The Last Legion (2007)

In 476 AD, the ailing Western Roman Empire finally succumbed to the tides of history.  The Goth Odoacer became King of Italy, nominally under the suzerainty of the Eastern Emperor, though in practice as a fully independent ruler.  The final Emperor, the eleven year old Romulus Augustus, was spared and sent into exile at a fortress in Naples.

This film (very loosely) depicts those events, then posits that a small cadre of loyal troops rescued the young Emperor from the fortress and spirited him - and the long-lost sword of Julius Caesar himself - away to Britain.  There, they go in search of the missing Ninth Legion, who might stand by Romulus and assist him in protecting that island from the evil warlord Vortgyn.  If so, perhaps the youngster might become the ruler that his Welsh advisor Ambrosinus believes he can be.

The Last Legion is even sillier than that summary sounds, as I have deliberately not mentioned the final revelation of who Romulus and Ambrosinus become in the (semi-)historical record.  It's probably already obvious, but just in case it isn't, would it help to know that Julius Caesar's sword ends up stuck in a big stone?

Sytill, being silly doesn't automatically make a film unentertaining.  The 1980 space fantasy Flash Gordon is ridiculous, and I love every goofy moment of it.  Now, The Last Legion is no Flash Gordon, but overall, it's light if not especially memorable action fun. 

But does, however, make a few missteps.  One of these is the casting.  Many of the actors, most of whom are of British background, are quite talented.  But not everyone is suited to the role they got, and this is most notably the case of Colin Firth, as the tough and grizzled Roman general Aurelius.  Firth was apparently attracted to the role because it was so different to what he was normally offered. Taking a role against type was a gamble that paid off really well for Liam Neeson; but the same is not true here.  Firth simply doesn't convince me he's the grizzled veteran he is supposed to be.

Also, for a character who is supposed to be a military commander, Aurelius's tactics are dreadful. If you're the officer in charge, maybe don't stand thirty feet in front of your own force's shield wall and try to fight the entire Goth army alone.

Meanwhile, one of the film's (many) silly ideas is the old "Oh my!  This badass fighter is secretly a woman!" trope.  Trust me, that fact is abundantly obvious to anyone with functioning eyes.  Except, apparently, the characters.  

Also, it's amazing how she slaughters dozens of guys while wearing white, and never gets a drop of blood on her! 

Will she be wedged into a thoroughly unconvincing romance subplot with the clearly much older Firth? Of course she will.

Things are also sometimes a bit wobbly on the production side.  In particular, some of the costuming on the extras playing Goths is a bit dodgy, especially around wigs and beards.  On the plus side though, the locations used for shooting - mostly Tunisia and Slovakia - look great.

The Last Legion is ultimately an adequate time filler, but there's really nothing terribly memorable about it.  Watch only if (gasp! spoiler!) Arthurian reconstructions are a real passion of yours.  Even then, maybe watch Avalon High instead.

Black Lightning, Season 1 (2018)

 

Nine years ago, the superhero Black Lightning fought an ongoing battle with the gangs and criminals who plagued the community of Freeland, Georgia.  But then a climactic battle with the mob boss Tobias Whale left both men dead or missing.

Today, Jefferson Pierce is the inspirational principal of Garfield High School.  He has put his days as Black Lightning behind him, due to the negative impact his double life was putting on his (now ex-)wife and two daughters.  He has no intention of ever returning to his previous escapades as a costumed vigilante.

Life, however, has little interest in Jefferson's intentions.  Local gang "The 100" appear to be beyond the ability of the local police to control.  Thaty means that then some of their number happen to set their sights on the former superhero's daughters, there's no choice but to dust off the supposedly mothballed costume and bring back the Lightning.

Of course, once released, that particular genie will be very hard to put back in its lamp.  Especially as it starts to become apparent that Jefferson has passed on more to his daughters than just intelligence and good looks ...

I very much enjoyed this first season of Black Lightning, especially the earliest episodes.  With their focus on street level crime and policing, they feel authentic and personal.  As the season continues, and more super-tech and superpowered elements are introduced, the more it starts to feel like any of the Arrowverse shows (even though it was not, at this point, part of that shared continuity).

