television – Page 2

The New Legends of Monkey – review

Monkey was a late seventies Japanese television series that aired in the early eighties here in the UK. Quickly gaining popularity, it became a cult hit, with every teenage schoolboy – as that is what I was when it aired – rushing home to see it. Less violent than another martial arts series of the time, The Water Margin, Monkey told the story of three gods – Monkey, Pigsy and Sandy – and a monk – Tripitaka – who journey across China in search of ancient scrolls in order to save the world from demons.

As is the modern way and – some would say – the laziness of present-day production companies, remakes are a popular and – as long as they remain lucrative – will always be used as a proven route to a successful show.

The Legends of Monkey is the modern remake of Monkey. Though not a beat for beat remake, The Legends of Monkey is inspired by the cult classic and takes not only the premise but also retains the same characters, with even the boy monk, Tripitaka, being played by a woman. Originally played by the late Japanese actor, Masako Natsume, the modern incarnation of Tripitaka is played by Luciane Buchanan, a New Zealander of Tongan descent.

The production is a joint venture between the Australian Broadcasting Company, Television New Zealand and Netflix, reflecting the affection and popularity of the original show in that part of the world.

Chai Hansen takes the title role of the mischievous and egocentric Monkey, with Josh Thomson being Pigsy and Emilie Cocquerel, the only notable departure from the original series, with her taking the role of Sandy originally played by the male actor Shiro Kishibe.

This Antipodean interpretation of the show retains other elements of the original that made it so beloved around the globe, namely the fighting and the humour. Having made the decision to keep the central story premise and setting, there was the very modern and not at all unexpected furore over the casting of the actors. Wherein the original show had an entirely Japanese cast portraying a Chinese story – it was, after all, a Japanese production – the show was made in a very different time. It was pre the internet age, before social media, it even predates Netflix by almost twenty years.

That being said, the production boldly decided against casting any Chinese actors, casting predominantly from New Zealand and Australia. Not being Chinese myself and having little knowledge of how even how the original series was received in China – if it was even aired in China – this is not really an issue I feel I can confidently comment on. From my point of view, however, maybe it is the heightened sense of race-erasing that is in the media or my love of the original series, but when the show was initially announced and the cast was made known, this was the first thing that I noticed.

Still, I wanted to watch the show and give it a chance. I am glad that I did. The series is, as is the Netflix model, a ten-episode binge-able watch. Like the original show, they keep it short with each episode less than half an hour in length, comfortably sitting in sitcom territory. As it is a martial arts comedy, the drama is kept to a minimum, being just enough to carry the story but not so much as to be heavy or overwhelming. Truth be told, none of the elements that make up the show are dominant. The comedic moments are chucklesome as opposed to laugh-out-loud, the martial arts is competent without ever becoming truly dynamic.

The sets and costumes are good and show good production values, whilst the effects, though not of a Hollywood standard, are credible enough so as not to pull you out of the story. The strongest thing in Monkey is the aforementioned cast. They all inhabit the roles in a way that pays homage to the original show without parodying it. The supporting cast is also very good, with Rachel House as Monica, the gruff cyclopic innkeeper, a standout.

Though not an unmissable show, I do feel that The New Legends Of Monkey is good enough to deserve a second season. I for one would be happy to see the further adventures of Monkey, Tripitaka, Pigsy and Sandy. Here’s hoping.

Taxi Brooklyn – I watch it so that you don’t have to!

