Man of Steel (2013)

"What are you smiling about, Captain?"

"Nothing, Sir. I just think he's kind of hot."

Usually I'd write a review based on the general premise of the film in question being good, bad, or indifferent. That's a rather challenging thing to do here. I mean, yes, ok, the film is good. It works. It's a solid start to the DC universe. But there are flaws, real flaws. The film gets away with it, in no small measure because of a solid script by the ever-dependable David S. Goyer and, interestingly, Christopher Nolan and the inspired casting of (thankfully moustache-free) Henry Cavill. But...

Here's the thing. Zack Snyder is technically a superb director. The whole thing is well shot in the extreme, even if it's CGI'd to death. It looks amazing. But it all feels (Russell Crowe as Jor-El aside, oddly) not quite persnal enough. There's just enough charm to get away with, but no more. And the direction: yes, it's clever. But at the expense of the storytelling- not enough to damage the film, but I'd say Snyder needed to watch it if not for the fact that #MeToo seems to make any such advice irrelevant.

There's a lot to praise, though. Traditionally dull Krypton is given CGI alien beasts of burden, an internal politics and a genetically caste-based culture against which Kal-El's birth is a rebellion in the name of freedom. I like that. I also like the characterisation of Zod here; he isn't a moustache-twirling baddie but a general, with his fanatical followers, who only wants to save Krypton. At the expense of our little human species, naturaally.

Lois Lane is presented well here, as a tenacious journalist who figures out who Clark is early on, saving us an awful lot of tiresomeness. Perry White is a bit more nuanced. Jimmy Olsen, er, isn't in the film. But it's a well-done and thoughtful approach to Superman's origins and the ideal first film for the new DC Cinematic Universe. They need to run  with it, so what next. Batman? The Dark Knight? No, those are both taken. So how about Batman: The Dark Knight? Yes. Colons are good. And the next film is in no way going to be a disaster. Right?

Dollhouse: The Hollow Men

"This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but with a whimper."

For the first time ever (as far as I recall) I've broken my iron rule, and not used a quite from the episode. Instead I've quoted the end of T.S. Elliot's poem, The Hollow Men, as it's obviously a deliberate allusion and particularly, I suspect, with this being the season finale, to those final lines.

Interesting, then, that the imications should at first glance be so self-deprecating; personally, I think that this episode is a stunning triumph of a Seadon finale. Where, then, is the "whimper"? I suspect the answer lies in the fact that our heroes' victory is temporary, and the death of freedom is inevitable. This is the season finale, but it isn't the last episode. As with Season Four of Buffy and, more to the point, the first season of Dollhouse, there's another episode to go.

We begin with the inevitable flashback which has to follow the revelation, at the end of the last episode, that Boyd was the big bad all along. It's five years ago, and we see Caroline, in Boyd's office , being presented with a choice that is not a choice: life in prison for terrorism or five years as an Active? She's "special", apparently, and Boyd wants to be her handler himself. This makes sense of past events, but it ain't half creepy.

An unexpected pleasure is that we once again get to see Enver Gjokaj's performance as Topher, although it's also cool to see Anthony imprinted with ninja skills. Nice that they have time for such touches in this of all episodes.

I have to stop and praise Harry Lennix here, something I've shamefully neglected up till now. It's such a novelty to see him as an openly moustache-twirling baddie, but we can now see all his other performances in a different light. Like the actor who played Keyser Soze in The Usual Suspects (I shall name no names. Spoilers, as Rover Song would say!), I'm sure that, if I was to research those earlier episodes, his performances would appear in a very different light.

Horrifyingly, we discover that quietly, in Tucson, Rossum has been developing Topher's technology so that anyone, anywhere, can be wiped and imprinted. There are no longer such things as freedom or individuality; we are all Rossum's hive mind slaves. This is a concept rich with political overtones, and it's not hard to see a dig, here, at those right wing American "Libertarians", many of them in the so called "Tea Party", who fatuously cast "freedom" in terms of the state versus the private sector, and see corporate entities as "people" who must be protected from state oppression. In fact, as we are shown here, the concept of "freedom" only makes any sense when applied to individual human beings, not fatuous and overly abstract binary divisions into public sector and private sector. Corporations can, and do, assault people's liberties, and the truly libertarian thing is for the State to protect us from this through regulation.

There is, of course, no hope here, whatever temporary victory our heroes can bring about. The technology has been invented. It cannot be uninvented. It will be used. We are all doomed.

Still, we can at least hope for that temporary victory, and for Boyd to get his eventual comeuppance. It seems he controls Dr Saunders, and has done for some time. This means it wasn't really here who killed Bennet, which takes some of the poetry away. Still, this is a minor point, and these are the only words of slight criticism that you'll hear from me about this superlative episode of television.

