A few weeks back I watched Wreck-It Ralph 2 - Ralph Breaks The Internet in the cinema and was - well, underwhelmed. At the time, I still thought it was OK. The animation is top-notch: it's hard not to be a little invested when the characters' pain at some fresh betrayal is so well-animated. Overall, I liked the side characters introduced in the film, and the Internet setting had some neat ideas. The part with the Disney princesses turned out to be more enjoyable than I'd anticipated. I'm still not wild about the "are you a princess?" interrogation scene, but in the end the fun-poking at princess tropes is pretty mild and a far cry from Shrek territory, plus the girls turn out to be handy in a crisis. There's also a really fun song where Vanellope channels her inner Disney princess and by "looking at water" realises what she really wants: to be a part of the tough, unpredictable internet game Slaughter Race. As time goes on, though, I find that the problems with the film start to grate on me more. Even on the same evening as I watched it, I thought (not without some grim satisfaction for having called it): "I guess Disney's golden revival era really is over". Now I'm even more convinced. Frozen 2 will need to be pretty spectacular in order to turn around the downward trend.
If online comments on places such as Youtube (which incidentally features under the threadbare disguise of "BuzzTube" in the film) are anything to go by, I wasn't the only one who was vaguely dissatisfied with Wreck-It Ralph 2. Few think it's downright bad, but they have various problems with it: the depiction of the Internet is too generic; Ralph behaves badly; Vanellope behaves badly; we see too little of the lovable side characters from the Arcade; the image of a computer virus in the shape of Ralph - made out of a teeming horde of needy virus Ralphs - is uncomfortable etc. I more or less agree with all of these criticisms, but what made these faults worse was the plot itself.
Quite simply, the film falls into the classic sequel trap of telling us a story which few of us wanted to see. The first Wreck-It Ralph film was mostly about Ralph accepting his role as the bad guy in his Arcade game and realising 1) that his was an important job that kept the whole game going 2) that he didn't have to be a bad guy off stage, as it were. His friendship with kid racer Vanellope in the game Sugar Rush played a large part in his acceptance of his lot, and in the touching ending of the film he admits that being thrown off the roof in his game, once he's been defeated by a player, is his favourite part of the day, because from up there he can see Vanellope racing in Sugar Rush. Now, who saw this scene and thought: "Isn't Ralph being a little clingy? Should so much of his happiness really rest on his bond with Vanellope? Wouldn't it be healthier if he gave her some space and made some other friends as well?"
I sure as heck didn't. Yet in this sequel, the message being peddled is the one the Earl of Grantham, with some justice, dismissed as a "slogan" in the Downton Abbey finale: "If you love her, you have to let her go". I didn't like the "don't be too needy" theme in Finding Nemo, and though it's not quite as enervating here as the stakes aren't so high, it still bothered me. It's not that this message is never relevant for kids as well as adults, but there's something finger-wagging about it, and unlike many a pat moral which you can just about swallow (all the while thinking "well, duh"), it's just not very compatible with family-friendly entertainment. I can't be the only one who doesn't find it enjoyable to watch someone being chastised for caring too much.
Of course all ends well, and Ralph's and Vanellope's friendship survives being long-distance. But I would have been happy to leave them both in the Arcade, happy with their roles in their respective games and with each other. In the end, watching Wreck-It Ralph 2 - Ralph Breaks The Internet subtracts a little from the experience of watching the first film - and that's something a sequel should do its best to avoid.
torsdag 28 mars 2019
torsdag 14 mars 2019
Timeless - A nice way to spend TV time (but no new Who)
I've discovered that I'm not as good at TV bingewatching as I'd imagined. When there's a villain crush in the mix, then I bingewatch, and Doctor Who triggers the same impulse (yes, still, just about). But there are a number of series where I watch an episode now and then, think "this is nice, I'm enjoying this", but still only manage one episode per evening and very possibly watch something else the following day. Variety is good, I suppose, but it does leave me with a lot of half-watched series and a funny sense of under-achievement.
Which is one reason why I made a conscious effort to prioritise Timeless above other light-entertainment Netflix fare. One season containing fifteen episodes is available on Swedish Netflix: it was surely doable to complete it without stringing it out over months and months. I've watched the whole season now, and am glad I did, but making it to the season finale didn't really bring a reward. Instead of tying up the threads, the series opted for a classic season cliffhanger (which I'll get back to).