I also liked that from its very first episode, Black Lightning makes its core beliefs and values thoroughly clear.  It emphatically advocates that Black Lives Matter and highlights the challenges faced by African-American people.  To ensure the authenticity of this depiction, the writing staff are themselves predominately African-American.

In addition to a clear political stance, the writers have delivered compelling, likeable characters.  They're helped immensely in this by a talented and charismatic cast.  The familial bonds between Jefferson/Black Lightning, his ex-wife and their daughters are all well-depicted, especially the sisterly bond between the two younger Pierces.

In terms of production, the show generally looks good.  Fight choreography is solid.  I'm actually not much of a fan of Black Lightning's own costume, but the other major costume design is a nice one.  The show also makes excellent use of music.

A real breath of fresh air after the disappointment of the last catch of Arrowverse shows I watched.

Redline (2009)

 

On the planet Dorothy, the Yellowline car race is nearing its conclusion.  Yellowline is the final elimination race for qualification into Redline, the most popular, most high octane, most dangerous race in the galaxy.

Only two of the racers in Yellowline will matter to us: idealistic young female driver "Cherry Boy Hunter" McLaren, who wins the race, and "Sweet" JP, who could have won but whose mob connections insisted he finish second.

But then the announcement comes that Redline will be held on Roboworld, a planet of militant cyborgs whose President has threatened to kill everyone involved with the Redline if they pollute his planet.  A couple of the participants drop out, rather than deal with this extra danger, and JP gets his chance to win the Biggest Race In The Galaxy after all.  Assuming that is, and he - and anyone else involved in the race, including "Cherry Boy Hunter" - lives to see the finish line.

This Japanese anime has frenetic and highly stylised animation.  It uses lots of very dark shadow splashed into high contrast with neon colours and blinding whites.  The character designs are also generally wild and visually arresting.  Ironically, the major exceptions to this are the main characters of JP and McLaren.  JP's design is pretty much just a 50s greaser with a massive pompadour, and McLaren's is a fairly generic anime tomboy.

The visuals also put a lot of emphasis on depicting the enormous speed of the race, and in delivering spectacle as a whole.  The film has won a lot of critical praise for this - and it does do it well.  Unfortunately, I think it does so at the cost of the plot and the characterisation.

Now you might be thinking "Plot?  It's a racing film.  Does it need a plot other than 'how will the main character win?'." And that's a fair point.  Ironically enough, though, it's Redline's failure to narrowly focus on that storyline that costs it in the plot stakes.  The script introduces a wide variety of sub-plots and side stories that take up a significant amount of screen time, and which don't deliver any real forward movement in the main plot or in the development of the major characters.  The resulting lack of character depth, in particular, is a real problem.  They're very basically sketched and have minimal motivation.  As far as I can tell, we're supposed to care about JP because (a) he's the main character and (b) he had a rough childhood, while McLaren's main personality traits are "idealistic and attractive".  Their under-developed personalities meant I did not much care about either them or the outcome of the race.

If you like high octane animated spectacle, Redline might well be for you.  But it didn't really rev my engine.

The Wilds, Season 2 (2022)

 

After an apparent plane crash, seven young women spent fifty days on a deserted island before being rescued. As we continue to learn more about the trials they faced on the island, the group much face the truth that their 'rescue' is merely the next stage of a strange (improbable and unethical) social experiment. They - and the group of young men who went through a parallel experience - must now decide how to respond to the fact that they are still, essentially, captives of a murky conspiracy.

In my review of the first season of The Wilds, I observed that it ran the risk of falling into the "Lost trap" of seeing an intriguing premise squandered in aimless water-treading plotlines.  It turns out that this second season is a smidgen disappointing after the highly effective opening series, but not for that particular reason.  Instead, The Wilds stumbles into a different problem: plot developments that take its already far-fetched premise and stretch my suspension of disbelief to snapping point.

