The film RISEN opens up just after Jesus Christ is crucified, but before he actually dies. Badass Roman soldier Clavius (Joseph Fiennes) has been put in charge of making sure that Jesus dies and that his followers don’t try to steal his body and claim that he’s “risen” from the dead. Clavius sees Jesus (played by Cliff Curtis) die with his own eyes and allows the Jewish aristocrat Joseph of Arimathea to take the body and place him in his own tomb. Clavius oversees the sealing of the tomb and posts two soldiers on guard. That night the tomb is mysteriously opened, the guards are nowhere to be found, and the rumors begin to circulate that Jesus has risen from the dead. Roman political leader Pilate (Peter Firth) is not happy about all of this disruption in his area, especially with Tiberius Caesar scheduled to visit, so he orders Clavius and his right hand man Lucius (Tom Felton) to find Jesus’ body at all costs.
I’m writing this review a couple of weeks after Easter 2026, and RISEN takes place in the aftermath of Easter Sunday and the 40 days that Jesus spent appearing to his disciples and preparing them to carry his message to the masses. RISEN is an interesting take on the story as it focuses on Clavius, turning him into a detective trying to solve the mystery of Jesus’ missing body. We get to see him interrogate the disciples he can get his hands on, bribe various people for information and even beat information out of people when necessary. No matter what he tries, he keeps running into dead ends.
I’ll give Director Kevin Reynolds (ROBIN HOOD: PRINCE OF THIEVES, THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO) some credit for his solid direction of RISEN. His PG-13 rated film made my toes curl up and made me hold my nose multiple times, whether it be the somewhat graphic breaking of the legs of the men being crucified or the times spent with rotting, decaying bodies and the flies and imagined smells that go with them. The film didn’t skimp on these scenes, and it was pretty sickening. But then there is a blunt, powerful scene where Clavius is suddenly forced to deal with things that he can’t reconcile in his own mind. The scene I’m referencing made me feel a sense of awe and wonder and somehow caught me by surprise even in a faith-based film. There aren’t many miracles shown in the film, but those we see are truly heartwarming. RISEN forced strong feelings out of me both physically and emotionally, creating a more powerful experience than I was expecting.
The acting in RISEN is very good. Joseph Fiennes is downright excellent as Clavius. His performance as the tough, weary, cynical soldier is balanced perfectly as his complete disbelief turns into something different based on the events he witnesses throughout the story. The emotional conflict we see in his eyes when he first sees the resurrected Jesus is incredible work. Peter Firth is solid as the politically powerful, but seriously insecure Pilate, who worries more about public perception than the truth. And I’ve always liked the actor Cliff Curtis, who plays Jesus here. He portrays a strong sense of peace and love that is immediately believable and very effective. (On a personal note, Curtis’ scene in the Denzel Washington, Oscar winner TRAINING DAY has always been one of my favorite moments in cinema.)
Overall, I highly recommend RISEN. The film features an incredible lead performance from Fiennes, and the detective story angle brings something distinct and interesting to the table. Due to personal convictions, Christians will find the story the most powerful, but this is a movie that can reach a much wider audience than you might expect.
“The fire came from the mountain… Eywa did not come. So I went to the fire, and I learned its way” – Varang
Avatar: Fire and Ash plays like a massive, molten crescendo for Cameron’s Pandora saga—visually overwhelming, emotionally heavier than the last two entries, but also very familiar in ways that will either feel comfortingly mythic or a little déjà vu, depending on your tolerance for repetition. The ash-choked skies, lava rivers, and volcanic Na’vi clans are often more compelling than some of the story beats, and the final stretch delivers the kind of operatic, war-movie scale that makes the three-plus-hour runtime go down easier than it should, even though the film clearly didn’t need to run this long.
This time around, the series leaves behind the cool blues and oceanic calm of the previous chapter for a harsher, volcanic corner of Pandora that feels like a nature documentary shot in a furnace. Jagged black rock, roiling lava, and smoke-stained skies dominate the frame, with creatures and plant life that look as if they evolved to survive heat and ash rather than coral reefs and open water, giving the movie an immediately distinct visual identity even when the story rhythms feel familiar.
At the center of this environment are the Ash People, or Mangkwan clan, a Na’vi group shaped by relentless scarcity and violence. They ride creatures adapted to fire and ash instead of waves, cover themselves in soot-black markings, and fight using a deliberate blend of traditional Na’vi weaponry and repurposed human tech, putting them ideologically at odds not just with the human invaders, but with other Na’vi clans who still cling to older, more spiritual ways of living with Eywa.
The story picks up with Jake and Neytiri’s family still reeling from Neteyam’s death, and the film leans hard into unresolved grief as its emotional baseline. Jake doubles down on his protector persona, treating every decision as a matter of survival, while Neytiri’s pain expresses itself as barely controlled rage, and that emotional weather trickles down to their children, who are increasingly frustrated at being treated like liabilities. The problem is that a lot of this family dysfunction was already unpacked in the second film, so instead of evolving those arcs, the script often feels like it is rehashing earlier conflicts.
The dynamic between Jake and Lo’ak is the clearest example of this repetition. Jake’s exasperation with Lo’ak’s impulsive, run-toward-the-bullets mentality resurfaces again and again, echoing arguments audiences have already seen: the father insisting his son isn’t ready, the son bristling at never being trusted. These moments still have emotional sting, but they circle the same drain so often that entire conversations could have been trimmed or removed without sacrificing character depth, and tightening that thread alone would have shaved a noticeable chunk off the runtime.
Where the film becomes more thematically interesting is in how it reframes Pandora’s conflict. Instead of a simple “Na’vi versus humans” setup, it pits the more traditional Na’vi clans—those still committed to a symbiotic relationship with Eywa—against the Ash People, whose warlike nature and embrace of human weaponry make them ideological outliers. That split plays as a pointed echo of historical events in the Americas, where European colonial powers armed and favored specific Indigenous nations to fight their neighbors, turning native communities into proxies in conflicts that ultimately benefitted outsiders more than the people doing the actual bleeding.
The analogy becomes sharper in how human forces hang back and quietly exploit these new divisions. By giving the Ash People access to superior firepower and nudging them toward confrontation, the outsiders effectively inflame existing grievances and reshape local power dynamics, much like colonial regimes once did by supplying guns and promises to one group while framing another as the enemy. The result is a Pandora that feels more fractured and politically complex, where internal Na’vi conflict is as dangerous as external invasion.
