Better Than The Film Upon Which They Are Based: The 2016 James Bond 007 Archives - SPECTRE Edition Trading Cards!

The Good: Not prohibitive to collect, Some truly spectacular autograph card signers, Metal cards are neat, Cool relic cards
The Bad: Orientation issues, A lot of familiar autograph signers
The Basics: The 2016 James Bond 007 Archives - SPECTRE Edition trading cards make a decent trading card set out of an unfortunately bad James Bond film!


When it comes to James Bond trading cards, the trading card manufacturers are, unfortunately, limited by the material. While the James Bond film franchise has an astonishingly large international following, objectively viewed, the movies in the franchise are not all winners. I have a very mixed relationship with the films in the James Bond franchise and the last two films in the franchise have worked in defiance of the most sensible interpretation of the franchise: that James Bond is a code name, an alias, used by MI-6 spies and that the CIA has similarly-protected agents. So, when Rittenhouse Archives announced they were producing the 2016 James Bond 007 Archives - SPECTRE Edition trading cards, I did not have as much anticipation in the product as many of the die-hard fans.

As one might expect, the 2016 James Bond 007 Archives - SPECTRE Edition trading cards were produced in 2016 by Rittenhouse Archives, one of the biggest producers of non-sport trading cards in the industry, as one of two James Bond trading card releases for 2016. For the 2016 James Bond 007 Archives - SPECTRE Edition cards, Rittenhouse went with a retro look and feel for a couple of the chase sets, following in the tradition and concept of the 2014 James Bond Archives trading cards.

Rather impressively, the 2016 James Bond 007 Archives - SPECTRE Edition trading cards manage to take a mediocre subject and make a very cool trading card set!

Basics/Set Composition

Fully assembled, the 2016 James Bond 007 Archives - SPECTRE Edition trading card set has 437 cards and is essentially four (or six) sets in one. As well, there is an oversized binder produced by Rittenhouse Archives that actually manages to hold the entire set, with all of its associated chase cards! The set consists of 76 common cards and 361 bonus cards. The chase cards are mostly available in the packs of cards, though seven of them were incentive or promotional cards and could not be found in any of the packs. The 2016 James Bond 007 Archives - SPECTRE Edition trading cards were released in boxes of twenty-four packs of five cards each.

Common Cards

The common card set for the 2016 James Bond 007 Archives - SPECTRE Edition trading cards consists of seventy-six modern-looking trading cards. The entire common set recaps the plot of SPECTRE (reviewed here!). One of the wonderful aspects of the 2016 James Bond 007 Archives - SPECTRE Edition trading card common card set is that the cards are consistently oriented. With a nice footer with the movie's title, all of th cards in the common set are landscape oriented to make for a nicely consistent trading card set.

The 2016 James Bond Archives cards have the traditional UV-resistant coating which is flawlessly applied. Regardless of the content of the film, the 2016 James Bond 007 Archives - SPECTRE Edition trading cards feature a great range of vibrant pictures that have not been overly-promoted. The cards have a fresh look to them that makes it a visually-interesting trading card set. The backs are well-written and the cards detail the plot of SPECTRE quite thoroughly.

Chase Cards

The 354 chase cards that can be found in packs and boxes of 2016 James Bond 007 Archives - SPECTRE Edition essentially create three additional "common" sets and two bonus parallel sets, in addition to more traditional James Bond chase cards. As is the habit in many of the newer trading card releases, there are no bonus card sets that can be completed with even a single case of trading cards; most require three to six cases to assemble the chase sets.

The 2016 James Bond Archives trading card set features three extensive bonus sets that require multiple cases to complete. There are retro sets that retell the stories of Diamonds Are Forever, Moonraker and The Living Daylights with 48, 61, and 55 cards each. Given that past retro sets have had as many as 102 trading cards, there is the comparative feeling in the 2016 James Bond 007 Archives - SPECTRE Edition trading cards that Rittenhouse Archives is running out of substantive material for the retro sets. The throwback sets, like many of the prior Throwback retro sets are inconsistently oriented and are more problematic to try to put into binder pages in any sensible way. The Diamonds Are Forever and Moonraker throwback sets are made of a more retro cardboard stock to make the cards from the older films seem like they were from the period in which the films were released. The Diamonds Are Forever set features black and white photography, which is odd because the film is in color. Perhaps even more irksome, though, is the fact that both the Moonraker and The Living Daylights cards are predominantly in color, but feature a handful of random cards in each set that are black and white.

One per box there are gold parallel cards for the SPECTRE and The Living Daylights sets. Each of those sets were limited to only 100 (for SPECTRE) and 125 (for The Living Daylights) of each of the cards. The gold parallel cards are a particularly boring parallel card; they are distinguished from the common versions of their cards by limited gold foil lettering on the front of each card and an individual foil-stamped number on the back, at the bottom of the card. While they are substantively similar to prior James Bond parallel cards, the parallel cards lack any real flash quality to them.

The 2016 James Bond 007 Archives - SPECTRE Edition trading cards continued the 007 Double-Sided (Mirror Cards) card set that was begun early in 2016. The eight cards found in this subset in the 2016 James Bond 007 Archives - SPECTRE Edition trading cards work together with cards found in an earlier and a subsequent set to create a 24-card bonus card set. These beautiful trading cards feature the incarnation of James Bond on one side and the primary villain on the obverse for each of the James Bond films. The eight cards in the 007 Double-Sided set found in the 2016 James Bond 007 Archives - SPECTRE Edition trading cards are every three Bond films starting with the second M2,M5, M8, etc. While this might create a weird ultimate collation the cards themselves are stunning and cleanly printed on a vibrant-looking mirror board that is very fresh looking.

Also found only two per case are two of the twelve Metal cards for the 2016 James Bond 007 Archives - SPECTRE Edition trading cards. Featuring the movie posters for each of the first twelve James Bond films, the Metal cards are individually numbered on the back and they begin a very coolset that will be completed in the 2017 James Bond 007 Archives - Final Edition trading cards. Rittenhouse Archives has recently gotten into metal card production and the metal cards in the 2016 James Bond 007 Archives - SPECTRE Edition trading cards makes well the argument that Rittenhouse Archives knows exactly what it is doing with that technology!

The 2016 James Bond 007 Archives - SPECTRE Edition trading cards feature thirteen Relic cards, split between fairly traditional costume cards (albeit in an uncommon portrait orientation) and relic cards of James Bond props. The most rare of these is a Russian Atomic Energy Badge (MR6) that features a chopped up badge prop that yielded 125 trading cards in a very neat shadowbox style! The costume cards are limited to 200 each and they are pretty typical costume pieces - James Bond suits, dresses from Bond girls and a supporting character or two's costume pieces. Unlike something like a Star Trek costume that has a variety of fabrics or colors, the James Bond costume cards with costume materials from Quantum Of Solace and Skyfall have fabric swatches that are very consistent and unimaginative. Fortunately, the rarer relic cards are much more variable and intriguing for card collectors and James Bond fans.

As with most media-based trading card sets, the 2016 James Bond 007 Archives - SPECTRE Edition trading cards feature autographed trading cards. This set of trading cards features only twenty-six autograph cards, which is a significant step down in numbers from the prior few James Bond sets. Autograph cards in the 2016 James Bond 007 Archives - SPECTRE Edition trading card set are split between the familiar format of the 40th Anniversary set – which had very small pictures of the character’s head and were oriented in a landscape format – and the vastly more popular full-bleed style which was portrait oriented with giant images of the characters and a minimal signing space at the bottom. The eight 40th Anniversary style autographs are highlighted by autographs by Jeffrey Wright and Daniela Bianchi. The rest are signers who have either signed plenty of cards before or had comparatively minor background roles in James Bond films (four of the six do not even have character names with actual names - i.e. "Drax's Woman").

