Stowaway (2021)

 

The crew of MTS-42, a two-year mission to Mars, consists of Mission Commander Marina Barnett, biologist David Kim, and medical researcher Zoe Levenson.

Shortly after takeoff, Barnett discovers launch support engineer Michael Adams, an accidental stowaway, unconscious between two modules.  Adams's unconscious body is entangled with a device that scrubs carbon dioxide from the air on the ship.  As he falls, the device is inadvertently destroyed.

The crew is forced to use emergency chemical canisters to scrub CO2 from the air. Unfortunately, this is at best a temporary measure. Without another oxygen supply, the crew of four will asphyxiate weeks before reaching Mars.  Thus begins the desperate search to try and find an alternative to the unthinkable: asking Adams to sacrifice his life for the crew.

As a film, Stowaway understands its main strength - a fantastic cast - and plays to this heavily by giving them plenty of dramatic situations to deal with, and lots of intense conversations to have about those situations.

On the other hand, the script does seem like one with a limited range of appeal.  It relies a lot on contrivance to set up its situation, for one thing.  Also, it takes very much a slow and introspective approach to laying out the story; audiences looking for a grand space adventure are destined to be disappointed.  Finally, it's ultimately a film about the sacrifices people are willing to make, and why.  That is a noble but melancholy topic, and easy to get wrong.

Ultimately, I think Stowaway goes slightly off-course.  Its cast are all excellent, but even they can't quite land the emotional punch the script is looking for.  I blame this on the script and direction, which is very measured and methodical.  Despite the cast's best efforts, at the end of the picture, I was left feeling a little bit "Is that it?".

Underbelly: Razor (2011)

 

Sydney, the 1920s. In a possibly unique situation, the two most powerful figures in organised crime are both women. Kate Leigh runs the illegal 'grog shops' - illicit businesses that sell alcohol after the mandatory closing hours - while Tilly Devine runs the brothels.

Kate and Tilly have never been friends, and as their list of personal grievances with each other increases, and pressures from other quarters increase, they each take more and more dramatic actions to (a) preserve their own criminal enterprises and (b) take down the other woman.  Hiring triggermen, equipping their respective gangs with straight-razors (from which the series takes it name) and quietly tattling to the police about each other's activities.

Each season of Australian 'true crime' series Underbelly recounts a particularly notorious - or at least salacious - period of criminal activity.  The first season was particularly controversial because it came out at a time when the real-life crimes were still being prosecuted.  It was actually prohibited from screening in the state of Victoria for seven months because of it.

Razor is ably anchored by strong central performances from the leading women playing Australian-born Kate and UK-born Tilly (though both actors, ironically, are from New Zealand).  It needs that anchor, I think, because the actual narrative is a little meandering with many secondary characters who rotate in for a few episodes, then disappear again.

Razor also continues a trend, originating in the second season, of containing a considerable amount of incidental sex and nudity.  I suspect this came about as a way to maintain notoriety and 'edginess' in the absence of court orders and injunctions.

Ultimately, if you have an interest in true crime shows, this will probably scratch the itch fairly well.

We Can Be Heroes (2020)

 

When Earth is threatened by an alien spaceship, no-one is much concerned. Miracle Guy will handle it. When it turns out to be an entire alien armada ... people still aren't that concerned. Earth has a whole team of superpowered heroes like Miracle Guy, "The Heroics". They can handle anything, right?

As it turns out, not so much.  More focused on their rivalries and grievances with each other than on the alien menace, the Heroics all end up isolated, outmatched and captured.

With Earth's greatest defenders out of the picture, the authorities are scrambling, locking down everything they can - including the children of the defeated Heroics.  Said children, however, are not interested in sitting in a bunker somewhere while the parents - and also the planet - are in danger.  Led by Missy Moreno, the only one among them with no powers, they break out of their secure location and take the fight to the aliens.

Robert Rodriguez is best known for violent action movies like Sin City and Once Upon A Time in Mexico, but We Can Be Heroes is actually the sixth family-friendly film he's written and directed.  Like the previous five such films, it involves kids with unusual abilities taking on a strange, often surrealistic menace.

The best of Rodriguez's family-friendly films is the first: the original Spy Kids.  I think the difference between that and this film - and all the others, for that matter - is that Spy Kids is more than just kid-friendly gags.  It's got plenty of little references and visual puns that adults can enjoy, making it genuinely a family film.

