“The Girl Who Takes An Eye For An Eye” is a novel by David Lagercrantz and continues the series started by the late Stieg Larsson which featured the Swedish hacker and vigilante Lisbeth Salander.

Lisbeth is finally in prison for a few months after breaking a few laws for the side of the angels in the previous novel.  It does not take her long to run afoul of a gang leader who has been bullying a Bangladeshi prisoner.  Investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist is on hand to help, especially when one of the very few people Salander respects and trusts is murdered.  There is also another clue to Salander’s past that is uncovered involving immoral experiments conducted on twins.

It’s fun to know that Salander can continue after her creator’s demise in some fashion, however this installment is not as engaging as I hoped.  It could be that Salander spends much of this tale somewhat immobilized.  The novel wasn’t really a failure, but there were not that many shocking revelations.  It is heartening to know that Lagercrantz will bump off a few of the characters created by Larsson in order to move Salander’s story forward.

The climax provides a bit of a payoff, however I do not find this to be one of the stronger additions to the series.

Another killer is lurking in early 19th century London, and Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, has another troubling murder to solve in “Why Kill the Innocent” by C.S. Harris.

“Dark Phoenix” is the latest film in the X-Men franchise and was written as well as directed by Simon Kinberg.  The film sees the return of cast members including James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Nicholas Hoult, Jennifer Lawrence, Sophie Turner, and several other familiar faces.

The film is supposed to be an adaptation of the comic book era known as “The Dark Phoenix Saga” initially written by Chris Claremont and John Byrne.  I have not read the comic book series even in my younger years, so I can’t speak to the faithfulness of this latest effort.  Audiences saw another version of Jean Grey’s transformation into the Phoenix with a previous X-Men film entitled “The Last Stand”.

The McAvoy version of Charles Xavier has taken in Jean Grey and raised her in his school for gifted children. Of course, the gifted children are not so much geniuses as they have unique abilities courtesy of their mutant DNA.  However, the good professor has kept secrets from the supposedly orphaned Jean.  The actions begins with the X-Men flying off into space to rescue astronauts apparently threatened by a solar flare.  Although the rescue is successful, a mysterious force inhabits the body of Jean Grey, amplifying her already formidable psychic abilities.  Just when the situation can’t look worse, an alien presence has arrived searching for the one who absorbed the powers of the space phenomenon.  The leader of these invaders have taken over the form of Jessica Chastain, or rather the character she is portraying.

Anyway, there is a lot going on in this thing.  The story struggles with a consistent coherence.  Sophie Turner is okay as the increasingly befuddled and desperate Jean Grey.  She tends to get panned pretty thoroughly for her, and I didn’t think she was all that awful.  I thought Fassbender as Magneto was the most compelling of the cast.  It’s a talented cast, and they did the best they could, but really the film suffers from profound mediocrity in the writing.  Plus, as mentioned before, this storyline has already been done on the big screen.

The visual effects were done well enough, but that was not unexpected.  The movie has a few interesting moments and revelations, but nothing that really filled me with awe and amazement.

I would hesitate to call this piece truly terrible, but I can’t say there is much to call it all that good.

“Wraith” is a supernatural thriller written and directed by Michael Sajbel, who decides on a rather unusual genre to express his views against abortion.  Lance Henriksen is probably the only cast member most will immediately recognize.  Much of the film centers on a struggling family played by Jackson Hurst, Ali Hillis, and Catherine Frances. The family live in an impressive old house with too many rooms for a family of three.  The father is looking for work, and the mother is a writer not sure if her next work is going to be published.  Right when the mother learns that she is expecting her second child fourteen years after the birth of her first, strange occurrences are appearing in the house.  There’s a spectral girl running around uttering cryptic things.

It’s not a terrible idea for a movie, but it was cheaply produced.  I certainly don’t have any objection to the message that was ultimately conveyed about the option of abortion. It was kind of heartening to see someone attempt a piece of work that goes against the Hollywood culture.

It’s a basic B ghost movie.  The acting wasn’t too bad, but it wasn’t great.  I still think Henriksen has the best gravelly baritone though.  He plays a blind priest who ends up coming to the aid of the haunted family.

