Game of Boners Returns! Series 7 Episodes 1 & 2 ('Dragonstone' & 'Stormborn')

Game of Thrones is back! Let's be having you.* (Content warning: Game of Thrones, so contains discussion of both rape and violence.)

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DUM DUM da da DUM DUM da da DUM DUM da da daaaaaaaaaa and etcetera FOREVER (literally forever now that they've added lengthy 'previously on' bits before the credits, you fully have time to make a cup of tea). Oh show, I've missed you. The most problematic of the faves.

I feel like Arya's been very front and centre in the first two eps, so let's start there. First of all, I must reluctantly announce that Maisie William's woefully bad casting in the last but one series of Doctor Who has had a bit of an Emperor's New Clothes affect on me, so I'm not quite as on board with her as an actor as I have been in previous seasons, especially since her Tiny Badass routine has been usurped by TINY LADY MORMONT WHO IS THE TINIEST OF THEM ALL. But it's also the show's fault, because they do quite shamefully trade on how much we want to see a preteen psychopath Fuck Up Dem Lannisters. (Ed Sheeran cameo sidebar: just the worst. I at least thought Arya might kill him, which would then have made the whole thing instantly gratifying and completely justified, but no. She bonded with him instead, which I feel is the worst thing you can do with Ed Sheeran.) Secondly, every time she says "I'm going home", I become more convinced that the Starks are ♪never ever ever getting back together♪. Was this the purpose of the Nymeria cameo? Will being disowned by her direwolf, a hugely powerful symbol of her connection to her family and the north, change Arya's mind again and send her riding south for vengeance instead? I kind of hope so, and her entire role this season is just ping-ponging back and forth between the Cheery Humanising Lannister Soldiers and Byemeria the Direwolf until she gets dizzy.

Speaking of T'North, there's an untenable leadership situation a-brewing between Jon Snow and Sansa, as they continue to have massive public disputes about how to proceed in front of the entire CLP group of assembled Stark bannermen. Could they not have had these chats prior to the town hall? Are there no other rooms in Winterfell? Anyway, I'm default on Sansa's side on most of these because how is she not Queen in the North already? Surely her claim is more legit than Sad Jon Snow's? Anyway, I feel like Dark Sansa is being foreshadowed pretty heavily, which I am here for, so long as nothing tragic happens like she becomes an actual antagonist and Jon Snow kills her in battle. I don't think I could take that level of lip-wobbling woobie-age from Everyone's Favourite Secret Targaryan.

Down Saaf, Cersei is legit terrible at queening, and that is shame because she was at least semi-competent at some point (I think? It was all so long ago. I've done a whole degree since this show started.) I hope she gets some better stuff soon because Lena Headey is one of the best actors left on the show and she looks bored af. You can put it down to the natural entropy of a show in its seventh season but it's HBO. These characters should be getting *more* complex and layered, not walking across presumably still wet floor paintings of Westeros and wilfully misunderstanding what a dynasty is. I also may never get over how much the show has mangled Jaime Lannister, who I swear on my Star Wars posters is one of the books' most interesting characters. Any hope I had of them resurrecting his sort-of redemption arc is pretty much dead in the water by now. Thank god for Nikolaj Coster-Waldau anyway, who is manfully doing A Lot.

My jury is very out on Euron Greyjoy. On the one hand, it's always nice to have a villain on the show who actually seems to understand, nay, enjoy some of the requirements of being a villain (camp delivery and leather trousers, I guess), but on the other say with me now the sacred words of House Jane Shakespeare: No-one cares about the Greyjoys. Something something Batman.

HAVING SAID THAT, Yara is 100% going to die this season and I'm super bummed about that because it definitely discounts Dany & Yara: Sapphic Queens of All Westeros. What with their capture at the end of episode two, I think it's pretty clear that she and Ellaria Sand are going to suffer before they get strategically cut from the show to streamline the narrative killed off: I think there was a showrunner comment along the lines that Euron was going to make Ramsay Bolton look like a kitten so like oh good yay I'm sure we're all super enthused about seeing more women die horribly. (Serious side note: Are we still at this point, show? I genuinely think you believe you're doing something positive for women by constantly representing how shitty their lives are, but that's the least fantastical element of a fantasy show so cut it out, I come here for back-stabbing also front-stabbing ifyouknowwhatImean.)

At the other end of the map, Dany et all have finally arrived, having stayed in strict formation on that boat across the entire season break.

Loved the Varys scene, very sneaky rehabilitation of a character who mostly had skulk-offs with Littlefinger in the Dark Places of King's Landing in the early seasons. I guess there's a salutary political lesson for us all: despise the monarchy but work from within, you get a yearly bonus, despise the monarchy and try to bring them down, you get deaded with wildfire. We also had some fire of the in-the-pants variety with the consummation of several seasons of really lovely scenes between Nathalie Emmanuel and Jacob Anderson as Missandei and Grey Worm. You need someone to have a little fun sometimes, and I thought it was really well done, not to mention historically notable for maybe being the only instance of boobs on the show not to feel totally gratuitous. *fans self*

I haven't really talked much about Tyrion. Huh. Well, that maybe says a lot.