TAXI Brooklyn is a short-lived comedy/drama, buddy-buddy show that has found its way to the televisual graveyard that is Netflix. With a truncated twelve episode season, the procedural police drama/comedy stars Chyler Leigh – better known for her role as Alex Danvers on Supergirl – as Detective Caitlyn Sullivan and Jacky Ido as Leo Romba, a French-born, Brooklyn residing, taxi driver.
Taxi Brooklyn, a lazy title for a lazy show, takes the implausible premise of difficult-to-work-with detective – she has already had five partners that year in the opening episode – and pairs her with an immigrant, street savvy taxi driver, whose sense of right and winning charm makes him one of the few people who can stand to be around the detective. Conveniently – and there are a lot of convenient situations in this show – the detective has her car privileges rescinded by her captain John Baker – a thankless, horribly cliched role taken on by James Colby – this little detail brings about the ludicrous plot device of having the taxi driver ferry the detective everywhere. They even go as far as having him run over her foot in episode three so as she cannot drive!
Caitlyn, or Cat as she is called in the show, is a ‘maverick’ cop who is obsessed with finding the killer of her father. He was also a member of law enforcement. Sound familiar? It should, it is basically the same premise as Castle, the much superior Nathan Fillion/Stana Katic starrer. Whilst, like Castle, the ‘who murdered my father?’ arc is the overarching story that sustains the season, each episode has a separate story.
My heart, as ever, goes out to the actors in this mess of a show. Besides the aforementioned, there is José Zúñiga who plays, I kid you not, detective Esposito and Jennifer Esposito – a crush of mine from her Spin City days – plays Dr Monica Pena. These fine actors are forced to try and breathe believability into scripts of staggering ineptitude and – sorry to repeat myself – cliche-ridden plots. The scripts are just the tip of the iceberg. I was momentarily buoyed by some interesting editing in the opening of episode two. My hopes were quickly dashed by the handheld camera work, poor sound and slapdash editing.
Even with the sloppy production of a show this contrived, the scripts needed to at the very least be competent and mildly believable. They are not. Aside from shoehorning in random characters connected to the killing of Caitlyn’s father, the scripts have so much horrible exposition, not to mention quite unbelievable, convenient, coincidences that one spends most of the watch time spotting the next cliché.
The real pity with this show is that the two leads actually have the right chemistry for the show’s premise, unfortunately, the characters are never given any scope to develop, forced to spout their lines with little to no motivation.

Though not totally unwatchable, Taxi Brooklyn is definitely in the realms of bad television. That it managed even to run for twelve episodes is an achievement, thankfully, even though NBC is notorious for cancelling solid shows, the cancellation of this show was a tick in the correct column.

Annihilation – a review

Alex Garland’s latest big-screen offering – and small screen, more on that later – is the ‘cerebral’ thriller Annihilation. I put cerebral in quotations as Inception this is not! Admittedly I am one of the few people who were not blown away by Garland’s last outing, the enjoyable but, I felt, too ponderous, Ex Machina.
I will say that Garland definitely has a good visual style. Like Ex Machina, Annihilation looks incredible, which contributes to an initially interesting and disturbing atmosphere. That soon wears off as the story gets not so much going as plods along.
Natalie Portman is Lena, an ex-soldier turned scientist/biologist whose husband, Oscar Issac’s Kane, also a military person, has gone missing presumed dead. Lena mopes around her home, sullen with grief and guilt – she had an affair with a married colleague at the college she works at, though it is not indicated whether the affair happened whilst her husband was missing or beforehand – cutting herself off from friends and acquaintances.
Kane returns but he is different and cannot explain his year-long absence. When he suddenly becomes critically ill, Lena takes him back to the military base in an effort to save him. There she meets Jennifer Jason Leigh’s Dr Ventress who tells her about her Kane’s return from an exploratory mission into an unexplained area they had named the Shimmer, due to its dome-like shimmering quality.
Ventress goes on to explain that several missions had yielded no results and they had lost much personnel. All the previous expeditions had been male only, so for no discernible reason I could fathom, the next suicide – sorry – expedition would be an all-female affair. Lena, military trained and a scientist to boot, decides to join the mission reasoning – poorly – that the answer to whatever is killing her husband is inside the mysterious Shimmer.
So, on a planet where a person can barely sneeze without it hitting the internet and satellites from every first world country orbit the planet, this Shimmer has been being investigated, for over a year, just by the Americans. A year in which it has expanded and they have kept feeding military bodies to it. Right. Onward.
Five intrepid ladies head into the Shimmer, besides Lena and the doctor, there is Tessa Thompson as the DNA specialising, anthropologist Josie Radek, Gina Rodriguez as the overtly gay Anya Thorensen and Tuva Novotny as Cass Sheppard. All have their scientific specialities, not that it matters much in the context of the film.

