Fantasy

Red Sonja #17

/ / Comics

Red Sonja #17 comic reviewRed Sonja begins her new role as general for the forces of King Jo’Khan of Khitai as she moves the child army into the mountaneous region of Venhya. Strategy is the main theme of Red Sonja #17 as Sonja recognizes the limitations of her forces and the challenges that presents against the superior numbers of her enemy. Choosing to take a nearby fortress through subterfuge before the larger force arrives offers the opportunity to defend against an oncoming force rather than fight against overwhelming odds.

Strategy and subterfuge only take you so far as Sonja’s plan works, allowing her forces to comfortably defend the fortress against the army… until the enemy burns their supplies to the ground giving them only rations for a few days leading to a stand-off with the enemy once more and once last crafty move by Sonja proving why the She-Devil with a Sword is not to be trifled with (even when the odds are decidedly not in her favor).

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The Old Guard

/ / Home Video
  • Title: The Old Guard
  • IMDb: link

The Old Guard movie reviewIn the first three minutes The Old Guard introduces not one but two action movie cliches. They will not be the last. We’re introduced to the movie through the voice of a grizzled veteran (Charlize Theron) who in the movie’s first scene is offered a mission she knows better than to accept. The leader of the elite covert squad made up of Marwan Kenzari, Matthias Schoenaerts, and Luca Marinelli takes the foursome to the South Sudan where they are promptly betrayed, ambushed, and riddled with bullets allowing the film to reveal its big twist.

The four characters are immortals who have walked the Earth for hundreds of years. Borrowing more than a little from the original Highlander, it doesn’t attempt to explain the immortals’ existence while offering a circumstance where they can die (along with flashbacks to lives throughout history). On the run from an evil pharmaceutical executive (Harry Melling), did I mention the script really loves cliches, who wants to use them as lab rats, the four attempt to keep their existence secret and deal with the birth of a new immortal (KiKi Layne) not ready to leave her old life behind.

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Warrior Nun – Psalm 46:5

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Warrior Nun – Psalm 46:5
  • wiki: link

Warrior Nun - Psalm 46:5 television review

Adapted from the comic book Warrior Nun Areala, the opening episode of Warrior Nun introduces us to a world where a legion of heavily armed nuns fight battles against an unknown foe. The field leader of the group (Melina Matthews) is injured in an attack and unable to be saved by the medical nuns (guess they have every type of nun in this series) with the yet-to-be-named enemy at the door. The opening episode of Warrior Nun could use a bit more world building as we’re left largely as clueless as to how the nuns operate (are they known? work in the shadows? vigilantes? some kind of official law enforcement?) although Father Vincent‘s (Tristán Ulloa) musings to a bartender near the end of the episode seem to point to most people being unaware of their existence and at least explain what the group is fighting against: demons on Earth.

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Red Sonja #16

/ / Comics

Red Sonja #16 comic reviewRed Sonja starts to discover the cost of her bargain with King Jo’Khan, which she made to prevent the people of Hyrkania from starving after their hard-won victory over Dragan The Magnificent, when her new lord introduces his master of war to a child army ready to die at her command.

The would-be conqueror has already picked the army’s first target in the border province of Venhya, which has some prestige but no strategic value in what he argues will make an easy first victory for his new troops.

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Highlander – The Lady and the Tiger

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Highlander – The Lady and the Tiger
  • wiki: link

Highlander - The Lady and the Tiger television review

Throwback Thursday takes us back to a man born in the Highlands of Scotland more than 400 years ago and a murderous game between sword-wielding immortals where there can be only one. “The Lady and the Tiger” introduces us to one of Highlander‘s best recurring characters, and the only one to get her own spin-off. A trip to the circus reunites MacLeod (Adrian Paul) with Amanda (Elizabeth Gracen), a thief and former lover who has left Duncan holding the bag several times over the centuries (an example of which we see in the flashbacks). The episode never explains the coincidence of the pair’s reunion as Amanda seems as surprised to see Duncan in the big top as he is to see her on the high wire. The episode also introduces Amanda’s former partner Zachary Blaine (Jason Isaacs) who escapes a prison transport in the opening scene with plans on killing Amanda, at least until she offers to help him take MacLeod’s head instead.

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