Luke Cage - Review

Dull, boring, illogical. Avoid.

The latest Netflix/Marvel collaboration, featuring the super-strong, bullet-proof 'Hero for Hire' Luke Cage, isn't up to the quality of either Daredevil seasons, or Jessica Jones. In fact, it's poor. No, worse than that, it's dull, shambling, messy, inconsistent, and just plain bad.

A dull, shambling, mess - see what I did there?

The Luke Cage character had already been introduced in last year's excellent Jessica Jones. This show takes place after that one, and Luke
has moved on from Hell's Kitchen to Harlem. Holding down two jobs (as a sweeper in friendly, wise, old-man, Pops' barber shop; and as kitchen dish-washer in the Harlem Night's nightclub, owned by "don't-call-me-Cottonmouth" Cottonmouth ... a local hood, with the veneer of respectability).

The story (such as it is) covers familiar ground. Cottonmouth, the nightclub owner, and arms dealer to the local gangs, is cousin to ambitious amoral councillor Mariah Callard. An early arms deal goes south, and the fall-out causes the death of 'Pops' and Luke emerges from anonymity to take on the bad guys. The bad guys eventually including Luke's half-brother, the villain behind the piece, Diamondback, who faces Luke in the season's climactic fight sequence.

The first two episodes are even, if a little ponderous and cliched. The night-club owner - yes, he's also a baddie; the ambitious politician, who will sell her soul for personal power; the bent cop; the female cop who's out to expose Cottonmouth, and inevitably hops into bed with Luke. So samey, and a little tired, but nothing dreadfully annoying. Just not that good. The music (the theme music is the best part of the show) is a highlight and used to punctuate or orchestrate the action early on, and these parts are okay.

However, the issues with this season are many.

Firstly, the dialogue is achingly poor. When people aren't talking in cliches, they're speaking as a single voice. The writer(s) too often appear to be offering us a monologue spoken by various characters. There's no surprise or counter-play between characters of the same 'side'. The characters, outside of the line of this single plot, have no history. If Misty has been in Harlem all her life (she has -  her initials in the basketball court; she knows Pops) then what's she doing undercover? Why do none of the local youths know or recognise her? Why is she 'proving' herself as though she's new to the area? She's not ... just new from the script's point of view.

Secondly, although this isn't a 'police procedural' what we see of police procedure needs to look a little bit accurate. But none of it. There are many examples: Scarfe's notebook is key to potentially exposing Cottonmouth, yet rather than being checked into the evidence room, it's left lying around on Misty's desk; no 'crime scene' set-up at Harlem Nights post-murder (later on the same day as a body is found there, the club is open, the very room being used, with no sign of police tape); Misty refers to Claire Temple as "Claire" in front of her boss ... as though this person they've only just met, is already a friend; sometimes lawyers are present at interview, other times, not; people are arrested and released with little or no reason, ...

There's an issue with timing mid-season. The murder at the nightclub, the immediate police investigation, interviews, arrests and releasing of suspects, all appears to take place while Luke and Claire are stumbling around Harlem trying to find a safe hideout. These two sequences can't happen with the same time span, yet they are shown this way.

The episode where Claire tries to treat Luke with the doctor from Seagate, has to be one of the most excruciatingly poor I've seen ever. The doctor who 'created' Luke seems to know less than Claire. Claire, for no reason whatsoever, says they must turn the temperature of the acid up as high as it will go - no, "let's try a little bit and see what happens" - just 'to the max' so it can be shouted. The electric shock to revive Luke blows all of the electrics; next scene, everything is working again. There's no indication of how they are looking at the shrapnel inside Luke; the shrapnel is only three, large pieces; they don't remove *any* from the shoulder wound. Just about everything in this episode is garbage.

More aggravating, is that characters know things they shouldn't. Things we (as the viewer) know, but things they can't; the sort of things a writer, script editor, or producer, should have spotted. Were they all comatose? So many instances of this - when Luke and Misty are hiding beneath the kitchen (don't get me started on "search every inch of this place" - apart from that obvious grate in the floor), Misty says that Diamondback will want to pin this "hostage situation" on him. But she doesn't know there is a hostage situation up above. Her last view was from behind the bar, being shot at, until Luke carried her out - before any hostages were taken. Later, in the same episode Claire warns Luke "what if he has one of those special bullets" - moments after we've seen Diamondback say he only has one Judas bullet left. Surely Claire would have said "what about those special bullets?" or "what if he has any of those bullets?"; her only mentioning one bullet is because the writer knows there's only one left. But Claire shouldn't know. After Diamondback punches the politician in the chest to kill him, and leaves the body outside, the ESU guy immediately says that he's dead from having his chest caved in. He says this without any examination, at the scene, when he couldn't know cause of death that quickly.

There's just too many people, doing too many preposterous things just because they need to, for the sake of the story. There's a laughable moment when Claire shows up at the final showdown. She's standing behind the police line at the front of the crowd. Misty says to her, "come here, you've got to stay back" gesturing as she speaks for Claire to come through the police line and stand next to her. From then on, Claire's always out in the open ahead of the cops. No-one pulls her back? It's incredibly clunky dialogue to get her to do the opposite of what is said.