As an example, there was literally a moment in this season where my wife said "I think [plot point will happen]", and my reply was "That makes no sense.  I think they will, too." ... and yes, they did it, and it made exactly zero sense and actually had zero relevance since it never came up again.  Nor will it now ever come up, as the show has been cancelled by Amazon and will never see a season 3.

Despite the storyline getting very silly and over the top, I am disappointed by the show's cancellation.  The cast - including the numerous new young male actors - are excellent.  And scripts do a pretty good job of handling what is ultimately a large expansion of the cast: we have nearly twice as many major characters in this season as in the first.

I think there was a very high possibility that a third season of The Wilds would have gone horribly off the rails and been very disappointing, but it could also have been great.  It's a shame we won't find out.

I look forward to seeing the cast in their future projects - they are, as I said, all very good.

Trucks (1997)

 

In an isolated scrapyard somewhere, a beat-up old pickup truck suddenly comes to life and kills the junk yard's owner.

Given the isolation, though, this bizarre bit of automotive homicide goes unnoticed.  The nearest town is the backwater of Lunar, New Mexico, and that's a fair few miles down the road.

Lunar is close the supposed site of Area 51, and local woman Hope has lived up to her name by starting a tour company aimed at UFO enthusiasts looking for their own 'close encounter'.

As more and more vehicles turn murderous, Hope and her customers are about to have an experience they will never forget ... assuming they survive.

Trucks is the second screen adaptation of a not especially good short story by Stephen King.  The first was the comically awful Maximum Overdrive,  a film starring a very young Emilio Estevez and (clumsily) directed by King himself.  

Ironically, the overall plotline of Trucks hews closer to King's original short story than the movie the author himself made.  It's still every bit as bad, though.

Firstly, we have the problem that all the characters are broad stereotypes, without any subversion or subtlety in their depiction.  We have the obnoxious redneck, the obnoxious townie, the aging hippie, the rebellious teen, the man of action, the voice of reason ... and absolutely nothing about any of these people will surprise you.  Well, except possibly for how stupid they are.  Like the guy whose response to being attacked by a host of killer trucks is to ... repair a truck that currently isn't running.  No-one suggests this might be a bad idea.  It goes exactly as well as you might expect.

Sadly, as stupid as the actions of the characters may be, the script seems determined to outdo them.  The trucks are shown adjusting their wing mirrors to spy on people.

I repeat: The trucks are shown adjusting their wing mirrors to spy on people.  Are we supposed to think that's how they 'see'?  Because if so, how do any of them ever successfully drive forward, given all the mirrors face backward?  And if they can see via other means, why are they mucking with their mirrors?

Don't worry that this might be a cherry-picked single moment of stupid.  There are plenty more.  For instance, there's a killer Tonka truck that we're supposed to believe successfully murders a postal worker, in a scene that is symptomatic of issue that the things the film wants - presumably - to present as scary, are in fact nothing of the sort.  Then there's the scene where an emergency response vehicle somehow inflates a hazmat stored within it and then controls said hazmat suit into axe-murdering two people.

Trucks is occasionally hilariously awful, but unless that's your thing, you should steer well clear.

Smallville, Season 8 (2008)

 

Lex Luthor, Lana Lang, Chloe Sullivan and Clark Kent are all missing after the climactic events of Smallville's seventh season.  Their absences have not gone unnoticed.  Green Arrow, Black Canary and Aquaman - who all know the secret of Clark's powers - are on the hunt for the missing Kryptonian, while the new CEO of LuthorCorp, Tess Mercer, searches for Lex.

Only one of these searches will achieve rapid results.  You can't really have Smallville without Clark Kent, after all.  Together with Green Arrow and his other allies, Clark also rescues Chloe, reuniting the team that's been in place since the show's first episode.

This done, Clark decides that the time has come to move on from his life in rural Kansas.  He takes up an internship at the Daily Planet newspaper in Metropolis, where he will be working closely with frequent verbal sparring partner (and frequently the best thing about this show) Lois Lane.

