Spartacus: Gods of the Arena (2011)

The opening season of Spartacus was a crass, over the top spectacle, showering the screen with fountains of blood and bevies of naked bodies, while the cast spat profanity in every second sentence.  In its early episodes it was almost car crash TV, so bad it was compelling.

And then somewhere around episode four the show found its groove, building tension and drama and the competing machinations of its many (many) villains into an explosion of orgiastic violence as the slaves of Quintus Batiatus finally rebelled against him.

This six episode prequel series features Spartacus himself only in its opening framing sequence, and was filmed due to the real-life illness and death of actor Andy Whitfield, who played the title role in the first season.  It was hoped that he would recover during the filming of this series, but that unfortunately did not come to pass.  Gods of the Arena therefore begins as Batiatus lies dying in the aftermath of the slave revolt.  We then leap back about five years, to see the first seeds of this bloodbath.

Batiatus is a lanista, a trainer of gladiators, but one whose men are relegated to the early, less prestigious bouts of the day despite the fact that (at least in the opinion of Batiatus) they are far superior fighters to those of the more-favoured lanistae.  When Batiatus sees a Gaulish slave with a 'spark' in his eyes, he buys the man, paying well over the market price.  This is no mere impulse, but a calculated attempt to curry favour with the man's former owner, a powerful political figure whose patronage, if won, would improve the fortunes of his house.

Unfortunately for Batiatus, this stratagem does not go as planned, initiating a spiralling sequence of competing schemes of ever increasing malice and vengefulness.  This, as you might imagine given the show's heritage, leads to yet more over the top violence and gobs of opportunities for people to get naked.  Despite its continued leaning into the sensationalistic use of sex and violence, however, this is a very well-executed series, with a fine cast at its core delivering compelling performances and scripts that provide background on the motivations and machinations of the various characters we met in season one (and in some cases, will see again in season two).

If the frequent nudity, sex, CGI gore and profanity aren't a problem for you, there is a genuinely good TV show here.

The Whole Nine Yards (2000)

Nicholas "Oz" Oseransky (Matthew Perry) is a mild-mannered American dentist who lives in Canada with his deeply unpleasant wife and her equally unpleasant mother.  Despite frequent vocal suggestions from his assistant Jill that he 'ditch the bitch', Oz feels trapped by his financial debts and personal commitments.

Things become rather more complicated when a new neighbour moves in next door and Oz recognises the man as Jimmy 'The Tulip' Tudeski, a former hitman for the mob who turned informer against his boss.

The mob has a big bounty on Jimmy's head, and - after 'The Tulip' refuses to whack her husband for her - Oz's wife demands that Oz travel to Chicago and try to cash in.  Oz pretends to comply, travelling to Chicago with no intention of following through, but the mob have no intention of letting go of any chance at revenge on Jimmy Tudeski.  Oz quickly finds himself way out of his depth, desperately struggling to not get killed while also not betray all of his principles.

Oh, and there's the little matter of meeting the woman of his dreams while all this is going on.

The Whole Nine Yards is (despite the number of people killed in it) a light and breezy crime comedy. It's not a complex movie: the plot's pretty simple and straightforward and most of the humour derives from Matthew Perry's Chandler-esque flailing at the outrageous situation in which he finds himself.  But it's certainly not a hard time to spend ninety minutes with this cast, who are all competent and seem to be enjoying their roles. Amanda Peet, as Oz's assistant Jill, is particularly fun.  

The IT Crowd, Season 1 (2006)

Note: I originally wrote this review several weeks before it was scheduled to post.  Shortly before reaching the scheduled posting date, I learned that the show's writer and director is a notorious transphobic activist.  I've kept the original text of the review below, but changed my rating to 'Not Recommended'.  Don't watch shows by bigots, folks.

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The IT department of Reynholm Industries consists of just two socially awkward young men: Maurice, who is intelligent but painfully shy and impractical; and Roy, whose brash exterior is a front for his own feeling of inadequacy.  Labelled losers by the rest of the company, they lurk in a basement workplace that is as shabby and neglected as are they themselves.

But then the IT department gets a new manager.  Jen knows nothing about computers and has bluffed the equally tech-ignorant CEO of the company into giving her the job.  But she considers herself a 'people person', and persuades Roy and Maurice that she can use those skills to improve their standing with the rest of the company.  Hijinks ensue.

'Hijinks ensue' is pretty much the basic premise of this show.  Each episode presents a particular workplace situation - such as an unsuccessful date with a colleague, the completion of a project, or the problems of shared kitchen space - and develops them in kooky and over-the-top, exaggerated ways.

