around director Jason Lei Howden. Yikes.

All that being said, I could watch Daniel Radcliffe and Samara Weaving in this all day. They’re both great here: Radcliffe has some absolutely phenomenal reactions–I am so down for all his absolutely bizarre post-HP projects–whereas Weaving is just as iconic here as she was in Ready or Not. She’s pretty fantastic in this, IMO. Not every bit of humor lands right (Rhys Darby’s character, sadly, feels like a series of punch down jokes, much as my Voltron geek girl heart hates to admit it), but a lot of the dialogue is genuinely hilarious; for example, I about died when Miles tried to cut off this cop’s tragic backstory. I like Nova (Natasha Liu Bordizzo), too; she doesn’t get much to do, unfortunately, but I did find her interesting. Also, Nerf Guy!

If you like the concept of Guns Akimbo, there’s a decent chance you’ll like the movie: there are some really fun fight scenes, amusing bits of meta humor, one or two solid surprise moments, and just a very enjoyable soundtrack. I’m actually glad I watched it; I just really wish I could tweak it some, too. And yeah, it’d also be nice if the writer/director didn’t entirely suck as a person.

Happy New Year, everyone! I’m loathe to even express hope for 2021 at this point, so let’s just belatedly talk about the Christmas movies I watched last week instead.

Anna and the Apocalypse

Year: 2017
Director: John McPhail
First Watch or Rewatch: First Watch
Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, or Other: Amazon
Spoilers: Some, but I don’t think any Big Ones
Grade: Vanilla

Ah, the traditional zombie musical holiday movie. I enjoyed Anna and the Apocalypse, although it’s a bit darker than I expected it to be. Ridiculous of me to assume otherwise, I know–horror comedies obviously tend to skew dark, not to mention Clear Foreshadow song “Hollywood Ending”–but I suppose I was thrown by all the dancing and cheer and cast full of generally likable characters? Musical comedies and horror comedies generally have different rules about who and how many people you can murder, and I found myself expecting a story that adhered more to the former than the latter. As such, some of the character deaths here definitely took me by surprise.

My absolute favorite character, though, is Assistant Headmaster Savage, who starts out this movie as a curmudgeonly antagonist–as all vice principals must–before transforming into a glorious mad villain–as all vice principals must. I’ve read a few reviews now that feel this turn is forced or unnecessary, and TBH, they aren’t wrong. But I also don’t care because Savage is so utterly delightful that I don’t give a damn what he’s doing, so long as he keeps talking. Every line is somehow drier and more disgruntled than the last until this dude’s sitting in the dark, ominously explaining that he’s eating his Christmas dinner, and I’m near in tears. Savage, BTW, is played by Paul Kaye, who also played Thoros of Myr in Game of Thrones, and now I’d really like to see a slideshow comparing every GoT actor with their absolute LEAST GoT-like roles.

Anna and the Apocalypse is also one of those movies where the horror might take you by surprise if you just stumbled across it on TV without knowing anything about the story. The first, IDK, 15-20 minutes play as a standard cute high school musical, and then we get “Turning My Life Around,” which changes everything. This scene is epic, delightfully having fun at the vast suspension of disbelief one inherently needs to enjoy musicals. Other favorite songs include “Soldier at War,” “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Me Now,” and “It’s That Time of Year.”

Silent Night, Deadly Night

Year: 1984
Director: Charles E. Sellier Jr.
First Watch or Rewatch: Rewatch
Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, or Other: Other – Personal Collection DVD
Spoilers: Yup
Grade: Strawberry

Despite owning this movie, I haven’t seen it in years and was a bit worried Mekaela wouldn’t like it and/or the film wouldn’t hold up, especially since some movies–especially ridiculous ones–are best experienced in a big group of people. These concerns proved groundless: Mek was hilariously indignant on Billy’s behalf, rooting for his inevitable killing spree to begin, and–despite the dreaded grade of Strawberry–I still find Silent Night, Deadly Night pretty solidly entertaining. There are things I’d change, certainly: the attempted sexual assault in the prologue, for instance, or the sheer number of tits on display. (The most egregious moment is when Scream Queen Linnea Quigley pulls on a pair of Daisy Dukes to go outside, but doesn’t bother putting on a bra or shirt? What?) Also, while I love that a kindly old priest gets killed after being mistaken for Evil Santa . . . IDK, maybe don’t make him deaf?

