Tag Archives: fantasy

Man from Atlantis S1 E5

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“Melt Down”

This is the first episode of the weekly series. Prior to this, Man from Atlantis was a series of TV movies, each around 90 minutes long (give or take). This started season of 13-episode season.

For the first time, we get an opening theme, which I liked quite a bit.

Episode 5, “Melt Down” saw the return of Mr. Schubert, the villain from the first TV movie performed by Victor Buono. Buono makes a fantastic villain.

A couple of big, welcome changes seem to have been made. Mark Harris has gained some superpowers besides being able to just breathe underwater. He had some extra super strength as he showed by kicking the ass of Schubert’s goons and crashing through some doors and a sonar of some kind he used to destroy some technology. The extra powers make a lot of sense and I was very pleased to see Mark crashing through the wooden door.

The show even threw in some A-Team throws, with the goons being thrown by Mark out of the pool he was in and flying across the room.

The characters of Elizabeth and C.W. were still here in episode 5, but Miller Simon was not here. I do not know if he returns as the series progresses, but I’m not sure he was needed.

Mark had more of a personality as well, confident and strong. He always felt so detached and icy, and, though he still had some of that, he seemed more human than he was before.

The sci-fi aspect of the show continued to be good, and the underwater scenes are still just fantastic. I would have loved to know how they filmed these scenes and how much of it was actually Patrick Duffy.

This episode dealt with the villainous Schubert causing water tides to rise across the planet, threatening worldwide flooding. It was like a climate change story on fast forward.

This was a really good episode and I feel like it put together some of the things that the TVV movies had been lacking. We’ll see if it can maintain this level of sci-fi goodness.

Man from Atlantis S1 E2

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“Death Scouts”

The second of the Man from Atlantis television movies was actually entitled “Man from Atlantis II: Death Scouts.”

According to Wikipedia, “Mark investigates the disappearance of three scuba divers, two of whom are ‘replaced’ by waterborne aliens (Tiffany Bolling as Lioa / Dilly and Burr DeBenning as Xos / Chazz). The aliens assignment is to scout Earth and check its defense capabilities. They also give the impression that Mark may also be one of them, specially bred for Earth infiltration.“

I was not wild about this story. While I appreciate them trying to tie Lioa and Xos to Mark’s background, it all felt kind of muddied. It seemed to indicate that they were lying about Mark when they informed him that he was from their planet, but at the end, it sounded as if Lioa had confirmed that he was from earth.

It was a messy story. If Mark did not have a connection to these two, why did they both have the webbed fingers? The symbol on Mark’s trunks, was I to understand that it is not the same as he saw in the spaceship?

I hope that this was a lie because I feel as if making Mark an alien from another planet is just lazy writing. I do not know if they will ever go into further details on his past in the short season one, but I’m sure it could be handled more deftly.

There were just too many plot holes for this tv movie. There were some decent sci-fi shots, several of which actually reminded me of The Land of the Lost, but the writing of the story felt off.

However, the shots of Patrick Duffy underwater continue to just amaze me. I am curious how they shot these, especially those that seem to have Mark in a tank of water for extended periods of time while on screen. How much did Patrick Duffy do on his own? I would love to know the specifics of these shots because they are the best underwater shots I think I have seen and this was 1977.

Damsel

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Millie Bobby Brown has had success with her movie role choices since her breakout performance on Stranger Things. This weekend saw her brand new film, a fantasy film, debut on Netflix.

According to IMDB, “A  young woman who thinks she is being married to a perfect prince is thrown into a pit where she discovers she’s not going to be a princess after all, but a sacrifice to appease a bloodthirsty dragon. Trying to survive long enough until someone can save her — she soon realizes that no one is coming and this “damsel” must save herself.“

Led by Brown, the cast of this film was solid. Robin Wright, Angel Bassett, Ray Winstone, Nick Robinson, Brooke Carter, Shohreh Aghdashloo, and Milo Twomey. However, Millie Bobby Brown spent a lot of time on screen and the other powerful actors were supporting for sure. This is definitely Millie Bobby Brown’s movie.

The special effects/CGI of the movie were pretty good, specifically the look of the dragon, which was on screen a lot.

The story was fairly simple. It was a survival tale, bit it took the concept of a “damsel in distress” from fantasy movies and flipped it on its head. She did not need anyone to come rescue her.

I did enjoy the voice of Shohreh Aghdashloo as the dragon. Aghdashloo, who I remember from 24, has a very distinctive voice and it gave that dragon a strong presence.

There is a lot of fun in this movie. Brown is very charismatic and easy to root for. It may be a simple film, but that does not mean it is a bad one.

3.4 stars

Masters of the Universe: Revolution

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The sequel to the Masters of the Universe: Revelations from filmmaker Kevin Smith dropped on Netflix this weekend with five-episodes that ran around a half hour each. This made the series a simple binge and satisfying story with some classic characters if the 1980s.

Another fun tidbit for the series was hearing the voice talents of Mark Hamill and William Shatner working together. Having Luke and Kirk together in any manner is a Geek dream.