To be fair to We Can Be Heroes, it does work in a few such 'grown-up friendly' elements.  Overall though, it is definitely heavily-slanted toward a tweens-and-younger audience.  On that basis, it's a decent enough little movie, with a likeable young cast.

The Watch, Season 1 (2021)

 

In the sprawling fantasy metropolis of Ankh-Morpork, all business - including criminal business - is regulated by the guilds.  You can book a mugging for a time and place that's convenient to you, and get an official Thieves' Guild receipt for your trouble.  You can also be sure that said guild will dynamically address any unregulated crime that is committed against you.

Unsurprisingly, this means that there are few jobs in town with less prestige than being in the constabulary.  Who cares about the police when they basically can't actually enforce any laws and aren't needed to investigate any crimes?

As you might expect, this doesn't exactly make the Watch an attractive employment prospect, and it has become more or less a place of refuge for those who don't fit in anywhere else.  They're not the most prepossessing lot, but when a real life Dragon threatens the city, they may be its only hope ...

This series was inspired by the "City Watch" books from the Discworld series of fantasy novels by Terry Pratchett. Even before it came out, it provoked a hostile reaction from fans of the novels for departing too far from the books' medieval origins, delving into "punk rock" visuals, and changing or removing characters.

Personally, I'm okay with all those changes.  The punk-style visuals work okay, and the changes in character gender and details are all actually relatively okay: at least they haven't taken minority characters and made them all white dudes.  Plus the cast all work really hard to sell the roles.

Instead, my issues with The Watch are entirely about the plot.  For some reason, the writers appear to have decided to drag in elements from multiple different novels from the series - certainly at least three, possibly four or five - and in an eight episode season it's just way too much stuff.  The show's early momentum is frittered away by the constant diversions needed to jam in yet another story element, and the final two episodes are a complete mess as the writers try to juggle way more balls than they can actually handle.

Bill & Ted Face The Music (2020)

 

Thirty years after a most triumphant history assignment saved not just their friendship, but also, like the future, Bill and Ted have still not written the prophesied song that will save the world.  They've grown increasingly more and more desperate in their efforts to capture the magic, a quest that has led to commercial failure, and increasing strain on their respective marriages.  About the only thing that is working out is their relationship with their daughters, probably because the two young women are very much made in the images of their fathers.

Unfortunately, even as Bill and Ted seem further and further from success, the need to write the song has never been more urgent.  In fact, they're about to learn that they literally have only a matter of hours to complete their fabled composition, or the entire world will end.

No pressure, then!

However, Bill and Ted have learned a thing or two about time travel in their previous adventures, and it occurs to them that when you have a time machine, you can simply leap into the future to where you have already written the song, then bring it back.  Problem solved, right!?

Well, as you might expect, it's not going to be quite that easy.

It has been almost thirty years since the last Bill & Ted film, and the premise - "what happens when Wyld Stallyns don't write their prophesied song?" - is an intriguing one, so I was quite enthusiastic to see this film.  Surely, I thought, if they finally got everyone to come back for this script, it must be something special?

Alas ... not really.

Much like with the 2014 Veronica Mars film, I think the biggest flaw of Bill & Ted Face the Music is that it succumbs to the temptation to do squeeze in far too many call-backs to the original films (series, in the case of VM).  There's so much going on that none of it gets any space to breathe or develop, and at the same time, none of it really feels fresh or new.  The entire sub-plot involving their daughters, for instance, is essentially just a homage to Excellent Adventure (and also a waste of the two very talented people playing those roles).

Alas, after a thirty year quest to find that magic song, this film doesn't hit the right notes.

Heels, Season 1 (2021)

 

Jack Spade runs the Duffy Wrestling League ('the DWL'), a small professional wrestling promotion in small town Georgia. Jack's the promotion's current champion and top heel (bad guy), while his younger brother Ace is their top face (good guy) who is trying to take the title from him.

Just when it seems that the time has finally come to give Ace his title match and let him be 'top of the pile' for a while, 'Wild Bill' Hancock turns up in town. Hancock used to wrestle in the DWL when Jack's dad was running the promotion, before getting the call up to the 'big leagues' (not named in the show, but obviously meant to be the WWE). He's come to Duffy to scout Ace as a potential recruit.

This is easily the biggest opportunity of Ace's career, but it makes Jack extremely worried.  It's definitely possible that the callow, self-centred Ace would flame out spectacularly if exposed to the glitzy lifestyle of the big leagues.  And on a far more selfish note - one that everyone else is quick to notice - Ace's departure would be a huge blow to the DWL.

