Movie Review

Rings of Power: Season 2 Review

/ Peter Martuneac / 3 Comments

I was a week late but managed to avoid any spoilers online for Rings of Power‘s season finale, which I think is no small feat. However, I almost wish I’d seen a spoiler or two because the finale was deeply disappointing. Overall, this season was much better than the debut season last year, which suffered from poor writing and odd pacing. Then the finale came and it fell right back into those old problems.

(Spoilers ahead)

I’ve mentioned on my Twitter account before that I don’t like how Numenor is portrayed in this show, even as I accept that it’s largely due to the compressed timeline compared to the books. The decay and fall of Numenor took place over many centuries and obviously that won’t work when trying to make a show about all this. I get it, and I accept that.

What I refuse to accept is the infantile portrayal of Numenorians. In the previous episode, the rightful queen, Tar-Miriel, had passed what is essentially an ancient witch trial: jump into the sea and if the sea monster down there doesn’t eat you, then you have the Valar’s favor. The Numenorians in attendance cheer and accept her as their queen.

Fast-forward to this episode and Ar-Pharazon, the usurper of the throne, hands a committee of citizens called The Faithful a letter that says Tar-Miriel is in league with the enemy Sauron and based on this she is to be arrested. We never get to read this letter, all we get is the character saying, “Sauron?” after he glances at it for a second.

Worse yet, nobody questions the letter at all. Not one person wonders if maybe, just maybe, this convenient admission of betrayal was fabricated by a man who stands to lose everything if Tar-Miriel is installed on the throne.

The Numenorians are basically a race of demi-gods. They have seen the Valar, their very island was raised from the depth of the sea as a gift from the Valar for standing with the Elves in their war against Morgoth. But in Rings of Power they are stupid, fickle, cowardly, and worst of all, boring. Almost every scene set in Numenor is a colossal bore.

Which segues nicely into my next problem with the show. As aforementioned, I can deal with compressed timelines because it’s a necessity. But things wouldn’t have to be so compressed if the showrunners didn’t waste so much time on useless characters who add nothing. Isildur is given a short-lived love interest who added nothing to his character development. Both Theo and the elf warrior Arondir lost all use as characters when Theo’s mother, the only thing tying them together, was written off the show after Season 1, yet they receive vast amounts of screen time.

And the writing, which had been so much better, was just atrocious. If you’re going to shoehorn in not one but two names of the story (Rings of Power and Lord of the Rings), don’t put it in the same sentence. It wasn’t a cool moment as intended; it was just awkward. Galadriel also had a really dumb ‘go screw yourself’ line delivered to Sauron near the end of the episode that made no sense in the moment. And in another moment, one of the faithless Numenorians, instead of artfully deceiving Isildur about the state of affair back home, immediately revealed his evil intentions. What could have been a cliff-hanger of sorts was thrown away.

The storyline at Khazad-dum and the struggles the dwarves face is by far the best of the show, and I really have no complaints here. The casting is excellent, the sets and costumes are gorgeous, and the writing is brilliant.

In a climactic scene in the finale, when Durin faces his father the King who has been driven mad by the ring he received from Sauron, Durin tearfully says (I’m paraphrasing), “Remember when I was a wee lad and we would arm wrestle? You would let me push your hand down sometimes and I would think that maybe I had finally grown strong enough to beat you. Then in an instant, you’d flatten my hand back down. And I’d be reminded that no one and nothing was stronger than my father. Be strong for me again, Father. Take off the ring.”

Moments later, as the King prepares to sacrifice himself in combat with the awoken Balrog, he turns to Durin and says, “I never let you push my hand down, my son. Not for a second. You are stronger than you know.”

As both a son and a father myself, that really got to me. I grew up the same way, believing that no one and nothing in the world was stronger than my dad. Even well into my adulthood, when my dad had grown into his sixties and I had surely become the stronger man by then, I wasn’t sure I’d want to get in a fist fight with him. He was Superman to me as a kid, my own Man of Steel, and that image lasted for decades.