Anyway, a production such as this is likely to appeal to those who get a strange kick out of B movies, and for that particular niche, there are worse ones out there.

“Agatha and the Truth of  Murder” is a film that provides a pretty implausible but entertaining explanation for the eleven days in which famous mystery writer Agatha Christie had disappeared in 1926.  Ruth Bradley plays the embattled Christie who is facing divorce and the sense of predictability in her writing.  Pippa Haywood, Bebe Cave, and Ralph Ineson are also included in the cast.  Tom Dalton wrote the script, which was then directed by Terry Loane.

Agatha is approached by a woman wanting some help with solving the murder of her partner which occurred on a train six years prior.  Agatha is reluctant at first since she was merely a writer and not an actual detective.  She finally agrees to take on the challenge and adopts the guise of a legal representative named Mary Westmacott. Fans would recognize this as a writing pseudonym as well. Anyway, she gathers the five people who would make plausible suspects who believe some inheritance is up for grabs. Of course, another murder occurs, and Agatha starts to feel a bit out of her depth.

I am not sure how close Bradley was in her actual depiction of Agatha Christie, however I still found her performance pretty enjoyable.  It ended up being the basic British setup of a group of people in a remote mansion with a killer among them.  Of course, the whole thing of Christie’s eleven day disappearance has been fodder for various writers and filmmakers periodically for decades.

This film may not be the most original and creative cinematic endeavor, but it was still pretty enjoyable, especially if one is an enthusiast for Agatha Christie and the era of mystery writing in which she ruled.

“Rim of the World” is a sci-fi adventure film on Netflix where four kids who meet at summer camp are unexpectedly tasked with getting some important key to some scientist in order to stop some alien invasion.  It is directed by the oddly named McG from a script conceived by Zach Stentz.  Annabeth Gish was the only cast member I recognized.  The intrepid campers are played by Jack Gore, Miya Cech, Benjamin Flores Jr., and Alessio Scalzotto.  They are charming enough, but they can fall into somewhat cliché caricatures, especially Flores.

So these youngsters are at summer camp when aliens rudely interrupt their frolicking with invasion.  A astronaut makes an escape and crashes to Earth and entrusts some key to these kids so they can get it to the scientist who can initiate a satellite or something that could put a stop to the aliens.

The visual effects were pretty good, and I thought the creature design had some originality.  The main cast had some moments of charm, but those were a little too brief and intermittent.  There was a pretty touching moment when one of them had to get a crash course on riding a bike.  It was a bit improbable but somehow managed to work quite well.

It’s not a terrible movie and could be rather fun, but it is unlikely to stick in the memory all that long.

“Godzilla: King of the Monsters” brings back the big green lizard that has stomped around the cinematic world for decades now.  Michael Dougherty and Zach Shields co-wrote this script which was realized by Dougherty as director.  Kyle Chandler, Vera Farmiga, Millie Bobby Brown, Ken Watanabe, and David Straithairn are part of the cast. Also, the great Charles Dance is there to cause trouble in his usual villainous manner.  The monster gang is here with Mothra, Rodan, and of course the three-headed King Ghidorah along with several other giant Titans thundering about the place.

There is some family drama at the center of this just to make it a bit more incoherent. Farmiga’s character has created a device that can calm the Titans down a bit.  Secrets are revealed about the past of these beasts throughout the movie.  There is a group that think that Titans can clear the Earth of some the more destructive tendencies of the human race and every can live in a much cleaner planet with these giant beasts roaming around.

It’s destruction galore! I thought the visual effects were quite stunning. Some of the action sequences were a little hard to follow due to the abundance of close shots and cutaways.

I sort of liked the daughter played by Millie Bobby Brown in this.  The precocious kid who looked a little older than twelve years-old was pretty well played.  Of course, her ingenuity and spunk required an enormous suspension of disbelief.  Brown is a pretty convincing performer in spite of some of the absurd requirements of the script.

