Is Loki the perfect Christmas gift for villain-lovers?

Yes, OK, seeing as the show has been available on Disney + since spring, this title is a little far-fetched. I did try to find a more Christmassy and less geeky blog subject, but the film I watched in order to achieve this goal (A Boy Called Christmas) proved oddly blog-resistant – it wasn't great, nor was it terrible, it didn't hit the sweet spot for me, but I'd feel mean criticising it. So Loki it is.

As a whole string of blog posts testify, I did a lot of Marvel prep in order to be able to watch this series. So was it worth it? Yes – partly because I liked the Marvel films more than I expected, quite irrespective of their Loki content. Also, I enjoyed Loki the series a great deal (especially after a few episodes – I'll come back to that). All the same, given that Loki is my favourite Marvel character by a mile, I was just a little bit disappointed too. I felt more could have been done with a series which is supposed to focus on him, but doesn't always. In fact, I'm not sure I got that much closer to Loki as a person than I did in the Marvel movies.

The first two episodes were a bit of a slog for me. I found myself thinking "Is it bad that I enjoyed WandaVision more?" (yep, I've watched the much-talked-about WandaVision now, and I have to admit my geeky heart loved it). The premise is this: because of the Avengers' tampering with time, Loki got a chance to escape his fate as described in the Infinity Saga and nab one of the Infinity Stones for good measure. We saw this in Avengers: Endgame, but it was never addressed how it played out or how it didn't affect the heroes' plan not to disrupt time, especially not the Infinity Stone-related events. Now we know... sort of. The Time Variance Agency, the TVA for short, makes sure Loki's escape doesn't alter the course of events by apprehending him and "pruning" the timeline he created. Loki is taken to the TVA's headquarters to stand trial. He is told he is a "variant" who has broken out of the "Sacred Timeline" and will thus be "pruned" or executed in order to preserve the timeline in question. What saves him is that another Loki variant is causing havoc, and one of the Time Agents, Mobius, thinks Loki could be useful in apprehending this bigger threat. With me so far?

I don't blame you if you're not, because I'm barely with myself. The whole explanation of variants and The Sacred Timeline, although pedagogically relayed in a TVA infomercial narrated by the sinisterly cheerful Miss Minutes, had me scratching my head. Loki is needed for the whole Infinity Saga to play out the way we've seen it, so how is the TVA executing him going to fix things? The best I can make of it is that his time infraction, or the TVA's interference, means that another Loki – let's call him Loki Prime – is living out his life the way he's supposed to, while what we're seeing is a separate Loki who is no longer needed and can therefore be disposed of at any time. This could have been made a lot clearer, though.

That it takes two whole paragraphs to outline the premise of the show highlights one of its flaws. WandaVision was complicated too, but you could get into it without knowing a lot of geeky stuff upfront – it was handed out to you piecemeal as the series went on. The premise of WandaVision is easily summed up in a few sentences. Wanda and Vision are living a blissful married life that plays out just like an old sitcom. But they're not sitcom characters, and we know Vision is dead. So what's happening here?

In contrast, Loki hands us a lot of exposition in the first episode which is supposed to clear things up but doesn't quite manage to, while not being a blast entertainment-wise either. The TVA is a curiously boring setting. I can see that the analogue character of the bureaucracy we're seeing is a considered choice, highlighting the TVA's tenacity and un-hackability compared with our own shiny, digital, transigent world. But even I, a self-confessed bureaucrat, didn't get much of a kick of TVA's dreary corridors of power. Variant Loki watching videos of how his life would have turned out and the mistakes he made, though a useful "previously on"-ploy for the viewer, felt like a forced way to get the protagonist through several movies' worth of character development in one go.

And then the other Loki variant is introduced, who turns out to be... a woman, who prefers to go by the name of Sylvie. Now, I know (thanks to YouTube) that the series didn't come up with the female Loki idea – there was already a Lady Loki in the comics. Even so, the last thing I (and I suspect a lot of Hiddleston fangirls) wanted to see was the Marvel Loki we'd grown to know and love be slapped around by some female version who's supposedly cleverer and more competent. When Sylvie is introduced in episode two and hisses to Loki "This is not about you" (er... yes it is, or ought to be. the series is called Loki!) my heart sank. Loki seemed to be on the way to become the Useless Male Love Interest in his own series.

Luckily, there's a course correction as the series continues. The two Loki variants, when stuck on an adventure together, start to appreciate each other and indeed fall for each other. It was a relief to me that this was a mutual thing, not just Loki pining for Sylvie. All the same, and though they have some genuinely sweet moments, I couldn't quite warm to Sylvie: firstly, because there's still some unspoken assumption hanging in the air that she's the "better" version of Loki (she is not); secondly, because I never quite bought that she and Loki were versions of the same character. 

The high points to me were instead Tom Hiddleston being charming in the lead role, the growing friendship between Loki and slow-but-sure Mobius – like Thor, Mobius trusts Loki too much, and for that very reason Loki finds it difficult to dismiss him – and the fun over-the-top villain who's revealed at the end and knows how to make a lot of expositional gobbledegook a captivating viewing experience. This isn't the new Doctor Who, though Hiddleston's Loki has traits in common with both the Doctor and the Master. Given that travelling in time and space is literally what the TVA does, this has surprisingly little importance for the plot. But it's a fun show for geeky villain-lovers, and I'm excited for season two.

Still, I think WandaVision is my favourite Marvel TV show. And no, Marvel's Loki has not replaced Once Upon A Time's Rumple as my major villain crush. Nice try, though.     