Adelle, only a few episodes from appearing to be an utter bitch, is stoic and brave, refusing to co-operate even at gunpoint and willing to sacrifice herself for the greater good. Other characters are unfortunate: Mellie's death is truly tragic. And Topher's realisation at what he has allowed to happen seems to be a sort of harbinger of the broken Topher we see in Epitaph One; "I did all this. I'm the one who brought about the thought-pocalypse."

Langton gets his just desserts in the end, being wiped and ending up as a suicide bomber.  But, just as we think we have a happy endng, the epilogue skips a few years into the future and tells us that no, we don't...

Dollhouse: Getting Closer

"They roam like free range chickens. We keep ours more like veal."

Deep breath. Very close to the end now. And...oh yes. SPOILERS. BIG ONES. Seriously, if you don't want to know, look away now. Because this episode ends with a big, big reveal.

Right, they've gone. So... Wow. The big boss of Rossum is, in fact, Boyd Langton. He's been undercover as one of his own underlings all along. Thing is, it makes perfect sense.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves. First there's the small matter of Caroline's back-up wedge that needs repairing, for which our friends have to kidnap Bennet from D.C: cue some simmering sexual tension between her and Topher. On top of this, Dr. Claire Saunders is back on the team (more Amy Acker- yay!) and, as we know, she's been sleeping with Langton, who at this point we don't yet know to be a baddie. It's complicated.

If it wasn't for the bombshell at the end, the big event if the episode would be Claire shooting Bennet dead. That's how much she hates Topher. He's distraught, of course, but it's lovely how Adelle mothers him.

What else? November is still an Active in Washington, but is freed and rejoins the team. Good. And much of the episode is given over to a big flashback in which we learn just why Bennet hates Caroline so much. Oh, and Clyde is dead. And Rossum know about the L.A. Dollhouse freeing all of its Actives and plotting against them. Oh dear.

There's going to be a final battle. Rossum are after them, but, touchingly, there's time for Priya and Anthony to spend one last night together.

Phew. Looks like we only get big, important episodes these days. There's a slight jiggle in that the pacing and shocks serve to distract us from how rushed it all is by slight of hand, but I just can't deny that this is excellent telly.

Dollhouse: The Attic

"My real name's Echo!"

Wow. This is at the same time a surreal, virtual reality themed episode, redolent of Part Three of classic Doctor Who story The Deadly Assassin, and a massive, massive reveal. This looks absolutely nothing like the rest of Dollhouse. Even the opening titles are different: this is big. Very big. It's not all over yet, though. Not by a long shot.

It's hard to know where to start. Dominic is back, of course. There is surreal stuff, and Echo, Priya and Anthony face their worst nightmares in the weirdest possible way. That Japanese bloke... I shudder at the memory.

But the big revelation is that the supposed big bad, "Arcane", is in fact a British chap called Clyde, the betrayed co-founder of Rossum, who has been languishing in the Attic since 1993! Clyde, with his cyber- superpowers, can see a terrible future that must be avoided or, to be a bit more meta, he's seen Epitaph One. He's a human computer, powering everything, and has been replaced in real life with "Clyde 2.0"...!

Echo, Anthony and Priya, being heroic and, more to the point, the protagonists, naturally escape back to our reality. At this point another bombshell is dropped: Adelle was a goodie all the time, and only sent our heroes into the Attic so they would find enough information to bring Rossum down. Well, well, well. This is not entirely uninfluenced by The Matrix, but it's excellent stuff.

Oh yes, and Ballard is back. He's a doll. Imprinted with himself. Weird.

There's one person who knows the identity of Clyde's partner: Caroline. And we end with Echo declaring an intention to "meet" her...

Dollhouse: Stop-Loss

"I'm Anthony, by the way."

It's clear that we're entering the final phase. Victor is leaving the Dollhouse, yet he and Priya are clearly still in love. But that isn't all, by any means, and Adelle finishes the episode seeming more if a total bitch than ever.

Our first doubts about Adelle's ethics surfaced last season, when we realising she was, in essence, using Victor as an escort which, like all other instances of this with Actives, is pretty much ambiguously rape. Except that this time it doesn't happen: although Victor's supposed to be imprinted, he "dumps" Adelle, and we know it's because of Priya. Victor (now Anthony) may have reached the end of his contract, but the mere fact that something like this can happen is a problem for Rossum. Love, it seems, is resistant to corporate control. How dare we pinko lefties have the temerity to feel such an emotion?