A list of standout moments: any time Billy says “NAUGHTY!” or “PUNISH!” (I’m definitely going to start yelling that at my cats now.) The ending, which sets up for the sequel that I still haven’t seen. (2021 Goals!) That fucking amazing moment when Billy gifts his bloody knife to a little girl. (Wait, this movie has five sequels and none of them are about this kid? JFC, hire me; I will write the shit out of an Evil Girl Santa movie!) Little Billy punching Santa Claus is pretty great, too, and that this toy store sells, like, actual bows and arrows, I guess? I mean, yeah, why not? Some of the death scenes are  fantastic, like, Bully Decapitated on a Sled is just *chef’s kiss,* and the dude who dies when he gets thrown through a window? YES. Partially because he’s impaled on just a ludicrously large piece of glass, but mostly because holy shit, someone in a movie finally dies from going through a window pane! I’m also in love with the blatant changes in film quality that sometimes happen mid-scene. It’s the absolute best.

The gigantic controversy that emerged when this movie came out is still shockingly absurd. I feel sorry for anyone whose career might’ve suffered just because people lost their minds and decided Silent Night, Deadly Night was an attack on Christmas, like, this wasn’t even the first Killer Santa movie, goddamn it. I remain vexed on this film’s behalf, and never mind that the movie is a year older than I am and no one cares anymore. This is nonsense. People should still be ashamed of themselves.

Die Hard

Year: 1988
Director: John McTiernan
First Watch or Rewatch: Rewatch
Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, or Other: Other – HBO Max
Spoilers: Obviously
Grade: Chocolate

Well, I mean. Die Hard is always gonna win for me: I grew up on this one, and the nostalgia factor is just too strong. It’s been my favorite Christmas movie since childhood, and honestly works even better for me as an adult–except that, like most cop movies, it’s kinda 2+ hours of police propaganda. (We need more mavericks like McClane! It’s only pesky rules that stop hardworking cops getting the job done! Thank God Al Powell learned the Will to Kill again after shooting an innocent kid!) Still. Messaging aside, I do love this one. There are just so many little moments I enjoy: all the humming and singing (“Ode to Joy” has honest to God become a Christmas song in my brain), Al Leong’s improvised candy bit (it is low key my favorite joke in the whole movie), Karl and Theo’s bet (which I somehow didn’t notice for years), etc.

The dialogue, too, seems effortlessly funny. All the Big Lines, of course, but also the little asides. The way Alan Rickman says, “I must have missed 60 Minutes.” The obvious amusement in Reginald VelJohnson’s voice when he asks, “Hey, Roy, how you feeling?” How Tony’s actions–wait, his name is TONY–somewhat belie his words when he assures, “I promise I won’t hurt you,” or the way James Shigeta quietly reminds Ellis, “Holly’s husband. Holly’s policeman.” TBH, I just adore Shigeta in this movie and always get a bit bummed when Takagi dies. Hans, too, of course, because let’s be honest: we all want to see the AU version where Hans wins, right? Or at least some deleted scenes with Exasperated Hans listening to John and Powell talk? Basically, I want more of Alan Rickman at every given opportunity. Damn, I still miss him.

Obviously, there’s really not much I can say about Die Hard that hasn’t already been said a billion times over. But I’m here, so: A) I have a lot of Feels/Ideas about characters who build a relationship (of any kind) before actually meeting, so of course, I think it’s awesome that John does this with his closest ally Powell (only one scene together) and Big Bad Hans (only two). B) I like that John is mostly a regular guy who gets caught in a bad situation, rather than the Super Cop he’ll become in subsequent sequels. (He’s  also a bit of a sociopath–evidence HO HO HO–and probably would’ve gotten everyone killed with that C4, but we’ll ignore this for now.) C) A bad guy actually does die from being thrown through glass; however, this moment is somewhat negated when John swings straight through a glass window himself and is basically fine. And D) I love that Kristoff survives because I don’t care what anyone else says; he lives, and it is the BEST.