The story basically continues from the Revelations series as the characters were dealing with fall-out of everything that happened there when Prince Adam’s father fell ill, so badly sick that he was not long for the world.

There were some solid emotional bits in the story and some good character arcs, especially for Evil-Lynn. Her eventual redemption was one of the most satisfying of the entire series. The show also went into the origin of Skeletor, tying him to Adam in an unexpected way.

There were a lot of voices on the internet that spewed out venom and hatred over the Revelations series when it first came out on Netflix. It got so bad that it was pretty clear that Kevin Smith had been discouraged over it. You could hear the change come over him during his podcast Fatman Beyond. 

However, it seemed as if this time there are many more voices of positivity with this series. I hope Kevin takes in the well-deserved love and it makes him feel better. I really enjoyed Revelations, perhaps more so than Revolution. 

This series feels much more like a love letter to the original series than the previous one had. Revelations felt like he took the characters from the series and made them into deeper characters and put them on some arcs that may not have been popular, but were very interesting and thrilling. Here, it felt as if it were more about the story with the characters taking a bit of a back seat. With the fewer number of episodes, I think that was a wise choice.

The music/score of the animated show was sensational. Some of the music swelled with energy and passion, creating the perfect tone for most of the scenes. 

The animation was very good too. There are some truly beautiful shots of the action and the imagery of the surroundings.

The biggest drawback for me is another thing that connects it to the original series. I did not watch the He-Man show back in the 80’s and the weird, quippy dialogue/patter was cringey at times. When Lynn started to sing the K-I-S-S-I-N-G song, I could almost hear my eyes rolling into the back of my head. I understand that is the tone of the series and that it did have a place, but it was fairly annoying at times.

Otherwise, I think this was a satisfactory entry into the Master of the Universe mythos and longtime fans should find a lot here to praise instead of taking to the internet to rip down. 

Percy Jackson and the Olympians S1 E5

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“A God Buys Us Cheeseburgers”

As a fan of the WWE, I was looking forward to seeing Adam Copeland, a former WWE wrestler under the name of Edge, appear on tonight’s Percy Jackson episode on Disney +. Copeland was playing God of War Ares on the show. He did a great job providing Ares with some quirky traits.

However, Percy and Annabeth went on a side adventure to recover Ares’s shield as the God of War kept Grover as insurance. 

Grover showed he was smarter than Ares as he was able to suss out (at least, according to the cliffhanger) who it was that stole the master bolt. I guess that Grover will let us in on the secret next week.

Percy and Annabeth are really bonding, much more than either of them expected. 

They found themselves in an amusement park created by Hephaestus. There was a trap that Percy had to trigger in order to get the shield, but Annabeth would not give up on him and talked Hephaestus into freeing Percy.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians has been a consistently good show every week, with a cast of charming and engaging young actors and some fun appearances by Olympians. It looked like the previews for next week has Lin-Manuel Miranda showing up as Hermes.

The quest continues in Vegas!

What If…? S2 E7

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“What if…Hela Found the Ten Rings”

Oscar winner Cate Blanchett is voicing a character in an animated TV show.

That is an amazing thing. It speaks to the MCU that there are so many of the actors who are willing to come back and provide lines for this project. Idris Elba was also back for just a few lines in this episode. It was really cool.

Of course, they did not get everybody back for their characters. Odin was in this episode and it was not Sir Anthony Hopkins, and Wenwu was not voiced by Tony Leung. Oh well.

Blending Hela and Wenwu (from the Shang Chi movies) was an interesting trick. Taking the whole Thor-banished-to-earth-until-worthy bit and making it work for Hela was a neat addition to the story. The set-up was strong and the execution was really solid too.

I found Hela’s character arc to be a very done one, reminding me of the Loki arc, and, of course, you give a strong character arc to one of the best actors working today, you get some great storytelling. Plus, Cate Blanchett has experience in the voice over world, which does have its benefits in performances.

It sounds like a skipping record, but I’ll say it again. The animation of this season of What If…? has been stellar. I love the parallels drawn between scenes from the MCU movies and what we see animated in What If..?.  For example, the scene where Hela cannot budge the crown was very similar to the scene when Thor could not move Mjolnir in the first Thor movie. These echoes are throughout the series and show the cleverness of the writers and creative personnel working on What If…?.

There are only two more episodes to go on this daily release of season two. I have loved watching these episodes in this manner and I hope there will be other opportunities to follow this in future times.

Up to Date Running Order:

E3  ”What If… Happy Hogan Saved Christmas?”

E1  “What If… Nebula Joined the Nova Corps?”

E5  ”What If… Captain Carter Fought the Hydra Stomper”

E6  ”What If…Kahhori Reshaped the World?”

E7  ”What If…Hela Found the Ten Rings?”

E2  “What If… Peter Quill Fought Earth’s Mightiest Heroes?”

E4  ”What If… Iron Man Crashed into the Gamemaster?”