Only the good doctor knows Lena is related to Kane, the only person to have returned from the Shimmer.
Once inside the Shimmer, all sense of time and orientation is lost, the women cannot remember entering the Shimmer, nor can they recall how long they have been inside.
They trek on exploring the wondrous and lush landscape. On coming upon a semi-submerged houseboat, they proceed to investigate. One them gets attacked by something in the water. Obviously. After a frantic rescue, there is a brief showdown with the unidentified river/swamp beast. Lena shows her military prowess, emptying a clip into it. Bravo.
There is quite unbelievable science, gobbledygook and hapless exposition as they speak of DNA adaption and mutations. Unfortunately, such subject matter has been executed so much better in other films and television programmes.
There is madness, mutiny, abduction and death but it is not anything you would care about as none of the characters is particularly memorable or empathetic. I would give out a complete spoiler-laden review, but it would make very little difference in the context of the film, with its somewhat ambiguous premise petering out to a most unsatisfying conclusion.

None of this is the fault of the talent on show, who all try gamely with the material they are given, but with exposition kept to a bare minimum – usually a good thing – and explanations almost nonexistent, the story struggles to keep a viewer either engaged or caring.
Annihilation is almost too smart for its own good, with the questions it poses – why would you keep going in? How has no one in the world noticed there’s an expanding light bubble in North America? – not the ones it perhaps hoped for. Annihilation was released in theatres in the U. S. but in Europe, due to some distribution issues, was released on Netflix. As I said earlier, the visuals in the film are stunning so it is a pity – even with the advent of supersize televisions – that it could not find even a limited theatrical release in Europe, as its visual scope at least deserves a large screen.
Annihilation is not unwatchable, but it is disappointing and somewhat pretentious with a good film buried beneath the pretensions.

Black Lightning – waiting for a strike (early impressions review)

With the imminent release of Black Panther on the horizon – can’t wait! – and a general shifting toward the listening to the voices of minorities in western civilisation, the landscape of film and television is affording more opportunities for fare that would not have found a large audience outside of its particular niche.
With the popularity of superhero films in cinemas and its filtering to television and subscription services, the once niche market of comic geekery is now known to all. Netflix, to their credit, have been at the forefront when it comes to programming in the superhero genre. Having predominantly screened Marvel fare – Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist and The Defenders – with the exception of the risible Iron Fist (review here), the comic book adaptions have been good to great, Marvel continuing to prove that their grasp of the genre is solid.
Black Lightning is the latest addition to DC’s roster of televisual super beings. Unlike their filmic output, DC’s television shows have been strong, with Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl and Heroes of Tomorrow all established shows. As I mentioned before, it seems with the race to embrace minority friendly content, DC have dug through their archives of characters and found the little known – even amongst comic geeks – character of Black Lightning.
As a black person myself, I embrace the advent of minority programming and love seeing people on the screen I can readily identify with. That being said, three episodes into Black Lightning it is difficult to find much to be excited about. In fact, there is so much wrong with Black Lightning, it is difficult to know where to start.
Jefferson Pierce (Cress Williams) is Black Lightning, a meta-human able to generate electrical beams, lightning, from his hands. He is also an expert martial artist. None of this is addressed in the show, I learned it all on Wikipedia. How he came to be Black Lightning, his origin story, is not even alluded to. We meet Jefferson as a high school principal in Freeland. He has retired from the superhero/vigilante game, feeling he can help more as a pillar of the community. He also knows that it was being Black Lightning that broke his relationship with his estranged wife Lynn (Christine Adams) as she could not bear the thought of him being in danger every night.
Elsewhere his youngest daughter, Jennifer (China Anne McClain) is getting close to a young, would-be, gang banger, LaShawn (Al-Jaleel Knox), cousin to local dealer and area boss of the notorious one hundred gang, Lala (William Catlett). When LaShawn takes Jennifer to see his cousin, trying to impress her, Lala embarrasses him and insults Jennifer. When later on Jennifer is caught up in a gang-related situation, Black Lightning is forced to come out of retirement. So far so cliche.
Let’s start with the costume; it is god awful, easily the worse costume of modern-day heroes. Not in anyway subtle, it is a shiny, carbon-blue coloured, motorcycle suit, with a bright lightning bolt ‘V’ on the chest. He wears goggles – GOGGLES! – as his disguise. So people, who have known him most of their lives do not recognise him with a pair of sunglasses on!
A peruse of IMDB shows a divide of opinion; many comic show fans hate the show, the biggest gripe being the acting. I feel that this is unfair as, if anything, the acting is probably the best thing about the show. Unfortunately, the actors are given not only a weak premise to work with – I will get to that – but also dull scripts. The dialogue in the show is so poor it is almost a sedative. The only actors who get to invest believably in their roles are the aforementioned William Catlett, Marvin ‘Krondon’ Jones III, who plays Tobias Whale and Damon Gupton as Inspector Henderson.
The show’s story and premise go for the lazy and overworked, using the old ‘gangs taking over and terrorising the ghetto/neighbourhood’ trope that is often attributed to black stories/communities. It was the same story they used in Luke Cage, though that show did have a much better script.
As well as following the black gangs and a frightened community staple, the show also jumps on the ‘empowering women’ bandwagon, as well as the wife and youngest daughter, there is also Anissa (Nefessa Williams), the eldest daughter, who is a lesbian. Notably, the lesbians in this show are strictly of the lipstick variety; utterly beautiful.
Unusually, Black Lightning has made no effort at an origin story, thus we are given a vague sense of Black Lightning as a figure of folklore, missed by the god-fearing – yep, the church loving staple is in there too – community.

