True Blood - Second Season
Bad things are going on in Bon Temps, and it ain't just the massive amounts of sex... well, actually, in this case, it is. A stranger named Maryann (Michelle Forbes) moves into town, and her presence has a very curious effect on the residents of the small Louisiana town - namely, she has the ability to lull everyone into a horny, drunken stupor. While Bon Temps descends into disarray of Soddom and Gomorrah proportions, Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin), her vampire beau Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer), and local vampire sheriff Eric (Alexander Skarsgaard) are in Dallas trying to find a vampire named Godric, who is believed to have been kidnapped by a zealous anti-vampire church called The Fellowship of the Sun.
I realize how silly this show is, I really do. It really isn't all too different from it's distant, retarded cousin, Twilight, except for one crucial thing - this series actually has likable characters, interesting villains with a clear motivation, and a vampire/human love story that makes sense (as far as such things go). More importantly, when a vampire is exposed to sunlight, it fucking dies as it is supposed to. Don't make me go into my rant about why leaving that aspect of vampire mythology out of Twilight completely negates any downside to vampirism whatsoever. DON'T MAKE ME DO IT, DAMMIT!
Anyway, this season was an interesting contrast to the first, which was centered on a mysterious serial killer that savagely murdered any woman who appeared to be sympathetic, or sexually attracted to, vampires. The villain this season is almost immediately exposed as Maryann, but the mystery is just what the hell she is, and how can she be stopped. Then there's the other mystery of what happened to Godric, which leads to a rather unexpected climax. So, there was a lot to like about this season. I'm especially beginning to enjoy Eric, who is a total bastard, but he pulls it off with such a devilish, almost flippant charm, one can't help but to grudgingly like him. He may be an asshole, but he's damned good at it. I guess it doesn't hurt that he's had hundreds of years practice at it.
I even enjoyed the ultimately pointless subplot of local loser-at-love, Hoyt, courting Jessica, a vampire Bill had to create last season as penance for killing another vampire to save Sookie. It served a nice break from the main narrative, while not being too terribly distracting (or annoying).
I can't say I have many complaints - I found the second season as entirely enjoyable as the first, if not more so. As I said before, sure, I acknowledge that the show is ridiculous, but the show doesn't try to be anything more than what it is - a supernatural drama. I also like that the show is expanding its mythology to include other creatures, such as Greek demigods, changelings, and other supernatural creatures. It certainly makes me intrigued at what's coming next.
Verdict: Fucking Awesome!
Predators (2010)
A group of pals, who all met in the same peer group for sexual addiction, go on the prowl for some illegal, high school jailbait. Hi-jinks ensue!
No, wait, I'm sorry, that's just the plot to a future Chuck Palahniuk book - my bad!
Adrian Brody plays a badass merc... wait, did I just say that? Let me read that sentence again... yep. Yep, I just said the words, "Adrian Brody plays a badass merc". Weird. Anyway, he plays a mercenary named Royce (mercs always get the cool names), who wakes up free-falling into a luscious jungle on what turns out to be an alien world. Pulling his shoot just in time to not go "spat", and end the movie before it even began, Royce shortly finds others who have been similarly abducted, and they band together to try and survive... the Predators! Da-da-daaah!
So, to make a long story short, this is pretty obviously a shameless attempt at cashing in on the elements that made the first movie so great. I mean, everything is here: hard-as-nails soldiers, accompanied by an equally tough woman, being hunted in the jungle by not only one alien predator, but several (which hardly seems sporting). One guy has a gatling gun, just like Jesse Ventura's character in the first one. One character is really into shamanistic, warrior shit, just like the Native American guy in the first movie. They even directly refer to the first movie, when it is revealed that one of the characters is familiar with the predator creature because she read the debriefing Aw-nold's character gave at the end of the first movie. What are the odds??? I mean, even the music sounds just like the soundtrack from the first movie! I guess I shouldn't complain, because as far as sequels go, this one is a shitload better than Predator 2. I don't see why they didn't just do this as a sequel in the first place, much as the sequel to Alien was Aliens. All you gotta do is slap a sexy "s" at the end, and bam, you got a sssssolid ssssequel.
This movie is pretty solid, too, despite the many, many flaws. Even though it may seem like the Predators are lowering the bar on who they hunt after, after Danny Glover gave them a sound ass-whoopin', by picking Adrien Brody, Brody actually does a decent job being the action hero. He even got pretty ripped for the part. The rest of the characters don't matter much, as they all die fairly quickly, one-by-one, which we as an audience could care less for, because we don't really know these characters. The first movie was interesting because it started off as a war movie - the first quarter of the movie is simply Arnold's team carrying out their original mission. In this way, we get a chance to familiarize ourselves with these guys, and see them work as a unit, so that when the Predator begins taking them out one-by-one, and the unit starts breaking down, it's pretty unnerving! Plus, the whole sci-fi element of them being hunted by an alien comes out of nowhere! So you almost feel just as out-of-place and confused as they do when they start getting picked off by an invisible creature. Part of your brain is going, "Wasn't this a war movie just a minute ago??" It'd be like watching Platoon, and halfway through, they get attacked by the aliens from Aliens.
Gone, is that element of surprise and mystery from this sequel, making it lose any charm it might have had otherwise. As a viewer, you just wait for these people to catch up to what you already know, which is that they will shortly be hunted by predators. When they finally do, your brain just checks out, and waits for the end credits to roll. It simply won't be needed for the rest of the movie. The twist at the end involving Topher Grace's character is interesting, but pointless, causing your brain to maybe look over its shoulder at the movie for a moment, before going, "Pfft, whatever..." and going back to sleep.
So, watch the movie if you want to kill some time on a lonely Friday night, or better yet, fuck this movie - just watch the first one again.
Verdict: S'alright
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