Varang, the leader of the Ash People, is one of the film’s strongest assets. She’s portrayed as a true believer who has taken real suffering and twisted it into a doctrine of purifying destruction, convinced that burning the world is the only way to save it. The character blends zealotry and charisma in a way that makes her both frightening and compelling, and she wields faith, desire, and fear as weapons with unnerving ease, giving the movie a volatile energy whenever she’s on-screen.
Her alliance with Quaritch pushes the story into darker, more uncomfortable territory. What begins as a pragmatic arrangement—a trade of firepower and influence for help tracking Jake—evolves into a twisted, intimate partnership that underlines just how far both are willing to go to achieve their goals. Their connection is meant to feel toxic and predatory, and it succeeds on that front, though some viewers may find the intensity of those scenes off-putting compared with the relatively straightforward romance and family dynamics of earlier entries.
On a craft level, the film is almost absurdly polished. Even if it no longer feels like a quantum leap in visual effects, the execution is meticulous: volcanic vistas glow with molten light, ash storms swirl with tactile grit, and the interplay of fire, smoke, and bioluminescence gives many shots a painterly quality. The action sequences rely on clear geography and patient staging, so even when the screen is full of creatures, machines, and chaos, it remains surprisingly easy to track who is where and what’s at stake.
The final act is where the movie unleashes everything it has: parallel battles on land, in the air, and over volatile seas, stitched together into a long, escalating crescendo. Familiar James Cameron signatures return—heroic last-second saves, nature itself intervening, climaxes that mirror earlier films—but the pacing of these sequences is handled with enough control that they rarely collapse into pure noise. Still, you can’t help but feel that with a leaner, more disciplined buildup, that climax would have hit even harder.
Structurally, the story leans heavily on patterns that loyal viewers will recognize. There is yet another relocation to a new culture, another period of uneasy assimilation, another slow slide into open warfare, and another sacrificial, emotionally charged finale. Whether that comes across as mythic repetition or simple recycling depends on how patient you are with Cameron’s tendency to “rhyme” his narratives rather than reinvent them.
Most of the main character arcs feel like refinements rather than reinventions. Jake remains the guilt-ridden warrior father terrified of losing his children; Lo’ak edges closer to full-on protagonist status as the reckless but big-hearted son; Kiri’s mystical bond with Eywa deepens while remaining intentionally enigmatic; and Quaritch once again fills the role of relentless, personal antagonist. With the same father–son friction repeatedly dragged back into the spotlight, the emotional landscape can feel stuck in place, and a stricter editorial hand might have refocused attention on the fresher elements—like Varang and the Ash People’s worldview.
Tonally, the film pushes into darker territory while still staying within a mainstream rating. The battles feel more brutal, with a greater emphasis on the physical cost of arrows, explosions, and close-quarters fighting, and there’s a persistent sense that no one is truly safe. That harshness extends to the emotional side as well, as the Sully family finds itself cornered into choices where every option exacts a price, reinforcing the idea that survival in this version of Pandora demands constant compromise.
Thematically, Avatar: Fire and Ash weaves together ideas about faith, extremism, and the way trauma can be weaponized. The Ash People act as a distorted mirror of earlier Na’vi cultures: a society that has taken genuine pain and turned it into an excuse for cruelty, abandoning balance in favor of cleansing violence. Layered on top of that is the divide-and-rule dynamic, where more technologically advanced outsiders stoke internal conflicts for their own advantage, mirroring how colonial powers in the Americas encouraged Indigenous groups to fight one another while expanding their control and extracting resources.
Despite all the digital wizardry, the performances still manage to cut through. Jake and Neytiri’s scenes carry the weight of years of loss and sacrifice, and there’s a believable exhaustion in the way they argue and compromise. The younger characters, especially Lo’ak and Kiri, feel more rooted and central than they did before, which helps sell the gradual shift toward a new generation, even if the script keeps dragging them back through conflicts that feel like reruns instead of genuine evolution.
At the same time, the movie sometimes undercuts its best character work in its rush to reach the next big set piece. Quieter moments that might have deepened side characters or given the Ash People’s beliefs more nuance are often compressed or sidelined, while scenes rehashing Jake and Lo’ak’s issues are allowed to run long. If the film had trusted audiences to remember the family dysfunction carried over from the second installment and cut down on repeated arguments, those smaller, richer beats could have had more space—and the whole piece would likely feel tighter and more focused.
For viewers already invested in Pandora, Avatar: Fire and Ash is clearly built for the biggest screen available: the volcanic vistas, layered sound design, and carefully staged action set pieces are all engineered to overwhelm in the best way. It delivers a darker chapter without abandoning the earnest, sometimes corny sincerity that has always defined this series, and as a conclusion to this phase of the story, it feels emotionally full even as it insists on revisiting familiar territory and stretching its narrative longer than necessary.
For more casual viewers or anyone who found the earlier films predictable, this is unlikely to be the conversion point. The structure is recognizable, the dialogue is often workmanlike rather than sharp, and the movie leans so hard into repeating certain family conflicts that it can feel like the story is padding itself instead of evolving. But if you can live with those flaws—the repetition, the length, the occasional heavy hand—the combination of technical craftsmanship, volcanic imagery, heavy emotional stakes, and that quietly pointed commentary on colonial-era divide-and-rule tactics makes Avatar: Fire and Ash a fiery, flawed, but undeniably impressive ride.
“I see now. I can’t save my family by running. This is our home. This is our fortress. This is where we make our stand.” — Jake Sully
Avatar: The Way of Water delivers jaw-dropping visuals and a sincere dive into family struggles, but it drags under its three-hour weight with repetitive plotting and uneven character depth that keeps it from breaking truly new ground.
James Cameron returns to Pandora over a decade after the original Avatar, catching up with Jake Sully and Neytiri as they’ve built a sprawling family amid fragile peace—only for human colonizers, the so-called Sky People, to crash back with upgraded tech, ruthless determination, and a deeply personal grudge led by a vengeful Colonel Quaritch reborn in Na’vi avatar form. This forces the Sullys into a desperate flight to the Metkayina, a reef-dwelling Na’vi clan whose ocean-adapted physiology and customs—broader tails for swimming, gill-like breathing aids, a deep spiritual bond with marine life—present a whole new cultural and environmental challenge, transforming the story from the first film’s jungle rebellion into a watery survival tale laced with themes of displacement and adaptation.
What truly sets the film apart, even if the story treads familiar “pursued heroes vs. imperial baddies” territory without bold twists, is how it masterfully expands the Avatar universe’s worldbuilding, turning Pandora from a singular bioluminescent jungle into a teeming planet with diverse ecosystems and cultures. The Metkayina villages perch on floating lattices of woven kelp and coral, lit by phosphorescent anemones pulsing like underwater stars, while daily life revolves around symbiotic ties with ilu (skittish six-finned mounts) and skimwings (leathery ocean skimmers); nomadic Tulkun society—intelligent, philosophical whale-like beings communicating via sonic songs—clings to a strict non-violence “tulkun way” brutally shattered by human whalers.