It was a good cast.  Bradley Whitford was on hand as well, and he usually is an interesting addition to the many supporting roles he been handed over the years.  There were lots of gorgeous Asian folks around which is appropriate for this franchise, and they all worked well unsurprisingly.

The movie is rather ridiculous at times, but I ended up enjoying it more than it deserved. I read that the reviews were very mixed, and I can understand why it was not universally loved, however I sure had fun with it, especially when all of the monsters started emerging from their various habitats.  The first half does take a little bit of patience, but it gets much more engaging when the craziness kicks off.

The movie works just fine for this genre.  It’s loud and fun to watch.  I would just advise to not examine the plot or dialogue too closely and just kick back and enjoy the mayhem.

“The Fourth Doctor Adventures: The Syndicate Master Plan- Series 8 Volume 2” is a Doctor Who audio boxset from Big Finish Productions.  It is the second half of the eighth series or seasons of audio dramas starring Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor.  Jane Slavin joins the Doctor as WPC Ann Kelso for this set.  John Leeson reprises his role as the voice of K9.  This is actually a sequel to a First Doctor television serial known as “The Daleks’ Master Plan”.  It explores what happened to various alien races introduced in that story who were apparently allied and then betrayed by the Daleks.  Most of the television story is still missing, and I have yet to hear the soundtrack.  It has also been several years since I read the novelization.

“Time’s Assassin” is the story continued by Guy Adams where the Doctor, Ann, and K9 are caught up in the machinations of the Syndicate on the planet of Kembel.  Jon Culshaw, John Shrapnel, and Anna Acton are included in the guest cast.  It’s not something that impressed me beyond measure, but it works well enough to get the second half of this saga going.  Once again, Baker’s performance makes up quite a bit of slow moments and lackluster dialogue.  It is also another story a little hard to imagine through audio performance.

Jonathan Barnes continues this collection with “Fever Island”.  The TARDIS crew land encounter what seems to be an English spy on a remote island where a dubious experiment is taking place.  Gethin Anthony plays a rather familiar type of caricature. Bettrys Jones, Carolyn Seymour, and Barnaby Edwards are included in this episode.  Of course, the Doctor discovers that that little is as it seems.  It was pretty interesting idea for a story, and the Doctor has an opportunity to display a more villainous performance at times.

“The Perfect Prisoners” by John Dorney completes this collection.  All is revealed, and Ann Kelso has been keeping secrets of her own.  I didn’t get too engaged with this until pretty late into the story.  It was an interesting decision to have the Fourth Doctor travel with an original Big Finish companion and it works for the most part.

I think disappointment is a stronger impression than I want to convey when describing my reaction to this set.  It just seems a little less epic than I was hoping for.  Slavin is a fine actress and her enjoyment with working with Tom Baker is evident.  Tom Baker still seems to have fun doing these things, so that delights me to no end.  May he have several more years left in him where he is well enough to continue his performance! I may appreciate this whole series more once I listen to it again, but I was hoping to be better hooked on the first go.

“The Defiant Ones” is a classic film released in 1958 and stars the great Tony Curtis and the always compelling Sidney Poitier.  Stanley Kramer is the director of this highly acclaimed film written by Harold Jacob Smith, who got the story somehow from Nedrick Young.

Two convicts escape after a prison transfer bus crashes.  Of course, it’s one white guy and one black guy chained together who decide to make a break for it.  That’s about the only thing they can agree on at first.  This was an important film at the time considering that segregation was still a popular practice.

It’s the talent of the two leads that really carries this one and makes this enjoyable.  There is a relationship that develops seemingly out of left field between Curtis’ “Joker” Jackson and a single mother he and Poitier’s Cullen come across along the way.  Cara Williams is part of the cast and plays a woman desperate to leave her current circumstances although the level of trust she displays is somewhat hard to swallow. This movie has some twists and turns to it that are not as easy to buy into as I would like, however it’s still a great experience.  Curtis and Poitier have great chemistry even at the height of their hostility toward each other.  It is heartening to read that Curtis insisted that Poitier share the top billing with him during the opening credits.  It is also too bad that Curtis had to insist on that credit for the more than worthy Sidney Poitier, but  that was how it was at that time.