I will say, as a positive, that – aside for the costume – the show looks technically good, especially the third episode. The lighting and colours look rich and deep and the editing, fight scenes and sound are top class.
Netflix has, unusually, opted to release Black Lightning week by week, unlike many of the other superhero shows. Whether the show will be able to retain its audience over its thirteen episode run remains to be seen. Whilst not unwatchable, Black Lightning is far from unmissable television. As I am a long time fan of the superhero genre, I will no doubt keep watching. Hopefully Black Lightning will find its feet later in its run.

Bright – Not Really (a review)

BRIGHT is the latest offering from David Ayer, the writer, director and producer, whose most recent works include Suicide Squad, Sabotage and End Of Watch. He is perhaps best known for two of his earlier works, The Fast And The Furious and the critically acclaimed Training Day. On Bright, Ayer is on director duty, the screenplay having been written by Max Landis, whose most notable writing credit is the 2012 superpowers thriller, Chronicle.
Bright tells the story of a world where humans, orcs and elves live an uneasy coexistence, with elves being societies elite, orcs the bottom of the pile and the humans somewhere in-between. Quite why Landis decided to use orcs and elves, as opposed to creating new beings or characters, is not a question I can answer. I can only think that by using the normally opposed races Landis was hoping it would speed the story along. It doesn’t. If anything, it pulls you out of the story, especially the elves, who are LOTR (Lord Of The Rings) extras in Matrix get up. The budget does not quite stretch to creating the orcs with the same intensity they had in LOTR.
Will Smith, turning in an I, Robot performance, plays Daryl Ward, a street cop forced to work with the affable orc Nick Jakoby, played by Joel Edgerton, only recognisable by his gait under the orc make-up. Ward distrust Jakoby after he is shot by an orc whilst waiting for his partner to buy lunch. He suspects that Jakoby let the assailant escape due to him being an Orc. On returning to duty, his human colleagues, all of whom are small-minded and wear their prejudice with pride, try to encourage him to turn against his orc partner. Giving them short shrift, Ward and Jacob hit the streets.
They encounter Montehugh, a hirsute, dirty, half-naked man, wielding a sword and after persuading him to put the sword down, arrest him. Whilst in the back of the car, the seemingly crazy man suddenly – with an exposition scene that lands like Thor’s hammer – starts talking in orcish. He also throws up in the back of the car, which later leads to a scene in which Internal Affairs come to have a covert meeting with Ward to persuade him that turning on his partner would be in his best interest.
Meanwhile, Montehugh, the orcish speaking, sword-wielding vagabond, is visited by an elf and a human from the magic division – really – who wants to know about his babblings. As this is going on, Ward and Jakoby are attending a call where they come upon charred bodies and an elf crucifixion. They also meet Tikka (Lucy Fry) a terrified elf who is protecting a much sort after, wand. When back-up for Ward and Jakoby turn up, their four colleagues, in another exposition scene, try to persuade Ward to kill Jakoby so as they might keep the wand that can grant them any wish they desire – once again, really.
Exposition is next given in one sentence when Ward warns Jakoby not to reach for his gun because he would stand no chance against him in a gunfight. He then proceeds to kill the other four policemen who, of course, had planned to kill them both anyway; he is amazing in gunfights. The wand is now common knowledge in the city and everybody wants it. It’s a wishing wand you know. Humans cannot touch the wand without exploding – or maybe that’s anyone, that is never quite explained. Humans definitely explode though. Unless they are a….Bright. Really.
Remember babbling exposition man, Montehugh, in the back of the police car? He signposts that Ward is a Bright – that is not a spoiler, a small child would have seen it. The rest of the film is basically a chase film, where everyone pursues the wand – not the ring. Sorry.
Bright suffers from two major faults – there are more, but only two major ones – it is too shorts for the many varied themes it tries to cover. Bright would undoubtedly have been served better as a short series, four to six episodes maybe. Secondly, it is rushed, which sort of feeds into the first point, but if the slight book that was The Hobbit can be stretched into a trilogy of – admittedly – overlong films, how can a similar story be condensed into less than two hours? It can’t.
Bright tries to cover themes of race, prejudice, class, greed and avarice. Unfortunately, it fails on all fronts due to some heavy-handed writing and a runtime that is short by present standards. Bright turns out to be pretty dim.