Of course, wherever Clark goes, super-powered villains always seem to come out of the woodwork.  Not all of these are coincidental.  An enemy whom Clark thought destroyed is still out there - and for once, I don't mean Lex Luthor, though we can't count him out, either.

Season eight of Smallville sees the departure of two major cast members: Lana Lang appears in only four episodes, while Lex Luthor doesn't appear at all, beyond us seeing the back of his head a couple of times.  Adjusting to the loss of major players can be tough for a show, and given how charismatic Michael Rosenbaum was as Lex Luthor, you might expect the show to struggle.  I'm pleased to say though that it does a pretty solid job of making the transition.  Tess Mercer is a worthy replacement for Lex, and that was probably the thing they needed to get right.  Lana Lang's story had become rather played out - the writers didn't seem to know what to do with her other than make her Clark's star-crossed lover - and her departure finally opens up the window for Clark and Lois to begin drifting together.

If you've enjoyed Smallville to date, I think you'll enjoy this season, too.

Futureworld (1976)

 

In 1973's science fiction thriller Westworld, the robot 'staff' of the titular theme park ran amok, stalking and killing dozens of guests.  Somehow, the company that owned the park, Delos, survived this disaster and have been allowed to re-build.  The new park, they promise, is entirely safe and the (somewhat salacious) attractions it offers are even better, including the brand new 'Future World', in which guests can experience what it is like to go into space ... and then have sex with the robots they meet there.

Not everyone is convinced that Delos's new park is as safe as they claim, including journalists Chuck Browning and Tracy Ballard.  Delos invites them to tour the park, along with several important political figures, so that they can see first hand that everything is above board and that their concerns are entirely unfounded.

Of course, there wouldn't be much of a movie if that was true ...

Westworld was a big success for MGM, so you might have thought a sequel was a slam dunk decision.  And indeed, MGM did immediately request a treatment for a follow-up film.  But then they decided to make only one science fiction film in 1976, and they gave the nod to Logan's Run.

The script got shopped around, but other studios were reluctant to take it on the not unreasonable logic that "MGM would have done it if it was any good". It ended up at American International, but they probably should have followed the other studios' lead: the film was critically panned and not a commercial success.

Clearly, things went awry with the film.  But first, I want to acknowledge a decision I think the film-makers got right: they avoided the obvious option of just rehashing Westworld's "robots gone homicidal" concept.  Instead, they aimed for a less immediate and visceral menace in favour of an attempt at creepy eeriness.  Not in itself a bad idea: this kind of horror would be explored to great effect 2 years later in Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

Unfortunately, while I commend the decision to do something different, I cannot commend the execution with which they did so.  The attempt to create a sense of slow key, creepy menace is a failure and the actual film is merely slow and dull.  Even when it finally reveals the truth behind Delos's new project, it lacks any real punch.  It's a thriller without thrills.

The writing is unsatisfactory in other ways, perhaps less critical but still enough to detract from the film.  Like a lot of SF, Futureworld posits extreme advances in a few specific areas of technology - robotics, cloning, AI - without considering any other possibilities. People still use manual typewriters and land lines, computers are still large installations that fill entire rooms, and so on.  If you can create a robot that believably simulates human interaction, a lot of other aspects of science would necessarily have developed far more than the film suggests.

There's also a lot of problematic sexually-themed content.  Not in the sense that there's any explicit sex or nudity: there isn't.  But in the sense that the primary customer draw of the park is 'sex with robots'.  Would cybersex tourism really be quite this openly touted?

The film also features a long and very awkward 'erotic dream' sequence  that is anything but sensual, and makes the baffling decision to wedge it in between the major plot developments. The whole sequences seems to have been included mostly to justify Yul Brynner having a cameo.

Futureworld definitely gets its wires crossed.

The Wilds, Season 1 (2020)

 

A group of young women depart for an empowerment retreat in Hawai'i, but their plane develops engine failure.  As it plunges toward the ocean, they all black out, awakening later either on the shoreline of a small island, or in the water close by.  The small group of strangers must now try to survive until rescue can find them.

