2 Razors

G.I. JOE #1

/ / Comics

G.I. JOE #1 comic reviewIn the new volume of G.I. JOE the Joes have lost the battle with Cobra. Now working covertly, those that remain at large work as saboteurs and spies hoping to deal a blow to the enemy that has already taken the country.

There isn’t much here for me, and I doubt I’ll be spending much time in this timeline (IDW still has the less bleak current G.I. JOE: A Real American Hero continuing where I’ll gladly go to get my fill of the brand). Not only is Cobra victorious in this reality, but a core Joe is killed in the opening pages (as nothing more than to make a statement about just how bad things have become).

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Uncanny X-Men #17

/ / Comics

Uncanny X-Men #17 comic reviewUncanny X-Men #17 is an awkward issue whose moral seems to be nobody ever gets what they want (and mutants, no matter how small the number, are still expendable to serve a larger plot). The comic jumps from the funeral of Wolfsbane to Wolverine and Kwannon who go in search of bloody revenge for another fallen friend. Because of the set-up, Wolfsbane’s funeral is truncated, and because of the funeral Wolverine’s vengeance takes place mostly off-panel.

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Amber Blake #1

/ / Comics

Amber Blake #1 comic reviewAmber Blake #1 brings the French comic from writer and Jade Lagardère artist Jackson Butch Guice to American audiences. The stuff of pulp fiction, the comic jumps around quite a bit introducing us to the title character as we go from her being dropped off at an orphanage to her enrollment in a prestigious school through her graduation to the awful night that ends that relationship.

With pacing issues and a story that glosses over large chunks of the character, we really only get snippets of who Amber is up until the night when her girlfriend is attacked by the school’s predatory head. An attempt at exposing the truth leads to murder and a new job offer for Amber from a secret organization specializing it going after targets like the one that just slipped through her fingers.

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Mortal Engines

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Mortal Engines
  • IMDb: link

Mortal Engines Blu-ray reviewBased on the sci-fi novel of the same name by Philip Reeve, Mortal Engines is yet another post-apocalyptic teen flick with class warfare themes. Years after war devastated the Earth, people now live in traveling cities which are often the prey for even larger traveling cities which consume materials to keep them moving. It’s in the largest of these where we meet museum curator Tom Natsworthy (Robert Sheehan) who saves the life of the city’s leader (Hugo Weaving) only to find himself expelled on the run with the would-be assassin (Hera Hilmar) while questioning everything he knows about the world.

The visual of the traveling predatory cities certainly works on film, but the story is often a mess spending far too long with Tom’s life in London and racing through Hester’s (Hilmar) backstory involving a cyborg killing machine (whose own existence is never adequately explained). There’s also the war between the traveling city and the lone surviving human colony which both Tom and Hester will ultimately become swept up in.

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London Fields

/ / Home Video
  • Title: London Fields
  • IMDb: link

London Fields DVD review

London Fields is a flawed but ambitious film that struggles mightily with adapting the 1989 novel of the same name for the big screen. The film’s biggest strength is Amber Heard, cast in the role femme fatale Nicola Six who toys with men’s affections for her own selfish gratification and amusement. Despite the film’s many failings, Heard’s performance isn’t one of them nor is the cinematography of Guillermo Navarro (Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, and Pacific Rim) who so lovingly frames the beautiful star on-screen. Semi-clairvoyant, Nicola knows the time and place of her death (but not the identity of her killer).

Our other main character is American novelist Samson Young (Billy Bob Thornton) in London attempting to find inspiration for one more novel. Immediately buying into her tale, Samson convinces Nicola to let the author tell her story. Like with Heard, Thornton is put to relatively good use (although the scripting of the noir voiceover fails him at times – but also provides one of the film’s more clever moments as the film pauses to allow Samson to rewrite a scene).

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