Fantastic Beasts 2 and The Passage...
Mar. 17th, 2019 10:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat1. Just finished watching Fantastic Beasts 2 - Crimes of Grindewald, which was much better than I'd been led to believe. (I think it depends on what you're looking for? If you want another Harry Potter? This isn't it. It's more of a different story, more adult, exploring another part of the world. Harry Potter is unique, in that I actually find the world more interesting than the characters that inhabit it. Fantastic Beasts has that same appeal. Unfortunately, Rowlings is not all that great at writing interesting female characters. Despite what people may believe, many people write the opposite gender better than the same gender, possibly because they either find the opposite gender more interesting or writing about it, somehow more freeing? I'm not sure why this is -- just an interesting pattern I've noticed over time in regards to certain writers. Particularly genre writers.)
Anyhow...the world and the inventiveness of it is rather fun. As are the special effects, which get better as we go. In addition, Dumbledore is rather interesting - as played by Jude Law. Jude Law is a versatile actor who has been able to play character roles, and a diverse variety of them. He's rather good as Dumbledore, adding a darker edge and a mischeviousness to the role that Harris didn't quite convey, although his successor did.
Newt -- I find a bit too mannered. Which is a difficulty I have with that actor, he's very into mannerisms or physical twitches and quirks, and I find it distracting. There's a handful of actors who...for lack of a better word, twitch.
George Clooney, Eliza Dusku, and this actor seems to...well twitch. And the camera picks up on subtle movements. Other than that I like him in the role and the character is endearing. His interactions with Dumbledore are rather entertaining and Dumbledore is the best addition to the story. Johnny Depp's Grimewald...I didn't find as entertaining as Colin Farrell in the first film. Depp doesn't do a lot for me -- although he doesn't twitch that much at least.
It's admittedly a busy little movie. There's a lot going on. And a lot of expository material. But I didn't find it slow and it moved rather quickly. (Actually, I thought Captain Marvel drug more.) IT's not a progressive one -- most of the women look alike, and the male characters are far more developed. This is actually a problem across the board. I noticed it in Captain Marvel as well -- we had far more diversity in male actors than female, also all the women were...well, beautiful with the possible exception of a few that were on screen for the blink of an eye. The men weren't. This is unfortunately true of all the action films and television series I've seen to date. Sort of hard to be empowering, if you keep doing that. I can tell these films and television series are being cast for the male gaze not the female gaze. Considering Captain Marvel is supposed to be a film about female empowerment targeted at women, shouldn't the gaze be the female gaze, if there is one at all?
It's actually one of the things Whedon sort of did right with Buffy - which is the female gaze was given priority.
Fantastic Beasts has this problem too -- its male gaze. The women are VERY attractive, the only attractive guy in the cast is well...Dumbledore and possibly Johnny Depp, and that's understated. Rowlings? It's a tad hard to take your progressiveness and feminism seriously when you keep screwing up in this manner.
Actually Fantastic Beasts is rather uneven in that regard. Progressive, it's not, although it tries really hard to be, and gets a little credit for taking place in the 1920s.
Plotwise? It's sort of fun. Convoluted, but fun. As is Newt who outwits Grimwald with his simplicity. He isn't able to get Creedance, but then ...he had no chance.
Creedance turns out to be Dumbledore's brother, or so we're told. I'm wondering if he may be the nephew or sister's child. At any rate, since Grimewald can't fight Dumbledore himself or defeat him, he grabs a relative of Dumbledore's to do it for him. We already know Dumbledore wins...so this prequel has some of the same challenges that the Star Wars prequels did. Except with a much happier ending.
Characterwise? Well, see above, it needs work. The writer is far more interested in her world-building and theme than her characters. And the theme as a result gets a bit lost and sort of muddled. It's all good and well to ask for equality, but when your characters are representative of a broad spectrum of humanity, it gets a bit lost in the metaphors. But hey it's better than Harry Potter, we didn't have any POC really in Harry Potter.
Overall? Fun. Not great. I liked it better than most and it held my attention. But I wouldn't pay more than $5.99 for it.
2. Eh, ran out of time. So will be brief...the first season of The Passage admittedly has pacing issues, but insanely good character moments. The plot is much better than Manifest. And it's twist is well worth the ride -- there a time-jump in the last five minutes of the final episode that changes the series completely and is worth it.
After the vampire virus gets loose and takes out most of the US, the world powers decide to drop nuclear warheads on the US to burn out the plague. Stupid move, it doesn't kill the vampires. They go underground. Anyhow...we jump from 2019 to well 97 years into the future, where Amy (who hasn't grown at all) is wandering the dystopian wilderness hunting the agent she'd bonded with over 97 years before and a home.
That's the set up for S2.
We know from the final two hours -- that Agent Clark was blood linked to Shauna Babcock, and is immortal. He'll live as long as she does. But is not controlled by her. We know that Julia (agent Wolowokiz's wife) and Wolowokiz have been injected with the anti-virus, so can't get the vampire virus and are no longer attacked by the vampires. We also know Jonas injected himself with it -- and Lakasha is helping him. Then the bombs dropped.