How Jack chooses to deal with this, and how it effects his family, his colleagues and his business, is the subject of the entire first season of Heels.  It's makes a pretty solid framework for the show, though an occasionally frustrating one as both Jack and Ace are frequently their own worst enemies.

Heels is helped immensely by a solid cast, headed by former Arrow star Stephen Amell (who has himself wrestled on WWE).  Even when characters on this show are making bad decisions, it is easy to root for them and to want to see them succeed.

Also, as someone who enjoys the pageantry of professional wrestling, I also enjoyed seeing a relatively serious show that presents a generally positive view of the 'sport' and the people who perform it.  That view is somewhat idealised and romanticised, it has to be said, but that may well be because people who aren't into pro-wrestling would not believe what the reality is actually like.  This is after all an industry where people regularly drive hundreds of miles to perform for fees that won't even cover their gas money.

Willy's Wonderland (2021)

 

When his car catches a flat tire on a remote country road, a silent drifter ends up stranded outside of Hayesville, Nevada. Local mechanic Jed Love picks him up and tows his car into town, but the drifter doesn't have enough cash to pay for the repairs, and credit cards aren't accepted.

Fortunately - or so it seems - there's a job available that would solve the drifter's problem.  All he has to do is work as a night-shift janitor at Willy's Wonderland, a once-successful abandoned family entertainment centre, in exchange for repairing his vehicle. 

Does it seem odd to you that cleaning an abandoned business is so valuable to the locals?  Well, of course it is.  The animatronic characters of Willy's Wonderland are all homicidal maniacs, and the locals keep them satiated by tossing them an annual sacrifice.  The drifter's flat tire was no accident.

The planned blood sacrifice is going to run into two complications, this year. First, there's a local teenager who is determined to see the place destroyed rather.  Second, the drifter is not an easy man to kill.

Willy's Wonderland is a decent if not exactly innovative concept.  As anyone who has seen one traumatise a child, animatronic characters can be pretty creepy.  They do after all have unblinking eyes, flappy mouths and unflinching grins.  It's not that hard to imagine them turning into pyscho-killers behind our backs.

The problem with the movie is that, having established this concept, it has absolutely nothing else to offer.  The entire thing is the same scene over and over again: 'animatronic character animates and attacks; drifter smashes it".  Adding in the teenager and her friends is presumably intended to mix things up a bit (and incidentally, to give the bad guys some victims they actually can kill), but it doesn't really work.  Which means that even at a scant 88 minutes long, including credits, Willy's Wonderland feels long and repetitive.

Fingers crossed the similarly themed Banana Splits movie does a better job of the killer animatronics concept, because this one malfunctioned.

Veronica Mars, Season 4 (2019)

 

Fifteen years after she cracked the case of her best friend's murder, Veronica Mars is back in her home town of Neptune, working as a private investigator with her father, Keith. The business is struggling financially, especially as Keith's health problems grow worse. He needs a walking stick due an injury sustained in an earlier case, and is struggling to deal with (and conceal) the symptoms of what looks like early onset dementia.

Veronica has troubles of her own, as well. Her long-term boyfriend Logan is keen to formalise their relationship via wedding vows, something that Veronica finds intensely unsettling.

The distraction of a major case might actually be welcome, but the circumstances; the bombing of a local motel, causing several fatalities, are rather more worrying.  Neptune's economy relies heavily on spring break trade, and an attack like this, right at the start of the season, could easily sink many of the local businesses.

As (bad) luck would have it, the victims of the first bombing included the fiancée of a US Congressman's brother, and the nephew of a Mexican crime boss.  The investigation thus attracts a lot of attention, much of it quite unwelcome to Veronica and Keith, as they try to find the bomber before anyone else gets killed.

Coming twelve years after the original series came to a disappointing conclusion, and five years after the (IMO, mediocre) film, season 4 of Veronica Mars recovers some of the deftness of its excellent freshman year.  The new characters it introduces are fun, it gives a bit more time and attention to some of the returning secondary players, and the core mystery is solidly constructed and satisfying.

Without getting into spoilers, I should also note that I am aware that there is a particular event near the very end of this season that is deeply disliked by many fans of the show.  I was actually pretty okay with it, but I do see why it was controversial.  If you were a fan of the original series, it's something to consider before committing to watching this.