In the full-bleed autographs, the 2016 James Bond 007 Archives - SPECTRE Edition trading cards Rittenhouse Archives made an uncommon and audacious decision to include only a single autograph by an actor who played James Bond. The Roger Moore autograph in the set is one of the more common Moore autographs, but it's nice to see at least one Bond autograph in the set. The The Living Daylights bonus set in the 2016 James Bond 007 Archives - SPECTRE Edition trading cards unfortunately highlights the fact that Timothy Dalton has not signed cards for Rittenhouse Archives's James Bond trading cards. Instead of rehashing multiple Bonds or previously-done signers, the 2016 James Bond 007 Archives - SPECTRE Edition trading cards has full-bleed autographs of Dave Bautista, a gorgeous autograph card for SPECTRE star Lea Seydoux, a cool Sheena Easton signature card, and another for Dolph Lundgren. Returning autograph signers were of a fairly high caliber with Teri Hatcher, Jane Seymour and Caroline Munro signing new autograph cards for the set. Even the comparatively minor signers in the 2016 James Bond 007 Archives - SPECTRE Edition trading cards have beautiful cards and crisp and nice signatures on them. The autograph cards in the 2016 James Bond 007 Archives - SPECTRE Edition trading cards have remarkably good collation with none of the autographs being particularly prohibitive to find.

Non-Box/Pack Cards

The 2016 James Bond 007 Archives - SPECTRE Edition trading card set has seven cards not found in any of the boxes or packs. There are three promotional cards – the usual general release, an exclusive one to Non-Sport Update magazine, and the binder-exclusive promotional card.

The casetopper for the 2016 James Bond 007 Archives - SPECTRE Edition trading card set is a fairly bland SPECTRE movie poster card, which continues the downward trend of casetopper cards (they used to be cool autograph, sketch or autographed costume cards!). The SPECTRE cards are not individually numbered, foil or even sealed into their toploaders!

Then there are the incentive cards and these again seem more subtle than prior, flashy, incentive cards. For purchasing six cases, dealers received a dual autograph card of Aliza Gur and Martine Beswick from From Russia With Love. This is an unfortunately obscure and unremarkable dual autograph card and does not hold anything near the value of dual autographs like the Richard Keil/Roger Moore dual autograph that was previously released. For buying nine cases, dealers were given a Jonathan Pryce autographed costume card. That card is, admittedly, very cool.

The final card in the 2016 James Bond Archives set is the Archive Box exclusive Clifton James full-bleed autograph card. Sadly, the unfortunate and most profound commentary that can be made on the unremarkable nature of this card is that despite its comparative rarity and its general quality, when Mr. James died recently, it did not affect at all the value of the card in the secondary market. While Rittenhouse Archives wants to be able to sell far more than just the Archive Boxes (the metal cards alone pretty much guaranteed the cases would sell without the Archive Box incentives), the Clifton James incentive autograph was a particularly lackluster benefit for those who tracked down or bought in enough volume to be granted an archive box.

Overall

The 2016 James Bond 007 Archives - SPECTRE Edition trading cards make SPECTRE a more fun and collectible trading card incarnation than it was a blockbuster film, but its best parts are the chase sets that require other trading card sets to complete.

This set culls images from the James bond films SPECTRE, Moonraker (reviewed here!), Diamonds Are Forever (reviewed here!) and The Living Daylights (reviewed here!)!

These cards are available in my online store! Please check them out here: 2016 James Bond Archives - SPECTRE Edition Trading Card Current Inventory!

For other James Bond trading card reviews, please check out my reviews of:
2009 James Bond Archives
2015 James Bond Archives
2016 James Bond Classics

7/10

For other card reviews, please visit my Card Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Westeros Uninhibited: Game Of Thrones Season 6 Progresses Beyond The Source Material!

The Good: Good character development, Good plot development, Decent performances
The Bad: Exceptionally detail-oriented for obscure events and characters from prior seasons, Some truly unsatisfying character moments.
The Basics: Game Of Thrones Season Six pushes the narrative of Westeros forward, while relying very heavily on obscure characters and events from prior seasons to make any genuine sense.


I have not been a fan of Game Of Thrones, despite watching it for years with my wife. My wife is a big fan and she had read all of the books and has been eagerly awaiting each new episode of the television series. After a few years of being generally underwhelmed by the first few seasons of Game Of Thrones, I decided to binge watch the first five seasons of the show before watching Season Six. While individual seasons might not grab me, I found by binging the show, I cared more about the characters and their sprawling journeys than I did when it was spread out. That also made me a bit more excited about sitting down to watch and review season six of Game Of Thrones.

The sixth season of Game Of Thrones was arguably the most inherently exciting as it depicted events not written in the source material. After the climax of the fifth season (reviewed here!), Game Of Thrones progressed beyond the novels that George R.R. Martin had written. Treading into new territory allowed the show to stand on its own, return some characters to the narrative and attempt to winnow down some of the storylines.

The sixth season of Game Of Thrones picks up moments after the powerful final events of season five, which means that some of the major characters from the prior seasons are no longer in the narrative and several others have serious challenges to overcome. In addition to returning Bran Stark to the narrative, those who are keeping track of the various claims to the throne of Westeros would note that the sixth season is the first to begin without any truly legitimate candidates fighting for the throne (Daenerys's claim is now three generations removed from legitimacy and Tommen, legitimate or not, is the king and no one is directly combating him for the throne at the season's outset). As such, season six of Game Of Thrones opens with several series's of internal conflicts and struggles, as opposed to a continued war narrative that has dominated the prior four seasons.

The sixth season picks up immediately after the climax of the fifth season with "The Red Woman." There, Jon Snow's body is found by Sir Davos and Snow's one remaining ally at The Wall. While the Red Woman retreats in shock and Sir Alliser seizes power over the Knight's Watch, Sansa Stark and Theon flee Winterfell. Hunted by Ramsay's forces, they are rescued by someone who owes the Boltons more than they know! Blind in Bravos, Arya begs on the street and is attacked by one of her old comrades. In Meereen, Tyrion tries to find the Sons Of The Harpy when they burn the fleet of ships in the harbor. Jaime returns to King's Landing to tell Cersei of Myrcella's death. In Dorn, Ellaria and the Sand Snakes depose Prince Doran and Daenerys discovers what her fate is supposed to be if she stays with the horsemasters.

Bran returns to the narrative in "Home," where he is trained by the Three-Eyed Raven, in the process witnessing his father's childhood! Arya is reunited with her mentor as the Iron Isles sees a change in leadership. Roose Bolton's son is born and Ramsay feels threatened, so he seizes Winterfell. Jaime squares off against the High Sparrow and Tyrion releases Daenerys's two imprisoned dragons. Davos appeals to Melisandre to try to resurrect Jon Snow.

In "Oathbreaker," Jon Snow gets up, much to the chagrin of Davos. Arya continues her training as No One and Daenerys is stuck with the other Khaleesi widows in Dothrak. When Ramsay consolidates power in the North, one of the lords he wants obedience from brings him Osha and Rickon. Bran sees more of the past, when he witnesses the truth behind one of his father's favorite stories. Varys finds out who is financing the Sons Of The Harpy and Cersei creates her own network of spies. As his final act as Lord Commander of the Knight's Watch, Jon executes the people who murdered him.

Daenerys's rescue is the main push of "Book Of The Stranger," though the episode marks the return of Littlefinger, Loras, and Margaery. Theon arrives back in the Iron Isles and pledges his allegiance to his sister, Yara, while Littlefinger manipulates Lord Arryn into committing the Vale's forces to rescuing Sansa. Sansa arrives at Castle Black, where she is reunited with Jon Snow. Soon after, they receive word from Ramsay that he has Rickon and Sansa urges Jon to take back the North with the wildlings. In Meereen, Tyrion tries to compromise with the other leaders in Slaver's Bay with a gradual phase out of slavery, much to the chagrin of Grey Worm and Missandei. While Cersei and Olenna Tyrell make an arrangement for the forces of House Tyrell to take out the Sparrows, Jorah and the sell sword make it to the capital of Dothrak. There, they work with Daenerys to thwart the Khals and free the Queen.