Echo, who is suffering quite a bit of nastiness from De Witt, is at pains to ensure that Victor says goodbye to Sierra before he leaves. At least one person cares.

So that's it. Victor is now Anthony, and he's free of both his contract and the post-Afghanistan post combat stress disorder that put him in the Dollhouse in the first place. But he's clearly institutionalised, perhaps by the U.S. Military as much as by the Dollhouse, sleeping in the same pose that he used in his pod. Things can't go on like this, and it's not surprising to find that he's soon kidnapped. So much for freedom.

There's an interesting contrast with Echo here. Echo is not free, but she has a personality that is, if not quite Caroline, her. She is, in a sense, freer than Anthony: what little freedom she has has been negotiated on her own terms.

Anthony has been kidnapped by Rossum's military wing in an act if outright kidnapping, and he's to become a member of a hive mind. This is totally outrageous, and the most heinous thing we've seen Rossum so far; they have as little loyalty to their promises to free people at the end of their contracts as they do to freedom itself.

Boyd tells DeWitt who, interestingly, is rat-arsed- stress at work, perhaps? Priya is brought back with her own mind- and Topher does not, as he promised, delete her day of abuse by Nolan, so she can remember Victor- and teamed up with Echo on a rescue mission. This mission is successful, and it's nice, although admittedly something of a cliche, that there's still enough of Anthony inside his body to asset himself. Wonderfully, he starts to chat up Priya.

Echo heroically deals with the group mind and saves all the individual, while an increasingly sozzled DeWitt seems to be having a personal crisis. But just when it seems she might have an attack of crisis, she becomes more of a black hatted baddie than ever; not just Echo, but Priya and Anthony too, are going to the Attic...

Dollhouse: A Love Supreme

"So... if she floats, she's a witch?"

If the situation wasn't volatile or chaotic enough already, throw in Alpha (Alan Tudyk is even better here, if such a thing is possible), stir, and wait for the excrement to hit the rotating device. This episode is full of shocks, from the pre-titles sequence onwards.

Adelle doesn't trust Echo so, naturally, she tortures her. Adelle is not winning any popularity tests at the moment with her sudden and apparent switch to the dark side and, indeed, in this episode Topher joins the growing conspiracy to bring down the Dollhouse. And the unwipeable Echo is quite a weapon.

Alpha is engaged in a killing spree aimed at Echo's former clients, as delightfully mad as ever. He's elusive, and toying with Adelle and her dysfunctional team. Adelle may be aware of the "cabal" arranged against her, but it's Alpha who's in charge here.

The ending, with Ballard apparently left brain dead after Alpha has tortured him, is a shock. Not only this, but Alpha is still at large. Things seem to be falling apart.

Dollhouse: Meet Jane Doe

"You are the coldest bitch on this planet!"

And this is where it all starts to look a bit rushed: three months have passed, just like that. There are only seven episodes left to wrap up the whole series, thanks to Fox and their stupidity. I suppose Rupert Murdoch has much worse things to answer for, but the premature cancellation of Dollhouse has to go on the list somewhere.

Not that it isn't incredibly exciting to watch, of course. If we look at the series as it is, not how it could have been if given more time, then it has never been more exciting or addictive. But wouldn't it have been nice to see Echo slowly falling in love with Ballard, or Adelle slowly being undermined by Rossum? This episode alone could have happened over the course of a whole season.

Regardless, it's clear that never again on Dollhouse will there be such a thing as a status quo. Echo and Ballard have been training and plotting Rossum's downfall for done time. Echo proves herself worthy on her mission, and they return to the L.A. Dollhouse (one of 23 worldwide, we learn), to bide their time before they strike. Interestingly, Langton joins them.

Echo has now developed a sense of self, but is able to adopt any of her imprints at will. She is, it seems, an evolved being, a homo superior if sorts, to a far greater extent than Alpha ever was. She has fallen in love with Ballard, but he's far too much of a gentleman to sleep with her. He's right, of course; I think most men would recoil from the idea of sex with someone in Echo's situation; the whole thought feels far too rapey for comfort. 

Meanwhile, De Witt is no longer running the Dollhouse, and moral standards have slipped accordingly. There is even talk of selling Sierra to the Dollhouse in Dubai, something which comes close to calling this what it is: slavery. 

Terrifyingly, Topher has come up with a portable device that can imprint anyone, Active or not. And we just know it will be used eventually, like Chekhov's gun, and humanity will be enslaved by a corporation. Interesting metaphor...

He confides in Adelle, who has always been a mother figure to him and, shockingly, she betrays his secret and reveals the technology to Harding, thus regaining control of the Dollhouse. Is she just looking after number one, or is there an agenda at work?

