Fantasy

Red Sonja #2

/ / Comics

Red Sonja #2Red Sonja has returned to the lands where she was kept prisoner for months fighting to the death in gladiatorial combat to fight for the King who freed her and battle an old friend only to suffer the greatest defeat of the She-Devil with a Sword’s life.

Although Sonja manages to fight Annisia, the only other survivor of their captivity, to a standstill, the kind is dead and her friend’s broken mind (haunted by the ghosts of those they slaughtered) demands justice from Sonja, and surrender.

The comic’s opening arc takes a dark turn as we learn Sonja has contracted plague from the very people she was trying to protect. As a bargain to keep the citizens quarantined, but living, Sonja surrenders her sword and agrees to banishment in the mountains of the north.

As I doubt Dynamite is willing to kill off the character, Sonja should survive her current situation but it will be interesting to see how long it keeps her in seclusion (the end of this arc or beyond?). Worth a look.

[Dynamite, $3.99]

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Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters
  • IMDb: link

Percy Jackson: Sea of MonstersBased on Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson & the Olympians young adult novel series, Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters picks up a few months after the events of the underwhelming Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief in which Percy (Logan Lerman) and his fellow demigod best buds Annabeth (Alexandra Daddario) and Grover (Brandon T. Jackson) successfully returned Zeus’ (Sean Bean) stolen thunderbolt and Percy came to an understanding with his absent father Poseidon (Kevin McKidd) and took his place among the other half-human sons and daughters of the Olympian Gods.

Things have quieted down a bit as the introspective Percy has begun questioning his own abilities as a hero as he is constantly outshone by the bitchy Clarisse (Leven Rambin). When the safety of Camp Half-Blood (the truly awful name for the secret village where the demigods dwell) is put in jeopardy Clarisse is assigned to retrieve the Golden Fleece in order to bolster the protective barrier around the camp which has begun to fail.

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Red Sonja #1

/ / Comics

Red Sonja #1Red Sonja is a hard character to get right. Much like with Thor or Wonder Woman, writers can often get bogged down in the mythology and miss the sheer kick-assery and fun inherent to the character. Although I don’t think this first issue of the new series is great, Gail Simone gets the character better than most and there’s certainly enough here for me come back to see where things go from here.

The comic begins with the armies of King Dimath’s victory over Zamora and the freeing of two female gladiators kept in the dungeons, one of whom is quite distinguishable for her bright red hair. Months later Red Sonja is summoned back to Dimath whose lands are being hit by both plague and a bloodthirsty enemy ready to overwhelm his empire.

Although you don’t expect the comic to start off with Sonja as the victim, the set-up provides ample insensitive for the She-Devil with a Sword to fight to the death for an impossible cause. Walter Geovani has drawn the character before and his art fits the tone of Simone’s new tale.

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Oz the Great and Powerful

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Oz the Great and Powerful
  • IMDB: link

Oz the Great and PowerfulThere’s no Scarecrow, Tin Man, or Cowardly Lion, but by the end of Oz the Great and Powerful the stage will be set for a young girl from Kansas to make her own journey to Frank L. Baum’s magical land of Oz. This completely original script by screenwriters Mitchell Kapner and David Lindsay-Abaire offers us the origins of the great and powerful Wizard of Oz (James Franco), who, as the film opens (in black and white), is nothing more than a traveling carnival magician and con man on the dusty plains of Kansas.

The first quarter of our story is centered around presenting Oz in his own world before whisking him away to the magical land of Oz via the most likely transport: a tornado. Franco is well cast as the smarmy, selfish, womanizing, con man wishing for greatness (but too lazy to work for it), with an unquestionable greed for fame and fortune and an uncomfortable relationship with the truth. Oz’s myriad of failings leads to a hasty escape from the carnival that traps the magician’s hot air balloon in the middle of a Kansas twister leading to a journey somewhere over the rainbow.

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Jack the Giant Slayer

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Jack the Giant Slayer
  • IMDb: link

Jack the Giant Slayer

Turning fairy tales into big budget live-action CGI extravaganzas seems to be all the rage in Hollywood right now. Director Bryan Singer‘s Jack the Giant Slayer, the retelling of Jack and the Beanstalk, is an inarguably flawed film, but it’s certainly a step up from similar recent films such as Snow White and the Huntsman, Mirror Mirror, and even Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters.

Singer’s modest success comes from casting two likable young stars (Nicholas Hoult, Eleanor Tomlinson), clever work in the editing room, some (mostly) good special effects, and fun supporting performances from the likes of Ewan McGregor, Ian McShane, and Stanley Tucci as the film’s dastardly villain Roderick who plans to use the giants to seize power in the kingdom and beyond.

The plot to Jack the Giant Slayer is relatively straight-forward. We’re given a hero’s journey as Jack (Hoult) sets out to prove his worth by helping to rescue Princess Isabelle (Tomlinson), whom he secretly loves, from an army of human-eating giants at the top of Jack’s beanstalk.

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