Finally, I’m mildly obsessed with recasting movies, just for the challenge of it. Lately, Mek and I have taken to recasting movies and TV shows with Korean actors–I always end up casting Choi Won-Young as somebody–and, of course, we’ve already did a genderbent cast for Die Hard a couple years ago. (Scroll down quite a ways.) I mention all this because while watching Die Hard for the 574th time, I was  struck by a strange if charming idea: what if LeVar Burton had been cast as Theo? Not because I dislike Clarence Gilyard Jr. in this, but . . . I don’t know, I’m just very amused by the idea of everyone’s favorite children’s show host/mild-mannered Chief Engineer playing a bad guy (albeit, a comic relief bad guy). He could absolutely do it, and I think it would’ve been fun to see. Which naturally led Mek and I to a new game: recast actors who could somewhat reasonably have played these roles in 1987. We haven’t settled on a full cast yet, but I can tell you that some of the nominees for Karl have seriously cracked me up.

Gunpowder Milkshake

Year: 2021
Director: Navot Papushado
First Watch or Rewatch: First Watch
Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, or Other: Netflix
Spoilers: Nope
Grade: Strawberry

I’ve been looking forward to Gunpowder Milkshake for quite a long time now, and it’s . . . okay. The cast is outstanding. Karen Gillan, Lena Headey, Angela Bassett, Michelle Yeoh, Carla Gugino, Paul Giamatti, and Ralph Ineson? Yeah, I am here for this cast. I’m especially here for Michelle Yeoh because oh my God, Michelle Yeoh in this movie, with that hair, and those clothes, and that chain. Like, could we just have thirty more minutes with Michelle Yeoh, please?

Actually, that might be the crux of my problem with Gunpowder Milkshake: it feels a bit spread thin, a bit rushed. Please believe me, I am ecstatic to see an action movie under two hours, but I also feel that we just barely skim the surface of this world and these characters, particularly their relationships to one another. I wanted more with these badass women; in fact, I wonder if the story might have benefited from being a two or three part series, where we get to spend a decent amount of time A) with the Aunts, who are awesome, B) seeing more of Scarlet’s sorta-thrown-in-there backstory, and C) just establishing this world. Especially cause, like . . . okay, I often get extremely worked up when people complain that Work X is obviously derivative of Work Z just because they have a similar setting or something, and I was ALL prepared to insist how Gunpowder Milkshake was very much its own thing and not just a weak, gender flipped version of John Wick, which is still true, but . . . IDK, I can’t deny that it did heavily remind me of John Wick. I just feel like if the story was a little less go-go-go, maybe we’d have the opportunity to see something that sets this story and world apart aside from its fucking phenomenal cast.

The stylized action scenes are fun (particularly the diner and everything that happens in the library), and of course, I love both the violence and just the general aesthetic. I mean, this movie has fashionable LIBRARIAN ASSASSINS. There are things to enjoy here, clearly. And they did successfully trick me into thinking that a certain character would bite it, and surprise, they didn’t, so kudos on that. It’s just that, overall, I felt a bit distant from the movie. I was hoping to really get into it more than I actually did. OTOH, if Netflix gave me a prequel series with the Aunts (played by the same actresses, not younger ones, thank you very much), I would be ALL onboard. Do you hear me, Netflix? I am actually asking for a prequel, ME.

Black Widow

Year: 2021
Director: Cate Shortland
First Watch or Rewatch: First Watch
Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, or Other: Other – Disney Plus
Spoilers: Yes, for this and for Endgame
Grade: Vanilla

Speaking of prequels . . .

As with most of Marvel’s properties lately, I watched this for Mek (we have a whole trade-off system), and I enjoyed it more than I expected, although I must admit, my expectations weren’t particularly high. Still, this is a very fun cast: I adore Florence Pugh and Rachel Weisz, I’m very fond of David Harbour, and despite the fact that I usually cringe whenever Scarlett Johansson decides to talk about casting, I do actually like her as Black Widow. I don’t think it would’ve hurt to cast, you know, at least one Russian actor in the bunch, but wandering accents aside, I enjoy most of the action, and most of the humor, and I really like the whole spy family dynamic, particularly between the sisters. This one isn’t breaking the Marvel mold, but considering it’s only the second female-led Marvel superhero movie? To hell with it. I’m just happy to see a lady superhero get her fun popcorn flick–or I would’ve been 5 years ago. But we’ll come back to that.