These layers emerge organically through the Sullys’ awkward integration, like mastering fluid sign language or breath-holds for deep dives, and the spectacle dazzles relentlessly, powered by advancements in hyperrealistic CG that continue to erode the uncanny valley effect on characters—Na’vi faces now convey micro-expressions of pain, joy, and exhaustion with lifelike subtlety, their skin textures responding to water and light in ways that feel organic rather than synthetic.
Bioluminescent reefs glow in electric blues and greens, iridescent fish schools dart through sun-dappled shallows, and massive Tulkun glide with skyscraper grace and scarred hides. Cameron’s pioneering underwater motion capture—actors in massive tanks layered with tactile CG—makes every bubble, flipper stroke, and coral sway palpably real, as Na’vi teens free-dive twisting kelp forests and maze-like atolls in lung-burning tension. The film also pushes 3D technology to new heights since the first film, baked natively into every frame rather than tacked on as a post-production gimmick—this integral approach ensures depth pops organically, from swirling plankton clouds enveloping swimmers to layered reef foregrounds framing distant horizons.
The action peaks in the third-act frenzy of ship crashes against waves, flare-lit dogfights, Tulkun rams crumpling hulls, and a claustrophobic flooding vessel breach where air dwindles second-by-second. Cameron’s chaos clarity—echoing The Abyss or Titanic—ties stakes to family peril, amplified by thundering sound (crashing surf, whale calls, Na’vi gasps) and Jon Landau’s IMAX polish into sensory overload.
Family drives the lived-in, flawed emotional core: Jake (Sam Worthington’s gravelly gravitas) wrestles fatherhood’s math—stern orders backfiring into guilt—as he clashes with impulsive Lo’ak (Britain Dalton’s sulky edge), whose outsider rage forges a bond with scarred Tulkun Payakan, flipping “monster” tropes for real agency; dutiful Neteyam buckles under expectations, innocent Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss) witnesses horrors, and mystic Kiri—Grace’s avatar-born daughter linked to Eywa—teases lore like planetary souls, while Neytiri (Zoe Saldana’s fiery sorrow) simmers with grief-fueled, mama-bear savagery, her outbursts piercing deeper than rifles.
These arcs convert invasions into gut punches on protection, belonging, parental failures, and war’s selfish costs—specific melodrama over generic heroism. Yet simplicity amplifies flaws over runtime: a chase loop (hunts, hides, teen trouble, repeat) grates, with middle sags of cultural lessons (sign language, ilu taming, Tulkun reverence) feeling like filler; humans are greed caricatures—whalers gutting pacifists for longevity goo amrita, suits enabling genocide—lacking nuance despite Earth’s biosphere desperation nods, preaching eco-colonialism to the choir. Neytiri gets benched post-roars (a co-lead letdown), Quaritch dangles complexity (death memories, Spider ties) but snarls relentlessly; reef archetypes (wise Tonowari, omen-Ronal, bully-to-ally Aonung) lopsided the cast, Tulkun elders out-nuancing humans.
The film’s themes land with sincere force: whaling atrocities, from harpooned flesh and bloodied seas to a mother’s primal rage, hammer home human irredeemability without much subtlety, while family adaptation explores “forest people” taunts, strained bonds, and Eywa’s mystical interventions that weave personal growth into planetary balance—heartfelt without ironic quips, either refreshing in its earnestness or manipulative depending on your taste. Pacing remains deeply polarizing, offering immersive vibes for world-huggers who savor the slow builds but feeling bloated and front/back-loaded for plot purists impatient with the expansion-heavy middle.
Ultimately, Avatar: The Way of Water triumphs as a visual banquet and saga extender, hooking viewers with its aquatic marvels, raw parental fears, peerless craft (hyperreal CG and improved 3D elevating it), and smart universe growth through new clans, beasts, and lore seeds—all sans true narrative reinvention, as bloated length, repetitive echoes, and flat foes keep it from pantheon status. Fans of Pandora dive in sated; skeptics surface impressed by the technical wizardry yet impatient with the sprawl. It’s pure Cameron—huge swings promising more sequels ahead. Worth submerging for the spectacle.
In the 1999 Best Picture Nominee, The Insider, the American media takes a beating.
Al Pacino plays Lowell Bergman. Bergman is a veteran newsman who, for several years, has been employed as a producer at 60 Minutes. He is a strong believer in the importance of the free press and he’s proud to be associated with both 60 Minutes and CBS News. He’s one of the few people who can manage the famously prickly correspondent, Mike Wallace (Christopher Plummer). When we first see Bergman, he and Wallace are in the Middle East and arranging a tense interview with the head of Hezbollah. It’s easy to see that Bergman is someone who will go anywhere and take any risk to get a story. It’s also apparent that Bergman thinks that the people that he works with feel the same way.
That all changes when Bergman meets Jeffery Wigand (Russell Crowe), a recently fired tobacco company executive who initially agrees to serve as a consultant for one of Bergman’s story but who leaves Bergman intrigued when he reveals that, due to a strict confidentiality agreement, he’s not allowed to discuss anything about his time as an executive. As the tobacco companies are currently being sued by ambitious state attorney generals like Mississippi’s Mike Moore (who plays himself in the film), Bergman suspects that Wigand knows something that the companies don’t want revealed.
And, of course, Bergman is right. Wigand was fired for specifically objecting to his company’s effort to make cigarettes more addictive, something that the tobacco industry had long claimed it wasn’t doing. Wigand’s pride was hurt when he was fired but he knows that breaking the confidentiality agreement will mean losing his severance package and also possibly losing his marriage to Liane (Diane Venora) as well. However, Wigand is angered by the heavy-handed techniques that his former employer uses to try to intimidate him. He suspects that he’s being followed and he can’t even work out his frustrations by hitting a few golf balls without someone watching him. When Wigand starts to get threats and even receives a bullet in the mail, he decides to both testify in court and give an interview to Wallace and 60 Minutes.
The only problem is that CBS, after being pressured by their lawyers and facing the risk of taking a financial loss in an upcoming sell, decides not to run the interview. Bergman is outraged and assumes that both Mike Wallace and veteran 60 Minutes producer Don Hewitt (Philip Baker Hall) will support him. Instead, both Wallace and Hewitt side with CBS. Left out in the cold is Jeffrey Wigand, who has sacrificed almost everything and now finds himself being attacked as merely a disgruntled employee.