Who else? Sam Tarly, working' nine till five, what a way to make a maester. I'm not a huge Sam Fan but actually the scenes with Jim Broadbent have been pretty great and overwhelmingly gross. Good thing Oldtown Library has that Restricted Section, I think we've all been tired of waiting for a) someone to finally piece together that Dragons + White Walkers = crispy undead barbecue, and b) Iain Glenn to get his fine face back and take those gravelly tones off to Dany's side where he belongs so he can gloomily yet yearningly intone "Khaleesi" to his heart's content.

Elsewhere, RIP Sand Snakes, you were an absolute disaster from beginning to end, and that's all the eulogising I'm going to give. They died as they lived: confusing, superfluous, and tackily written.

The #GiveBrienneMoreToDo2017 campaign starts here. We all love Gwendoline Christie, we all love Brienne, she's one of the few truly honourable souls in a corrupt world going through a painful awakening yadda yadda yadda, GIVE HER MORE STUFF.  And by 'more stuff' - and I think this is my only legit *rant* thus far this series - I do not mean this Tormund eye-fucking disaster. I find it so uncomfortable, both in the way it's done and the response to it in reviews and on Twitter**: it's not sexy fun tension, she has repeatedly looked uncomfortable with his advances, Gwen Christie has said as much herself, and yet. And yet. Do you know why "Nevertheless, he persisted" would never become an iconic phrase? Because THAT'S WHAT MEN DO. (Also, yes, Brienne hearts Jaime 4evs and you can't take that from me.***) My worry is that it was originally intended as a bit of levity (though, again, I don't really find a huge dude making creepy faces that funny, even if Brienne can obvi take care of herself) but it's had such a weirdly positive reaction that the writers will just run with it and throw in something wildly out of character like a stormy we're-about-to-die battlefield snog, which would absolutely be the worst thing the show has ever done, including the Sand Snakes and entirely all of Ramsay Bolton.

Anyway, Christie's nailed it so far, obv, especially re Littlefinger, "Why are you still here?" She spoke for us all. Having said that, it's been rumoured that Littlefinger might die this season and please, show, no. He is a sad imitation of BookFinger but I would be so sad not to have him around anymore, even if his entire role this season is for the population of Winterfell to form an orderly queue to punch him in the mouth (yas Jon). As much as I know I should be grossed out by his Sansession, I am morbidly curious to see how far it goes.  I don't feel like there's a potential rape lurking down that avenue, not least because of the uproar the last time that happened to Sansa and how much it would derail the character she's being built into, but there is an interesting question over a character who has essentially managed to achieve everything he's tried thus far, so it would be great to see what happens when he's absolutely, finally denied the thing he wants the most. And maybe it would revive Aidan Gillen from the dead, because he's looking like he checked out two seasons ago.

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So that's all for now. Will I do this every week? I have quite a lot of work to do, so probably. We are heading into the endgame now and some real heavyweights are going to start getting offed before we get to the Dragons v White Walkers smackdown next year. My predictions for this series: Cersei, Grey Worm, and yeah, maaaaybe Littlefinger. But, excitingly, it's still really anyone's game.


*I am trying to write a Moffat retrospective, which may encompass some kind of (excited) response to Jodie Whittaker's casting, but I keep getting sidetracked by peak This Blog shit like making dumb jokes about Littlefinger's accent.
**Also on Bafflingly Popular GoT Opinions: it turns out many people are rooting for Jon Snow and Daenerys to get it on. I know it's all but inevitable at this point (it's A Song of Ice and Fire, I get it George) but, like, she's his full aunt. Guess y'all are fine with it when it's not Lannisters, huh?
***Just to end on a more fun note than unwanted sexual advances, go and watch this four minute video of Gwendoline Christie and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau interviewing each other in actual real life and I defy you - I defy you - not to come out shipping Jaime and Brienne.

Very Boys Such Bromance Wow So Unlikely Alliances Much Cheekbone Part 1: Thor: The Dark World

Blimey, it's been a while, eh?  Not to worry, adulthood hasn't got me yet.  If you're wondering why I've decided to title this three-part blog post* with a variant on 2013's strangest yet most persistent meme, it's because these three works of media degraded my ability to think in full sentences to about that level.  Really.

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Thor: The Dark World: Review: Basically I'm Reviewing Loki: Just Loki: Where Do I Stop Putting Colons

Ok. So. I'm going to preface this review by saying that when I saw the film, I was suffering under the combination of having just said farewell to a supremely lovely cast of actors on an excellent production I'd been working on for a few months, and that farewell came in the form of excessive drinking and very little sleep, so my emotions were already dancing a merry dance all over my nervous system. The result of this was that when the film finished, my immediate instinct was to go and light up a cigarette that can only be described as post-coital. I collapsed, limbs splayed in my cinema seat, hyperventilating with the sheer force of ALL MY FUCKING FEELINGS.