There are some things I don’t think work quite so well. I’m not sure the Taskmaster twist does much for me, like, not because of the genderbent thing (I didn’t even know who Taskmaster was until I read the whining on Twitter), but because I thought her secret identity was pretty obvious, and also because it read, to me, like a way to soften Natasha’s backstory, which I felt was unnecessary. Also, the bit about Natasha’s birth mom, like, why? That definitely felt unnecessary. I didn’t love the fat jokes about Alexei, either, although at least there weren’t so many of them. (Fuck you forever, Endgame.) And sweet Jesus, how did Natasha even survive this movie? She should’ve died, like, four different times. (This one isn’t really a serious complaint, but I did need to mock.)

Still, my real problem with Black Widow is that nothing, nothing, about this movie works better as a prequel, except that Florence Pugh might not have been cast if it had come out in 2017 instead of 2021. I just couldn’t stop thinking it as we watched the movie: this story would’ve meant so much more to me if we’d seen it after Civil War, you know, when it actually takes place. This story would’ve meant so much more to me if we saw it before Natasha died. Seeing it now doesn’t provide some kind of meaningful perspective. At best, it keeps me at a distance; at worst, it actively pisses me off.  I desperately wanted a Black Widow movie once. Now, I only watched it so Mek would check out the first season of Evil with me. Like, the film is fine, and I could watch it again, but goddamnit, I would’ve actually cared back in 2017.

The Long Kiss Goodnight

Year: 1996
Director: Renny Harlin
First Watch or Rewatch: First Watch
Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, or Other: Amazon
Spoilers: Yup
Grade: Chocolate

After watching Gunpowder Milkshake and Black Widow, it just felt like the right time to sit down and finally check out The Long Kiss Goodnight, which is, like, 90’s over-the-top Christmas-action-noir-cheese. (Obviously, it was written by Shane Black.) And I had a good time with it: the script is chockfull of witty lines, the action scenes are fucking ridiculous, and the whole cast is great. Geena Davis and Samuel L. Jackson have just fantastic buddy amnesiac assassin/sleazy PI chemistry, and we’ve got some great players in the supporting cast. My favorites are probably Tom Amandes (who I first saw in Everwood and does solid work here as Aggressively Normal Husband), Melina Kanakaredes (who’s in this movie for all of two minutes, but I liked her, and bonus, she doesn’t die!) and most especially Brian Cox (whose line deliveries in this movie are the fucking best, but unfortunately does die, and a bit sooner than I was hoping.)

There are some jokes here I don’t think have aged well, and while I don’t necessarily mind a plot that has white bad guys framing their evil deeds on Islamic terrorists, I do think those stories should probably have at least one decent role for a Muslim character, like, a good guy who’s not a terrorist and has actual lines and motivations and everything. When your entire representation in a movie is one frozen dead guy, like, that’s not amazing. I also think that some of the action scenes are a bit drawn out, and I suspect I laughed at more moments than I was actually supposed to? But I like to laugh, so that was okay.

Nobody wears a fucking seatbelt even once in this movie, and basically everyone should be dead from all these insane car accidents, like, I know I just said that about Black Widow, but BW doesn’t even hold a candle to this absurdity. How are any of these people still alive? HOW DID THAT BOMB NOT GO OFF WHEN THE TRUCK CRASHED, HOLY SHIT?! I haven’t seen anything that egregiously ludicrous since Nicolas Cage ran around Alcatraz without exploding his little green toxin ball.

So 90’s. So cheese. (So scrumptious.)