I hope Netflix sends the next season and the TV movie that (according to reviews on Amazon) completes the story, because I'm not sure I'm sufficiently invested in the series to buy the rest on DVD. All the same, I liked it. The story setup yields a satisfying amount of historical derring-do. A brilliant inventor has managed to build two time machines: a fancy new one (the mother ship) and the prototype, to be used in emergencies (the lifeboat). The mother ship is stolen by tortured dish Garcia Flynn, labeled a terrorist by US intelligence, and his gang of followers. His mission seems to be to sabotage key moments in American history, and a team consisting of nervy historian Lucy, tough military man Wyatt (who looks more like a pop star than a hardened veteran, but never mind) and the long-suffering programmer Rufus, who's the only one who can pilot the machine, are sent out in the lifeboat to stop him.
My impression of the first episode was "this is fun, if a little slipshod", and that impression more or less stuck during the rest of the series. The protagonists are likeable, the script is zingy and the acting's good. All the same, there's plenty to criticise. The series doesn't give you any in-depth view into or fresh angle on American history, as the famous people the heroes run into behave pretty much as described in historical textbooks. I don't really mind the hasty way in which it's established that time travel exists, and appreciate the fact that we're not bogged down with pseudo-scientific explanations as to how it's possible. The time machines themselves are clearly not of much interest to the writers: they're just an excuse to get the characters into historical adventures. Fair enough, but another far-fetched premise could have done with a little more elucidation. Flynn claims that there is a vast conspiracy, containing a large part of the American élite, who is clandestinely shaping the country in a harmful way. His history-changing plans, which include not only assassinating Lincoln but also half his government and sabotaging the moon landing, are necessary to take out "Rittenhouse", as this association of highly-placed baddies is called. Flynn turns out to be right, at least as far as the existence of Rittenhouse is concerned. However, it's not made clear what these people actually want. The conspiracy is as much of a simple plot device as the time machines, only there to furnish ethical dilemmas to the lifeboat team. Are they doing the right thing trying to stop Flynn, or should they be helping him?
What's more, little is done with the "ripple effect", which usually plays such an important part in time-travelling dramas. In the very first episode, where as a consequence of Flynn's and the team's meddling there are only two casualties in the Hindenburg disaster, the alteration has a vast impact on Lucy's life in the present. In the second episode, she has to convince her sceptical team mates that they can't stop Lincoln from being murdered as history has to play out the way it always did. Afterwards, though, this line of reasoning is dropped and the team both kill and save people in the past without it having any discernible effect on the present as long as the big events are preserved. This left the geek in me rather dissatisfied, as I had looked forward to seeing the present becoming weirder and weirder as a consequence of some random actions in the past - maybe not every episode, but every now and then. That it's never explained (at least not in the first season) how Lucy suddenly finds herself engaged to a handsome doctor she's never met was another disappointment.
My final gripe has less to do with this series specifically than with the habit (more common in the US than the UK, I think) of ending a season with a cliffhanger. I understand that it makes solid commercial sense to hook the viewers into the new season. Nevertheless, I prefer more or less completed season story arcs. Viewers who aren't too much into the series get a natural walking-off point (which, I realise, it's in no way in the series creators' interest to provide), and those who are into the series can look forward to new adventures with the satisfying feeling that at least some of the characters' old issues have been resolved. A cliffhanger which makes you feel as if you might as well have been left hanging mid-season - and I'd say the Timeless one fits into that category - can't help feeling frustrating. On the other hand, cliffhangers hinting at new dangers just as everything looks fine and dandy - such as Elsa stepping into Storybrooke (though that didn't go well) and the Doctor colliding with a space version of the Titanic - are OK. Just don't keep the original plot threads dangling forever.
Timeless isn't Doctor Who (at least not at its best), but it's still good entertainment. Speaking of Who, the series contains an actor who's often mentioned as a possible future Doctor - Paterson Joseph, who plays the morally compromised inventor Connor Mason. I'd definitely be on board with him as a future Doc; he does authority with a hint of arrogance very well. Perhaps it helps that the two parts I've seen him play so far (he was Rose's venal co-contestant in the Doctor Who episode "Bad Wolf") have been somewhat shady?
Which is one reason why I made a conscious effort to prioritise Timeless above other light-entertainment Netflix fare. One season containing fifteen episodes is available on Swedish Netflix: it was surely doable to complete it without stringing it out over months and months. I've watched the whole season now, and am glad I did, but making it to the season finale didn't really bring a reward. Instead of tying up the threads, the series opted for a classic season cliffhanger (which I'll get back to).