Bran's training dominates "The Door," which also spends significant time on the Iron Isles. Brandon Stark is brought back to the past with the help of the Three-Eyed Raven and he witnesses how The Children created the White Walkers. In Bravos, Arya is given her first assigned kill. Theon vouches for his sister's claim to rule the Iron Isle and both are surprised when their uncle materializes with a plan to take over the world with the help of Daenerys. In Dothrak, Danerys learns of Jorah's infection and tasks him with finding a cure, while Tyrion and Varys turn to a Priestess of the Lord Of Light to get the word out about the peace they brokered in Slaver's Bay. When Sansa is reunited with Littlefinger, she turns him away and volunteers to act as ambassador in the North to the houses there to raise an army against Ramsay. And when Bran wargs on his own, he finds himself in direct contact with the White Walker King and his army, which sets off a tragic attack on the Three Eyed Raven's cave.

"Blood Of My Blood" picks up with Bran fleeing . . . and he is rescued by Benjin, who was thought lost years prior north of the wall. Sam and Gilly make it to the Tully's manor, where they are accepted by Sam's mother and sister, and insulted by Sam's Wildling-hating father. That inspires Sam to finally stand up to his father and take Gilly with him. In King's Landing, the forces of House Martell square off against the High Sparrow, only to learn that Margaery has essentially given them Tommen to earn her freedom. Arya once again betrays the Faceless Men in refusing to kill her mark, leaving their care. And Daenerys is reunited with Drogon, which allows her to inspire the Dothraki who are following her.

Sandor Clegane turns out to be alive in "The Broken Man." He is living with a small community of religious people who found him after Arya left him for dead. Jon Snow, Sansa, and Sir Davos visit some of the minor houses in the North that have not yet aligned with Ramsay and attempt to bring them into Snow's army, while Jaime and Braun reach Riverrun to try to convince the Blackfish to surrender the castle. In King's Landing, Margaery manages to get a message to her grandmother before her grandmother flees for High Garden. Theon and his sister prepare to sail for Meereen to beat her competition to offering Daenerys their fleet first. And in Bravos, Arya is hunted by The Waif.

In "No One," Arya is hunted by The Waif and has to choose between being a Faceless Man and going her own way. Brienne and Jamie reunite at Riverrun where Jamie attempts to get the castle back from the Blackfish and Brienne tries to bring the Blackfish and his soldiers over to Sansa's cause. And after bonding with Grey Worm and Missandei, Tyrion is horrified when the Masters return to Meereen and attempt to attack it from the sea.

"Battle Of The Bastards" features Daenerys liberating Meereen and making a pact with Yara. And Ramsay and Jon Snow go head to head for the climactic, titular conflict.

The season finale was "The Winds Of Winter," which saw Cersei making her move on the High Sparrow, Jon Snow consolidating his support in the North, and Daenerys naming Tyrion her Hand and gaining allies to help her get to and take Westeros!

Game Of Thrones continues to add new characters and forces in its sixth season and with the Iron Isles becoming suddenly relevant, there is the feeling for viewers that the cycle of violence and power struggles might never end . . . or it might not end with any satisfactory sense of resolve. Killing Baelon Greyjoy inspires the show to add yet another significant character in what is a seemingly insignificant part of the narrative. Season Six of Game Of Thrones increases the burden on the writers and producers to tie everything together in subsequent seasons to make viewers believe it was worth it.

Many of the plot developments in the sixth season of Game Of Thrones are dependent upon actions in prior seasons to understand. Arya's final act of the season is entirely dependent upon viewers recalling a story one character told another in one of the earliest seasons of the show. Similarly, Davos's anger when he discovers the charred stag near Jon Snow's camp is utterly incomprehensible within this season. The frustrating aspect of this is that attentive viewers who piece together all of the details from past seasons to fully understand season six of Game Of Thrones are still left with huge gaps in character motivations - like why The Waif has it out for Arya.

The season is also notable for the way it brings back some generally obscure characters - like Benjin, the Blackfish, Thoros Of Myr, etc. - at plot convenient times and expects viewers to be invested in them and remember who they were. While Game Of Thrones is based upon a series of novels and the television series tries to mimic the complexity of a novel, there is surprisingly little heart to the complexity of the show in its sixth season. Zombie Benjin felt like a plot seed; the Blackfish was a background character to an army that was never a serious contender for the throne of Westeros, so his return in season six lacked any real impact. At best, the Blackfish acts as a medium for a character conflict between Jaime and Brienne. But that character conflict goes nowhere; it is built into their characters at this point (they are on opposite sides of a fight now) and the sixth season of Game Of Thrones does not see Jaime growing beyond his simplistic commitment to the Realm. How is it that by this point, after Ramsay has killed his own father in his quest for power, that Jaime cannot see that having Ramsay as an ally is not a viable long-term strategy?! And why the hell would anyone - Jaime included - ever dine with Walder Frey?!

In the prior seasons of Game Of Thrones, it has been difficult to invest in the struggle for who rules Westeros and the split between the civil war in Westeros and the looming threat of the undead north of the wall has been unsatisfying. Season Six of Game Of Thrones struggles to redirect; there is no civil war at the outset of season six, but the show does not really ramp up the impending fight with the White Walkers. Instead, much of season six of Game Of Thrones is designed to delay the White Walker fight and restore the Kingdom to a state of civil war. There is still an attitude of "who cares?" about the struggle for Westeros. In King's Landing, religious zealots have taken over, but because it was Cersei in the fifth season who unleashed them, it's hard not to feel like the horrible crap that the citizens of King's Landing are enduring is a function of Cersei being a lousy character to begin with.

Fortunately, even as the plot reverts to something more familiar (it would be interesting to see how the basic plot of the season lined up with the essential plot of the first season), most of the characters in Game Of Thrones actually progress and develop over the course of the sixth season. In the sixth season of Game Of Thrones, the characters who are still standing are:

Tyrion Lannister - Ruling over Meereen with the help of Varys, Grey Worm and Missandei, he begins to hunt for the Sons Of The Harpy. His first major idea is to release Daenerys's two remaining dragons from their captivity. He tries to make peace with the other two cities by phasing out slavery there and having them cut off their funding to the Sons Of The Harpy. He reluctantly turns to the Lord Of Light's forces for aid in spreading propaganda about Daenerys. He is finally rewarded for his service and intelligence,

Varys - Advising Tyrion in Meereen, he uses his spy network to find out how the Sons Of The Harpy are being financed. He is even more wary of the Lord Of Light's priestess in Meereen, arguably because she knows so much about him. He goes on a diplomatic mission to the far reaches of Westeros to get Daenerys what she needs to get to Westeros from Meereen,

Jaime Lannister - He returns to King's Landing. There, he is reunited with Cersei and discovers how much power the Faith Militant have accumulated. He allies with Cersei to try to influence the Small Council and take the capital back from the Sparrows. He attempts to rescue Margaery with House Martell, but is removed from the King's Guard by Tommen. In retaking Riverrun for the King, he does everything he can to not have to go up against Brienne, including letting her escape,

Cersei Lannister - Shaken because the witch she met as a child's prophecies have come true, she is relieved when Jaime stands up for her. Tommen finally visits her and expresses his guilt for not being able to protect her. She begins using the zombie version of the Mountain to eliminate her enemies. When the Small Council walks out on her, she tries to manipulate Olenna Tyrell into fighting the Sparrows for her. When Tommen joins the Sparrows, she orders Jamie to retake Riverrun from the Blackfish for the Frays. While he is gone, she makes her move to defeat the Faith Militant in King's Landing,

Margaery Tyrell - She refuses to confess to the High Sparrow, even after she is told that Tommen has been despondent since she was imprisoned. She is given the opportunity to see Loras, finally, and tries to convince him not to give in to the High Sparrow. Soon thereafter, though, she convinces Tommen to join the High Sparrow. She figures out Cersei's endgame moments before her plan is executed,