And then I snapped out of it and remembered the first half of the film. Because the first half of the film is, frankly, dull as fuck. It starts ok (gratuitous crotch shot of Loki) and then just kind of stops (very little Loki until halfway through and then it's All Loki All The Time).  And for once in my life, I'm not just being a fangirl (I said not just being a fangirl). Basically, there's not enough Loki to make this film deliver on its promises. It was marketed as 'Thor must ask Loki for help, angst ensues' and that's just not really what it is. Tom Hiddleston has been walking the earth like the Wandering Jew with cheekbones, to promote a film that he's barely in.

To be honest with you, I don't even remember that much of the first half (something about Christopher Eccleston's career not quite panning how he expected) and awkward segues into comic interludes, mostly courtesy of Kat Dennings as Darcy, though even her infallible ability to be deadpan and awesome seems strained in the odd, tired energy of the events. There's also a cameo appearance from Chris O'Dowd, going on a date with Natalie Portman and let's all back the fuck up and read that again because CHRIS O'DOWD WHAT ARE YOU DOING ON A DATE WITH NATALIE PORTMAN GET BACK TO THE BASEMENT. So there are more jokes than the first film but none of the effortless delight of, say, Thor walking into a pet shop and demanding a horse. In fact, there are actually too many jokes to sit comfortably with the amped-up grit factor and the tone lurches drunkenly all over the place from the sublime to the ridiculous and back again via a rainbow bridge**.

Part of this is the criminally under explored villain, when the film can actually decide who the main antagonist is - Malekith or Loki.  If the rumours are true that a bunch of Malekith's stuff was bumped from the film to make way for Loki, then it raises the horrifying possibility that Tom Hiddleston's original role in the film was confined to maybe just one eyebrow raise and that is a world that I want no part in.  I am disappointed in the disservice done to both Chris Ecclestone and his character, not least because when they announced him I spent two days in a sort of glee-coma unable to say anything except repeat, "Malekith the Accursed.  Dark elf.  Christopher Ecclestone." But things were always going to be difficult post-Avengers. The first Thor had the advantage of being largely encapsulated in its own universe, the action confined to the remote realms of Asgard and New Mexico. Now the Marvel Cinematic Universe's internal public is aware of superheroes, the threat level has to be very finely judged for solo outings because otherwise just, like, call the other Avengers, y'know? And frankly, all the known universes collapsing in Greenwich kind of seems like at least an equivalent level of threat to a leather clad sociopath letting aliens on flying bikes into New York. But whatever, maybe Bruce Banner was on holiday. 

And I suppose things were also always going to be difficult in terms of how to write Loki. After going gloriously and hammily full villain in The Avengers, giving him any kind of arc must necessitate a little backtracking - bringing him home is a start (and let's not forget the moment in The Avengers when Thor tells him he can stop and come home and goddamit it, you can see in his eyes that that would actually maybe be really nice were it not for the whole attempted genocide and mass murder blips) but in The Dark World, it's just done in far too broad brush strokes. This is where the lack of Loki becomes problematic. There's not enough time to make this film what it deserves to be, which is Thor-and-Loki-go-to-family-counselling. I'm not quite sure that the MCU appreciates what it has in Hemsworth and Hiddleston, which is a few dozen gallons of heartbreak and an effortless chemistry. This film feels like it was written for lesser actors, ironed out into Hero and Villain, and yet the Brodinsons of Sassgard*** run away with every scene they're given (in Loki's case, cackling). Hiddleston's least subtle character elicits, weirdly, his most subtle performance,**** doing more acting with his eyes in one scene than there is in the rest of the film combined, and Hemsworth leads the film with lovely sincerity, retaining the streak of self-effacing humour brought out in The Avengers (I mean, thank all the Nordic gods, because the lack thereof in the first film was what sent me running into Loki's mad arms in the first place).

The fact is, the greatest superpower any of these films possess is humanity - that's what gives us the hook to keep us coming back, and is also why Superman movies are doomed to fail in comparison.  Tony Stark has his inner demons, Bruce Banner has his rage issues, Steve Rogers is a good man in a bewilderingly and increasingly complicated world, and Thor has a dysfunctional family. It's even ironic, maybe, that the most ridiculous Avenger (space-god-thing-with-science-magic) has the most affecting and, dare I say it, relatable backstory. Not so much with the frost giants, obviously, but the fuck-up sibling and the inability to ever really give up on family when they're threatening to take over the world that your signifiant other lives on, well, we've all been there.

Or maybe at this point Hiddleston's popularity with the fan base is just becoming a hindrance to writing a well balanced story.  I mean, there's a right way and a wrong way to love Loki. The right way is to appreciate him for the magnificent bastard he is, in which case you probably like Avengers Loki best, slasher smile, death metal hair, eye-ripping and everything. And there's the wrong way, which is to watch him whilst silently keening "MY BABY YOU JUST NEED A HUG", in which case you probably like him best in the first film, all wobbly bottom lip and palpable and justified sense of betrayal. (I'm somewhere in between the two, since you ask, feeling somewhat relieved at the last second reveal of him finally sitting on the throne of Asgard, with a moment of "oh thank god, that's my clever little psychopath", but far far too many moments of "JUST LET YOUR RIPPLING BLOND BROTHER SAVE YOU WITH HIS LOVE" for me to be entirely comfortable with myself. It is not, after all, a million miles away from "he just gets tense when he's trying to usurp a throne, he loves me really!")