Directed by Michael Mann and based on a true story, The Insider is what is usually described as being “a movie for adults.” Instead of dealing with car chases and super villains and huge action set pieces, The Insider is a film about ethics and what happens when a major media outlet like CBS News fails to live up to those ethics. (No one is surprised when the tobacco company tries to intimidate and silence Wigand but the film makes clear that people — or at least people in the 90s — expected and hoped for more from the American press.) Wigand puts his trust in Bergman and 60 Minutes largely because he believed Bergman’s promise that he would be allowed to tell his story. It’s a promise that Bergman made in good faith but, in the end, everyone from the CBS executives to the tobacco companies is more interested in protecting their own financial future than actually telling the truth. Wigand loses his family and his comfortable lifestyle and Bergman loses his faith in the network of Edward R. Murrow. It’s not a particularly happy film but it is a well-made and thought-provoking one.
Pacino and Crowe both give excellent performances in the two lead roles. Pacino, because he spends most of the film outraged, has the flashier role while Crowe plays Wigand as a rather mild-mannered man who suddenly finds himself in the middle of a national news story. (Crowe’s performance here is one of his best, precisely because it really is the opposite of what most people expect from him.) Crowe does not play Wigand as being a crusader but instead, as an ordinary guy who at times resents being put in the position of a whistleblower. (Director Mann does not shy away from showing how Bergman manipulates, the reluctant Wigand into finally testifying, even if Bergman’s motives were ultimately not malicious.) That said, the strongest performance comes from Christopher Plummer, who at first seems to be playing Mike Wallace as being the epitome of the pompous television newsman but who eventually reveals the truth underneath Wallace’s sometimes fearsome exterior.
The Insider was nominated for Best Picture. Somehow, it lost to American Beauty.
What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable or Netflix? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!
If you were having trouble getting to sleep last night (or this night, for that matter), you could have turned over to Netflix and passed the time watching True Spirit, a rather wholesome biopic from Australia.
Teagan Croft stars as Jessica Watson, who, at the age of 16, became the youngest person ever to sail solo, non-stop around the world. For Jessica, it was not only the fulfilment of a childhood dream but it was also a true test of survival as, towards the end of her journey, she got trapped in a very violent storm and, at one point, her boat was actually 15 feet below the surface of the ocean. For the nation of Australia, it was a moment of great pride despite the fact that many of the same people who celebrated Jessica’s accomplishment had earlier tried to prevent her from making the journey. (Indeed, the film suggests that one reason why Jessica was in such a hurry to start her voyage was because the Queensland legislature was literally putting together a bill that, once passed, would have made it illegal for her to do so.) The film begins with Jessica already in training for her voyage. One mistake during a trial run leads to her boat nearly crashing into a tanker, a reminder that, as beautiful as the ocean may be, it can still be a dangerous place. With the help of Ben Bryant (Cliff Curtis) and the support her parents (Anna Paquin and Josh Lawson), Jessica is determined to make her voyage. She not only wants to set a world record but she also wants to prove that, even though she’s dyslexic, she can still accomplish anything that she sets her mind too.
There’s really nothing that surprising to be found in True Spirit. Even if you didn’t already know the true story on which the film was based, you wouldn’t be surprised by how Jessica’s voyage goes. But, at the same time, it’s a well-intentioned and almost achingly sincere film, one that celebrates a worthy accomplishment and which features a likable lead performance from Teagan Croft. It’s a film that is determined to focus on the positive, though it certainly doesn’t shy away from the fact that nature can be frightening and unpredictable. There’s nothing particularly edgy about True Spirit. Despite a nicely executed storm scene, this isn’t All is Lost. But it will hold your attention and it’ll probably leave you in a good mood. It did for me!
Finally, I can’t complete this review without mentioning that Todd Lasance plays a rather obnoxious television journalist named Atherton. Would it be too much to hope that his name was meant to be a reference to William Atherton, who played a similar reporter in the first two Die Hards?
James Cameron is still out there, trying to push the envelope.
My showing of Avatar: The Way of Water was not only 3D, but in HFR (High Frame Rate), which threw me for a loop. The only other movie I’ve ever watched on a large screen in HFR was The Desolation of Smaug and what was by mistake. The underwater scenes in the film are a sight to behold, but your eyes and mind need to adjust to it. HFR is that thing Christopher McQuarrie and Tom Cruise warned us all about earlier this year, the feature on most modern tv’s that enable a ‘smoothing’ effect. Films that normally look grainy are suddenly “live” under the HFR. It works really well for nature shows and sports events, and with a land as lush as Pandora, it’s good if you know what it is. I’m just not sure how well that will translate for audiences at home or for individuals who are new to it all. I can’t even begin to know what the underwater shooting was like for this film. James Cameron is known to be hard on his cast & crew. Ed Harris supposedly decked him once on the set of The Abyss and Mary Elizabeth Mastratonio once walked off set after they had a film issue on one point. I want to say that whatever they went through for The Way of Water seems to have paid off, but the state of movie theatres overall may have something else to say about that.
There were maybe only 3 people in my 3pm showing, and they seemed to stay for it. I know Cameron wants to save it all, but I feel the theatre experience is still dying. That’s a discussion all it’s own, but not here and now.
The Way of Water finds us having moved on some years after the events of the first film. Jake (Sam Worthington, Man on a Ledge) and Neytiri (Zoë Zaldaña, Guardians of the Galaxy) have a family of five now, living amongst the Omaticaya clan of Na’vi in the lands they moved to since losing Hometree in the first film. The boys, Neteyam (Jamie Flatters, Black Dog) and Lo’ak (Britian Dalton, Ready Player One) are like teenage Marines in training, dutifully following their dad’s orders up until the point where curiousity gets the best of them. The daughters, Kiri (Sigourney Weaver, Aliens) and little Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss), take a bit after their mom in some ways. There’s also Spider (Jack Champion, The Night Sitter), a young human who is close to Kiri. When humans return to Pandora, the Sullys find themselves once again under attack and on the run, colonization being the big bad it always was. Jake’s just trying to protect his family as best he can, something any parent can relate to. This takes them to a separate water based Na’vi tribe that takes them in and shows them their way of life. That, I really enjoyed. Though I’m mostly a loner at heart, seeing families and communities gel and work together plucks all the right heartstrings for me. There’s nothing that good teamwork can’t resolve and the story keeps circling that with Cameron’s “Family as a Fortress” theme.