Daenerys Targaryen - Captured by a different Khal, she is told that she is expected to return to a temple in the capital of Dothrak where all the widows of Khals live out their lives. When her allies arrive, she plots to save herself and gain command over the Dothraki in one ballsy move. She accepts Jorah's love and help, but sends him away to try to find a cure for greyscale. She is reunited with her dragon, which helps her wield the authority she needs over the Dothraki and Meereen,

Jon Snow - Having been betrayed and killed, he is resurrected by the power of the Lord Of Light. After slaying his enemies within the Knight's Watch, he declares his watch over and is reunited with Sansa. He tries to organize the North against Ramsay, with Sansa's help. He moves to save Rickon, thwart Ramsay and retake Winterfell,

Sansa Stark - Effectively fleeing Winterfell with the help of Theon, she accepts Brienne as her protector. After arriving at Castle Black, she rallies Jon to take back the North for the Starks. She comes to loathe Baelish and rejects his friendship when she encounters him again. She acts as ambassador for Jon Snow and fights to reclaim Winterfell for the Starks. She understands Ramsay and tries to use her knowledge to save Rickon and stop Jon Snow from falling into Ramsay's trap,

Lord Petyr Baelish - He arrives back in the Vale, lying as always. He manipulates Lord Arynn into committing the Vale's forces to fight Ramsay. He is pushed away by Sansa, who finally sees him for the liar he is. Despite that, he manages to keep his word to Sansa as the most important moment,

Brienne Of Tarth - After saving Sansa, she and Pod pledge service to Sansa. When they make it to Castle Black, she has the chance to reveal to Davos and Melisandre how Stanis met his end. She is made uncomfortable by Tormund and the way he looks at her, though she is also disturbed by Sansa lying about how she obtained information about Sansa's uncle. She is sent to try to get the Blackfish's forces for Jon Snow, but works to stop Jaime from degenerating into a bloodthirsty monster,

Ramsay Bolton - Threatened by the birth of his younger brother, he slays his father, step-mother, and the newborn to consolidate his control over the North. Murdering Osha, he holds Rickon Stark hostage to bait Jon Snow into open conflict with him. He goads Jon into a fight,

Melisandre - Her true nature is revealed after she is powerless to save John Snow. She is as shocked as Davos when Jon Snow is resurrected. She follows Jon Snow around, but does little to influence him . . . until Davos learns what she did to Stanis's daughter,

and Arya Stark - Blind as a consequence for killing a person she had a personal vendetta for, she learns how to be no one as a blind beggar. When she finally surrenders, she is granted her sight back and continues to train to be a faceless person. When she finds herself captivated by an actress she is supposed to kill, she betrays the faceless men and is hunted by the Waif. Having trained blind, she develops a clever trap to thwart her enemy.

The sixth season of Game Of Thrones is where Sophie Turner finally begins to excel as Sansa Stark. Early in the season, she is forced to play a wider array of emotions - more than simply the spoiled girl or the victim - and she nails it. It's virtually impossible to watch Turner's Sansa in the snow and not feel like one is freezing to death! Turner makes a good transition over the course of the season to strengthen Sansa's character. While many of the other female actors - most notably Maise Williams and Lena Headey - do great work at presenting their characters, they were badass to begin with.

Ultimately, despite how insular and self-referential it has become, season six of Game Of Thrones features enough character development and high points for plot development to make it well worth watching and adding to one's video library.

For other works from the 2015 – 2016 television season, please check out my reviews of:
Grace And Frankie - Season 2
Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. - Season 3
The Walking Dead - Season 6
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt - Season 2
Legends Of Tomorrow - Season 1
Jessica Jones - Season 1
Daredevil - Season 2
House Of Cards - Season 4
Doctor Who - Season 9

8/10

For other television season reviews, please check out my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Major Players Get Stuck In Game Of Thrones Season Five!

The Good: Special effects, A handful of plot and characters moments
The Bad: Largely dull plot, No amazing performances, Very few significant character moments
The Basics: Pretty much a "necessary evil" season of Game Of Thrones Season Five introduces yet more complications while cutting out some of the enduring factions in Westeros.


When it comes to serialized television, there is a tough balance writers and executive producers face between creating a project that is complicated enough to justify its scale and having a work that comes across as bloated. Arguably the most complicated book-turned-television series is Game Of Thrones and after having a very lukewarm reaction to the first four seasons, my wife and I have gone back to rewatch the entire series. This has led me to two inescapable conclusions: 1. Game Of Thrones is vastly better when binge watched (as opposed to watching it weekly, months and years apart) and 2. Game Of Thrones, by its fifth season, had become unfortunately overfilled with characters, plot conceits and its own sense of importance that it had to stop and regroup.

In the fifth season of Game Of Thrones, remarkably few character arcs get resolved and some of the biggest characters get locked into their place, creating a surprisingly limited sense of movement in the season. The irony is that while characters like Margaery Tyrell, Stanis, Sansa and Daenerys get absolutely stuck, Tyrion moves move in the fifth season than he has since the first! Game Of Thrones Season Five is a season where many of the biggest players attempt to consolidate and retain their power wherever they were at the climax of the fourth season (reviewed here!).

Following the murder of Tywin Lannister, Cersei Lannister becomes furious with Jaime and she becomes intensely protective of her family (save Tyrion, who she wants dead). As Margaery begins to exert more influence over her husband, King Tommen, Cersei turns to religious fanatics to keep control over King's Landing. In Meereen, Daenery Targaryen, finds herself beset by enemies on almost all sides. The Sons Of The Harpy, gold-masked former Masters, start slaying her army of Unsullied, while her forces work to retain control over the three cities she previously liberated. Roose Bolton, now the Warden Of The North, gets into an uneasy alliance with Petyr Baelish, while further north - at The Wall - Stanis regroups with the surviving members of the Knight's Watch. Having fled the capital, Varys tries to bring Tyrion to Daenerys. Baelish maneuvers Sansa Stark and Arya arrives in Bravos.

When John Snow becomes the Lord Commander of the Knight's Watch in an unlikely turn of events, he decides to try to make peace with the Wildlings, much to the ire of the members of the Knight's Watch. While Cersei's use of the religious police initially works to her benefit, it does not take long before the Faith Elite seize the opportunity to imprison her for her sins. Lacking guidance of people she trusts, Daenerys re-opens the horrid fighting pits in Meereen, allowing free men to fight and preserve the cultural heritage of the ancient city. Sadly, the Sons Of The Harpy leap on the games as an opportunity to attempt to depose the Mother Of Dragons. While Arya learns how to be a faceless assassin in Bravos, Sansa is married off to Ramsay Bolton and discovers how horrible he is. When Tyrion is captured by Jorah Mormont, his life is endangered by both the disgraced knight and the grayscale sickness. And when Jaime and Bronn make it to Dorn, they find Myrcella surprisingly happy, but Oberon's lover engaged in a power struggle based on her desire for revenge for his death!

Most of the fifth season of Game Of Thrones is stuck on reacting to the consequences of actions of events of prior seasons. People who attempt to casually watch Game Of Thrones are unlikely to appreciate just how significantly some of the most minor characters become in the fifth season. Lancel Lannister was essentially a throwaway character in the first season and while other characters were focused on in the foreground, Roose Bolton was relegated to the background . . . but now, Bolton is one of the biggest powers in Westeros! Similarly, Daenerys was incredibly important in the first four seasons . . . and in the fifth season of Game Of Thrones she is basically a bureaucrat stuck on a throne, reacting to people trying to execute her will.

Despite a few key moments - most of them centering around Tyrion and the cheap thrill of seeing Alexander Siddig in something new! - most of Game Of Thrones Season 5 is just boring. For sure, the battle at Hardhome is very cool and integral to the larger plot, but most of the battles in the fifth season of Game Of Thrones are surprisingly dull. And yeah, there are an obscene amount of throat-slittings. The fifth season of Game Of Thrones also features the uptick in peasants who are flayed alive and there's a character who is burned alive pretty horrifically.