We learn all of this in flashback, as the young women are questioned by the authorities about their ordeal.  These question-and-answer sessions also reveal more about the survivors' lives before they arrived on the island.

Something else that we in the audience soon learn is that the young women don't know the whole story of their experience, and that there is much more going on here than they might realise.

The basic setup of The Wilds is almost certainly going to bring to mind Lost.  Both shows focus on a group of strangers who crash onto an island with secrets, and both also focus the story as much on their lives before the crash as after.

Lost, of course, has become something of a by-word for "intriguing premise squandered in aimless water-treading plotlines".  Whether The Wilds has a better plan for developing its scenario is yet to be seen, but I thoroughly enjoyed these first ten episodes, so it is off to a good start.

A key component of the show's success is a great core cast, playing fun characters.  Each of the eight crash survivors brings their own brand of trauma and hang-ups to complicate their time on the island, while also being capable of evidencing strengths and skills that compensate.

Throwing this volatile group into the show's intriguing if implausible scenario provides for plenty of entertaining drama, a few laughs, and several genuinely emotionally difficult moments.  It's an entertaining ride.

I do worry about how The Wilds will continue to deliver twists and turns without collapsing under the weight of its own contortions; it seems to me there is a high chance of the show's plotlines becoming more and more absurd (and let's face it, it starts at "highly improbable").

I'm also concerned that about the possibility that we're ultimately going to get a "feminism gone mad!" angle to the storyline, which will definitely irritate me if it happens.

Despite these concerns, however, I definitely want to see season two.

Paint Your Wagon (1969)

 

When a wagon crashes into a ravine, prospector Ben Rumson recovers two men from the wreckage.  One is injured, while the other is dead.

While burying the latter man, gold dust is found at the grave site.  Ben stakes a claim on the land and adopts the injured man as his "pardner".  The other man is initially sceptical of the clearly rascally Ben, but the older man promises that while he will fight, steal, and cheat at cards, he will never betray and partner.  The two men soon become fast friends who have each other's backs in every situation.

The duo, and many other prospectors, become citizens of a ramshackle tent town where alcohol and cards are their only companions.  Tensions rise at the lack of female companionship, and the arrival of a Mormon with two wives brings the issue to a head.  The miners persuade their visitor to auction off one of his wives, and it is Ben who makes the winning bid.

Ben and Pardner have shared every part of their lives, but surely a wife is one thing they cannot share, right?

Based on the stage musical of the same name, Paint Your Wagon got the green light for production because Paramount's owner had squandered the opportunity to produce smash hit Funny Girl, and was desperate to make a big budget musical of his own.

Like a lot of productions inspired by vanity, the film careered off its financial rails.  Initially budgeted for $10 million, it ballooned to costing double that much.  This price ticket that meant that even after becoming the 7th highest grossing film, of the year, it still lost millions of dollars.

Honestly, it's hard to imagine the line of thinking that led to this investment.  A long (over two-and-half hour) musical with mediocre songs and a trio of leads who either weren't trained singers (Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood) or simply refused to sing at all and had to be dubbed (Jean Seberg) is not an obvious tent-pole around which to build your brand, but that's what Paramount tried to do, in the opening move of a strategy that quickly flamed out in financial failure.

The careers of Eastwood and Marvin weren't impacted by the film's failure, however.  Seberg's, too, might have recovered, but the following year she became the target of a deliberate campaign of defamation and harassment by the FBI, which objected to her financial support of civil rights groups.  She would die only a decade later.

As far as this movie goes, though, "mediocre songs" is to my mind the film's biggest failing.  I'll forgive a musical a lot if I find the songs catchy and memorable, but - with the possible exception of Lee Marvin's so-bad-its-good rendition of "I Was Born Under a Wanderin' Star" - the film fails to deliver.

To be fair, the comedy bits of the film do generally work better than the music does; there are some fun moments of banter, and Marvin shows an aptitude for physical comedy.  Perhaps, it significantly slimmed down and re-written to focus on opportunities the snappy dialogue, a good film could actually have come out of this.

That's not what happened, though.