Right now, the only person we see 97 years later is warrior Amy, played by the same actress, with long dreadlock braids and a bow and arrow, confident, wandering through Palm Desert, hunting Wolowokiz, who she believes is still alive, because she'd know if he was dead.
Interesting reset.
Now, curious to see where it goes. It went from a government conspiracy/vampire disease drama...to something completely different.
Anyhow...the world and the inventiveness of it is rather fun. As are the special effects, which get better as we go. In addition, Dumbledore is rather interesting - as played by Jude Law. Jude Law is a versatile actor who has been able to play character roles, and a diverse variety of them. He's rather good as Dumbledore, adding a darker edge and a mischeviousness to the role that Harris didn't quite convey, although his successor did.
Newt -- I find a bit too mannered. Which is a difficulty I have with that actor, he's very into mannerisms or physical twitches and quirks, and I find it distracting. There's a handful of actors who...for lack of a better word, twitch.
George Clooney, Eliza Dusku, and this actor seems to...well twitch. And the camera picks up on subtle movements. Other than that I like him in the role and the character is endearing. His interactions with Dumbledore are rather entertaining and Dumbledore is the best addition to the story. Johnny Depp's Grimewald...I didn't find as entertaining as Colin Farrell in the first film. Depp doesn't do a lot for me -- although he doesn't twitch that much at least.
It's admittedly a busy little movie. There's a lot going on. And a lot of expository material. But I didn't find it slow and it moved rather quickly. (Actually, I thought Captain Marvel drug more.) IT's not a progressive one -- most of the women look alike, and the male characters are far more developed. This is actually a problem across the board. I noticed it in Captain Marvel as well -- we had far more diversity in male actors than female, also all the women were...well, beautiful with the possible exception of a few that were on screen for the blink of an eye. The men weren't. This is unfortunately true of all the action films and television series I've seen to date. Sort of hard to be empowering, if you keep doing that. I can tell these films and television series are being cast for the male gaze not the female gaze. Considering Captain Marvel is supposed to be a film about female empowerment targeted at women, shouldn't the gaze be the female gaze, if there is one at all?
It's actually one of the things Whedon sort of did right with Buffy - which is the female gaze was given priority.
Fantastic Beasts has this problem too -- its male gaze. The women are VERY attractive, the only attractive guy in the cast is well...Dumbledore and possibly Johnny Depp, and that's understated. Rowlings? It's a tad hard to take your progressiveness and feminism seriously when you keep screwing up in this manner.
Actually Fantastic Beasts is rather uneven in that regard. Progressive, it's not, although it tries really hard to be, and gets a little credit for taking place in the 1920s.
Plotwise? It's sort of fun. Convoluted, but fun. As is Newt who outwits Grimwald with his simplicity. He isn't able to get Creedance, but then ...he had no chance.
Creedance turns out to be Dumbledore's brother, or so we're told. I'm wondering if he may be the nephew or sister's child. At any rate, since Grimewald can't fight Dumbledore himself or defeat him, he grabs a relative of Dumbledore's to do it for him. We already know Dumbledore wins...so this prequel has some of the same challenges that the Star Wars prequels did. Except with a much happier ending.
Characterwise? Well, see above, it needs work. The writer is far more interested in her world-building and theme than her characters. And the theme as a result gets a bit lost and sort of muddled. It's all good and well to ask for equality, but when your characters are representative of a broad spectrum of humanity, it gets a bit lost in the metaphors. But hey it's better than Harry Potter, we didn't have any POC really in Harry Potter.
Overall? Fun. Not great. I liked it better than most and it held my attention. But I wouldn't pay more than $5.99 for it.
2. Eh, ran out of time. So will be brief...the first season of The Passage admittedly has pacing issues, but insanely good character moments. The plot is much better than Manifest. And it's twist is well worth the ride -- there a time-jump in the last five minutes of the final episode that changes the series completely and is worth it.
After the vampire virus gets loose and takes out most of the US, the world powers decide to drop nuclear warheads on the US to burn out the plague. Stupid move, it doesn't kill the vampires. They go underground. Anyhow...we jump from 2019 to well 97 years into the future, where Amy (who hasn't grown at all) is wandering the dystopian wilderness hunting the agent she'd bonded with over 97 years before and a home.
That's the set up for S2.
We know from the final two hours -- that Agent Clark was blood linked to Shauna Babcock, and is immortal. He'll live as long as she does. But is not controlled by her. We know that Julia (agent Wolowokiz's wife) and Wolowokiz have been injected with the anti-virus, so can't get the vampire virus and are no longer attacked by the vampires. We also know Jonas injected himself with it -- and Lakasha is helping him. Then the bombs dropped.
Right now, the only person we see 97 years later is warrior Amy, played by the same actress, with long dreadlock braids and a bow and arrow, confident, wandering through Palm Desert, hunting Wolowokiz, who she believes is still alive, because she'd know if he was dead.
Interesting reset.
Now, curious to see where it goes. It went from a government conspiracy/vampire disease drama...to something completely different.
no subject
Date: 2019-03-19 04:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-03-19 12:12 pm (UTC)Agree. Although if renewed they do have a problem, which is the actress playing Amy is going to age. She won't be a child forever. It's less problematic with the other actors, because change that much like kids do.