The Punisher – a review

Like many of the comic adaptations before it, Netflix’s The Punisher had previously been brought to the screen. Three films featuring the grizzled ex-marine, Frank Castle, who would go on to become the Punisher, have been made. Even though the character did have its own comic book title back in the mid-eighties, The Punisher was never a major Marvel title, unlike say, Daredevil in its Frank Miller run.
Like most of Netflix’s Marvel series, The Punisher is well executed. Unlike the other series, it is able to jump straight into the story, with the character having been introduced, backstory and all, in the second season of Daredevil. Having not seen any of the earlier versions of The Punisher, it would be unfair of me to compare the different versions. What I will say is if there is a better Frank Castle than Jon Bernthal’s I need to see it!
Bernthal is so completely born to play this character, bringing an intensity and feral believability to a character that is capable of extreme violence. Bernthal’s taciturn turn is compelling and gruesomely attractive, portraying an admirable monster of a being. Frank Castle is a killing machine, out of place in the touchy-feely, let’s-mediate, millennial generation. The liberal espousing of every person having some redeeming qualities is something he knows, all too painfully, not to be true.
The story begins with all but a select few believing Castle to be dead. He has taken on work on a building site, keeping himself to himself, whilst taking out his rage on masonry. Some of the other labourers take a dislike to him and try to intimidate him. He does not rise to the bait. Another young labourer is friendly to him, but Frank tells him that he prefers to be left alone. The young guy, waiting to fit in and looking for friends, latches on to the bullies. One of the bullies is indebted to a loan shark and needs to get some money. He tells one of the others, who tells him of a mob poker game they can hit. The bullies decide to rob the mob poker game and bring the new kid along.
During the robbery, the youngster drops his wallet, revealing his driver’s license. Afraid that his mistake will expose them all, the gang take him to the building site to kill him. Unfortunately for them Frank, who is on the site still, hears about the whole episode and goes full Punisher on them. After giving the mob loot to the kid and telling him to disappear, he goes and wipes out the mob poker players, inadvertently revealing the probability of him still being alive.
Had The Punisher decided to follow the John Wick route and have him fighting and killing mobsters, forced to come out of ‘retirement’ because they are after him and then having various affiliations coming after him – CIA, Homeland, FBI – as they realise he is not dead, The Punisher could have been brilliant instead of just good.
It could have gone the way of the fantastic Jessica Jones, the little known super-powered private eye in the comics, brilliantly realised in her own Netflix series, utilising characters from the comics but bringing a compelling story.
With the exception of the poorly written lead character portrayed by a GOT popular Finn Jones in Iron Fist, all the acting and performances in Netflix’s Marvel fare have been universally excellent, central and supporting characters alike. It is in the area of story, something that was so strong in both Daredevil and Jessica Jones, to a lesser extent in Luke Cage, where Marvel has begun to falter.
The Iron Fist story and central character were an unholy mess, making the decision to have The Defenders have it as a launch pad an odd one. In The Punisher, the writers decided to use the death of his family and an ‘off-the-books’ covert mission, that was recorded (of course), when the squad he was part of executed a prisoner, as the premise for the series. The fact that they decided to put Ben Barnes’ (excellent) Billy Russo character in the trailer doing something nefarious was a spoiler of the worst kind.
With its top-shelf acting and first-rate fight choreography, not to mention the excellent editing, The Punisher is somewhat redeemed, though not wholly, allowing the cliched story to chug along nicely. The real issue with the story is not that it is bad, it is that it is too familiar. There are no surprises at all. Every cliche and stereotype box is ticked; a despicable drug smuggle? Tick. A powerfully positioned ‘secret’ overlord? Tick. A slick, but deadly, an old friend who swaps sides and becomes a fearsome adversary? Tick. Innocents in danger? Tick. It is all in there. There really was not enough story to sustain a thirteen episode arc, with some of the middle episodes akin to a more exciting episode of Homeland.
It is a pity that the overall arc is so tiresome because, as I never tire of saying, the performances are first class. No doubt The Punisher will get a second outing, one can only hope that Frank Castle can be found in a more interesting and challenging situation.