In the fifth season of Game Of Thrones, the characters who are still standing are:

Tyrion Lannister - Having been smuggled out of King's Landing by Varys, he gets (and stays) incredibly drunk. He accompanies Varys to Meereen to meet Daenerys, but is captured by Jorah Mormont en route. He is thrilled to finally see a dragon, but is horrified when he encounters Stone Men - who are infected with the highly-contagious grayscale. Attempting to get to Meereen, he is captured by slavers and has to talk his way into their good graces and then the Queen's,

Varys - He saves Tyrion after Tyrion kills Tywin and he tries to connect Tyrion with Daenerys for the good of the realm. Sadly, when he reluctantly allows Tyrion out of his caravan, Tyrion is captured by Jorah and he has to figure out where his friend has gone,

Jaime Lannister - Desperate to save his daughter from the Sand Snakes in Dorn, he takes Bronn and leaves King's Landing. After sneaking into Dorn, he discovers Myrcella is thrilled with the prince she is supposed to marry, but he finds that Ellaria Sand is attempting to convince Doran Martell to go to war with his family over Oberon's death,

Cersei Lannister - Furious with Jaime for his releasing Tyrion, and the resulting death of their father, she becomes determined to save Myrcella's life. Following Tywin's murder, King's Landing is beset by religious fundamentalists, some of whom are Lannisters. She allies with the religious fundamentalists and empowers them to police the citizens of King's Landing using the Faith Elite. When Margaery and her brother are arrested, she thinks she is effectively in control, until the High Sparrow turns on her,

Margaery Tyrell - More determined than ever to become Queen, she continues to woo Tommen and marries him, much to the chagrin of Cersei. But when she begins to square off with the Queen, she finds the Faith Elite are an impossible adversary to beat and she is imprisoned by them,

Daenerys Targaryen - She discovers that ruling is more difficult than conquoring, when she stays in Meereen and tries to consolidate her control over the three cities she has taken over. Having imprisoned two of her three dragons and lost Jorah as an advisor, she does not have access to her full powerbase. She begins to take advice from a former slaver and loses much of her popular support when she has a former slave executed (as punishment for him killing a prisoner before she can publicly try him!). After losing her last Westerosian advisor, she opens the fighting pits in Meereen and engages herself to her lousy former Master advisor, while still having sex with her sellsword,

Jon Snow - He avoids temptation from Stannis (who wants to make him a Lord and give him effective control over the north after giving him a proper name) and tries hard to get the King Beyond The Wall to join Stannis's forces. Failing that, he shows mercy to Mance Raider and is voted to be Lord Commander of the Knight's Watch. To retain control of the Knight's Watch, he publicly beheads one of his enemies and then to try to save Westeros, he allies himself with Tormund and the Wildlings to save them from the White Walkers,

Sansa Stark - Having lied for Baelish, she rejects Brienne's offer of protection. She comes to regret it almost instantly when Baelish marries her off to Ramsay Bolton. Ramsay treats her terribly and that compels her to soften to Reek (Theon Greyjoy), despite his crimes against her family. She slowly grows a backbone, but finds Winterfell even colder than she remembered it,

Lord Petyr Baelish - While Rob Aaron trains, he arranges a marriage between Sansa and Ramsay, effectively consolidating his power over the Erie. He enters into an alliance with Reese Bolton. When he is called back to the capital, he discovers Cersei and the Faith Elite have destroyed his brothels and his businesses there. He uses the matriarch of the Tyrell family to maneuver the religious fanatics into imprisoning Cersei,

Brienne Of Tarth - She fails to save Sansa after losing Arya in the prior season. Still bruised from her battle with The Hound, she continues to reluctantly take Pod as her squire as she hunts Sansa. She finally starts to treat him well and guards Sansa at Winterfell from a distance until she gets an unexpected opportunity,

Stannis Baratheon - Having thwarted Mance Raider, he attempts to enlist the Wildlings to fight for him so he can retake the north. When that attempt fails, he pushes south toward Winterfell to overthrow the Boltons. He continues to rely upon the Red Woman, who gets him mired in the snow and demands the most horrific sacrifice from him yet,

Melisandre - The Red Woman continues to exert her influence over Stannis. She attempts to seduce Jon Snow, but fails. She convinces Stannis not to stay at Castle Black and risk everything to try to take Winterfell,

and Arya Stark - Arriving in Bravos, she reconnects with Jaqen H'ghar at the House Of Black And White. There, she begins to learn how to become a facechanging assassin. She discovers her new education is dangerous and when an opportunity to remove another person from her personal hit list presents itself, she risks everything to kill Meryn Trant.

While many of the other seasons of Game Of Thrones feature amazing performances, the fifth season is light on great moments on the acting front. Stephen Dillane is unfortunately stiff as Stannis in ways even more extreme than he was before. Peter Dinklage and Emilia Clarke are not given great moments to play; Lena Headey excels only in the season's climax when Cersei is finally given a performance that allows her to emote. In a similar way, Kit Harrington is given a little bit to do, but John Bradley as Samwell Tarly shows him up in virtually every shared scene.

Only Maisie Williams is consistently given moments to play that stretch her ability. Williams makes Arya Stark alternately fierce and cold and she plays Arya's period of transition as riveting to watch.

Ultimately, though, the fifth season of Game Of Thrones is a great example of one of the weaknesses in massively serialized television. Those who attempt to watch just the fifth season of Game Of Thrones will neither appreciate its events, nor will they fall in love with the show based on this season's content. While Game Of Thrones Season Five is absolutely necessary to the larger story and character arcs of the show, it is a building season that continues to expand the already massive world of Westeros, with only minimal winnowing of its less empathetic elements.

For other works from the 2014 – 2015 television season, please check out my reviews of:
The Big Bang Theory - Season 8
Modern Family - Season 6
Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. - Season 2
The Flash - Season 1
Orange Is The New Black - Season 3
Sense8 - Season 1
Grace And Frankie - Season 1
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt - Season 1
Agent Carter - Season 1
Daredevil - Season 1
The Newsroom - Season 3
House Of Cards - Season 3
Doctor Who - Season 8
True Blood - Season 7
The Walking Dead - Season 5

4/10

For other television season reviews, please check out my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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A Parody Of Itself, Tomorrow Never Dies Is Fun James Bond!

The Good: Some great lines, Decent performances, Good pacing, Entertaining
The Bad: Some terrible, over-the-top lines, Very predictable plot progression, One of the least satisfying endings of any Bond film
The Basics: The final James Bond film I had to watch, Tomorrow Never Dies is remarkably average Bond . . . when it is not delivering laugh-out-loud funny one-liners.


With Tomorrow Never Dies, I am done with the James Bond franchise! As of now, I have seen all of the James Bond films in the franchise (at least until S.P.E.C.T.R.E. comes out later this year!) and I'm ending on an odd note. Tomorrow Never Dies is an emotionally-enjoyable film in many ways, though much of that comes from the writing and casting, as opposed to the film being an objectively good work. In fact, for the first half hour of Tomorrow Never Dies, the film is written in such a way that it seems almost like it is a parody of a James Bond film. A decent portion of the film has incredibly quotable one-liners that are funny and create a surprisingly light tone for the film. But the moment the Bond villain, Elliot Carver, gives his first, over-the-top presentation to his inner circle of slimeballs, the film takes a turn into utterly groanworthy territory.

Such is the "split personality" of Tomorrow Never Dies, a film smart enough to note that (even in 1997) a military incursion into Vietnamese waters by anyone with U.S. tech could be disastrous for U.S. foreign policy and dark enough to include a "long lost love" for James Bond who is horribly murdered, but features more tongue-in-cheek gags and ridiculousness (James Bond is beaten up by three characters who are, essentially, the Three Stooges, while at the Carver Media network launch!) than any other Bond film in memory. I was excited going into Tomorrow Never Dies because of my love of Jonathan Pryce from Brazil (reviewed here!) and my general enjoyment of Pierce Brosnan's portrayal of James Bond. But the positive elements are weighted pretty much equally with the film's detractions, making for an average (albeit enjoyable) movie.

