2 Razors

Red Hood and the Outlaws #14

/ / Comics

red-hood-and-the-outlaws-14-coverThe Red Hood, Arsenal, and Starfire return from their outer space adventure only to have another alien hunt them down – Superman. Despite knowing they can’t win the battle the Outlaws take on the Man of Steel until eventually exhausting themselves and hearing what Superman wants.

I’m glad to see the group back on Earth, and the appearance of Superman (and their reaction to him) works well-enough. However, the comic gets into deep trouble with Superman’s weak explanation for showing up and the comic’s 180-degree shift to move the story into a Death of the Family crossover.

Given Jason Todd’s personal experience with the Joker it should have been the easiest thing in the world to tie the comic to the ongoing Bat-title crossover. However, what we are given here is awkward beyond belief reinforcing the idea that the Joker is responsible for Todd being chosen as Robin in moves that make the impossibly complicated plans of Heath Ledger’s Joker look amateurish by comparison. Hit-and-Miss.

[DC, $2.99]

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Arrow – Legacies

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Green Arrow – Legacies
  • tv.com: link

arrow-legacies

DC’s favorite all-purpose C-List bad guys, the Royal Flush Gang (Currie Graham, Kyle Schmid, Tom Stevens, Sarah-Jane Redmond), show up in Starling City and kill an off-duty police officer during their latest bank robbery. Diggle (David Ramsey) seizes the opportunity to try to convince Oliver (Stephen Amell) to widen his focus beyond his father’s list and protect everyone who needs Green Arrow‘s help.

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Cloud Atlas is in Need of a Road Map (and Lots of Editing)

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Cloud Atlas
  • IMDB: link

cloud-atlas-posterCloud Atlas, the collaboration by the Wachowskis and Tom Tykwer to bring the novel of the same name by David Mitchell to the big screen is, to put it bluntly, a mess.  It’s an ambitious mess to be sure as the project bites off far more than it can chew by casting a small group of actors playing multiple roles across different time periods, but it’s a mess none the less. Fans of the book may be prepared for what’s to come, but the rest of us could use a road map of this late night ride to nowhere. (At least nowhere interesting.)

The film beings by throwing the audience into a variety of stories taking place decades, or in some cases centuries, apart (including two distinctly different version of the future – one of which owes a little too much to The Time Machine). Introducing a slew of characters in the opening 15-20 minutes, all played by the same group of actors who jump centuries, ethnicities, and even gender between tales (due to some strikingly inconsistent make-up and CGI), Cloud Atlas hits the ground running and expects you to keep up.

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Cloud Atlas is in Need of a Road Map (and Lots of Editing) Read More »

Arrow – Lone Gunmen

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Green Arrow – Lone Gunmen
  • tv.com: link

arrow-lone-gunmen

Green Arrow‘s (Stephen Amell) vigilante justice is complicated by the arrival of an assassin who kills the latest name (Tobias Slezak) on Queen’s list before the archer can exact his own form of justice. After being grazed by the poisoned bullet that takes out his target, Oliver traces the assassin’s unique killing style to an unknown assassin known only as Deadshot (Michael Rowe). As Green Arrow traces the killer’s bullet back to his employers (through logic that’s far from clear), which leads to equally dumb plan of passing himself off as a member of the Russian Mob, Detective Lance’s (Paul Blackthorne) own investigation into the killings leads him to believe someone is killing off competing bidders for an energy company, a group that includes Walter Steele (Colin Salmon).

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Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Nine #14

/ / Comics

btvs-season-nine-14-coverThe latest issue of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Nine isn’t what I expected. For one thing neither Buffy Summers nor any of the regular or new supporting players make an appearance.

Instead Jane Espenson, writer of some good (“Band Candy,” “Pangs,” “Checkpoint“) and not-so-good (“I Was Made to Love You,” “Doomed,” “The Harsh Light of Day“) episodes from Buffy the Vampire Slayer‘s seven-year run on television, gives us a tale of a young gay teen named Billy who puts up with mean jocks and begins fighting zompires.

I understand what Espenson is doing here, but the story is pretty damn pat (he ends up having to stake and kill the football jock who has been harassing him). This kind of story would seem to fit much better in something like the Tales of Slayers anthology series than in the middle of an ongoing season arc. If I had found it there, or if was just a one-issue tale (I don’t need a second month of Billy’s misadventures), I might give it a pass, but 14 issues in, as the season is still trying to find its focus, it simply doesn’t work. Pass.

[Dark Horse, $2.99]

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