If the Saw Movies taught us anything, it’s that you can always expand on a single story with fillers. They took one film, and weaved tons of side points without damaging the main thread. The Fast & Furious films did the same, making sure to keep the continuity, while adding additional content in between. Cameron had four other writers on board along with himself – Shane Salerno (Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem), Amanda Silver (War of the Planet of the Apes), Rick Jaffa (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes), and Josh Friedman (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles). With The Way of Water, I felt they were pretty successful at doing the same. The film even plants a few seeds here and there for future installments, should Cameron get the green light to go forward with his other 3 films.
If the plot suffers from any problems, it’s that they also took a page out of the Top Gun: Maverick flight manual in following the first film’s flow a little too closely. While The Way of Water has a plethora of new content – vehicles, machines, animals, locales – the story still moves along the path of the first film, making it just a little predictable. I was able to call out two scenes before they occurred. Other than those moments, I spent most of the film either really worrying about the Sully family – they’re outgunned, after all – and marveling at the views.
The editing is also a little weird. I understand this is a big undertaking, but some of the cuts between scenes seemed really abrupt to me, as if someone said…”This scene is out to explain this..you got it?! Good! Moving on to the next…” ..while the audience is still frantically taking notes on what just happened. At 3 hours and 12 minutes (just 11 minutes longer than Avengers: Endgame), there’s a lot to see, but I felt the pacing was okay. If there’s any part of the movie that could be used for a bathroom break, there is an extended sequence with a whale-like creature that could be your best opening. The movie might require more than one viewing to take it all in, but perhaps this is Cameron’s plan all along. One never truly knows.
The sound in The Way of Water was good. Explosions are sharp, animal sounds are cute and the hissing/wailing of Na’vi are clear (though strangely annoying after a while – we get it, you’re in pain or angry, ). The one element I was concerned with was the music. With James Horner’s passing in 2015, those shoes would be a little hard to fill. I originally hoped that Marc Streitenfeld would get the nod, based of his work on Prometheus. Composer Simon Franglen picks up where Horner left off, having worked together on the original Avatar score. Franglen knocks it out of the park, with a score that pays homage to Horner’s work while still making it his own sound.
The Way of Water introduces some new characters and cast. In addition to those previously mentioned, we also have Kate Winslet (Titanic) and Cliff Curtis (Sunshine) as the leaders of the Water Na’vi. Bailey Bass (Claudia in AMC’s Interview With the Vampire) plays their daughter, who helps to train the Sully children. Edie Falco (Nurse Jackie) is on board as a General charged with operations on Pandora. Jermaine Clement (What We Do In The Shadows) is also on hand as a marine scientist. Although everyone’s performances are good, the movie really belongs to the Sully children, with Weaver’s Kiri being the standout. Kiri’s a great character, reminding me a lot of Jinora from The Legend of Korra, and her story arc might be the best one of the lot.
Overall, Avatar The Way of Water is some serious eye candy. You might feel a little sad coming back to Earth after all the wonder Pandora has to offer. Disney could go wild on the merchandizing on this if they wanted (and they probably will). It manages to drop a number of surprises and information on the audience, though the overall trip may be a little too similar to the first film. I’m hoping Cameron gets the 3rd film set.
If I asked you about Stephen King’s The Shining, would the book or the film come to mind?
When it comes to adapting Stephen King’s stories to film, it’s not an easy feat. King himself had a problem turning his own short story “Trucks” into something good when he directed Maximum Overdrive. For every great film like Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, or It-Chapter One, we occasionally get a misstep like The Dark Tower or It-Chapter Two. As King can sometimes get wordy in his books, I’ve felt the best adaptations were the ones where the director’s own vision came into play. Kubrick made a number or changes to King’s story, including the Grady twins and the hedge maze, which were never in the novel. The film is so widely recognized that most people recall events in the movie, rather than the book. That’s the effect Kubrick had.
With Doctor Sleep, Mike Flanagan once again proves he’s a fantastic fit for King. The film moves at a great pace, with great performances by Rebecca Ferguson and newcomer Kyliegh Curran. In an age where audiences are typically quiet, the applause that occurred in scenes during last night’s preview screening were great to hear. The film manages to pay homage to Kubrick’s The Shining and King’s Novel of Doctor Sleep while still completely showcasing Flanagan’s vision. Of course, we already knew this from Flanagan taking on King’s own Gerald’s Game and Netflix’s The Haunting of Hill House. One might even argue that for this film, we may in time recall Flanagan’s tale more clearly than King’s.
Doctor Sleep takes place after the events of The Shining, with Dan Torrance (Ewan McGregor) suffering from the same demons that plagued his father, Jack. Although the keeps to himself, he drinks too much, gets into brawls, and is unable to hold down decent work. Dan is also haunted by the Overlook Hotel, and the power that drew the souls to him known as The Shining. The Shining (or just the Shine) is a coveted power in King’s lore. When a group of nomads that feed on the Shine (in a way that’s reminiscent of Mick Garris’ Sleepwalkers) discover a girl with the same ability, Dan is brought out of hiding.
Fans of the original Kubrick film will see there’s a lot of love here. You’ll be able to count some of the references to The Shining, from objects in a room to different locales. For casting, Flanagan uses a mixture of old favorites and new faces. You’ll recognize some of them right from the start, such as Bruce Greenwood and Violet McGraw. Others, like Jacob Tremblay (The Predator) are welcome additions. Rather than relying on footage from the original Shining, Flanagan recreates certain elements with new cast members, which I felt worked extremely well here. I’m not sure how others will take it.
Ewan McGregor is good in the role of Dan Torrance, which feels more like his Mark Renton character from Trainspotting than anything else to me. This isn’t a bad thing, but it works. The film truly belongs to both Rebecca Ferguson (Mission Impossible: Fallout) and Kyliegh Curran. Ferguson’s Rose the Hat is a wicked villain, and she carries the role with a sinister, yet stylish flair. Ferguson has some of the best scenes in the film, particularly when paired with Zahn McClarnon (Midnight, Texas and Westworld), who plays Crow Daddy. Kyliegh Curran chews up the scenes she’s in, easily handling screen time with McGregor and Ferguson like a pro. Rounding out the cast are Cliff Curtis (Sunshine), Carl Lumbly (Mantis) and Emily Alyn Lind (The Babysitter).
Dan Torrance (Ewan McGregor) can’t run from his past in Mike Flanagan’s Doctor Sleep.
As for the fear factor, there is some terror in the hunt for Abra and the way that the group interact. Doctor Sleep doesn’t have much in the way of jump scares, but makes up for it with some tense moments. I didn’t feel as scared as I did with It-Chapter One, but I cared enough about the characters to worry about how the story was going to turn out. That might be a turn off for those expecting to watch the movie from between their fingers or run out of the theatre screaming. If you enjoyed Flanagan’s other works, such as Hush or Oculus, you’ll be fine.