Opening at a terrorist "supermarket" on the Russian border, where MI-6 is monitoring the potential sale of a small army's worth of hardware (including nuclear torpedoes on a Russian jet), James Bond has to outrace a British missile and terrorists when things go south. The H.M.S. Devonshire is in the South China Sea, where it is attacked by a stealth drill submarine operated by minions of a billionaire media mogul, who is launching a worldwide cable news network. The attack, triggered by the Devonshire's GPS system rerouting the boat out of international waters, is designed to bring about World War III and is used by Elliot Carver as the first big story for his news network. With the British Navy 48 hours away from being able to fully deploy in the South China Sea, M tasks James Bond with gathering the evidence needed to avert World War III.

That takes Bond to Hamburg, Germany, where he meets Carver. At the party, Bond meets Wai Lin, a spy posing as a Chinese journalist and he reunites with his lost love, Paris, who is now Carver's wife. Carver utilizes tech genius Henry Gupta to learn that Paris still has a soft spot for Bond and he easily discovers that she has betrayed him to Bond. After Elliot implicates Bond in the murder of Paris, Bond and Wai Lin find themselves exploring the sunken Devonshire together. The pair works together to try to avert a war between Britain and China and stop Carver from attaining world domination through media manipulation.

Tomorrow Never Dies is enjoyable in that it is one of the Bond films that has Bond balanced by a superspy that appears for all intents and purposes to be his equal. Wai Lin is anything but the typical Bond Girl, which balances the especially easy Paris in the film. Wai Lin comes with her own tech and, like the C.I.A. ally of Bond Jack Wade, Bond is forced to rely upon both her help and her assets to achieve his mission objectives.

Wai Lin is credibly played by Michelle Yeoh, who is a martial arts expert and is able to completely sell the film's action scenes. She and Pierce Brosnan have decent timing for the quips their characters deliver. While some might not like how Bond's reliance upon an ally weakens the superspy, after watching dozens of Bond films where Bond alone accomplishes impossible things, it is refreshing to see some level of realism where he cannot achieve everything on his own. Moreover, the realism of the team of super-spies balances the almost cartoonish nature of the film's villain.

Elliot Carver is a great concept for a villain and it is hard to criticize Jonathan Pryce for how he delivers the worst, most over-the-top lines of the film (and the franchise). Carver is a brilliant idea who is written as a quip-spewing maniac who has all the weaknesses of a Bond villain. He details his plans as exposition, he trusts all the wrong people and he is handicapped by a desire for power that is utterly unrealistic. Pryce does the best he can, but the role is a pretty lousy character.

The result is a funny, action-filled film that is filled with ticking clocks, decent actors, ridiculous characters, good lines, chases and gadgets. Tomorrow Never Dies is fun, so long as one disengages much of their sense of reason and just goes with it.

For other works with Geoffrey Palmer, please check out my reviews of:
Paddington
The Pink Panther 2
"Goodbyeee" - Blackadder Goes Forth

5/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Misery Loves Company: Listen Up Philip Is So Much Of The Worst Of Indie Film!

The Good: Performances, Direction
The Bad: Oppressive mood, Unlikable characters, Boring plot
The Basics: When young, angry, and arrogant author Philip Friedman goes away to his idol’s cabin, he finds his plans disrupted by the author’s daughter, who is also living there.


As the movie cycle moves toward pure Oscar Pandering Season, I am enjoying catching up on some indie cinema. Independent cinema reminds us that art is still alive in the film world and that there are whole groups of actors who do not care about being part of the latest blockbuster that the studios are churning out. While independent and artistic cinema is usually associated with intellect, experimentation and mood, I have begun to associate independent cinema with misery. Seriously; it seems like virtually every writer and writer-director who manages to get an independent film made with recognizable actors features characters who are miserable assholes that are impossible to empathize with.

Listen Up Philip is one such film. Packed with an amazing cast, Listen Up Philip is almost immediately off-putting and esoteric. I cannot recall a film of late where it was so difficult for me to be inspired to watch past the first fifteen minutes, which is quite a feat when one considers that Jonathan Pryce (whose works I generally love) appears in that first quarter-hour of the film. But, the tight focus on Jason Schwartzman’s isolated, unlikable character and the droning voiceovers make Listen Up Philip very inaccessible.

Philip Friedman is an author living and working in New York City, whose second novel has just been published. He has a meeting with an ex-girlfriend, whom he tells off (after being kept waiting, he builds to a rage that allows him to finally articulate how her lack of belief in him makes him feel). The feelings of empowerment that brings him inspires him to tell off his old college roommate and to go out with a photographer who has interest in him now that he has a second novel on the market. After meeting with renowned author Ike Zimmerman, Philip allows magazine feature writer Josh Fawn to shadow him . . . until he learns that Josh had a prior relationship with his girlfriend, Ashley. Ashley is feeling distance from Philip and when Philip has the chance to leave the City for a retreat with Ike for most of the summer, Ashley is left feeling pretty much dumped by the author. Ike takes Philip away and seems to have a genuine interest in helping him develop as a writer and a human being.

When Ike goes away, his daughter Melanie pops up and tries to keep Philip at arm’s length. To help get Philip out of the house, Ike helps Philip get a position as an adjunct professor at Lambert College, which Philip does not actually appreciate. Returning to the City, Philip breaks up with Ashley (who promptly sells off the things he leaves behind, gets depressed, engages in risk behaviors and buys a cat for companionship). Ashley starts to get along well-enough without Philip and she reconnects with an ex-boyfriend. Philip finds himself detached from all semblances of his prior life and stagnates while those he encounters start living again by getting away from him.

Listen Up Philip is tough to call well-written or even interesting. The film has an appropriately high level of diction given how intelligent the characters are supposed to be. But the film is packed with clichés and just because the movie acknowledges that Philip is the walking cliché of the successful, but disenfranchised, young author does not make it less of a cliché. Philip is on the verge of being genuinely successful, so he pushes back against the establishment that is about to “make” him under the guise of artistic integrity. The film is loaded with Philip acting depressed and constantly self-deprecating. This mood becomes oppressive, though. Intelligence is becoming synonymous with anhedonia in U.S. culture and that is both unfortunate and anything but entertaining to watch. Listen Up Philip is like Smart People (reviewed here!) without a collection of remotely entertaining characters.

Alex Ross Perry wrote and directed Listen Up Philip and if this is indicative of his work and style, he is in no danger of becoming the next Wes Anderson. Anderson has managed to make miserable characters charming, interesting to watch and entertaining in films like The Royal Tenenbaums (reviewed here!). Perry’s work lacks that spark and when the film diverges to stick with Ashley, the viewer is sucked into an unwatchable cinematic morass. One miserable artist treating people in an off-putting manner is more than enough for one film; two seems like an indulgence of unhappiness that the viewer is supposed to get excited about and praise as wonderful. Listen Up Philip is not wonderful; it’s an invitation to spend almost two hours with people who one would not want to spend five minutes with.

What saves Listen Up Philip from the lowest possible ratings is the acting and direction. Alex Ross Perry may have written utterly unlikable, miserable characters, but he captures those embodying them quite well. For all of the problems with the section of Listen Up Philip that focuses on Ashley, Perry manages to get some great shots of actress Elisabeth Moss performing amazingly well. Moss is able to express misery without a word, looking at the camera and reacting to lines delivered off screen with nervousness and sorrow. Alex Ross Perry gets a compelling performance out of Elisabeth Moss and if Ashley were only more interesting, this would be one of Moss’s best roles ever.