This film was stuck between the two, flirting with both sides enough to be really really frustrating but not nearly enough to be satisfying. What we want, I suspect, is for Loki to be - like any good trickster figure - consistently and ambiguously using his emotions for his own gain. Like Sherlock. Or Artemis Fowl. Or - Loki's classical ancestor - Edmund in King Lear. We want a conman who is always ultimately up to something but in the moments when he displays vulnerability, left wondering whether it was all an act or possibly, maybe just a little bit sincere. We were almost there with this film. His 'death' is a particularly egregious example - the redemption, the regret, it should have been a Type 2 Loki fan's wet dream (and also how I was predicting they would write him out of the franchise). But there just wasn't time to process it. The quick cut to the gags about Chris O'Dowd and Thor hanging his hammer on the coat rack undermined it so quickly that there was no way he was really dead. Similarly, perhaps showing Loki's lonely displays of grief over Frigga's death (Frigga, my thoughts in brief: wow someone had some awesome in their coffee this morning, oh wait look she's dead in order to further the character development of the male protagonists, colour me shocked) would have made the later bluff too obvious, but it was obvious anyway because this film took a fond farewell of subtlety in the opening credits, so lingering just a little bit longer on him blowing stuff up with his mind would have been an infinitely more satisfying exploration of character.  That, in the end, was the core disappointment - everything was undercut so swiftly that you hardly knew how to feel about any of it (ambiguity is great, confusion is not). We're invested in these characters now, and not for the big explosions. Iron Man 3 was a darkly sincere look at the individual, not the costume. The Thor story should be an obvious contender for this type of treatment and yet became something so much less than the sum of its parts.

Look, it's not all bad. It was worth the ticket price for Hemsworth and Hiddleston alone, frankly. From the moment they Reservoir Dogs their way down the halls of Asgard, through the chase on the spaceship ("Well don't hit it, just press it gently." "I AM PRESSING IT GENTLY.") to Loki's deadpan "Ta-da" upon emerging into Vanaheim, the central section of the film is a pure joy. And, crucially, it's set us up for a Thor 3 in which the action is Thor-Loki centric, and me being the eternal optimist that I am, I'm going to hope for all the bickering, sparring, betrayal, game playing, double bluffs and tentative reconciliations we were promised this time. And after all, Loki essentially won this one. I can't really hate that. So until then I'm going to wait for the DVD and play a specific twenty minutes of it nonstop until my laptop breaks (cf also: War Horse) or Gotterdamerung occurs.  Whichever happens first.


*THREE PARTS.  Seriously though.
**A mysterious repaired rainbow bridge - how? It was a massive deal that Thor couldn't go and see Natalie Portman at the end of the first film and there was a shoehorned-in mumble about dark energy in The Avengers and now it sort of turns out that, basically, Asgard engineers totally could have done it, no problem, but the thing is, like, union stuff, and also they'll need to get some parts in.
***Kudos for this outstanding piece of wordplay goes to my colleague, Kate. Good writers imitate, great writers steal etc etc.
****No seriously.  Go and watch his other stuff and tell me he doesn't bring unnecessary melodrama to more conventionally written roles.  Then watch Thor again and tell me why and how he's finding deft emotional complexity in Giggling Space Despot.

No Contest: 'Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS' (Doctor Who) and 'Kissed By Fire' (Game of Thrones) Reviews

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AVENGERS ASSEMBLE: CAPSLOCK MINIMAL (Spoilerific)

Spoilers, my pretties.  So many spoilers.

The Avengers is five star, solid gold, Class A blockbuster entertainment.

There, I wanted to get the obvious bit out of the way.

But THAT WAS THE COOLEST THING EVER, YOU GUYS.  Sorry, I'll ease up on the Capslock after the hammering it took in my reaction post.  (There are, in fact, subtle references to two of the Avengers in that sentence.  Answers on the back of a postcard.)  I don't think I've anticipated a film this much since Toy Story 3 and while it didn't shred my psyche into weeping shards of emotional shrapnel like that one did, it certainly pushed me well into 'hyperventilating nerd' territory.  For those of you in doubt, it's not a great look.  In terms of plot, it's a standard three-act structure: threat is set up, threat is contained, threat breaks loose for epic final battle.  If I had one niggle, it would be that the 'threat is set up' part takes a while to get going but then again, there's a lot of story to get in there, given that it ties in to every single film from the franchise so far.  And while I predicted that the Tesseract (last seen being retrieved from the Arctic in Captain America, and then making a cameo appearance in the stinger for Thor) would be the film's chief MacGuffin, it was a) actually not a MacGuffin and b) extremely clever as it gives each of the Avengers some form of personal investment.  Captain A already had to face-off with it once, it emits gamma radiation so Bruce Banner must provide his particular form of big green wisdom, Iron Man's dad was the one that yoinked it from the depths in the first place, it's a Nordic god thingamabob so Thor has to get involved, and Hawkeye gets zapped by its blue glowy powers in the first ten minutes so Black Widow spends much of the film silently vowing revenge for her squishy-faced companion.