But in the same minute the ESU commander tells his troops, "as soon as you have a clear shot - take it". Of course, they never do. It's ridiculous.

And earlier on, Misty's broken phone is no good for calling her boss. She doesn't bother trying to text. That would ruin things. 

The show starts off okay, if dull, and ends up being one of those series that you need two or three goes to get through each tiresome, poorly scripted, badly thought-out, repetitive, episode.

The biggest hole is Diamondback's motive, and actions. If he was content that he'd ruined Luke's life by getting him jailed, then why didn't he just tip the police off to Luke's real identity? In fact, howcum Luke - former marine, cop, and prisoner - wasn't recognised by anyone else when he was shown on TV? When his 'Wanted' poster was plastered around Harlem? No former cops? No former colleagues? No friends? Did Diamondback only know it was Carl later on? I have to guess 'yes' as if he'd been tracking him from Seagate, he could have just contacted the police then, not wait years. Although it's suggested that Willis has been behind it all, so that contradicts him not knowing. The whole motive is inconsistent with how he acts. Just shoot the guy again, after he's shot once and on the ground. Jeez.

Luke's motivation is just as sketchy. He'd only known Pops for 5 months, but his death was enough to get him to go public. Yet Reva's death - nah, I'll stay hidden.

I can handle things not being entirely logical to make a comic-book world 'work' (how doesn't Diamondback pop his shoulder whenever he uses those gloves; how does super-strength help you halt a moving vehicle; why doesn't anyone shoot or punch Diamondback in the mouth?) but when this is matched with dreadful dialogue, illogical actions, incomprehensible character knowledge, and shoddy continuity, it makes for an unwatchable show.

Luke Cage was awful. I've no idea why professional reviewers are giving it good write-ups; they can't have watched it.

EU Referendum - how to decide

EU Referendum - How Fed Up of It are You?

It seems like it's been going on forever, but finally the end is in sight. At last. How on Earth do you decide which was to vote?

Here's how not to do it...

Ignore the threats and promises

Nobody knows whether the economy will be better or worse off. This is a fact - no country has ever left the EU before, so nobody knows what might happen to the leaving country, or to the remaining EU members. You can't look to any example in history to help you decide. It's unknown.

What you can't say is that "well, look what happened to the Euro-countries -lucky we didn't join". That makes no sense. That implies there's one 'copy' of the world where we did join Euro; and the one where we didn't (this one); and we can look at both copies and say which one is better. We're not David Tennant; we can't fly off into different time-streams and compare them. There's no way of telling which decision in history would have had benefit or not. It's like the old puzzle of saying, would the world be better off had you killed Hitler as a child ... no-one can say what the impact of that might have been.

It's all guesswork.

Unelected Elite

"I don't want to be governed by an unelected, unaccountable elite". Well, we get to elect 600 odd people to represent us, once every five years. Outside of that 600 odd, most are appointed, without election. If you think the governor of the Bank of England, the civil service, the head of MI5, and so on, have no impact on your life, you're wrong. We don't elect these people. We elect a very small proportion of the people who govern us. But they are, in general, appointed by those we have elected. And it's no different in the EU. Our MPs, our MEPs select those who represent us. It's no different to many other posts. We can no more "throw" these people out, than we can our own MPs - we get one chance every 5 years. If you don't like the current government, then you didn't elect them in 2010, and didn't even have the chance to get rid of them up until 2015, and even then you didn't get your way. We can't throw our own government out. The EU case is no different.

This is no argument.

Ruled from Brussels

Being rules from far away? Well, that's true for everyone. We don't rule ourselves; there's a group of elected people, many miles from us, who determine the laws of the land; how we live. That's just a fact of representative democracy. Whether they are 100 miles away, or 300 miles away, it makes no difference.

People spend a lot of time complaining about how corrupt and self-serving our politicians are, and then look to giving them more power and control. Voting out will give David Cameron more power (at least until he's replaced by another self-serving idiot). I'm not sure this is wise.

£350m a week, lost

This £350 million - whatever happens, what won't happen is this:

- David Cameron knocks on your door and offers you some of it
- It goes to the NHS
- It goes to pensions
- We see any of it

£350 million is a pittance - about 1 or 2 percent of weekly government expenditure. The much larger sum is already assigned by the UK government. If they wanted to prioritise and put more money into health, education, defence, ... they could. It's nothing to do with having no money, because it's being given to the EU. This is no money, whether the figure is accurate or not.

Control our Borders

In 1973 the world population was under 4 billion. It's now approaching twice that number. The world is different to how it was then. Outside of the EU, the pressures on other countries would not disappear. The human crisis within the Middle East, in Syria, would not vanish. We can't turn back the clock and re-emerge into 1960's Britain. The world is how it is. This notion of reverting Britain to a 'Great Britain era' is as laughable as the "Make America Great Again" tagline. "I don't like some aspects of the country today; let's go back to a time when I did." Just when was that? You can't turn back the clock. Spend less time wishing for yesterday, and concentrate on making tomorrow better.

