Two series reviews, one entry
More results from me paying the Mouse one month:
1) Legion. As in, the third and final season of same. I had loved the first season, and had extremely mixed feelings about the second season. The third season slipped off my radar, and then I had no chance to watch it. However, it seems the Mouse has it along with everything else Marvel based, and so I could watch it. In general, I like s3 far more than s2, though a part of me still thinks Legion is one of the shows which should have remained one season. (Forever all hail Watchmen and Damon Lindelof sticking to his guns. That was perfect, and it should remain this way.) Otoh, I did like, minor nitpicks aside, how they wrapped it up in s3. It remained stylish and visual original to the end - the most extraordinary of all Marvel based tv shows in this way - but as opposed to s2 didn't inflict lengthy Jon Hamm monologues on the audience, and provided more focus, felt far less meandering. The final conclusion was one that speaks to my inner optimist-against-the-odds. And rarely outside of DW have I seen a show so unabashedly unafraid to marry the silly to the deeply disturbing. Meaning: sometimes you get scenes of mass slaughter, and sometimes you get a scene in which a deceased character winning a Rap battle against the Big Bad Wolf on the Astral plane.
Also: Harry Lloyd now joins Patrick Stewart and James MacAvoy in the exclusive circle of hot British actors playing Charles Xavier, telepath with good intentions and dubious results extraordinaire. Which is never a bad thing.
Dan Stevens as the title character (and offspring of the above named) continues to demonstrate he was seriously underchallenged as Cousin Matthew in Dontown Abbey , bringing on the scariness, the pathos, and the incredible damage. This final season was also when Sydney as a character really won me over. And I really really hope Cary and Kerry Loudermilk, the mutants who as far as I know were original characters this tv series invented, will show up elsewhere in the Marvelverse, because they were my favourites to the point where I thought, okay, show, I'm ready to take all you throw at me as long as Kerry and Cary remain!
In conclusion, I'm glad I watched it, and can now re-embrace the show without the mixed s2 feelings.
2. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier: I now feel smug because I already thought Helmut Zemo was interesting in Civil War, check out my review back in the day, and that his final scene with T'Challa was one of the movie's best. Anyway, Daniel Brühl has so much fun with this fleshed out version of Zemo. As for the titular guys, after several movies that didn't do anything for me re: his character, I think I finally have developed a mild fondness for Bucky. Sam, whom I already liked, has some good character scenes here, but most of them are early on - with Carl Lumbly as Isaiah Bradley, especially -, and he's easily as good at the earnest final speech as Chris Evans, the problem is that the politics of this show are, well, not the best. There's the general US tv problem that poitical protest either shows up as terrorism or not at all, with activism, political parties, the media, social media etc. etc. etc. non existing. (In this case, this means you have yet another ominous global council on the one hand, and Karli and the Flag Smashers on the other, and no one but Sam in between.) Not to mention that by presenting the Flash Smashers as the sole people protesting against the plans, the show inadvertendly presents our heroes in a bad light. (Since they don't seem to care about the situation until Karli gets violent.) There's the wanting-to-have-their-cake-and-eat-it-ness of the MCU which ascribes a kind of film star status to its heroes on the one hand, but on the other wants us to believe Sam has difficulties getting a loan from the bank instead of a contract for advertising. And given how incredibly difficult it is to get concensus on any given G7 (and definitely G20) summit, I really don't buy everyone agreeing on a policy until Sam gives them a stern talking to.
Still, by and large, this was entertaining to watch. Though the MCU guys still have no idea about German geography. (The streets "behind Munich" aren't as bewildering as, say, the fact that Steve springs Bucky from goal in Berlin and then evidently decides the airport to flee to with him is Leipzig/Halle, not Berlin Tegel, because it's not like he's in a hurry, evidently. But I still am somewhat confused by the lonely countryside roads in the Munich neighborhood. This entry was originally posted at https://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1471195.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.
1) Legion. As in, the third and final season of same. I had loved the first season, and had extremely mixed feelings about the second season. The third season slipped off my radar, and then I had no chance to watch it. However, it seems the Mouse has it along with everything else Marvel based, and so I could watch it. In general, I like s3 far more than s2, though a part of me still thinks Legion is one of the shows which should have remained one season. (Forever all hail Watchmen and Damon Lindelof sticking to his guns. That was perfect, and it should remain this way.) Otoh, I did like, minor nitpicks aside, how they wrapped it up in s3. It remained stylish and visual original to the end - the most extraordinary of all Marvel based tv shows in this way - but as opposed to s2 didn't inflict lengthy Jon Hamm monologues on the audience, and provided more focus, felt far less meandering. The final conclusion was one that speaks to my inner optimist-against-the-odds. And rarely outside of DW have I seen a show so unabashedly unafraid to marry the silly to the deeply disturbing. Meaning: sometimes you get scenes of mass slaughter, and sometimes you get a scene in which a deceased character winning a Rap battle against the Big Bad Wolf on the Astral plane.
Also: Harry Lloyd now joins Patrick Stewart and James MacAvoy in the exclusive circle of hot British actors playing Charles Xavier, telepath with good intentions and dubious results extraordinaire. Which is never a bad thing.
Dan Stevens as the title character (and offspring of the above named) continues to demonstrate he was seriously underchallenged as Cousin Matthew in Dontown Abbey , bringing on the scariness, the pathos, and the incredible damage. This final season was also when Sydney as a character really won me over. And I really really hope Cary and Kerry Loudermilk, the mutants who as far as I know were original characters this tv series invented, will show up elsewhere in the Marvelverse, because they were my favourites to the point where I thought, okay, show, I'm ready to take all you throw at me as long as Kerry and Cary remain!
In conclusion, I'm glad I watched it, and can now re-embrace the show without the mixed s2 feelings.
2. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier: I now feel smug because I already thought Helmut Zemo was interesting in Civil War, check out my review back in the day, and that his final scene with T'Challa was one of the movie's best. Anyway, Daniel Brühl has so much fun with this fleshed out version of Zemo. As for the titular guys, after several movies that didn't do anything for me re: his character, I think I finally have developed a mild fondness for Bucky. Sam, whom I already liked, has some good character scenes here, but most of them are early on - with Carl Lumbly as Isaiah Bradley, especially -, and he's easily as good at the earnest final speech as Chris Evans, the problem is that the politics of this show are, well, not the best. There's the general US tv problem that poitical protest either shows up as terrorism or not at all, with activism, political parties, the media, social media etc. etc. etc. non existing. (In this case, this means you have yet another ominous global council on the one hand, and Karli and the Flag Smashers on the other, and no one but Sam in between.) Not to mention that by presenting the Flash Smashers as the sole people protesting against the plans, the show inadvertendly presents our heroes in a bad light. (Since they don't seem to care about the situation until Karli gets violent.) There's the wanting-to-have-their-cake-and-eat-it-ness of the MCU which ascribes a kind of film star status to its heroes on the one hand, but on the other wants us to believe Sam has difficulties getting a loan from the bank instead of a contract for advertising. And given how incredibly difficult it is to get concensus on any given G7 (and definitely G20) summit, I really don't buy everyone agreeing on a policy until Sam gives them a stern talking to.
Still, by and large, this was entertaining to watch. Though the MCU guys still have no idea about German geography. (The streets "behind Munich" aren't as bewildering as, say, the fact that Steve springs Bucky from goal in Berlin and then evidently decides the airport to flee to with him is Leipzig/Halle, not Berlin Tegel, because it's not like he's in a hurry, evidently. But I still am somewhat confused by the lonely countryside roads in the Munich neighborhood. This entry was originally posted at https://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1471195.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.