It's worth talking about Bruno (and the rest of Encanto)

Is it just my imagination, or hasn't there been nearly enough hype about Disney's latest animated film Encanto? I keep waiting for my nerdy YouTube channels to provide reviews and analyses, but only one of them has stepped up so far with a short (if enthusiastic) review. And yet, I thought this film was really good – better than Raya and the Last Dragon, and I liked Raya a great deal. 

There are so many positives when it comes to Encanto. Mirabel, who provides the focus for the film, is Disney's most engaging heroine for quite a while: she's warm, sweet, fun-loving and just flawed enough to be human. I preferred her not only to stoic warrior Raya, but also to, say, Moana, and to both of the Arendelle girls as portrayed in Frozen 2. The animation is stunning, the characters are charming, and the songs (penned by Lin-Manuel Miranda of Hamilton fame) catchy, sometimes extremely so – I've been humming We Don't Talk About Bruno for days. I watched the film on Friday, when it premiered in Sweden, and was, beforehand, disgruntled that I'd booked a matinée, thus dividing up my whole day. Afterwards, I was grinning happily. This is a real mood-lifter of a film.

The story takes place in a remote spot in Colombia (time period uncertain) and revolves around the family Madrigal, three generations of it living under the same roof in a house full of magic. The house (casita) isn't the only magical thing in the village: since the community settled, each new member of the Madrigal family has been given a magical talent or gift which they have then used for the common good under the watchful eye of Alma, or Abuela (Grandmother) as she is called by everyone. Mirabel is the exception: she never got a gift, much to the disappointment of Abuela (who has no magic either, incidentally, though she does watch over the family's magic candle). Although the Madrigal in-laws – Uncle Félix and Agustín, Mirabel's own dad – are also magic-free, Mirabel feels more and more left out. Then one night, she sees cracks appearing all over the family's beloved casita. When she alerts the rest of the family, though, they are gone. But Mirabel remains convinced that the magic is in danger and that she's the one to save it.

I really appreciated the family dynamics in the Madrigal household. I've always resented that Tolstoy quote about all happy families being alike while each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way (though no doubt it's quoted out of context). Besides being patently untrue – how many unhappy families aren't unhappy in exactly the same way? – it makes happy families sound boring. The Madrigal family is happy, in the main: they are close-knit and loving. The cousins are like siblings: shapeshifting scamp Camilo chaffs his female cousins in the same way a brother would, and Mirabel comforts her little cousin Antonio like a big sister would. The family's marriages are a success: moody Aunt Pepa and enthusiastic Félix make a surprisingly well-matched couple, and Mirabel's parents both do their best to bolster their youngest daughter's self-worth. But that doesn't mean that there aren't rifts and room for drama: For instance, Mirabel is especially envious of her sister Isabela, who has the gift of being able to produce beautiful flowers and who likes to flaunt her seemingly perfect life. And yet, having a magic gift may not be all it's cracked up to be. The film has to keep a balance between keeping the Madrigals likeable and yet making us sympathise with Mirabel's frustration. Sometimes it falters: I didn't think it likely the Madrigals would forget to include Mirabel in a family photo – wouldn't her parents notice and protest? – and Mirabel's solo song about wanting a magic gift didn't tell us anything we didn't already know about her state of mind, and comes across as a bit whiny. But for the most part the balance is kept, and you can sort of see where everyone's coming from (though it's hard to sympathise with Abuela at times). 

I promised to talk about Bruno, so I will. He's the black sheep of the family with the power to see into the future, though mostly the bad stuff (Isabela is the only one who claims to have had a completely positive prophecy about her life from Bruno, much to her little sister's irritation). Bruno is a shoo-in for my favourite character by way of being a villain fake-out. After his apparent disappearance years earlier, the family's kept quiet about him, and when Mirabel asks questions about him they paint him in sinister colours. He's designed to look faintly sinister too, yet when Mirabel meets him he turns out to be a shy, well-meaning bloke freaked out by his own gift and still full of affection for his family. It's no spoiler that Bruno isn't the villain: that's made pretty clear by the trailers. I was half expecting there to be a double twist where it turns out that he's villainous after all ("this is why we don't talk about Bruno"), but the film didn't go there, and though it would have been rather neat I liked non-baddie Bruno enough to be relieved. Another favourite of mine is Mirabel's big sister Luisa, whose magic power is super strength, and who's expected to be "the strong one" of the family both mentally and physically in a very big-sisterly way. (As a little sister, I feel a little sheepish when listening to her song Surface Pressure.)

Are we back to Golden Age-standard Disney, then? Well, maybe not quite. They've still not tackled many of the problems I've had with the latest Disney films, like (again!) the lack of a memorable villain, or indeed any villain this time around, and the fear of giving the heroine a love interest. I say fear, because there's something cowardly about the way Disney avoids romantic plots, so their female protagonist won't be perceived as "weak" by an over-censorius public. (We do get a love triangle with the side characters, so that's something.) Also, the story is rickety, in large part because the magic element of it is never explained. I know that this is supposed to be magical realism (a genre with which I'm unfamiliar) where magic is part of everyday life and you don't make a big fuss over it. But there still has to be cause and effect, hasn't there? If the casita had suddenly had normal cracks, there would have been an explanation, so why isn't there one for the magical cracks? If cracks in the house equal cracks in the family, why didn't they appear when poor Bruno was ostracised? Why does the magic grow weaker when Mirabel has had an important heart-felt conversation with one of her family members, but stronger when she has an important heart-felt conversation with another family member? Why wasn't she given a gift? Is she Abuela's future replacement, and in that case, couldn't she at least have been given a room? What does the magic want? I wanna know!

All in all, though, Encanto – like Raya – is a step in the right direction after the slump of Ralph Breaks the Internet and Frozen 2. But if Disney wants to step away from European fairy tales as source material, they need to up their game when it comes to inventing original stories. A colourful setting is not enough.