Despite the line-up of A-listers and superheroes, the real star of the show is Joss Whedon.  He keeps the plates spinning so deftly that it never feels like there's any fan-based Avenger favouritism going on.  Iron Man's heroic sacrifice in the closing minutes of the battle does not, for example, feel like a writer pandering to one of the Internet's favourite characters but rather the necessary ending to his character arc.  If you are reading this without having seen the film and are suddenly stricken with doubts over Tony Stark's fate then I'll just say that Iron Man 3 is set for release next year and I was really definitely not at all taken in by it, not even for one tiny little second, not me, and it would have been extremely silly if I had, say, whimpered a little.

There's some stunningly Whedonish dialogue too; even the throwaway lines sound like they've been culled from scripts for unaired episodes of Firefly ("Barton, take them down." "It would be my genuine pleasure, sir.") and, of course, it's extremely funny.  Thor and Loki get some pseudo-Shakespearian speeches that don't so much walk the fine line between the grandiose and the ridiculous as hop from one side to the other cackling with glee.  I already mentioned the "mewling quim" line in my reaction post but special points also have to go to Loki's villainous opening parlay: "I am burdened with glorious purpose.  And cheekbones like goddamn fish slices, seriously."  (Disclaimer: only half of that line was written by Joss Whedon.)  Being Whedon, he also gets to satirise his own writing with Iron Man gleefully snarking at Thor, "Doth mother know thou wearest her drapes?" Occasionally one sensed that there was a Whedon line struggling to get through the performance of a non-Whedon actor (cameos from Alexis Denisoff and Enver Gjokaj noted though) but really, you'd have to give many more fucks than I actually do.

It also became apparent what a good choice of ring-master Whedon was when the film opened with some hardcore Trekkie-style sci-fi.  Ok, so technically superheroes are science fiction but not in the same way as, like, aliens or whatever.  Which is odd, because Marvel comics have a long history of courting the extraterrestrial - the whole Phoenix Saga in X-Men, for example - and yet aliens have never really made it into the films in a big way.  Well, there was the Venom/Symbiote business in Spiderman 3 but given that its major threat seemed to be toward's Tobey Maguire's wardrobe, I think it's better off forgotten.  Joss, however, pulls off the alien invasion with aplomb, as well one might expect.

But as I said, the main part of this deftness is the way in which Whedon keeps every super-and-non-super-powered plate spinning for the full two and half hours.  In order to do them justice, let's examine the major players one by one.  Buckle up ladies, because oestrogen levels in your bedroom are about to go way, way up.

Bruce Banner/Hulk (Mark Ruffalo)
Traditionally the hardest superhero to do onscreen, Whedon pulls off a masterstroke here by pointing out the intrinsic comedy value of a mild-mannered scientist with - as Iron Man puts it - "breath-taking anger management issues" combined with advances in Golum-style motion capture technology.  Ruffalo surpasses my (admittedly reserved) expectations in the role, finding something surprisingly touching in Banner's "I-just-want-to-be-good" Jekyll persona.  His explanation of the 'secret' to his control over "the Other Guy" left me a little baffled though - bounding away pre-Hulk, he turns and one-liners to Captain America, "You want to know my secret, Cap?  I'm always angry."  I guess there must be an in-depth explanation somewhere on the internet, but in the meantime I'm going to imagine this scene took place later:

Iron Man: Did Banner ever tell you what the secret to his whole rage deal was?
Captain America: Oh yeah, he says he's always angry, or something.
Iron Man: Jesus, guys, did you hear that?  Banner's always angry.  Wait, what does that even mean?  Holy shit, does that mean he's the Hulk like, all the time?  We've got to stop inviting that guy to our parties.

Or something.

Captain America/Steve Rogers (Chris Evans)
So, the good captain might be my least favourite Avenger, but he's still decent, in every sense of the word.  I think the problem is that he's a nice guy and he has a strong moral code and, oh yes, he uses a defensive weapon to show how he's a protector so we're all supposed to nod sagely and go "aaw, what a great guy" when secretly we're going "FOR GOD'S SAKE, ROGERS, BLOW SOMETHING UP."  My feeling is that he could have been a little goofier if they wanted to give him some more defining character traits (though the Wizard of Oz moment was very sweet) but they went with a leadership arc, which also worked fine.  Of the girls I went to see the film with, he was also the only Avenger who no-one wanted to sleep with, having been declared "meh".  Then again, it's entirely possible that we just can't get past a superhero called Captain America.