The Lesbian Majority In The Minority

An odd and mild prejudice has been revealed to me whilst binge watching my latest obsession – I’m late to the party but I am loving Wynonna Earp! – I have found that with perhaps the exception of Curtis in Arrow, there are no male gay characters that I find particularly engaging on television. Even with Curtis, it is the character of Curtis, not his relationship, that I like. When it comes to gay female characters my feelings are completely different.
From Willow and Tara on the best show of all time, Buffy The Vampire Slayer – shut up, it is! – to my present favourite show, Wynonna Earp, – hashtag Wayhaught – television’s representation of lesbianism has always been more, emotionally, appealing than that of the homosexual bent.
At this point, I should probably confess my inappropriate and undeniable love of a character and actress who is almost half my age in Dominique Provost-Chalkley (if she gets married and keeps her name, that will be a real mouthful!) and her character, the feisty Waverley. Along with Katherine Barrell’s dark-eyed police officer, Nicole Haught, they make up one of the most engaging and wonderfully organic gay couples on television, the aforementioned Wayhaught.
It is a testament to the writing, casting, and performances that the relationship works so well in the show. From the moment officer Haught comes into the show, the attraction to Waverley is immediate and obvious. Not that it should be a massive surprise as the creator and showrunner, Emily Andras, was also involved in the sexually fluid and brilliant Lost Girl.
It does beg the question as to why female gay relationships seem to be explored so much better in terms of emotion than their male equivalent, especially as – though this may just be a result of my city myopia – there seem to be far more gay men than gay women. Not that I seek out programmes with gay relationships in them and perhaps as such I have just not seen the shows that reflect the emotional depth that shows I have watched with gay relations – Buffy, Lost Girl, Supergirl, Wynonna Earp – convey.
Even the shows that have embraced male on male relationships, such as Empire, created by the openly gay Lee Daniels, tend to approach male relationships differently, with, in the case of Empire, the gay Jamal character portrayed by Jussie Smollett, very strong and prominent in the show but any partner or hook up he meets being only there to support his character, lacking any true purpose themselves.
Even though Tara and Willow were in Buffy and Waverly and Nicole have irresistible chemistry, it is the portrayal of Alex and Maggie in Supergirl that is my favourite couple. The openly gay Maggie (Floriana Lima) challenges Alex (Chyler Leigh) view of herself, when after years of failed heterosexual relationships, she finds herself, to her surprise, attracted to the streetwise, tough-talking, Maggie. Both tackle elements in the relationship that they have always shied away from, both are similar in that they have erected a wall around themselves, projecting a certain persona, in order to protect their hearts.
Amidst the silly and enjoyable superhero stuff, they more than any other characters, explore the complexities and challenges that are part and parcel of any relationship.
In the landscape of television, much more so than film, there is so much scope for the stories and realities of any and every group to be told and heard. The stories of women, gay men and women and those in the transgender community are being heard and sought more frequently now. For myself, as a British black person, there are still so many stories that are not being told and even in these increasingly multicultural and multiethnic times, few stories that reflect the plight or even normality of the fish-out-of-water scenario that is everyday life for so many non-white or indigenous people in the big city.
Whether this is a reflection of the powers that produce and make programmes or a reflection of the viewing demographic is hard to say, but with so much media and so many platforms to get our stories out there, I am confident that it will and can only get better.