Sauron himself has also been a bright spot in the series. Charlie Vickers is brilliant as the corrupted Maiar, known in his deceitfully fair form as Annatar, the gift-giver. Vickers masterfully projects a subtle, malevolent aura, straddling the line between good acting and corny showmanship. It would have been so easy, I think, for a lesser actor to fail in this titanic role and come across as a Snidely Whiplash type of villain, but Vickers has nailed it, stealing every scene he’s in with a wicked gravitas. A sly look here, a carefully worded lie there, convincing others to do his bidding all while they believe it was their own idea, it all gives us just a glimpse of the unfathomable evil that simmers just below his surface.

There’s more I could say but this post has already run long and I wouldn’t ask you to surrender more of your time reading my complaints. I’ll conclude by saying that if there is a Season 3, I’m going to watch it. There was enough good from Season 2 to make me believe that the showrunners have at least a faint idea of what they’re doing. Their biggest crime of this season was, in my opinion, wasting our time with useless characters.

But man, that finale was a massive killjoy. It’ll take a while to rinse that foul taste from my mouth.

Review: ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’

/ Peter Martuneac / 7 Comments

As usual, I was fashionably late in getting around to watch this Netflix blockbuster, but being a fan of all things Edgar Allen Poe, watching it was inevitable. And even if I wasn’t such a big fan of Poe, the premise might be far too interesting to ignore. It’s a dramatized version of Poe’s story of the same name, while the themes and plots of some of his other most famous works are woven into each episode.

The general plot goes thusly: Roderick Usher and his sister, Madeline, are the billionaire owners of a corrupt pharmaceutical giant on trial for a drug that has killed millions. Suddenly, Roderick’s children begin to die in mysterious circumstances and he finally invites the man prosecuting him, C. August Dupin, to his abandoned childhood home to ‘confess’ to his crimes.

Overall I enjoyed the series, but it never quite fully hooked me. There were several reasons for that. One, I find it odd that each and every one of Roderick Usher’s children are completely and irredeemably depraved, leading lives of unabashed debauchery and obsessed with their own pleasure. You mean to tell me not one offspring became just a normal, relatively well-adjusted person?

Two, the constant and forced profanity. As I’ve said many times before, I spent four years as a United States Marines. I was in the infantry. So I’m not some overzealous prude clutching pearls at any language that goes beyond ‘gosh’. But my goodness, what purpose does so much profanity serve?

It was even forced into common phrases, which got a huge eyeroll from me. For instance, instead of saying ‘he knows which side his bread’s buttered on’, one character says ‘he knows which side his d**k’s buttered on’.

Really? Did we really need to pepper in adult language in that line? It’s crass and it comes across like a 14-year-old who just recently learned some new swears. It’s juvenile.

Last of all, in the final episode the show suddenly became ham-fisted and preachy. I easily picked up on the themes and the message that the show’s creators wanted to convey throughout the series. At times subtle, at times a little in-your-face, but never sanctimonious until the finale. Madeline, who, by the way, is morally reprehensible in every way and guilty of several atrocities, deigns to sermonize the viewers in an exhausting monologue just before the climax.

Which would have been bad enough except that the show did not seem to want to push back on what she said or underline the sheer hypocrisy of it all. It was as if the show wanted us to nod along and applaud, to suddenly like this character and root for her devious designs.

And how’s this for ham-fisted? At one point the show’s main antagonist, a demon of sorts or perhaps even the very Devil himself, mentions someone else with whom they’d struck a deal and proceeds to clearly identify this ‘mystery person’ by lifting an infamous line from one of his 2016 presidential campaign rallies.

The other character, one we have just learned in this same episode has committed every crime from rape to murder many times over, chimes in with, “Any chance that his bill is coming due soon? Even I have my limits.” Cue an eyeroll so big I gave myself a migraine. No, Netflix writers and producers, I am not going to chuckle along with this mass murderer who thinks he is somehow less damned than anyone else in the world.

Aside from these complaints, and despite how much time I spent on them, I really did enjoy the show, even if it left a sour taste in my mouth. The adaption of so many Poe stories was a triumph. Even the names of all the main characters, they were all names from Poe’s works. It truly was brilliant work.