I hope Netflix sends the next season and the TV movie that (according to reviews on Amazon) completes the story, because I'm not sure I'm sufficiently invested in the series to buy the rest on DVD. All the same, I liked it. The story setup yields a satisfying amount of historical derring-do. A brilliant inventor has managed to build two time machines: a fancy new one (the mother ship) and the prototype, to be used in emergencies (the lifeboat). The mother ship is stolen by tortured dish Garcia Flynn, labeled a terrorist by US intelligence, and his gang of followers. His mission seems to be to sabotage key moments in American history, and a team consisting of nervy historian Lucy, tough military man Wyatt (who looks more like a pop star than a hardened veteran, but never mind) and the long-suffering programmer Rufus, who's the only one who can pilot the machine, are sent out in the lifeboat to stop him.
My impression of the first episode was "this is fun, if a little slipshod", and that impression more or less stuck during the rest of the series. The protagonists are likeable, the script is zingy and the acting's good. All the same, there's plenty to criticise. The series doesn't give you any in-depth view into or fresh angle on American history, as the famous people the heroes run into behave pretty much as described in historical textbooks. I don't really mind the hasty way in which it's established that time travel exists, and appreciate the fact that we're not bogged down with pseudo-scientific explanations as to how it's possible. The time machines themselves are clearly not of much interest to the writers: they're just an excuse to get the characters into historical adventures. Fair enough, but another far-fetched premise could have done with a little more elucidation. Flynn claims that there is a vast conspiracy, containing a large part of the American élite, who is clandestinely shaping the country in a harmful way. His history-changing plans, which include not only assassinating Lincoln but also half his government and sabotaging the moon landing, are necessary to take out "Rittenhouse", as this association of highly-placed baddies is called. Flynn turns out to be right, at least as far as the existence of Rittenhouse is concerned. However, it's not made clear what these people actually want. The conspiracy is as much of a simple plot device as the time machines, only there to furnish ethical dilemmas to the lifeboat team. Are they doing the right thing trying to stop Flynn, or should they be helping him?
What's more, little is done with the "ripple effect", which usually plays such an important part in time-travelling dramas. In the very first episode, where as a consequence of Flynn's and the team's meddling there are only two casualties in the Hindenburg disaster, the alteration has a vast impact on Lucy's life in the present. In the second episode, she has to convince her sceptical team mates that they can't stop Lincoln from being murdered as history has to play out the way it always did. Afterwards, though, this line of reasoning is dropped and the team both kill and save people in the past without it having any discernible effect on the present as long as the big events are preserved. This left the geek in me rather dissatisfied, as I had looked forward to seeing the present becoming weirder and weirder as a consequence of some random actions in the past - maybe not every episode, but every now and then. That it's never explained (at least not in the first season) how Lucy suddenly finds herself engaged to a handsome doctor she's never met was another disappointment.
My final gripe has less to do with this series specifically than with the habit (more common in the US than the UK, I think) of ending a season with a cliffhanger. I understand that it makes solid commercial sense to hook the viewers into the new season. Nevertheless, I prefer more or less completed season story arcs. Viewers who aren't too much into the series get a natural walking-off point (which, I realise, it's in no way in the series creators' interest to provide), and those who are into the series can look forward to new adventures with the satisfying feeling that at least some of the characters' old issues have been resolved. A cliffhanger which makes you feel as if you might as well have been left hanging mid-season - and I'd say the Timeless one fits into that category - can't help feeling frustrating. On the other hand, cliffhangers hinting at new dangers just as everything looks fine and dandy - such as Elsa stepping into Storybrooke (though that didn't go well) and the Doctor colliding with a space version of the Titanic - are OK. Just don't keep the original plot threads dangling forever.
Timeless isn't Doctor Who (at least not at its best), but it's still good entertainment. Speaking of Who, the series contains an actor who's often mentioned as a possible future Doctor - Paterson Joseph, who plays the morally compromised inventor Connor Mason. I'd definitely be on board with him as a future Doc; he does authority with a hint of arrogance very well. Perhaps it helps that the two parts I've seen him play so far (he was Rose's venal co-contestant in the Doctor Who episode "Bad Wolf") have been somewhat shady?
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