Big Match

Year: 2014
Director: Choi Ho
First Watch or Rewatch: First Watch
Streaming Service: Viki
Spoilers: Nah
Grade: Vanilla

Big Match is enjoyable, pretty light-hearted fare. Once again, Lee Jung Jae is playing a dude trapped in a high stakes game where rich assholes bet money on if he survives; unlike Squid Game, however, Choi Ik Ho (Lee) isn’t playing various deadly children’s games. Instead, he’s a hothead MMA fighter forced to complete various dangerous tasks (escape the police, attack a bunch of gangsters, sing karaoke, etc.) if he wants to see his brother alive again. Shin Ha Kyun, who I’ve been pretty much obsessed with since watching Beyond Evil, plays the villainous mastermind Ace, and his hair in this movie is just . . . it is art. It is perfection itself. If I owned a curling iron, or hair spray, and actually knew how to do anything with my hair, I would 100% style it this way. His whole aesthetic in this film is just . . . *chef’s kiss.*

But yes, yes, the movie itself. Big Match is fun and silly—there are zero tonal similarities between this and Squid Game—and never takes itself too seriously. My attention did start to drift, I don’t know, maybe the last 20-25 minutes of the movie? And of course, it’s always hard whenever an actor I love is playing the villain, since I just end up rooting for them the whole time, particularly since I never did care very much about Ik Ho. (I do feel sorry for his brother, though, poor dude.) Still, I had a decent time watching this. Shin Ha Kyun is campy and petulant and delightful, and it’s fun to see Lee Jung Jae as this buff martial arts dude. I was both surprised and pleased to see Choi Woo Shik pop up, and I enjoyed Ra Mi Ran as Ik Ho’s sister-in-law, Hyung Soo. If you’re in the mood for an easy watch with ridiculous action scenes and fantastic hair, you could probably do worse than Big Match.

Inseparable Bros

Year: 2019
Director: Yook Sang Hyo
First Watch or Rewatch: First Watch
Streaming Service: Viki
Spoilers: Some, yes
Grade: Chocolate

. . . LOL, I’m not at all convinced that this trailer does a great job establishing the overall tone of this movie. Like, parts of the film are definitely comedic, but . . . yeah, this isn’t quite it. Also, fuck it, this whole Triple Scoop Review is just gonna be dedicated to Shin Ha Kyun, I guess, because I’ll apparently watch all kinds of shit that I wouldn’t normally sign up for so long as he’s in it. Case in point: Inseparable Bros, which—in fairness—I didn’t watch solely for Shin Ha Kyun. I also wanted to see Lee Kwang Soo and Esom, too. But yeah. My wheelhouse is pretty firmly horror/fantasy/SF/action/mystery. I’m not saying I never venture out of these genres, but inspirational comedy-dramas, particularly ones based on true events, are really not my jam. And a story about two good friends—a very intelligent quadriplegic man and a sweet swimmer with intellectual disabilities—who’ve closely relied on one another for years . . . like, Jesus, I already watched The Mighty, okay? I know where you’re going with this, and my soul’s not in the fucking mood. (I feel the way about tearjerkers that some people feel about horror movies: why would you willingly do that to yourself, why?)

That all being said . . . I actually did enjoy this one.  It helps that while I did get a tiny bit emotional once or twice (because there are sad moments, and/or because I’m a weepy mess of a person), it wasn’t quite the soul crushing tragedy that I’d anticipated. And the movie didn’t feel too, like, cringeworthy inspiration porn, either? (Though as a non-disabled person, I could very well be missing things here.) To me, the focus, really felt like it was on Se Ha and Dong Goo’s relationship, rather than just some, IDK, triumphant underdog story that makes able-bodied people feel good about themselves?

The cast is excellent: Shin Ha Kyun and Lee Kwang Soo both give really solid performances as Se Ha and Dong Goo, respectively, and they have a great rapport. I like Esom in this, too, although I do feel like her character is a bit off balance with the rest of the story; I wish she either had less screen time or a stronger arc. (Although I do like that this isn’t a romance and that any jealousy aspects are minimal. Also, I enjoy the mildly antagonistic friendship between her character and Se Ha.) I was delighted to see other familiar faces in this movie, too: Kwon Hae Hyo, Kil Hae Yeon, Ahn Ji Ho, and Park Chul Min. Ahn Ji Ho and Kim Hyun Bin are both really well cast as Young Se Ha and Young Dong Goo, and despite limited screen time, I really enjoyed Kwon Hae Hyo as Father Park as well.