There are a few moments that had me scratching my head in disbelief, but my incredulity was pretty mild given the overall enjoyment of watching two major Hollywood talents spark off each other during a time when it was considerably more rare to have two men of different ethnicities share such significant screen time together. A part of me would like to have seen it at the time it first premiered just to get a sense of what audiences really thought of it.  It’s a great movie with a great cast, and any  mild criticism I may have is not a good enough reason to pass it up.

“Brightburn” is a horror film that seems to have started off with the idea of distorting the backstory of Superman or something.  Mark and Brian Gunn are the writers who may have been on acid when they conceived this idea.  David Yarovesky is the director who can at least make this somewhat watchable.

A couple trying to have a baby find that something has dropped onto their farm from the sky.  Lo and behold, it’s a baby in a space pod or something.  They end up raising the child until his twelfth year and then the little kid starts to exhibit some strange behaviors and abilities.

Elizabeth Banks and David Denman play the devoted parents who have a pretty unrealistic ability to overlook the obvious.  Of course, they hide the pod from their son and keep it buried under the barn.  Jackson A. Dunn is the actor portraying the unearthly child whose entering into puberty is considerably more destructive than most.  He does the best he can with the script.

This just really seems to be a “what if Superman went bad” idea.  The kid has exactly the same abilities from being able to fly to heat vision.  Bullets apparently bounce of him.  Probably the only new thing in the kid’s bag of tricks is psychokinesis.

The parents display some really senseless reactions to some of their child’s antics.  He crushes the hand of a female classmate and is only suspended for two days.  The parents just take way too long to get extremely alarmed here.

The visual effects were good but not good enough to make me more forgiving of the weaknesses in the plot and dialogue.  The similarities to Superman’s origin were just too distracting.

Brightburn ended up being the name of the Kansas town where all of this chaos takes place.  The distortion of the Superman background is likely intentional and probably sounded like a good idea at the beginning, however I think casual movie viewers who  are merely going to find it obnoxious.

I suppose it’s an interesting idea to pitch to the studio, but there were too many plot holes and moments when the parents just looked too dense for me to buy into it when it is all said and done.

 

 

“Old Black Magic” is the latest novel from Ace Atkins who has been continuing the popular Spenser series created by the late Robert B. Parker.

A friend of Spenser’s is dying and his major regret is his failure to recover some paintings that were taken in a heist twenty years before.  Spenser is hired to look into the matter when the museum that was robbed starts receiving letters from someone claiming to know the whereabouts of the purloined art pieces.  Spenser always knows which members of the criminal elite in Boston to start with.  Of course, murder is right around the corner.

Although Hawk is away in this one, former enforcer Vinnie Morris is on hand to help with the negotiation and with the muscle.

I found this one to be a little more interesting because high dollar art is not usually a realm in which Spenser operates.  He is on familiar territory when facing old mob bosses who could point him in the right direction.  Also, he has to contend with police officials who resent his participation in the investigation.  Some things have changed for Spenser in recent years, but he still has long-time girlfriend, Susan Silverman, at his side as well as the love of their pooch, Pearl.

I was a little surprised that this novel seemed a little short on fisticuffs here.  Also, no one burst into Spenser’s office to threaten him.  I was even more astounded when some drunken floozie didn’t make some clumsy pass at him so he could take the noble road of monogamy to Susan.

Spenser still has the dry wit, although Atkins seems to have tried to come up with new ways to present it.  There is a certain repetition of encounters in most of the novels, however Atkins seems to have taken a little different path in this one without really compromising the integrity of Parker’s creation.

I am not sure that I have the expertise to claim that Atkins’ efforts to emulate Parker’s style of prose is flawless, but I feel confident to proclaim this to be one of the better installments in the series.  I did miss Hawk though, but I expect he will be back at Spenser’s side in the next novel.

I guess this is the season for me to read continuations of series created by now deceased authors.  Stieg Larsson’s Swedish hacker and crusader, Lisbeth Salander, is back in “The Girl Who Takes an Eye For an Eye” by David Lagercrantz.