Thor (Chris Hemsworth)
I'm discussing Thor next because I kind of bracket him with Captain America in the big, dumb and good-natured category of superhero.  However, Thor/Hemsworth has something that Cap/Evans does not: comedy gold.  Whedon sends up the whole Norse god idea with tongue firmly in cheek and Hemsworth joins in with evident glee - because, seriously, I get that comic book writers were on a lot of crack in the 60s, but they took a very early lunch the day they went "Oh hey, let's just nick this whole Norse mythology deal.  Maybe we'll put some wing doodads on the helmet though.  Good work, Tim, no-one'll notice." Getting Branagh to direct the first film was also sort of genius and pretty much cements Thor as one of the best not-even-that-guilty pleasures of all time.  The only real beef I had with Thor was that Thor himself is such an unlikeable douche for the first half that my (admittedly morally unsound) sympathies gravitated so naturally towards Loki that they've kind of stuck there.  But post-Thor, the eponymous god has learnt some humility and is just really, really charming and likeable and funny.  Not my type but if he ever transcends the bounds of fiction and finds himself in South West London, I have a friend who would be very willing to give him the guided tour.

Iron Man/Tony Stark (Robert Downey Junior)
How fucking cool is Iron Man?  Or Tony Stark?  Or Robert Downey Junior?  Individually they all have something fundamentally cool about them but combined, they create a tsunami, nay a firewall of charisma.  Downey Junior predictably gets the best lines too, coming up with several nomenclatures for his eclectic teammates that made me nigh-on weep with joy.  There was also some much-needed character development in play so we can all look forward to a slightly humbler Stark taking the helm in Iron Man 3, for which I now have high hopes.  Still cool though.  Still fucking cool.

Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson)
And one cannot mention cool without mentioning Samuel L Jackson in the same sentence.  It's actually illegal in six different states.  At one point, he holds a bazooka and shoots down a plane.  Off an airship. 30,000 feet above sea level.  Also, the dude is 60.  You can't argue with that.  There's no-one else who could play a man with no superpowers other than ineffable sang-froid, yet can keep reasonable control of a group of divas with planet-destroying abilities.  I mean that literally: when they rebooted the Marvel universe, the comic book artists purchased the rights to Sam Jackson's appearance just because they too knew that you will never find anyone better to play this role.  Ever.

Agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg)
Continuing with the 'normals', Coulson might be the normalest normal ever to kick ass and take names in an extremely polite fashion.  Since I've warned for spoilers, I'll do my inconsolable weeping over his death now, thanks: WHY WHY WHY CURSE YOU WHEDON, DAMN YOU AND I HOPE ALL YOUR PETS DIE HORRIBLY.  That was a masterclass in making you like a character, just so that you could kill him off.  Gregg is understated and wonderful, his dialogue is sharp and sweet, his fanboying of Captain America is adorbs, and his badassery in his dying moments is tear-inducing.  Coulson, you'll be sorely missed.

Hawkeye/Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner)
An Avenger and S.H.I.E.L.D. agent with no superpowers, I've known I was going to like Hawkeye ever since his cameo appearance in Thor.  I didn't know I was going to fucking love him.  Hawkeye is so incredibly boss, I can't even form coherent sentences.  Renner is a) very funny and b) manages to make his uniform of sleeveless vest and bow-and-arrow convincingly heterosexual.  A couple of the film's finest "fuck, that was cool" moments belong to him, most notably the shoot-behind-you-without-bothering-to-look and the turn-and-shoot-as-falling-off-a-building.  Those old chestnuts.

Black Widow/Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson)
And we can't talk about Hawkeye without discussing Black Widow.  Again, in the interests of getting the blindingly obvious out of the way, Scarlett Johansson is very hot.  In fact, she's almost breathtakingly hot in this film.  But that is so, so, so, so not the point of Black Widow (much) because good lord, she's a killing machine.  I mean genuinely frightening.  I would willingly put the next few Iron Man films on hold if it means we can get a Black Widow/Hawkeye film first.  I want to see Budapest.  I want to see him going to take her out and deciding to recruit her instead.  I want more fights like the epic smack down in the control room.  I want to see her dark and mysterious past and all the delicious attendant angst that goes with it.  Gah, I want more.  Now.  Please.  Fourteen-year-old boys everywhere will thank me.

And speaking of delicious attendant angst, let's just take a moment to talk about our villain.

Loki (Tom Hiddleston)
I'll be brief, I swear.  Well, ish.  Now, I will put good money on a redemption arc for Loki by the time the Marvel Cinematic Universe is done.  Because Loki is basically a really shit villain.  He's hopelessly outgunned for the majority of the film, allows himself to be outmanoeuvred and manipulated countless times and - this is the kicker - everyone knows it.  Tony Stark takes great delight in pointing out that Loki has wilfully antagonised some of the most powerful beings in the universe and seems not to give a flying alien fuck.  Thor makes no bones about the fact that his little brother clearly just wants to play with his toys.  Even Coulson deadpans "you lack conviction" before promptly dying.  Add to this the fact that it's not even his own brand of divine retribution that he's putting into play - rather, he's more like a middle manager for the Chitauri's planned takeover bid - and, yeah, Loki really isn't a great villain at all.  His villainous demands amount to classic Youngest Child temper tantrums.  Even his undeniably pimpin' outfits fuel the overwhelming sense of "LOOK AT ME!  LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT MEEEEEE!  NO SCREW YOU, THOR, THE PEOPLE ARE HERE TO SEE ME."