Speaking of Hush, Doctor Sleep lacks a Kate Siegel cameo. Flanagan is Siegel’s partner in crime (and husband). Together, they’ve been in almost every film they’d done. I’ve gotten used to going “Oh, there’s Kate!”, while watching his films. It’s not an issue at all, but it would’ve been cool to see her.
The camera work for Doctor Sleep is very even, though there are a few special effects scenes that really stand out and picked up some applause (or gasps) once they were over. The one main drawback I had with the film was that it was a little difficult to keep up with all of the locations and time periods early on. Even though everything’s clearly labeled, it took me a moment to recognize just where and when things were occurring. Not a terrible thing, though.
Overall, Doctor Sleep is an easy film to recommend. It has some great performances, and manages to be a great follow up to The Shining, while showing a lot of love for the source material.
Doctor Sleep hits cinemas on Friday, November 8th, and I’ll make a return visit.
Here are six mini-reviews of six films that I saw in 2016!
Alice Through The Looking Glass (dir by James Bobin)
In a word — BORING!
Personally, I’ve always thought that, as a work of literature, Through The Looking Glass is actually superior to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. That’s largely because Through The Looking Glass is a lot darker than Wonderland and the satire is a lot more fierce. You wouldn’t know that from watching the latest film adaptation, though. Alice Through The Looking Glass doesn’t really seem to care much about the source material. Instead, it’s all about making money and if that means ignoring everything that made the story a classic and instead turning it into a rip-off of every other recent blockbuster, so be it. At times, I wondered if I was watching a film based on Lewis Carroll or a film based on Suicide Squad. Well, regardless, the whole enterprise is way too cynical to really enjoy.
(On the plus side, the CGI is fairly well-done. If you listen, you’ll hear the voice of Alan Rickman.)
Gods of Egypt (dir by Alex Proyas)
I don’t even know where to begin when it comes to describing the plot of Gods of Egypt. This was one of the most confusing films that I’ve ever seen but then again, I’m also not exactly an expert when it comes to Egyptian mythology. As far as I could tell, it was about Egyptian Gods fighting some sort of war with each other but I was never quite sure who was who or why they were fighting or anything else. My ADHD went crazy while I was watching Gods of Egypt. There were so much plot and so many superfluous distractions that I couldn’t really concentrate on what the Hell was actually going on.
But you know what? With all that in mind, Gods of Egypt is still not as bad as you’ve heard. It’s a big and ludicrous film but ultimately, it’s so big and so ludicrous that it becomes oddly charming. Director Alex Proyas had a definite vision in mind when he made this film and that alone makes Gods of Egypt better than some of the other films that I’m reviewing in this post.
Is Gods of Egypt so bad that its good? I wouldn’t necessarily say that. Instead, I would say that it’s so ludicrous that it’s unexpectedly watchable.
The Huntsman: Winter’s War (dir by Cedric Nicolas-Troyan)
Bleh. Who cares? I mean, I hate to put it like that but The Huntsman: Winter’s War felt pretty much like every other wannabe blockbuster that was released in April of last year. Big battles, big cast, big visuals, big production but the movie itself was way too predictable to be interesting.
Did we really need a follow-up to Snow White and The Huntsman? Judging by this film, we did not.
Me Before You (dir by Thea Sharrock)
Me Before You was assisted suicide propaganda, disguised as a Nicolas Sparks-style love story. Emilia Clarke is hired to serve as a caregiver to a paralyzed and bitter former banker played by Sam Claflin. At first they hate each other but then they love each other but it may be too late because Claflin is determined to end his life in Switzerland. Trying to change his mind, Clarke tries to prove to him that it’s a big beautiful world out there. Claflin appreciates the effort but it turns out that he really, really wants to die. It helps, of course, that Switzerland is a really beautiful and romantic country. I mean, if you’re going to end your life, Switzerland is the place to do it. Take that, Sea of Trees.
Anyway, Me Before You makes its points with all the subtlety and nuance of a sledge-hammer that’s been borrowed from the Final Exit Network. It doesn’t help that Clarke and Claflin have next to no chemistry. Even without all the propaganda, Me Before You would have been forgettable. The propaganda just pushes the movie over the line that separates mediocre from terrible.
Mother’s Day (dir by Garry Marshall)
Y’know, the only reason that I’ve put off writing about how much I hated this film is because Garry Marshall died shortly after it was released and I read so many tweets and interviews from people talking about what a nice and sincere guy he was that I actually started to feel guilty for hating his final movie.
But seriously, Mother’s Day was really bad. This was the third of Marshall’s holiday films. All three of them were ensemble pieces that ascribed a ludicrous amount of importance to one particular holiday. None of them were any good, largely because they all felt like cynical cash-ins. If you didn’t see Valentine’s Day, you hated love. If you didn’t see New Year’s Eve, you didn’t care about the future of the world. And if you didn’t see Mother’s Day … well, let’s just not go there, okay?
Mother’s Day takes place in Atlanta and it deals with a group of people who are all either mothers or dealing with a mother. The ensemble is made up of familiar faces — Jennifer Aniston, Julia Roberts, Kate Hudson, and others! — but nobody really seems to be making much of an effort to act. Instead, they simple show up, recite a few lines in whatever their trademark style may be, and then cash their paycheck. The whole thing feels so incredibly manipulative and shallow and fake that it leaves you wondering if maybe all future holidays should be canceled.
I know Garry Marshall was a great guy but seriously, Mother’s Day is just the worst.
As far as recent Biblical films go, Risen is not that bad. It takes place shortly after the Crucifixion and stars Joseph Fiennes as a Roman centurion who is assigned to discover why the body of Jesus has disappeared from its tomb. You can probably guess what happens next. The film may be a little bit heavy-handed but the Roman Empire is convincingly recreated, Joseph Fiennes gives a pretty good performance, and Kevin Reynolds keeps the action moving quickly. As a faith-based film that never becomes preachy, Risen is far superior to something like God’s Not Dead 2.
“Sometimes all we can do is not enough.” — Dr. Bethany Exner
[some spoilers]
Fear the Walking Dead has been a mystery to some audiences and critics. If there was something the original series was criticized on it was that it’s writing throughout it’s current run has been uneven. There would be some great episodes and some good ones, but then some go nowhere episodes that stops any sort of momentum a particular season was having. The Walking Dead deserved some of the criticism leveled at it’s writing and how some of it’s characters appeared one-note for too long. Things began to improve once Scott M. Gimple took over a showrunner beginning with season 4. yet, some of the damage had been done by a very uneven first three season.