My highest praise, however, goes to the acting. These actors did such a tremendous job, but I especially want to single out Mark Hamill, who portrayed Arthur Pym, the lawyer and fixer of the Usher family. Even though I just lambasted his character two paragraphs earlier, I would be remiss not to mention how mesmerizing he was as ‘the Pym reaper’. Hamill stole every scene with a gravelly voice and grave, unchanging countenance. Anytime Pym took the stage, I had to sit up straighter and really focus on whatever was about to unfold.

So if you have a Netflix account and are a fan of dark urban fiction, this is a show I strongly recommend as long as you can deal with the excessive profanity and flashes of gore. I may even watch it again in the future, despite my problems with the show.

Review: Black Sails

/ Peter Martuneac / 1 Comment

I started watching Black Sails back when it debuted in 2014. I had just been honorably discharged from the military and was living with my parents for a few months as I waited for college to start in the fall. I stumbled upon this show because my parents had a free trial for Starz and was immediately hooked by the premise of the golden age of piracy.

Then college started and, while I enjoyed the first season of Black Sails, it wasn’t enough to convince me to get a Starz subscription when Season 2 was released the following year.

Thankfully, the show found its way to Netflix. After a full decade, I was finally able to finish this rousing pirate tale.

As I mentioned in my previous blog post, even the opening credits are a treat to watch. The animation is done well, the musical score compels you to tap your foot along to the beat, and it leaves subtle cues as to the overarching themes of the show: anarchy vs civilization, the deadly power of the ocean, greed, love, and multiple sorts of honor.

You can watch the opening credits here. Even if you have no desire to watch the show, this sequence really is cool and you should enjoy the music.

The main plotline follows the fictional Captain James Flint, the same Captain Flint from Treasure Island, as he chases an impossible prey: the Urca de Lima, a Spanish treasure galleon. The plot eventually widens and thickens as the show rolls along, but this is the general thrust of it.

Along for the ride is a colorful mix of pirates fictional and real: Charles Vane, ‘Calico’ Jack Rackham, Anne Bonny, Billy Bones, and many, many more. Nassau, a large port town on New Providence Island serves as their home base from which a wealthy yet disgraced English merchant family, the Guthries, fence their stolen goods.

As is typical for these types of shows, early on there is gratuitous nudity, sex, and gore. I’ve noticed a trend, however, that such shows use the nudity and violence to draw in the crowd who enjoys that and will eventually taper off. I might be mistaken, but the final season of Black Sails had almost no nudity at all.

So if you’re like me and would rather the show dispense with the fan-service and get back to the plot, you can rest assured that after the first few episodes the show gets much better in this regard.

I also want to note that the casting was sublime. Every character felt fully fleshed out thanks, in part, to a solid script but mostly to the wonderful performances of the actors. Australian actor Luke Arnold deserves special praise as ‘Long John’ Silver, and the late Ray Stevenson brought the menacing, legendary Black Beard to life.

Overall, Black Sails was probably the best show I’ve watched since AMC’s Hell on Wheels. It’s stuffed to the gills with historical pirates and pirate-hunters, and it tells of a swashbuckling adventure with memorable characters, devious villains, epic naval battles, and an elusive horde of Spanish gold.

If you have a Netflix account and even a passing interest in pirate tales, I highly recommend it. The only negatives to the show are the aforementioned overindulgence of nudity and violence, which eventually tapers off. Other than that it gets a perfect score from me.

Review: ‘Those About to Die’

/ Peter Martuneac / 2 Comments

After the American Civil War, the Roman empire is probably the time and place of history in which I’m best informed. I’ve done a lot of reading over the years about the Caesars and their empire, and I’ll consume just about any media that is set in Rome. Ridley Scotts’ 2004 epic ‘Gladiator’ is still one of my all-time favorite movies. Playing ‘Rome: Total War’ on my parents’ computer took up countless hours of my childhood.

So when NBC’s Peacock streaming service released a new show focusing on Roman gladiators called ‘Those About to Die’, you better bet I started watching the very day it was released. I now wish I hadn’t.

After forcing myself to watch all ten episodes of the first season (a second season is clearly planned, though I hope it never sees the light of day), I’m ready to give my review.