Look, I don't know if it's Whedon's writing or Hiddleston's performance but Loki is still dancing ever so slightly on this side of the redeemable.  Not forgivable, but redeemable - probably through dying.  If there isn't some kind of heroic self-sacrifice waiting at the end of Thor 3 or The Avengers 2, then I'll eat my winged helmet.  It's in his nature.  Villain motivated by greed/lust for power/Iago-esque-for-shits-and-giggles (cf. the Joker, Doctor Doom) = timely defeat and the world breathes a sigh of relief.  Villain motivated by jealousy/insanity/extremely dysfunctional family relations (cf. Doctor Octopus, Two-Face) = humiliating defeat or redemption equals death.  I know my genres.  And so does Loki, I suspect.

Oh and by the way, if you were wondering whether Loki's villainous ineptitude tarnished my shiny, near-worshipful love for him, then what are you, new?  As far as I'm concerned, anyone with those cheekbones gets a free pass.  To be honest, I found him kind of endearing (mass-murder aside).*  Hiddleston sells the role with marvellous aplomb too.  He must have an assistant just to pick the scenery out of his teeth.

All in all, The Avengers is a sustained and exhaustive exercise in being as awesome as is humanly possible in 140 minutes.  And even if it wasn't, I was never going to hate a film that gave me a legitimate excuse to shout "AVENGERS ASSEMBLE" across a crowded club as a way of finding errant group members.  God bless you, Joss Whedon, and all that sail in you.

What an unfortunate mental image to finish on.




*Charlie Brooker compares Hiddleston's Loki to Mad Men's Pete Campbell, another fictional sociopath for whom I have unfortunately tender feelings.  The management would like to point out that a) tastes in fictional men do not in any way reflect tastes in non-fictional men and b) if anyone ever invents some kind of universe-warping raygun that melts the bounds between fiction and reality, I am fucked.

AVENGERS ASSEMBLE (IN MY PANTS) (NO PLOT SPOILERS BUT MANY FEELINGS)

HERE, THESE ARE ALL MY FEELINGS ABOUT THE AVENGERS, WHICH I HAVE JUST SEEN THIS VERY NIGHT:

1) PEW PEW PEW GUNS AND EXPLOSIONS AND WHEEEEE THINGS BLOW UP GOOD TIMES YES NOW. OW, I HAVE A HEADACHE.

2) SCARLETT JOHANSSON IS HOT.  BLACK WIDOW IS ALSO HOT BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY MORE BADASS THAN CAN BE REASONABLY SUMMARISED IN A SHORT AMOUNT OF TIME.

3) TOM HIDDLESTON'S VOICE GOES STRAIGHT TO THE KNICKER AREA.  THIS IS SCIENTIFIC FACT, PROVED BY ALL THE SCIENCE RESEARCH I DID.  TOM.  TOM.  SAY "ON YOUR KNEES" AGAIN.

4) HULK CAN BE DONE SUCCESSFULLY ON FILM BUT FIRST JOSS WHEDON MUST POINT OUT HOW INTRINSICALLY RIDICULOUS HE IS.

5) NOOOOOOOOOOOO, DAMN YOU WHEDON.  OF FUCKING COURSE THAT IS WHO YOU WOULD TARGET FOR YOUR DEMONIC WHEDONISH PURPOSES.

6) THERE MUST BE A HAWKEYE/BLACK WIDOW FILM NOW PLEASE PLEASE NOW I MUST SEE MORE OF THEIR PAIRED AND SHARED AWESOME, AND I MUST KNOW MORE ABOUT THEIR MYSTERIOUS AND SEXY PAST.

7) HAWKEYE HAWKEYE HAWKEYE.  RENNER, YOU SQUISHY-FACED PART-ELF ANGEL.

8) IRON MAN CALLS HAWKEYE 'LEGOLAS'.  THIS IS NOT EVEN THE MOST AWESOME THING THAT HAPPENS IN THE FILM.

9) SAMUEL L JACKSON HOLDS A BAZOOKA AT ONE POINT.  REPORTS INDICATE THAT THIS IS TOO MUCH BADASS FOR THE UNIVERSE TO CONTAIN AND IT WILL BE IMPLODING SHORTLY.

10) JOSS WHEDON AND LOKI VALIDATE THE COMPULSORY MIDDLE ENGLISH COMPONENT OF MY COURSE WITH TWO WORDS: "MEWLING QUIM".

11) LOKI IS SO FUCKING PIMP.  EVEN IN THAT FUCKING STUPID HELMET.  NAY, ESPECIALLY IN THAT FUCKING STUPID HELMET.

12) CAPTAIN AMERICA UNDERSTANDS ONE POP CULTURE REFERENCE AND WE ARE ALL VERY PROUD OF HIM.