Oh, and are prisons in America really as shockingly inhumane as this?

Dollhouse: The Public Eye

"Am I free?"

Hmmm. It seems we have a politician here who has quite literally been brainwashed by a corporation. Do you think we might have a bit of a political subtext here? Once again it's refreshing to see that Dollhouse, airing on Rupert Murdoch's Fox Network, has an essentially liberal left agenda, it's themes being the abuse of individuals' civil liberties by both public and private organisations, which in this day and age are so improperly intertwined.

This episode is all about Senator Daniel Perrin as we and he discover, on a nice twist, that it is he, and not his wife, who is the doll. This is already enough to elevate the episode to greatness. But on top of this we are rewarded at the end with an introduction to the Washington D.C. Dollhouse, far more unthinkingly loyal to Rossum, and to its own resident Topher, the unnerving, quiet and ruthless Bennett. And, in an episode that already features Alexis Denisof, she is played by Whedon veteran Summer Glau. Truly, we are spoiled. This episode kicks, as the day, ass.

It's fascinating to see the progress of Madeleine's sincere yet doomed attempts to "out" the Dollhouse, something which Rossum could never allow: Perrin is merely one aspect of the political influence they wield: we are reminded of the sheer, untrammelled influence of corporate power in US politics. 

Also fascinating, and disturbing in equal measure, is Topher's new invention which he tried out on Kilo, a new doll. It is know possible to remotely knock out a doll. We are reminded that not only can technology that threatens our liberties not be uninvented, but that new developments of potential oppression are being invented all the time. In a world where governments seek more and more control over the online world this is deeply relevant, and chilling.

No less chilling is the fact that Madeleine, although she has finished her contract, still has Active architecture in her head. Ballard is not pleased to hear this, and not should he be. It's interesting to see the moral conflict between outsider Ballard, now Echo's new handler, and the rest of the gang.

We end with Echo in Bennett's clutches, and she isn't the greatest of hostesses. To be continued...

Dollhouse: True Believer

“Echo herself will see no evil”

It’s a Waco episode. A series of events unfold which are remarkably similar to what happened in Texas back in ’93, which, as far as the script is concerned, makes this another episode where the plot can just chug along in its deliberately predictable fashion while we have a lot of arc stuff going on.

Mainly, though, this is a chance for Eliza Dushku to really show us her acting chops, playing a blind God bothering type. This she does superbly whilst things go bang around her and the David Koresh of the episode twirls his moustache. Arc- wise, this shows us once again that Echo, for an active, displays a huge amount of initiative and balls.

The episode ends with a rather interesting parallel as DeWitt refers to the “purity” of what the organisation is doing, raising the interesting idea that it is just as much of a cult as the organisation which it is investigating. We learn that the organisation will work for such official government types as Senators which implies that the organisation is, if not legal, at least tolerated to some extent. There is also a rather amusing subplot concerning an illicit erection on the part of Victor, an active, which leads to the viewing of much footage of naked actives. Nice work if you can get it. Victor’s capacity for sexual arousal is our first sign that it may not just be Echo who is different from what the organisation seems to expect from its actives. Could it all go horribly wrong?

Meanwhile, in the slowest subplot known to humanity, Agent Paul Ballard continues, very slowly, to amass information concerning Caroline. I’ve seen enough Joss Whedon  shows by now to suspect that she may not necessarily be Echo. She could be a clone, a twin sister or anything. Whedon never does the obvious. Except when he does.

Dollhouse: Gray Hour

“You can mention that when you blog about it later.”

Slowly, we learn more about the series’ conceit. The Actives can be used for a very wide array of activities, it seems, extending from hostage negotiation to, well, escorting. This episode is, essentially, about a heist, and an exciting one, but basing the episode around such a familiar set of tropes allows us to focus more on the characters, and the continuing establishment of the show’s narrative rules.

I’m getting to really like Topher. He’s a genius, but reminds me of Shaggy from Scooby Doo. It’s clever, of course, that this character, whose job is so reprehensible, should be so likeable. He’s quirky, but good at his job to the extent that the episode ends with Dewitt uprating his security clearance and letting him know the big secret: the mysterious Alpha is not dead.

There’s an awful lot happening this episode which, while not dropping any huge bombshells, moves along the arc. There are a very interesting couple of lines about the Actives early on: “They volunteer for this”, replied to by “So we’re told”. Actives (in this case Sierra) can be re-programmed with the same imprints as others. Most interestingly, though, Alpha is not only able to destroy the Actives’ imprints with a certain sound, but he seems to be targeting Echo in particular.

Oh, and these Elgin Marbles… aren’t they, rightly or wrongly, in the British Museum?