The IT Crowd is frequently quite amusing, helped immensely by a talented and charismatic cast.  It does however fall a little too often into the easy 'nerds are socially inept and don't know about anything except computers' punch-down kind of humour.  Yes, we are supposed to sympathise with them in their struggles, but we're also supposed to laugh at them, instead of with them, a little too often for my tastes.

Frozen II (2019)

When she begins hearing mystical, angelic-sounding singing on the wind, Queen Elsa at first attempts to ignore it and focus on her duties as monarch of Arendelle.  But when a series of elemental phenomena drive her people from their homes, she realises she must travel to the far north and discover the source of the voice.  Naturally, her fiercely loyal sister Anna and their friends Kristoff (an ice harvester) Olaf (a literal snowman) accompany her on the journey, pursuing a quest that dates back to their parents' childhood and which hinges on forgotten family secrets.

The original Frozen was a monster hit, and deservedly so.  Fine performances, good animation, great songs, and a sparkling script that delivered laughs and pathos and a sublime conclusion that neatly side-stepped traditional narrative beats.

This film duplicated the financial success of the first, but I think that is due more to the strength of the original than Frozen II's own quality.  Which is not to say it is a bad film: it isn't.  It is actually a pretty good movie, overall.  The plot is serviceable, there are some decent stabs at humour, and it's never boring.  It's just ... not as good as the original.  The songs aren't up to the same standard, for one thing.  Idina Menzel gives her all for 'Into the Unknown', which is the film's signature tune, but she can't compensate for the fact that it's no 'Let It Go'.  A bigger problem though, to my mind, is that it relies too heavily on the existing cast and fails to introduce any notable new characters.  Though I am sure Disney did good business on cute fire lizard plushies.

This is solid family film, it's just not quite worthy of its progenitor.

True Blood, Season 5 (2012)

As Sookie and Lafayette go to extreme lengths to avoid losing Tara, her vampire former lovers scramble to flee from the shadowy but lethally powerful Authority (spoiler: they immediately get captured).  Meanwhile her employer Sam finds his quiet community of shapeshifters become to target of hate crimes, her brother Jason stumbles across an invisible nightclub of fairies while trying to deal with his feelings for young vampire Jessica, and Sookie's possible next love interest Alcide finds himself facing a power struggle within his werewolf pack.

All of these storylines do eventually converge, drawn together by the season's main arc, but they take an awfully long time to do so.  This leads to much of the season feeling very disjointed and scattered, with the plots moving in parallel but without much interaction for many episode.

Perhaps more problematic is that that main arc that does eventually tie together all these threads?  It's dumb as rocks.  I mean, sure, in principle I can see how this whole 'vampire liberals vs vampire fundamentalists' storyline was probably intended as a mirror of the human liberals vs fundamentalists conflict that has run through every season thus far.  Unfortunately, the execution of an idea matters much more than the idea itself, and the execution here is long on tiresome, pompous vampires being tiresome and pompous while acting in wildly inconsistent manner as they do so.

True Blood has always been sudsy, sexy and somewhat silly, but nonetheless entertaining.  Alas, adding a fourth 'S' for 'stupid' does considerable harm to said entertainment.

Future World (2018)

 
Breakthroughs in Artificial Intelligence and robotics lead to the creation of synthetic life that is all but indistinguishable from humanity itself (except, of course, for how tough they are). For reasons not important to this film, that somehow leads to an apocalyptic global war.

In the inevitable wasteland world that follows, modern technology is all but unknown.  Even guns are mostly useless, with ammunition all but impossible to find.  Despite this, a bandit warlord somehow finds not only a deactivated but still functional female android, but also the equipment and the knowledge to reactivate her as his secret cybernetic weapon.

Meanwhile, a young man sets out from his hidden and benign home community.  His mission is to acquire medicine for his dying mother; medicine he believes can be found at a place named 'Paradise Beach'.  Accompanying him are two friends, one of whom owns a pistol for which they still have a few rounds of ammunition.

Naturally, these two groups are going to collide.

First things first, I did not go into this movie expecting it to be good.  I did however hope for some schlocky, goofy action.  I mean, given the recognisable names in the cast there must have been something to the script, right?

I can only assume that that 'something' must have been 'writers with blackmail material', because this is a dour, mean-spirited and ultimately quite boring film, in the worst style of the many cheapie 1980s knock-offs of The Road Warrior.  The only time things get even remotely entertaining is when Milla Jovavich wanders on-screen and proceeds to not just chew the scenery but butcher and gobble it in massive chunks.

So yeah, the best thing about this movie is the one cast member who is clearly aware of how bad it is.