13) TONY STARK'S EGO CAN ONLY BE SATED BY A PHALLIC SYMBOL THAT TOWERS ABOVE THE NEW YORK SKYLINE AND BY GOD, I WOULD NOT HAVE IT ANY OTHER WAY.

14) STILL NO-ONE HAS MADE ANY GIANT HAMMER JOKES ABOUT THOR.

15) LOKI JUST NEEDS A HUG.  I WILL GIVE IT TO HIM.  SERIOUSLY, I WILL MAKE THAT SACRIFICE.  FOR THE TEAM.

16) THERE WAS ACTUALLY QUITE A LOT OF HOMOEROTICISM AND I REALLY THOUGHT THOR AND LOKI WERE GOING TO KISS AT SEVERAL POINTS, AND ALSO CAPTAIN AMERICA AND IRON MAN.  I, FOR ONE, WELCOME THIS MORE FLUID APPROACH TO SEXUALITY IN MAINSTREAM MEDIA.

17) NOW THAT THE RAINBOW BRIDGE HAS BEEN DESTROYED, THOR TRAVELS BY THE POWER OF PLOT CONTRIVANCE.

18) I CANNOT REALLY SAY MUCH MORE WITHOUT SPOILING THE PLOT.

19) WAIT, WAIT, ONE MORE FOR LUCK.

20)  LOKI. GOD OF ARMANI.


I'm seeing it again on Tuesday.  I'll probably do a proper review then.  Don't hold your breath though, it's probably just going to be the word "awesome" copy-pasted 500 hundred times.

Sherlock: In the business, this is known as a 'reaction post'

Sherlock, Episode 3: The Reichenbach Fall. Contains spoilers. Since I can no longer communicate in anything but permanent capslock, here are ten breathy, excessive reactions to tonight's episode:

1) INCOHERENT SOBBING.

2) MOLLY.

3) I WILL NEVER DOUBT YOU EVER AGAIN STEPHEN THOMPSON AND I AM SORRY FOR ALL THE HORRIBLE THINGS I SAID ABOUT YOU IN MY BLOG (BUT REALLY I STILL HATE YOUR EPISODE OF DOCTOR WHO AND YOUR LAST EPISODE OF SHERLOCK WAS KIND OF IFFY AND BORDERLINE RACIST).

4) MOLLY.

5) I MUST FIND MARTIN FREEMAN AND HUG HIM FOREVER WHETHER HE WANTS IT OR NOT.

6) FAIRY TALES ARE SUPER CREEPY.

7) I KIND OF FANCY MORIARTY NOW. IS THAT WRONG? I THINK THAT'S WRONG.

8) SOMEBODY NEEDS TO KISS SOMEONE ON THIS SHOW AND I DON'T CARE WHO BUT OTHERWISE MY TELLY WILL EXPLODE FROM ALL THE SEXUAL TENSION. IT'S SHERLOCK HOLMES, THERE ISN'T EVEN SUPPOSED TO BE SEXUAL TENSION. IN THAT EPISODE ALONE I COUNTED SHERLOCK/JOHN, SHERLOCK/LESTRADE, JOHN/LESTRADE, SHERLOCK/MOLLY, JOHN/MYCROFT, MYCROFT/MORIARTY, SHERLOCK/KATHERINE PARKINSON, SHERLOCK/DONOVAN, SHERLOCK/ANDERSON AND HUGE, BEACON-FLASHING AMOUNTS OF SHERLOCK/MORIARTY. IT IS OFFICIAL, SHERLOCK HOLMES HAS SEXUAL CHEMISTRY WITH EVERYONE. "THE REST IS JUST TRANSPORT." WHAT. EVER.

9) IF YOU'RE GOING TO BE ALL 'WELL OBVIOUSLY HE WASN'T GOING TO BE DEAD' THEN YOU CAN JUST FUCK RIGHT OFF THANKS BECAUSE I'VE READ THE ORIGINAL STORIES AND ALSO IT IS A HUGELY SUCCESSFUL TV SERIES AND OBVIOUSLY THEY WILL KEEP MAKING IT BECAUSE THEY WILL GET LOTS OF AWARDS AND MONEY SO YOU DON'T NEED TO BE SHERLOCK HOLMES TO FIGURE OUT THAT HE WASN'T GOING TO BE REALLY DEAD (SEE WHAT I DID THERE) AND ALSO SOME FUCKER SPOILED IT FOR ME ON FACEBOOK BEFORE I EVEN SAW IT BUT IF YOU WATCHED JOHN WATSON BEING ALL 'DON'T BE DEAD' AND SHERLOCK BEING ALL SELF-SACRIFICING AND DIDN'T GET WHY IT WAS WORTH CRYING AND MAKING UNREADABLE BLOG POSTS ABOUT THEN I DON'T REALLY WANT YOU IN MY LIFE.

10) MOLLY.

I have a sensible, intelligent post coming soon. I swear. Just as soon as I've spooned my brain back in through my ears.