One thing The Walking Dead was never lacking was it’s creativity when it came to the zombies and the violence around them. Greg Nicotero and his KNB EFX crew never flinched from whatever hellish idea the writers were able to come up with. It’s probably one of the main reasons why the show has succeeded so much despite flaws in the writing and characterization. People were willing to tolerate the soap opera-style character interactions if it meant the flesh-eating and the headshots came a-plenty.
The first half of Fear the Walking Dead didn’t have much of the zombie action. It was a bold decision by the writers to stay on the path that brought the early days of the zombie apocalypse to life. This was a show that didn’t already have zombies taking over and with civilization having fallen by the wayside. It was still a world where everyone went about their daily routines. Sure the first episode gave some hints that something was amiss, but not until the final minutes did we finally see our first zombie. Even after that initial reveal at the end of the pilot the writers kept the zombies more off-screen. When they did appear it was as one or two.
Episodes four and five, “Not Fade Away” and “Cobalt”, continued this trend of keeping the zombies at arm’s length and off-screen. We saw Travis and Madison’s neighborhood turned into a safe zone by the National Guard who had been deployed to help contain and combat the spreading infection. Some took the military’s arrival with optimism (Travis) while others saw their arrival as a sign that things were just going to get worse and that things might already be too late to save (Daniel).
These two episodes were some of the strongest in this shortened first season of Fear the Walking Dead. We got to learn more about every character, but mostly we learned just how differently each parent of the core group reacted to the growing situation. These were reactions that were as varied and complex as any we’ve seen in any of the characters in The Walking Dead.
Each parent tried to do what they thought was best for their immediate family. On one end of the moral spectrum we had Travis who tried to serve as a sort of de facto mayor of the walled-off neighborhood. Become the person that would be the one who dealt with the military liaison when it came to his family’s and, to an extent, the neighborhood’s well-being. So far, throughout the this short first season, Travis has come across as the sort of enlightened, civilized man who tries to reason and talk things out instead of acting out rashly and on instinct. This sort of personality is what we as a society want to keep the wheels of civilization moving along problem-free. But as we’ve seen this has also become a weakness as things progressively begin to get worst. Travis can’t seem to see that the rule of law and reason seem to be fighting a losing battle with the need to survive.
Yet, despite Travis’ coming off as some sort of pacifist we get a hint of logic to his seeming weak-willed madness. He sees the world crumbling around him and as a father and role model he has tried to be that moral center to his circle of family and friends. Even when what he’s seeing chips away at his belief that those in power will protect and save them, Travis tries to remain that strong, moral center.
The opposite seems to be true for the other father in our group, Daniel Salazar. This character has been quite the revelation in this series. We first meet him in episode 2. He comes across as a leery, but good man like any immigrant in the US looking to make a new life for his family. But with each new episode we learn a bit more of what makes Daniel tick. He’s a father whose past history before coming to the US hints at chaos and bloodshed. He has seen how crisis could spiral out of control in a blink of the eye and he sees that now with the arrival of the military. He doesn’t trust too many outside his wife and daughter and when he does, as the case with Madison, he does so begrudgingly. He’s adaptable to the ever-changing situation the way Travis is not. He’s willing to resort to immediate action to solve a problem or to find a solution. There’s a darkness in him that’s the current situation has awoken once more and it terrifies him, but he allows it to emerge nonetheless in order to keep his family safe.
Throughout these two episodes we see the recurring theme of authority in its many forms (parental, civilian and military) trying to do their best to keep the situation from spiraling out of control, but they despite all their efforts they fail due to that basic flaw that humanity can’t seem to shred and that’s the inability to work together at the most dire situation to solve the problem.
Both Travis and Daniel try to do the best they know how to navigate through and around the encroaching apocalypse. They succeed in some way, but in the end all their efforts still don’t amount to much as everything right from the start of the crisis has been stacked against them. All they could do now is try and save those closest to them.
The question now as we head into the season finale is whose path will ultimately be the best one to navigate in this apocalypse.
Will it be the Way of the Open Palm that we seem be getting from Travis?
A path of sticking to one’s moral center and principles. To try and keep oneself from sliding back into one’s darker impulses as we’ve seen signs of in these two episodes.
Or will it be the Way of the Closed Fist that Daniel seem to be following?
A mentality that requires quick thinking and direct action even if it means allowing one’s darker side to take hold in order to survive. It’s a path that looks to be well-suited for this apocalypse, but one that also brings with it a set of unknown dangers.
So, while the series has so far lacked in major zombie action and the gore quotient has been tame in comparison to The Walking Dead, it has one-upped it’s older sibling by allowing for it’s cast to grow as characters. Whether they all turn out for the better remains to be seen, but in the span of 5 episodes they’ve become full-fledged characters and now the finale will see who will remain steadfast and who will break.
Notes
“Not Fade Away” and “Cobalt” were directed by Kari Skogland. Meagan Oppenheimer has writing duties on the former with David Wiener being responsible for the latter.
It’s been nine days since the events of episode 3 and it looks like both the National Guardsmen and the neighborhood are fraying at the edges. It doesn’t help that the unit commander is a reservist who also happens to be an LAPD policeman on a power-trip.
Still no sign of Tobias. It looks like his own place might be located in the unsafe and unwalled “dead zones” the military have been doing sweeping patrols for the past nine days.
Sandrine Holt comes in as Dr. Bethany Exner. Not her first time in a zombie production. She was also in Resident Evil: Apocalypse as Raccoon City news reported Terri Morales.
Ruben Blades is turning out to be the MVP of the series, so far. I guess being a government torturer in his native El Salvador during it’s time of troubles is turning to be a good skillset in the coming zombie apocalypse.
“Good people are the first ones to die.” — Daniel Salazar
[some spoilers]
After a two week break we’re finally back to a new episode of Fear the Walking Dead. The show has so far been very consistent in establishing one simple fact about the most of the cast in this companion series. They are, deep down in their hearts, very good people. Travis is very much your typical enlightened man who shows compassion towards his family and others. Madison loves her family no matter the sort of trouble they find themselves in. The show in it’s third episode seem very intent on pushing against their very good-nature to see who will be the first to break.
“The Dog” finds both Travis and Madison separated during what looks like the first major outbreak of the zombie apocalypse. Travis has just found his estranged son and with his ex-wife have had to seek refuge in the boarded up barbershop of one Daniel Salazar and his own family. Madison waits back home in their East L.A. suburban home with her own two children. With such a truncated season the episode doesn’t wait too long to put the families of both Travis and Daniel in danger. The riots which broke out during the last episode have begun to spun out of control and businesses in the neighborhood have begun to get looted and burned. It’s during their attempt to flee the riot zone that we see the extent of the damaged caused by the continuing riots and more signs that rioters won’t be the only danger around these two men’s families.
