2.5 Razors

Uncanny X-Men #1

Uncanny X-Men #1Marvel relaunches its flagship X-Men title with a new team of Psylocke, Archangel, M, Mystique, Fantomex, and Sabretooth led by Magneto. Uncanny X-Men #1 starts off with more of a whimper than a bang with a pointless story about Magneto’s team rescuing mutants who don’t have any interest in being rescued and have chosen to hide from the world until a time when mutant hostility and deadly mists are things of the past.

The cast of characters interests me, and I’m glad to see Magneto has adopted a bit of his old look back into his style, but I have a hard time seeing this team hold together for any amount of time. A fan of Magneto, Archangel, and Psychocke, I’m happy to see the threesome have found a home in a new title, but I’m not sure they couldn’t have done far better. M, the character I know least about, may interest me the most from what we see in this first issue.

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Shadowhunters – The Mortal Cup

  • Title: Shadowhunters – The Mortal Cup
  • wiki: link

Shadowhunters - The Mortal Cup

Looking and feeling very much like something that would fit naturally in a spot on The CW’s slate of young-adult horror series, ABC Family (rebranded Freeform for reasons passing understanding) offers audiences Shadowhunters, based on Cassandra Clare‘s young adult series The Mortal Instruments. The opening episode introduces us to Clary Fray (Katherine McNamara) who, on her 18th birthday, discovers demons are real, a fact her mother (Maxim Roy) has been hiding from her the better part of Clary’s life.

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Obi-Wan & Anakin #1

Obi-Wan & Anakin #1Set between the events of Episode I and Episode II, Marvel’s new five-issue mini-series Obi-Wan & Anakin offers a glimpse at an adventure featuring Obi-Wan Kenobi and his apprentice Anakin Skywalker. Called to a remote planet by an unknown source, Obi-Wan and Anakin crash land in the harsh environment of Carnelion IV with no clue as to who has summoned the Jedi to what the galaxy had assumed was a completely dead world.

The number of years between The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones certainly open the door for a number of stories featuring not just these characters but others as well. One fifth of the way through this particular adventure, however, there’s not a lot to grab me. Teasing us with flashbacks to Anakin’s training, and Palpatine‘s interest in the young man, the adventure itself doesn’t really get started until it’s final page.

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Heartbreakers

  • Title: Heartbreakers
  • IMDb: link

Heartbreakers2001’s Heartbreakers, a film about a mother/daughter (Sigourney Weaver, Jennifer Love Hewitt) team of con artists working to scam to separate a wealthy man (Gene Hackman) from his money, is more notable for its cast than its plot. Yearning to get out from under her mother’s thumb Page (Hewitt) decides to target her own mark in a goodhearted bar owner (Jason Lee) she inevitable falls for. The women also must deal with their last previous mark (Ray Liotta) who shows up looking for his money.

More dumb romcom than smart heist/con film, Heartbreakers is a mixed bag, although it does provide some humorous moments. The cast (including appearances by Anne Bancroft, Ricky Jay, and Sarah Silverman) is fine but they’re mostly slumming it here in movie that belongs on home video. Re-released on Blu-ray, the movie includes the previous behind-the-scenes feturettes and deleted scenes but lacks the audio commentary from the DVD release.

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Daredevil #2

Daredevil #2In both as a vigilante and in his new role as an Assistant District Attorney, Daredevil continues to take on the new gang leader Tenfingers whose control over his followers is explained in the new series’ second issue. Suffering a loss in the courtroom when Tenfingers’ agents manage to get to the state’s star witness is nothing compared to the trouble Daredevil steps in at the end of the issue when The Hand shows up to take back the power Tenfingers stole from them.

I understand the choice in putting Daredevil in the prosecutor’s office, but I’m having a hard time accepting Matt Murdock, the champion of lost causes and the little guy, in that role. Nor am I sold on his new sidekick Blindspot whose only interesting attribute two issues in seems to be his suit’s powered invisibility.

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