X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)

"We’re gonna make you invulnerable. But first we’re gonna destroy you.”

Well, this film is ok, I suppose- it certainly looks good, and the montage at the start of “Jimmy” and Victor fighting in various wars is brilliant, but somehow it doesn’t quite catch fire and was ever so mildly disappointing.

Interesting start, though; we learn far more about Logan’s past than I’m sure the comics ever told us. He was a child in 1845, living in what we can loosely call Canadian frontier territory, and his name is James Logan- and the psychopathic Victor Creed (Sabretooth) is indeed his older brother- and they look out for each other, in war after war, for 130 years, until Vietnam, and Colonel William Stryker.

Stryker is, of course, a younger iteration of the baddie from X-Men 2, portrayed superbly by Danny Huston, and hires the brothers as part of a slightly rubbish gang of mutant agents, including a criminally wasted Deadpool, portrayed by Ryan Reynolds but certainly not in continuity with his later solo outing, a far better film than this one. Oh, and one of these mutants, for some reason, is portrayed by a surprisingly decent Will.i.am.

But Logan leaves, in final disgust at Victor’s bloodlust, and six years pass in which he settles down as a lumberjack in the native Rockies with the lovely Kayla Silverfox- until Victor arrives, and kills the woman he loves. The person who was taking him has gone, and he wants revenge against the brother with whom he spent thirteen decades.

And so we come to the pivotal scene, where he survives the agonies of having adamantium bonded to his skeleton. Only with his healing factor can this not kill him, and he seems to barely survive. This is an important scene, and it’s done well.

Except... from this point the film drags, and lots of random elements are included. Nice as it is to see Gambit and the Blob (in a particularly toe-curling scene), they are irrelevant distractions from the newly christened Wolverine and his revenge against Victor Creed, Stryker and their bizarre and vaguely purposed little Island of Dr Moreau full of kidnapped mutants- including, for no good reason, a young Scott Summers.

The last half hour is a mess, with even the revelation of Kayla’s duplicity lacking real emotional heft, although there is real pathos in someone so old and full of tears having his memory cruelly erased. And yet... the film is well shot, and would have worked well if better edited. Was there a clash between the director and the studio?

I’d like to see a director’s cut, but the film we have is unfortunately a bit of a mess, in spite of its good points.

True Blood: Mine

"If we can't kill people, what's the point of being a vampire?"

We begin to meet more vampires, and it's definitely seeming as though Bill is the exception in not being evil and highly menacing: is this what we're intended to think? So far it's far from clear cut that vampires should indeed be treated as a minority deserving of rights, but we'll see how things progress. Bill explains that vampires become evil from living in nests, but that hardly lets them off the hook.

We're told of Hepatitis D, a vampire disease which weakens them and which, by the law of Raymond Chandler's revolver, will eventually threaten Bill's life, I strongly suspect. Sam and Tara (I love her) chat about their respective unattainables, Sookie and Jason and, in a refreshingly honest and unpuritanical scene, end up having some no-strings sex to deal with their mutual drought. Good.

Sookie is still yet to be deflowered, much as her libido is clearly getting intense by now, but she shags Bill only in her dreams. We learn more of Tara's mother issues- she now has to stay with Lafayette which, given the wine and ganja there, seems not to be a bad choice. The episode ends on a pop cultural note as Sam wishes for "Buffy or Blade" to come to Bon Temps. The gripping plot and characters continue to unwind in this already-excellent series.

We finish, again, on a cliffhanger: Sookie's found another body...

True Blood: The First Taste

"Do doctors know that V-Juice can do this?"

"No. We wanna keep it that way."

This series is addictive: I may only be blogging the second episode but I'm up to the fifth, much as I will spend the rest of this blog post behaving as though I hadn't. Suffice to say that it continues to be awesome. I appreciate the way that this is one continuing story; there may be themes for individual episodes but there are no stories of the week.

After the expected rescue, much of this episode consists of Sookie and Bill chatting and getting to know each other; he's just saved her life (so they're even) and given her some mildly superhuman abilities (including increased libido for this virgin!) in the process. We also get to realise just how, er, unintelligent Jazon is as it turns out he couldn't possibly have committed the mirder of which he's accused: it was that bald, tattooed vampire, right?

Bill later chats with Sookie, her Gran, Tara and Jason about how he fought, in the 1861-5 war of secession, for the rights of wealthy white people to "own" other people and, indeed, that his own parents owned slaves. Tara is, unsurprisingly, unimpressed. It's quite shocking to see, as a foreigner, how rural Louisiana can seem so racially integrated and yet so many seem invested in deeply unsavoury causes and symbols. And I can't understand why other Americans don't see this sort of thing as treason. Oh well.

We end with yet another cliffhanger and several huge incentives to keep watching this splendid series.

True Blood: Strange Love

"I know every man, whether straight, gay or George motherfucking Bush is terrified of the pussy."

I'm in the middle of several TV series, some in uncomfortable hiatuses (I will finish them all, but Agents of SHIELD and Grimm are delayed because of Sky Plus being crap- don't use Sky), so why not start another series? 81 episodes: how long can that take?

So far I'm impressed; first episodes are usually awkward and lacking because of how exposition-heavy they have to be and all the different jobs they have to do. This isn't. The premise- vampires going public and facing the prospect of citizenship following the Japanese invention of synthetic blood, while vampire blood is are relational narcotic for ne'er-do-wells - is nearly imparted via screens within the screen within the first few minutes, the Louisiana setting is gorgeous and atmospheric, and the characters are both well-written and hugely likeable, a huge credit to both the cast and the writing. So far I love Tara to bits and Lafayette is awesome too.

The characters are not just likeable but all well-rounded from the start, particularly Sookie and Tara. And then we have Sookie's brooding, Byronic vampire love interest Bill, Angel to her sort-of Buffy and hints of a dynamic which is an obvious influence on Twighlight, but pleasingly with much more sex and much less Mormonism; this is HBO, after all. Speaking of sex... yes, Jason. 

A cliffhanger ending, an atmospheric setting, great characters already, a fantastic theme tune... this promises to be good.