Back with Madison we see her attempting to shield her daughter from the truth of what she has seen during the day (it’s been less than two days in series timeline since the events of the pilot episode). Her son Nick seems to understand more of what’s truly going on around them and is more than willing to be the one to voice the ugly truth to his mother. If they’re to survive the storm that’s coming then she needs to tell Alicia what she has seen. As with the events around Travis, Madison and her kids must soon flee their own home when an infected and turned neighbor has decided to follow the barking of a dog Nick had let into their home.
Both sequences were edited with equal amount of tense-filled moments as Travis and Madison must rely on their protective instincts to try and keep their respective families safe. The scenes with Travis and his group fleeing the barbershop have much more of an action tone to them as rioters, looters and police clash all around their group. With the Clark family it’s a sequence that wouldn’t seem out of place from any horror film. We see how resourceful Madison is starting to become since her time during the visit back at her high school in the previous episode. Some of this resourcefulness seem born out of keeping up with her junkie son Nick who has taken the initiative to do the the best thing to keep the family alive.
The writers have so far written up Nick not just as a troubled, loser drug-addict of a son, but as a survivor. His very addiction and time spent out on the streets feeding his habit has given him a sort of advanced survivor instinct that many around him still haven’t developed. It’s very clear from the first half of the season that his sister Alicia is still quite clueless to the events happening around her. She still believes that she must cut loose from her troubled family and be with her boyfriend to start a new life. Even after seeing the results of those infected, one of which happens to be her boyfriend Matt, Alicia still denies what she has seen and heard. Madison, on the other hand, has had some first-hand experience of what’s going on and has begun to fully believe Nick and gradually adapting to the new reality descending on her family and the world.
Travis, on the other hand, continues to cling to his inner goodness. His compassion for his neighbor Peter Dawson, who he finds in Madison’s home eating the remains of the barking dog that attracted him to the house, almost gets him killed if not for the fast thinking of Daniel Salazar. We see contrasting fathers in Travis and Daniel in this sequence. Travis’ good-nature almost gets him killed while Daniel’s more pragmatic approach to the deteriorating situation around them saves everyone. Even the scene where Daniel tries to teach Travis’ son how to handle the shotgun speaks volume on the differences between the two men.
Travis is the enlightened and educated man who abhors guns and violence. Daniel, we learn through some brief exposition, has survived his home country or El Salvador when many of his family didn’t and has carved out a life for his family in a new country. Travis still thinks that those in power will settle things and get everything back to normal. He even comments in the end of the episode that the cavalry has arrived when the National Guard pulls into the neighborhood to search, isolate and destroy the infected. Daniel sees this and knows that whatever has begun with the riots has spun out of control and too late for everyone still hoping for a peaceful resolution.
Fear the Walking Dead has had a tough task of making itself feel both new and familiar to fans. On the one hand, the series does feel new from the fact that this is a world still inhabited mostly by the living. It’s a world still unaware of the storm bearing down on it. Yes, we’ve seen instances of zombies making an appearance, but never in the large numbers audiences have become used to from it’s parent series The Walking Dead. The familiarity comes from the audience seeing the chaos caused by these first moments of the zombie apocalypse. We as an audience has seen the result once civilization finally broke down. We know the rules of this world even if most of the characters in the show are oblivious or slowly learning about them.
It’s that very familiarity that could make or break the series. So far, the series writers have made each character’s reaction to the events these past couple days range from dangerously naive (Alicia) to hard survivor (Tobias) and everyone in-between. While for some viewers the very naivete that some characters exhibit despite what they’ve seen or heard could become frustrating, it does sow the seeds in filling in the blanks of why civilization fell. Mistrust helps in the populace not believing what those in power has been telling them. Yet, it looks like misguided optimism and compassion also might have had a hand in speeding up the zombie apocalypse.
We’re now halfway through the first season of Fear the Walking Dead and things have begun to move along faster than it’s parent series did with it’s first season. We still have slower scenes with people just talking, but the writers never linger too long before ramping up the tension. This companion series has had the advantage of working with a world still learning the rules which makes for some dread-inducing scenes which the parent series rarely had. With the back-end episodes of series set to start it’ll be interesting to see if the writers will continue to mine the theme and focus of this first season.
Will the good people be the first to die and if they don’t then how will these horrific events change them? Will it be for the better or for the worst?
We will just have to tune in the next three Sundays and see what happens.
Notes
Tonight’s episode was written by Jack LoGiudice and directed by Adam Davidson.
Nice sequence after fleeing the barbershop as Travis and his group slowly drive past a hospital and see the chaos unfolding as zombies (looking like both patients and healthcare workers) were confronted by responding LA police and SWAT. Earlier in this sequence we even see a brief glimpse of a doctor who looks to be a zombie staggering amongst the fleeing civilians and responding police yet remaining unnoticed by both.
The rioting, once we see it in full, doesn’t show whether the chaos is due just to the rioting or to the zombies amongst the rioters and riot police causing their own form of disturbance.
Neighbor Pete Dawnson being put down by Daniel Salazar with both barrels from an over-under Turkish shotgun marks the arrival of the series’ first gory moment. Some very nice work by the effects gurus from KNB EFX.
The point-blank headshot of Pete via shotgun blast was a nice homage to a similar shotgun blast to the head in the original Dawn of the Dead.
Funny how even though people heard the two shotgun blasts and the screams of their neighbors from the night earlier, some of them seem to still have to take the garbage out in the morning. I guess living in the city with it’s constant sounds of gunshots and screams have become routine for these Los Angelinos.
I guess the neighbor who had the party for their girl the day before and who was being attacked by neighbor Pete Dawson didn’t survive the night uninfected if the markings left by the National Guard was to be believed.
When it comes to adapting Stephen King’s stories to film, it’s not an easy feat. King himself had a problem turning his own short story “Trucks” into something good when he directed Maximum Overdrive. For every great film like Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, or It-Chapter One, we occasionally get a misstep like The Dark Tower or It-Chapter Two. As King can sometimes get wordy in his books, I’ve felt the best adaptations were the ones where the director’s own vision came into play. Kubrick made a number or changes to King’s story, including the Grady twins and the hedge maze, which were never in the novel. The film is so widely recognized that most people recall events in the movie, rather than the book. That’s the effect Kubrick had. 
Through the Shattered Lens 