I Am The Immortal Iron Fist! (we know!)

Having just finished binge-watching both Netflix’s shows, Iron Fist and The Defenders and, for the most part, enjoying them, here are my belated thoughts on the latest additions to the MCU – Marvel Cinematic universe – televisual rostrum. This blog will focus on Iron Fist.
In order of preference, Daredevil, Jessica Jones and Luke Cage were great shows, setting up and defining the lead and central characters perfectly. Matt Murdock, the blind lawyer whose sense of duty and justice is fuelled by rage and a fearless need to defend his city, New York, as the Daredevil. Jessica Jones, a reluctant superhero, imbued with superhuman strength and a sense of right that she fights to suppress, feeling her involvement in any situation immediately makes it worse and Luke Cage, bulletproof and super strong, he only wants to keep his neighbourhood safe, feeling that, with his particular gifts, he is duty bound to do so.
All the aforementioned shows created compelling and believable central protagonist, their foibles and struggle relatable and recognisable. In Iron Fist, the fourth and final character to be introduced before all the characters being brought together, the previous formula is, inexplicably, ignored.
Danny Rand, who is – as he tells us repeatedly as though he suffers from some form of braggadocio Tourette’s – the immortal Iron Fist, is a man who returns from obscurity, having been presumed dead, to claim his billion dollar fortune and occasionally fight bad people – not particularly impressively for a person who had trained everyday since childhood to be a warrior, but I will get to that.
Iron Fist suffers from a few problems, one being the comparison with its better predecessors, second being miscasting and perhaps the biggest issue is the writing. That is not to say the writing is bad. It is great for just about every character except for the oft-mentioned immortal Iron Fist. In a thirteen episode series – thirteen hours of my life! – the only character who does not evolve is Danny ‘I am the immortal Iron Fist’ Rand.
Rand’s purpose is also muddled. Having returned to New York to….truthfully I not sure what his reasons were for returning to New York. Fifteen years have passed since he disappeared, presumed dead, he returns to his father’s former company building, looking like a hobo and is mystified as to why nobody will accept that he is Danny Rand, somehow still the rightful owner of fifty-one percent of the multi-billion-dollar Rand corporation, even though all the world thought him dead.
A superhero, martial arts series, which is the loose concept of Iron Fist, turns into a tedious corporate power struggle show. Did I say martial arts? Right. Aside from saddling Finn Jones, the actor who plays Danny Rand, with the Herculean task of making Rand relatable, he also is supposed to be a fierce martial arts warrior – the immortal Iron Fist. Unfortunately, everybody he fights seems to be a more competent martial artist than he is. In both shows! In The Defenders, Daredevil exhibits a level of fighting prowess that the immortal Iron Fist could only dream of matching.
The wide shots favoured in the better fight films of modern times do Jones no favours, though he does noticeably improve between Iron Fist and The Defenders, but not enough for him to convince as a character of true formidable fighting skill. Perhaps that was the reason Iron Fist was so much exposition as opposed to action, with the little action there is involving the immortal Iron Fist lacklustre. That is not to say all is lost action wise. It would seem, as is the way of television, that Danny needed a love interest – not to mention something to save the show from martial arts mediocrity – to that end the character of Colleen Wing, played by a fantastic Jessica Henwick, lifts proceedings every time she is in a scene. Her fight scenes are also some of the best in the series.
It is a pity that the fight scenes for the central character are so underwhelming, as the aesthetics of the rest of the show are quite impressive, likewise the performances from just about every other actor. Even the pacing is quite good, even if there were times when I wished someone, anyone, would fight.
In conclusion, Iron Fist is passable entertainment without ever reaching or even threatening to reach the heights of previous MCU fare. What is more unfortunate is the fact that Iron Fist is the launch pad for The Defenders, thus thrusting the perennially dull Rand, ‘I am the immortal Iron Fist’ quote in tow, front and centre of a series with far richer characters.