Killjoys, Season 2 (2016)

Dutch, D'avin and Johnny are Killjoys: bounty hunters sworn to take no political allegiance in exchange for considerable latitude in the actions they take when pursuing their warrants.  Unfortunately, as season one of this series was already broadly hinting, "not taking sides" is not as easy as it sounds.  And not just because at the end of the day, being neutral is functionally very similar to siding with whichever happens to be most powerful.

As often happens in media, of course, the side that happens to be most powerful in Killjoys also happens to be pretty darn awful.  Far more awful, in fact, than even their "penning up their labour force and implicitly threatening to starve them" public actions make them appear to be.

I found the first season of this show to be moderately engaging but very emotionally heavy-handed science fiction action.  Tragic backstories of emotionally abusive father figures; evil figures of power who really needed to buy glue-on moustaches so they could twirl them as they contemplated their evil plans.  A noble doctor fighting to help the downtrodden while hiding dark secrets of her own.  It was all slathered on with a trowel.

This second season trades in the trowel for a dump truck, as it veers the narrative in unexpected but also not terrible interesting directions.  On top of that the writers seem rather too enamoured of their villains, to the point where the good guy protagonists feel side-lined in what is supposed to be their show.

It does feel like the show reaches a potential new starting point at the end of this season, so maybe Killjoys will find its way again in season three, but for my tastes, these ten episodes go rather off-track.

Invasion U.S.A. (1985)

I remember, in my very early teens, seeing video store posters for Invasion U.S.A and being really keen to see it. I mean, look at that image above. Pitched battles outside the US Capitol! Chuck Norris with Uzis akimbo! I looks like some kind of deliriously terrible-but-entertaining mashup of Red Dawn (which I had seen and loved) and Megaforce (which I had not, but dearly wanted to). However, due to its R-rating in Australia, I wasn't old enough to rent it myself and there was no way my parents were going to rent schlock like this for me.

By the time I was old enough to rent it, Invasion U.S.A was not exactly common stock in your local Blockbuster and it is only now, in the modern age of streaming, that I can finally sit down to watch this cinematic white whale of mine.

They do say you should never meet your heroes, and alas, the reality of Invasion U.S.A is not in any way the movie I had in my head.  Instead, it's a resolutely po-faced "thriller" that's determined to lecture the audience on how dangerous it is for us to go on allowing our citizens to have freedom of movement and assembly.  Why, in doing so we are basically inviting Cuban-based Soviet insurgents to stream ashore in a mass amphibious landing!

These insurgents immediately begin a coordinated series of attacks designed to trigger disorder and confusion: random murder sprees in suburban towns, dressing up as police officers to gun down urban teenagers (I guess 35 years ago people were not aware of how often real police officers do this) and so on.  For reasons that I ascribe to the basic puerility of the script, the leader of this campaign is a Russian agent with a particular penchant for shooting other men in the penis.

Apparently the only man who can stop all this is Matt Hunter (Norris), a retired and disgruntled former CIA agent who has a person beef with old penis-shooter.  Lots of not terribly interesting shooty shooty ensues, before Hunter's inevitable and equally uninteresting victory.

Witless nonsense, and not the so-bad-it's-good Hard Ticket to Hawaii kind of nonsense.

Alex Rider, Season 1 (2019)

Alex Rider's uncle is the most boring man on the planet.  Or so the 16 year old believes, until his uncle dies in a car accident.  The authorities claim that Rider Senior was speeding, something that Alex knows he never, ever did.  And with a little teenage ingenuity, he sets out to prove it.

Of course, sometimes learning the truth has unexpected consequences.  So while Alex learns his uncle was a spy, his uncle's former employers learn that Alex is smart and resourceful ... and as it happens, they do so just at a time that they really need an teenage agent.  What a narratively convenient coincidence!

So as you might imagine, Alex finds his most pressing concerns in life changing from 'does that girl I like also like me?' to 'am I about to die?' in fairly short order.  Because whether he wants to be a spy or not, spying wants him.

This is the second attempt to adapt the Alex Rider novels to the screen, after the not especially well received film Stormbreaker.  Critical reception of this 8 part series was much more positive, but I can't say it worked for me.

The principal issue I see is that the show has an identity crisis.  On the one hand, it's got a very po-faced, "spying is a dangerous business" grimness to it.  But on the other, this is ultimately a series about a 16 year old spy trying to defeat a Nazi super-science plot.  And that's not something I could take seriously even if plot wasn't practically the same as the evil scheme from S Club: Seeing Double.

Be serious or be silly, show.  You can't do both.

(Hint: Be silly.  I have no interest in a 'serious' show about a schoolboy spy)