Dollhouse: Stage Fright

“I just wanna be free.”

See? I always knew those horrible X-Factor type shows were evil, along with the whole pop music industry (if we must use the phrase “pop music in its annoyingly restrictive modern context). Oh, and for any Americans watching, on behalf of my country I’d like to apologise unreservedly for Simon Cowell.

I’m not a huge fan of this sort of stuff, and I won’t pretend that an episode with this as its theme was ever likely to be enjoyable viewing for me. I liked the message, though:  the vapid and narcissistic Rayna, like all such pop stars, is not a free person. She lives in a gilded cage, paying for her fame and fortune with misery and forced jollity. That’s my idea of Hell. She may not be a very nice person, firing Echo for speaking truth to power, but that’s certainly understandable, and I wonder how much her death wish is shared amongst real life pop stars.

Arc-wise, stuff is more interesting. Agent Ballard is still looking for Caroline, Sierra gets modelled on an Australian fan of Rayna, thus allowing Dichen Lachman to use her native accent. And Echo is coming to be seen as a risk, a liability, to be sent to “the Attic”. Dewitt, though, is impressed with her, saying that she’s “the best”. Could she have an agenda…?

Dollhouse: The Target

“Is this the best date ever, or what?”

We begin with a flashback. It’s three months ago. The mysterious Alpha goes crazy, people are killed, and Saunders gets those scars. It’s a chaotic situation, communicated to us mainly through the fact that the camera won’t bloody stay still. The episode is generally well-shot: I particularly love the cut from an arrow striking a deer to a sex scene. Symbolism much?

The morality behind the Actives continues to be problematic; it seems they can be used as prostitutes. The hold over Echo that Boyd Langton has is also troubling; there’s a subtext of abusive sexuality. This organisation is not very nice. And yet the mysteries continue to intrigue. Can anyone hire an Active for any purpose?  The nasty, right-wing, misogynist social Darwinist and existentialist who is this week’s baddie may not have been honest about what he wanted with Echo, but his purported motives seem less than salubrious in any case. Still, yay for Echo in showing the general awesomeness to get Richard.

Echo is having rather interesting flashbacks of Alpha’s rampages, no doubt a distressing memory. Her increasing retention of memories is obviously going to be our main plot arc for the foreseeable future. He left her alive for some reason, and now he’s loose. Interesting. Another thread which will run and run is FBI agent Paul Ballard, investigating the disappearance of Caroline who, unlikely twists involving twins or clones aside, is who Echo really was.

I’m really enjoying this show. It delves deep into themes of identity, consciousness, and the extent to which the self is the sum of its memories. This is the best opening couple of episodes of any Whedon show so far.

Dollhouse: Ghost

"I know. Actions have consequences."

"What if they didn't."

I've finished blogging one of Joss Whedon's TV series (Firefly), and I'm currently blogging Buffy and Angel. So why not add Dollhouse to the rota and complete a full set?

I know the story behind how this series came about, of course: Executive producer and star Eliza Dushku took Joss Whedon out to dinner and got him to think up an idea to use as a vehicle for her, an extremely smart thing to do. The concept- Echo as one of a series of "dolls", blank slates who can be programmed to perform any activity required by this mysterious organisation- is absolutely brilliant, and so is this episode. Weird though it is to see familiar names from other Mutant Enemy productions in the titles (including Amy Acker, no less, and Fran Kranz from The Cabin in the Woods), this is a very different show from Whedon's previous stuff: no fantasy elements and the sci-fi elements limited to things that may plausibly happen.

This is a pilot, of course, and must be judged as such. Dushku's character, Echo (her real name may or may not be Caroline) is an interesting challenge for her: her memory is regularly wiped and other traits imprinted into her, so what consistent features are there on which Dushku can base her performance? Elsewhere, Amy Acker's Saunders, as a white coated scientist, may seem superficially similarly to Fred from Angel. She isn't at all similar personality-wise, though: here, at least, she seems very bitter.

We're told very little about the backstory, thus far. We're introduced to another "doll", Sierra, and told that each of them serves a five year "term", although it's unclear on what legal basis this may or may not be. The "dolls", when not on a mission, appear to be drugged or hypnotised into docility, receiving their "treatment" without demur. This is a deeply creepy concept.

The action-oriented kidnapping "A" plot is a corker, and illustrates how the dolls are used. Dushku is brilliant at showing the contrast between the "normal" Echo and the very different character of Eleanor Penn, an amalgam of several individuals who have been combined to make up the perfect hostage negotiator. Seeing this tempts me to see the whole concept as a metaphor for acting; it'll be interesting, I think, to keep this concept in mind throughout the series.