My disappointment in the series was immediate, as soon as the opening credits rolled. I love a good opening credits sequence. I recently watched Starz’s pirate-themed series ‘Black Sails’ (my review for that to come soon) and the intro was so good that I let it play out in almost every episode. The music was catchy and embraced the high-seas pirate spirit, the animation was excellent, and it displayed the themes of anarchy, treachery, and constant threat of death in a pleasing, subtle manner.

Not so in ‘Those About to Die’. Here my eyes were assaulted by a garish, gaudy ocean of crimson blood washing through and around a pristine marble city. The music a generic clashing of dissonant sounds, a genuine cacophony. The CGI for this sequence was terrible and it was so on-the-nose as to be insulting. I immediately lowered my expectations for the entire show and was soon proven right.

Name a flaw and this show has it. Ham-fisted exposition. Predictable plot twists. Unlikeable protagonists encased in ten feet of plot armor. Shoddy acting. The plot being pulled along by forced events rather than flowing forward like a river. Worst of all, a total lack of historical accuracy. By the end of Episode 10 I was rooting for everyone but the Northman to die. I knew of course that wouldn’t happen but I wished it all the same. Not one character grew on me or felt genuine.

I won’t even get into the absurd amounts of gore and sex because I think I’ve already done a decent job convincing you, the reader, to skip this show. Suffice it to say that, even for a show about gladiators and chariot racers, the violence felt way over the top and perhaps just one, two at most, of the many sex scenes was necessary to the plot.

Despite the horrendous music in the opening credits, the musical score throughout the series was actually good, even excellent. As for everything else about this show, let’s just say that I envied the man in the opening scene whose throat was cut. At least his suffering ended quickly.

Film Review: 1917

/ Peter Martuneac / 5 Comments

I don’t typically watch war movies these days. Since having participated in a war myself, such films have lost their sheen for me. I do make exceptions, however. I watched “12 Strong” because it’s probably the only blockbuster film about my war to be made and now I’ve seen the 2019 film “1917”.

This film, as you can probably guess from the title, is set during The Great War, aka World War I. There are just two main characters, two young British soldiers, Lance Corporals William Schofield and Thomas Blake, tasked with an impossible mission: carry a message across no-man’s-land, passing close to a German-occupied town, to a division that is about to stumble into a trap. A simple premise that is done beautifully.

Everything about this film was done well. The accompanying musical score directed by Thomas Newman was a perfect match, at times haunting and other times inspiring. There is also an a capelle rendition of the classic folk song “I am a Poor Wayfaring Stranger” towards the end, sung by a soldier to his silent comrades, that left me at a loss for words.

George Mackay and Dean-Charles Chapman are excellent in the roles as Schofield and Blake. They truly captured the spirit of two young men who daily live in fear of death but put a brave face over it, whether that be through humors, letters from home, or allowing themselves to be fully immersed in their work.

Benedict Cumberbatch also appears in the film briefly as Colonel Mackenzie. Though he is only on the screen for about two minutes, he runs away with the scene. It’s remarkable when an actor can suck the air out of the room in which the audience sits, even in a supporting role.

What truly elevated this film, however, is the manner in which it’s shot. There are no scene breaks, no POV changes, and no cuts. The film is a continuous, running shot. The effect of this method is astounding and a wholly new experience. Just one example, as Schofield and Blake approach a seemingly abandoned country house during their mission, they decide they must check the house for enemies.

In any other movie, here there would likely be a scene change, cutting to the young Lance Corporals suddenly on the porch of the house or kicking in the front door. Not in 1917. Here, once Schofield and Blake decide to advance on the house, you follow them literally every step of the way. Down the hill, around the pond, up the bank, and then over to the porch. It’s only about 18 seconds, but it’s 18 seconds of filming you would never see in an ordinary film.

Suffice it to say, I was fully immersed in this film. It takes you right down to the ground of a brutal land war, giving you a grunt’s-eye-view. There’s not too much violence in it; there’s a scene of somewhat unsavory hand-to-hand combat, but it takes place during the night and in a shadowed corner, sparing the viewer anything too gruesome.

And, of course, there is heart-wrenching loss. It’s painful to watch and impossible not to shed a tear.

As with other war movies, I will not watch this one again, but I’m very glad I saw it once. I highly recommend it to anyone who appreciates a new cinematic experience.