Migrants from outside the EU make up over half of the total ... we already have the ability to control that number, but do not. Why would this be different outside of the EU? We're not controlling the numbers from outside of the EU today, why do we think we'd control it tomorrow?

And this supposes that immigration is a bad thing.

Too much red tape

See my first point. Who's to say there wouldn't be more red tape if not in the EU? It can't be conceded, unchallenged, that the EU produces more red tape than the UK. We just don't know. Sometimes an EU decision has originated in the UK - a UK idea which is then adopted more widely. 

The inference that red tape will be reduced cannot be substantiated.

Take Back Control

"We've lost control of our country; our sovereignty" This is a silly notion. How much control do you have today? Is David Cameron often knocking on your door, ringing you up, to see what he should do? The fact of representative democracy is that we get one chance every 5 years to chose a representative. That's it. You and I have not control now. We'll have no more outside of the EU.

We're ruled by a remote elite who have little understanding of our lives. Leaving the EU will not change this.

How I'll Decide

My decision will be around two things.

1. BREXIT

It's a horrible word. Yuck.

2. Murdoch Decides.

Rupert Murdoch, the Australian exile who lives in New York, has dictated the winner of every UK general election since 1979. I think it's wrong that he wields so much influence, so much power. Whatever he dictates, I'll vote against. Just to show that the British people can have some say in their own future. I know ... ironic. 

Daredevil Season 2 - Practically Spoiler-Free Review

Daredevil Season 2 Review

Lacking the freshness and precision of the first season, still enjoyable, but left wanting better from future stories.

Daredevil season 1 was an excellent, grim, well-scripted, bleak, introduction to the world of Daredevil and his supporting characters. The Netflix/Marvel production inititiated the adult-themed, gritty series of shows, to which Jessica Jones has been added, and left viewers keen for more.

This second season, although good (and very good at times) didn't continue the level of excellence, and had more than a few issues, both with the script, and the overall plot.

Without going into too much detail, it seemed like a couple of stories mashed ineffectively into one season, with not enough time, or clarity given to either.

Punisher

The season starts with the introduction of the Punisher, played by Jon Bernthal (not your best friend from AMC's 'The Walking Dead'). Bernthal's Punisher sets the right tone for the character - unstable, confused, yet strangely focussed on the task in hand. The early episodes introduce the character well, and lend weight to the threat he poses, and how his methods conflict with Daredevil's eventually leading to their conflict.

Finally, the death skull

However, having set the character up, he is then shuffled off to the side too quickly - the trial resolution happens off-screen, and for the remainder of the season (save for an impressive mid-season fight sequence, and memorable meet-up with another Daredevil character) he's on the periphery, or left to wheeze the same lines he's already given. There's more back story here that we could have had, but it's being left for later, one assumes. I'd like the story to be given more treatment, personally.

Elektra

The second major, new character we meet is Elektra, played by Elodie Yung. Yung physically looks the part, and her accent is also very good - Elektra should have a mixed-European accent of no specific country, to indicate her lack of being tied to one place, and hint at her troubled childhood. Physically, this is all very good. However, her fighting skills (much like Daredevil's in Season 1) are a bit all over the place. She ought to be the Hand's greatest assassin, trained by both Stick and the Hand, as a lethal killing instrument. Here, at least initially, she's inferior to Stick and Daredevil, requiring saving on several occasions. Maybe this is an 'early' Elektra, and the ending suggests such, but she is still an assassin, a Stick protégé, and should have that level of capability. There are also a number of confusing motives that seem to draw her to be more 'plot device', then genuine 'agent' ... there could have been an arc to put her in the lead of this war, yet she now seems side-lined as a someone swept along by it.

Elektra *sighs*

Excited as I was to see Elektra in Daredevil, I'm more than a bit disappointed in how she's treated. A complex character, hard to show, but it's not really attempted here. A shame given how capable Yung is, and how right she looks for the part.

***SPOILER***
I'm just confused by the way The Hand treat her. If she is 'the' Black Sky, then what about last season's one? If it's all a little 'Buffy' and we can have potentials/actuals, why the focus on her alone? Then given their interest in her, and apparent subjugation, why do they fight against her? And why care if she is/might be killed, as death is no problem?

Also, when Stick is captured, this appears to be achieved by "killing the lights". When two of the three participants are blind, I'm not sure what this achieved, other than a shortcut to get Stick in peril. Unless it's what he planned, how did the three or four Hand guys over-power him, when neither Stick nor Daredevil were disadvantaged, and the bad guys were?

Karen Page

In season 1, Karen's story led the plot, and essentially drove the events forward. Although we can see why she's interested in redeeming Castle, she's more often than not consigned to teary-eyed, sobbing of choked lines like "Matt, I just can't ..." à la Jack from Lost. She was introduced as more capable than this, and it seems a waste of Woll's talents, although she at least seems capable of following through on a lead.

Out of all the characters, only Foggy seemed to get a good deal in the second season - a new, and better paid (well, paid) job, and the chance of playing a part in Jessica Jones's story. 

Overall, early promise, but not followed through, and either too much story for one season with the new characters, or not enough, had they trimmed the cast list.

Still, it's not The Flash or Supergirl.