Jason Schwartzman leads the cast of Listen Up Philip very well. He plays the part of Philip with such convincing detachment that he is almost unwatchable. Schwartzman has played nice guys in other roles and the qualities that made those roles memorable or enjoyable to watch is completely absent from his performance of Philip. In a similar fashion, Krysten Ritter almost always seems to play emotionally-strong, articulate, empowered women and her part of Melanie is very different. More overtly hurt, Melanie offers Ritter the chance to play a different style of character than some of her more familiar roles. Unfortunately, her part is minimized in the film and as much as I was excited to see her play a greater emotional range, I was equally excited to see her wearing a shirt identical to one I once owned. Ritter and Pryce play off each other well.

Even Jonathan Pryce is robbed of the charismatic spark that usually makes his characters watchable and intriguing. Like Ritter, that shows Pryce’s range, even if it is unpleasant to watch.

Despite the quality of the performances, Listen Up Philip is anything but watchable, compelling or worth devoting one’s time to.


For other works with Wai Ching Ho, please visit my reviews of:
Iron Fist - Season 1
".380" - Daredevil
Daredevil - Season 1
Orange Is The New Black - Season 3
The Sorcerer's Apprentice
Keeping The Faith2.5/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Somewhat Banal, But Typical For An Action Flick, G.I. Joe: Retaliation Was Not Worth The Wait.

The Good: Decent action sequences, Entertaining, No truly bad performances
The Bad: No character development, Gaps in storytelling, Not particularly interesting
The Basics: Despite the conceits of the characters and the giant leaps in the G.I. Joe narrative, the beleaguered G.I. Joe: Retaliation arrives with surprisingly little flair, but nothing unexpected from an action-adventure film.


I cannot recall, in recent memory, any film quite as beleaguered as G.I. Joe: Retaliation. Regardless of the reasons (which change between market testing to put Channing Tatum into more of the film and revamping the film for 3-D effects), there was something deeply amusing to me about a film whose toy line has already hit the clearance rack before the movie even premiered! In that way, there is something almost impressive about G.I. Joe: Retaliation.

Unfortunately, that’s about all. To be sure, I was not a huge fan of G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra (reviewed here!). That film was so unmemorable that I had to check the IMDB to confirm that Jonathan Pryce was the President in that movie, in addition to G.I. Joe: Retaliation (he was). To start off with something overwhelmingly positive, G.I. Joe: Retaliation feels like what it is, a guy’s movie, a military-themed action-adventure film. Gone are the ridiculous Transformers-like tech suits from the first film. Also, G.I. Joe: Retaliation does not seem to be obsessed with making a joke out of itself. The result is that the heroes in G.I. Joe: Retaliation actually have to live by their skills and their wits and not all of them survive as a result.

Unfortunately, beyond that, G.I. Joe: Retaliation is a boring and obvious action-adventure film.

Following the assassination of the President of Pakistan by Snake Eyes (under the orders of the American President), the G.I. Joe team of Roadblock, Flint, Lady Jaye, and Duke are ordered on a mission to recover a nuclear bomb stolen after that incident. In the desert, the G.I. Joes are attacked, the team is almost wiped out (Duke is killed) and Roadblock, Flint, and Jaye go on the run. The President, who has been replaced by the COBRA operative and master of disguise, Zartan, uses the incident to publicly disgrace and disband the G.I. Joe unit. The Joes go on the run.

Zartan’s plan quickly becomes clear when Snake Eyes is captured and put in the same prison as COBRA Commander and Destro. Unmasked, this version of Snake Eyes is revealed to be Snake Eyes’s adversary Storm Shadow. Storm Shadow breaks out the COBRA leadership and returning them to power, Zartan as the President calls for a nuclear disarmament summit. As Snake Eyes and Jinx (Storm Shadow’s cousin) train to return to the Joes and recover Storm Shadow in order to learn COBRA’s plans, COBRA holds the world hostage for nuclear disarmament and an even more terrifying weapon.

G.I. Joe: Retaliation is a pretty obvious hero/villain movie; there is no real moral ambiguity here (though Storm Shadow’s backstory leads him to believe the path of his life is the result of him getting played) and the lack of complication leads to the viewer accepting most of the film’s conceits. I found I didn’t moralize over why Cobra Commander wanted to rule the world, but I was caught up on a number of details that just did not fit the film and the established characters. Destro was pretty badass in the first film and he is dispatched remarkably quickly in G.I. Joe: Retaliation, undermining how interesting he was in that film. But when Cobra Commander gets rid of him, the line is a quip that does not fit Cobra Commander’s more serious and obviously megalomaniacal character. On the flip side, in order to expose Zartan, Jaye must get into an event the President is at. Flirting her way in, she is added to the list of permitted attendees as the Chief Of Staff. How a member of the Secret Service would not recognize the Chief Of Staff, especially when the one in the film is male and Jaye most certainly is not, is utterly inconceivable.

Fundamentally, the issues with G.I. Joe: Retaliation are issues with the genre, not this specific iteration of it. In fact, G.I. Joe: Retaliation is remarkable only in how it does not strain any of the conceits of the genre. The G.I. Joes – and the film focuses mostly on Roadblock with the return of the General after whom the G.I. Joes were named – are loyal and respect their democracy and President and it is only the villains who torture and use questionable means. They do not even object to the implications of military downsizing that might come from a nuclear-free world. Actually, G.I. Joe: Retaliation is too busy with pounding out plot details and building up to the next fight to explore anything truly philosophical (outside the obvious honor, duty, loyalty stuff that the genre exploits and utilizes).

As for the acting, G.I. Joe: Retaliation does no real service to the careers of anyone involved, though – truth be told – it does none of them a disservice, either. G.I. Joe: Retaliation is just “that kind of film.” Dwayne Johnson’s Roadblock and Channing Tatum’s Duke are appropriately manly and joke between one another with very typical guy humor. And it’s not a stretch for either of them, Neither is it a stretch for Jonathan Pryce to play the dignified leader of the free world or Adrianne Palicki to show up and look good (though she is not quite muscular enough in this to plausibly be a soldier).

No great characters, no great performances, no real plot twists of audacious ideas; G.I. Joe: Retaliation is exactly what one expects from the March doldrum.

For other films with Channing Tatum, please check out my reviews of:
21 Jump Street
The Vow
Haywire
Dear John

4/10

For other film reviews, please visit my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Vibrator Movie Without The Spark: Hysteria Is An Interesting “Watch Once” Film.

The Good: Fearless in its subject, Moments of humor, Generally good performances
The Bad: Moments of melodramatic performance, Very predictable romantic plot development.
The Basics: Hysteria is an informative historical romance piece that illustrates the invention of the vibrator, but does so with surprisingly little zest or intrigue.


Last month, when I finally had the pleasure to watch Like Crazy (reviewed here!), the real pleasure was witnessing the performance of Felicity Jones. So, I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered that she was in Hysteria, a film I intended to see last year! As it is, my wife and I have put off watching Hysteria so many times that I am certain that the library from which we borrowed the DVD (repeatedly) either thinks we are obsessed with the history of the vibrator or that I am some sort of right-wing nut who keeps the DVD out of circulation in order to prevent its liberal ideals from being viewed by others. As it so happens, we just have such a large stack of movies to watch and getting my wife in the mood to watch any movie is such a task that it took us about a month from when I first brought the DVD home until we found the time (last night) to actually give it our full attention.

Hysteria is a period piece, which is pretty normal for Hugh Dancy and Jonathan Pryce, who seems to be stuck in films of late where he is playing men of authority in the past (or fantasy versions of the past). This is, to the best of my knowledge, the only period piece I have seen Maggie Gyllenhaal in. It is, for certain, the only film I have ever seen regarding the invention of the electric vibrator. Entertaining with some actual historical realism, Hysteria is an intriguing film that is brought down more by its determination to provide a predictable romantic plotline than the liberties it might take with any of the history it portrays.