Inseparable Bros. is kind of a simple story and there aren’t any big surprises except that—SPOILERS—our leads both live! But overall, I think it’s told pretty well: I like Se Ha’s reserve and crankiness, I like Dong Goo’s complicated relationship with his mother, and I think a couple of the flashbacks near the end of the film are used quite nicely. Obviously, it’s unfortunate that I, notably cold of heart, enjoyed a heartwarming dramedy, but there you have it. Sometimes, we just can’t help ourselves.

The Villainess

Year: 2017
Director: Jung Byung Gil
First Watch or Rewatch: First Watch
Streaming Service: Amazon
Spoilers: Yes, absolutely
Grade: Vanilla

Hm. You know, I have mixed feelings on this one, and I’m still trying to sort them out. The Villainess has some serious La Femme Nikita vibes (with a few parts that strongly reminded me of Kill Bill), and obviously, I’m a sucker for badass assassins and revenge flicks. I generally enjoyed all the frenetic action scenes. There are one or two pretty brutal surprises. I’m obsessed with the shot of Sook Hee in a wedding dress holding a sniper rifle. And the cast is pretty great, too. I enjoy Kim Ok Bin as Sook Hee, our assassin protagonist whose life just gets increasingly more and more tragic. Kim Seo Hyung is great as Kwon Sook, the chief of the spy agency who recruits Sook Hee. (I loved Kim Seo Hyung in Nobody Knows; this woman was just born to play a mega cool badass in charge.) Obviously, I continue to like Shin Ha Kyun; motherfucker just exudes charisma in this film, like, hot damn. He is one insanely cold-hearted (and sexy) bastard here. And it was nice to see a couple of actors I didn’t expect: Sung Joon (who I enjoyed in White Christmas) plays Hyun Soo, a spy who falls in love with Sook Hee, and Park Chul Min pops up for the second time this week, this time playing Sook Hee’s father.

Still . . . I feel like something’s missing here, and I’m trying to decide exactly what that is. I saw a lot of reviews arguing that The Villainess has second act problems, and . . . yeah, I probably wouldn’t disagree with that. In a way, I feel like this movie doesn’t quite know what it wants to be about—or maybe it does know but never quite supports the thesis? Like, okay. By the end of the film, Sook Hee has lost everything—her child, her husband, her (admittedly not great) spy/assassin job—and all she has to show for it are a bunch of dead bodies (including the body of the man who ruined her life) and yet another arrest for mass murder. That, I think, is supposed to be the tragedy here: Sook Hee could (possibly) have had the normal life she longed for, but her obsession with revenge (and with Joong Sang, himself) ruins any chance of that. Kwon Sook tells her as much shortly before Hyun Soo and Eun Hye are murdered, and Joong Sang tells Sook Hee that the real pain will begin once she kills him—which she does, giving way to the last shot of the film, which (in true cycle of violence style) echoes the beginning of the movie, with Sook Hee violently grinning as she’s arrested.

Of course, “revenge destroys you and everyone around you” is not the most original moral, as far as these things go, but that’s not really my problem here. I think my bigger problem is that I never quite buy that Sook Hee does long to have this normal life. We’re told she does, but . . . I don’t know, I never quite felt it. Maybe I would have if we got more into her acting career, or if we spent more time with her daughter, or if I ever bought her romance with Hyun Soo—but I never did. The actors are both fine separately, but I’m not convinced they have much chemistry together—frankly, I think Kim Ok Bin has the best chemistry with Kim Seo Hyung—and while I think Hyun Soo is supposed to come off as an awkward but ultimately good-hearted spy stuck between a rock and a hard place, he mostly struck me as a Nice Guy creeper, and I spent half the film chanting for his death. I totally buy Hyun Soo’s thing for Sook Hee, but I never quite buy her thing for him, and maybe because of that—because Sook Hee never seems all that invested in her relationship or her career or really becoming this new person who puts her old life behind her—I don’t think the tragic arc hits nearly as hard as it could—even though they kill off her small, adorable child, which I will admit surprised me. Likewise, I don’t think Sook Hee’s implied descent into villainy makes for a particularly strong or satisfying conclusion, either. It’s totally a cool shot, but the emotion doesn’t linger. Which . . . yeah, might be how I feel about the movie as a whole. I could totally watch it again, didn’t have a bad time at all, but was also definitely left with the impression that it could have been so much better with a stronger script.