Fairly Fearsome Future

I think this blog is going to be short. I made the mistake of missing out on doing a daily blog last weekend and find myself in the midst of the purgatory that is writer’s block. I have ideas for a few stories, feature-length script ideas, I also have several projects that need rewrites and/or reworking, not to mention the distinct lack of blogs.
I have started writing scenes on cards. You would think with all the technology and programs around – Final Draft, Scrivner, Celtx – that working scenes out in a random, as-they-come fashion, would be easy.

It isn’t. Something about clicking and dragging, as opposed to the shuffling about of 3 x 5 cards, is just less appealing and interrupts my creative process.
Meanwhile, other ideas are crashing in on my psyche, completely unrelated to any of the stuff I am trying to focus on. It is as if my brain is hardwired for procrastination, with the smallest thing taking my focus away from the task at hand.

This blog is a case in point, I’ve been writing it for three days and I have managed less than two hundred words!
I think the thought of writing a feature-length script is affecting me. There is no reason it should, as I have written longer pieces and shorter bits, but that one hundred to one hundred and twenty pages of a complete – no, I am not going to think of a trilogy! – story, beginning, middle, and end, is strangely daunting.

It is the building of a compelling story, with interesting characters, driven by an unavoidable goal, plus engaging the emotions, that is the challenge. It is exactly what every film guru tells you, what every great film shows, what every screenwriter is trying to and believes they are doing when they embark on a screenplay.
So, it is obvious now, as I write this babbling blog, what the issue is. It’s fear and not the weird, but strangely real fear, of succeeding. Nope, this is proper, I could royally fuck this up fear. This is the fear where you write something and end up second-guessing yourself, lacking the courage of your convictions.

This is the kind of fear that makes one write derivative works, clichéd works, boring, safe work. The sort of stuff that no one, not even your nearest and dearest, can get through when you ask for their feedback.
Perhaps I am being a tad melodramatic. The fear of writing horribly is all too real though. No one starts writing and tackles rewrites with the thought of producing something sub par. In the mind, it is always a great idea. Then you put it on paper and start, hopefully, to see the flaws. If you’re fortunate, they are easily fixed, more structural than poorly thought out.
Sometimes one can become wedded to a bad idea, desperate to make it work. I myself have many an unfinished script or story where the excitement of an idea, when you think you have an original take on something, turns out to be a bit rubbish or not as compelling on the page as it was in my head.

What is the alternative? Give up writing? No chance. Even as I wrestle with the notion of perhaps not becoming an Oscar, Emmy or Bafta award-winning scribe, or not being good enough to make the slightest dent in the lowliest of film festivals, I know that I want to write.
The thought of not writing or making a film has not really occurred to me as a possibility or probability. Maybe, even with the advancing years and a lifetime of experience, I still retain that almost necessary naiveté, believing I can still make my way in the cruelest and unforgiving industry that is film and television. Only time – and a herculean effort – will tell.