Opening in Westminister Hospital in London in 1880, Dr. Mortimer Granville finds himself unemployed and unemployable by the conservative medical establishment there. He stumbles into the parlor of Doctor Robert Dalrymple, a medical practitioner who is treating women for hysteria (any range of issues related to women who are irritable, sexually unsatisfied and/or unfocused as a result of sexual longings). Taken in for four pounds a week and room and board, Granville learns how to massage women to bring a release that treats their condition (essentially masturbating them with his fingers until they orgasm). After a short time, Dalrymple is so pleased with Granville that he suggests that the young man and his younger daughter, Emily, might one day marry and he could pass the practice on to them.

Granville, however, has two issues – though in good time he does ask Emily if she might be interested in the arrangement her father propositioned, despite her being a phrenologist – as he finds himself utterly confounded by Robert’s elder daughter, a social activist named Charlotte, and in great pain. As Dalrymple’s practice has expanded due to Granville’s presence, the young man spends so much time fingering women that his hand begins to seize and twist. The day he is unable to give a satisfactory performance to Mrs. Castellari, he returns to his best friend’s home where he discovers Edmund has invented a powered feather duster. The vibrations from the electrical device relax Mortimer’s hand and it is a short leap between that and the invention of the vibrator.

Hysteria muddies itself some with a romantic subplot that is one of the oddest combinations of utterly predictable and entirely unlikely. The chief romance is the somewhat arranged relationship between Emily Dalrymple and Mortimer. This relationship is forced, though the characters do seem to enjoy one another’s company. Unfortunately, the understated nature of it gives the performers little to do and Felicity Jones (Emily) and Mortimer (Hugh Dancy) exhibit no real on-screen chemistry. Conversely, Maggie Gyllenhaal (Charlotte) and Dancy, who are kept apart until the very last moments of the film seem to have great chemistry and potential for a relationship, but it is so underdeveloped in favor of the stiff, not-really-relationship of Emily and Mortimer.

The performances are generally good, though Felicity Jones, who wowed me in Like Crazy is relegated to a surprisingly boring supporting role as Emily. Similarly, Jonathan Pryce is sacrificed for the broader character arc that rules the movie and is focused on the character development of Mortimer. The acting, however, is largely competent, save the interview scene between Pryce and Dancy where the deliveries are so melodramatic as to be laughable.

Hysteria is now found on DVD with a commentary track, deleted scenes, a featurette on the making of the film and another on the development of the vibrator. These are decent bonus features that are entertaining, as well as informative. But they do nothing to improve the utterly mediocre source material.

For other works with Hugh Dancy, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Adam
Confessions Of A Shopaholic
Blood And Chocolate
Ella Enchanted

5/10

For other film reviews, please check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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An Affair To Forget: The Affair Of The Necklace

The Good: Excellent cast, Two lines of dialog
The Bad: Lackluster acting, Dismal plot, Uninteresting characters, Repetitive use of footage
The Basics: The Affair Of The Necklace relates a ridiculously complicated and equally pointless tale of a young woman who inadvertently helped cause the French Revolution.


There ought to be a rule about actors appearing in period films. If you appear in a film set in the past, you may only appear in another one if your role is very different and the overall story of the movie is significantly different. As it stands, one of the necklace-making Monsieur's of The Affair Of The Necklace is the Doje in Dangerous Beauty and I found that somewhat distracting. This is not an exceptionally serious complaint, but it is the start of a litany of strikes against The Affair Of The Necklace.

The tagline for this cinematic dud is "Her birthright was stolen. Her Dignity Taken. Her Rights Denied. Deception Was The Only Option." This sets one up for a movie very different from the one I watched. The first hurdle is that the implication of the tagline is that somehow the necklace in the story is the protagonists birthright, which it is not. The second is the idea that the protagonist somehow starts at a point of serious devaluation and must rise above it. As becomes evident in my description of the plot, this is patently untrue.

Jeanne St. Remy de Valois is a young woman who was orphaned when her liberal, almost revolutionary, father spoke out in the French government for the rights of the working class person and the importance of keeping the masses happy, as opposed to simply controlled. Jeanne's earliest significant memory was of watching her father beaten to death and their house gutted by French soldiers. Now, years later, Jeanne works to gain her family name back but finds the way blocked by a Minister of Titles that hated her father and what he stood for and a monarch (Marie-Antoinette) who will only ignore her.

Thus, unable to get back her ruined family name and claim her father's decent estate, Jeanne meets up with a gigolo, Retaux de Vilette, and together they scheme to get her title back by enlisting the aid of Cardinal Louis de Rohan and then betraying him.

As far as stupid premises go, this has to be one of the top ten in human history. The Affair Of The Necklace makes the point of observing that the events in the film happened, which makes the story even more agonizingly stupid. The story is a convoluted mess of conspiracy and lies that is simplified thus: Jeanne wants her childhood house back, but cannot get it because she is a woman without a title. Marie-Antoinette ignores her, so Jeanne enlists a political adversary of the queen, Cardinal Rohan, to help her under the guise of him helping himself. Two jewelers, in the meantime, have made an insanely expensive necklace for Marie-Antoinette that she does not want. The jewelers enlist Jeanne to get Marie-Antoinette to buy the necklace so they aren't out the huge sums of money. Jeanne convinces Rohan that Marie-Antoinette wants the necklace (she doesn't) and that by helping her obtain it using his vast fortunes, he will be back in her good graces. Jeanne, I suppose, presumes that when Rohan and Marie-Antoinette have reconciled as friends they will want to do her the favor of restoring her title. It's a somewhat ridiculous and convoluted plot that is not as incomprehensible as it is pointless.

Jeanne's quest is utterly pointless given her position and desires. Jeanne wants her father's house back and she wants the family title. The first goal is easily obtainable - even for a woman of her moderate social position - by simply marrying one who is fabulously wealthy, a characteristic that several of the characters portray in the movie. But the second goal is utterly ludicrous. Why should Jeanne wish to get her family's title back? Her family has been disgraced and seen as traitors. It does not take a rocket scientist to realize that having the Valois family name will associate her with traitors and revolutionaries to all those who hold the power. How far could she truly expect to get with a family name that is so marred?

I suppose in reality, people are less sensible than in fiction, which is why Jeanne is so utterly irritating to watch.

So, to go back to the tagline for the movie: Her Birthright was Stolen; So what?! It's a pretty crappy legacy for one who wants anything in pre-Revolution France. Her Dignity Taken. No evidence of that; she only seems to try the least dignified ways to get back her title. Her Rights Denied. Not really; she seems to have a remarkable freedom of movement and speech throughout the film. Only her land rights were denied and given that she married for one title, it seems inconceivable that she would not have considered marrying someone better for an even better title. Deception Was The Only Option. Certainly not. There were other options still available to her from marrying better to using the wealth she made of Cardinal Rohan early on to simply bribe the Minister of Titles.

The real downfall of The Affair Of The Necklace is in its presentation. First, the childhood scenes of the Valois Family Manor getting torched is repeated with annoying frequency throughout the first half of the movie. Second, the characters are not presented with any flair or real character and there is absolutely no chemistry between Valois and Retaux, which forces the least interesting almost-sex scene I've seen in years.

But the ultimate letdown is in the players. The cast is pretty incredible, with Jonathan Pryce, Brian Cox and Christopher Walken being names to draw in a lot of viewers. Unfortunately, not one of the actors is playing their a-game. Pryce is dull, Cox is uninspired, Walken lacks his usual charisma. Simon Baker as Retaux de Vilette is bland and Hillary Swank lacks any character or screen presence as the protagonist Jeanne. Indeed, throughout my viewing of The Affair Of The Necklace, I kept thinking that Swank looked a lot like Jennifer Garner and I was glad that Garner had not gotten dragged into this piece of crap.

Who will enjoy this? Beats me; I didn't and I like period films and love history. Who won't like this? Anyone who enjoys a good plot, decent characters and an excellent use of talented actors.

For other works with Hilary Swank, be sure to visit my reviews of:
Million Dollar Baby
Buffy The Vampire Slayer

3/10

For other film reviews, please check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing of all the film reviews I have written!

© 2012, 2005 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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