If you want the Human Factor, a part of it must include compassion.

Doctor Who

The Evil of the Daleks: Episode Four

So this is the “I’m a Doctor Who Companion Get Me Out of Here” episode, as Jamie endures Dalek trials observed by an attentive audience. It’s an extended trifle, without much substance.

Jamie wins out through showing mercy to his foe, Kemel; he saves him, and then they ally to overcome the Daleks and rescue Victoria (there appear to be no consequences for the Dalek destruction derby they embark upon). Aside from Kemel, various axes and spikey objects block his path. There isn’t much in the way of tension to these scenes, as we know it is just a test. Excepting the climb to the staircase towards the climax.

In respect of Kemel, the strong, silent savage aspect may well be a leftover from an earlier draft of Whitaker’s plot. Here, a caveman named Og would have featured in the challenges faced by Jamie. It would certainly have laid the story less open to accusations of racism, although quite likely Og would have been unintentionally amusing.

More meat is provided in the other plot threads. The Doctor instructs the Daleks on the human “ingredients” that are required.

The Doctor: If you want the Human Factor, a part of it must include compassion.

He also informs them,

The Doctor: But there is instinct too. Jamie used instinct to avoid your trap.

But it’s the interaction between Waterfield and Maxtible that scores strongest. Waterfield’s stricken conscience foreshadows the concerns voiced by the Doctor later in the story, but with the same religious overtones that imbue the Daleks with a satanic majesty.

Waterfield: There’s no end to this, the hands of the Devil.

Maxtible, single-minded in his avarice, insists that they are not to blame (for the deaths that have occurred, the most recent of which is Toby’s). His patience is running thin with his colleague and stooge (“Waterfield, I am sick of you… Am I to blame for everything?”)

Waterfield: How many people must dies so that my daughter can live?

Maxtible: We are not the murderers.

Waterfield: No, just the silent partners. But we are just as much to blame because we stand by and do nothing.

Waterfield has a strong moral compass, and the Doctor’s conversation with a belligerent Jamie in the following episode sees him hold forth similarly regarding the ends justifying the means. Just in less emotive language.

Maxtible’s base desires are laid bare this week, as he gets stroppy with his masters. He still labours under the delusion that he has equal bargaining power with them, such is his tunnel vision.

Dalek: Do you threaten the Daleks?

Maxtible: It is not beyond me to ruin the entire enterprise… The secret., the secret. You promised to give it to me. That is why I have done all this.

He worships the alchemist’s dream. Not the immortality of the Sisterhood of Khan, but the more prosaic version; the transmutation of metal into gold.

Maxtible: To possess such a secret would mean power and influence beyond all imagining. And I am about to discover the secret. Nothing will stop me! Nothing! Nobody!

It’s not a little ironic that he is blind to his scientific achievements (whatever their quantifiability; they certainly appear to have opened a portal to another dimension, even if it is the Daleks who provide the nuts and bolts of time travel apparatus). There’s a slight echo of the advancements and proclamations of Nikola Tesla in his science beyond the imaginings of the world of the 19^th century. But Tesla was dedicated to his practice, with little interest in financial rewards. For Maxtible, riches and prestige are the sole point of his dabblings.

Elsewhere, the increasingly combustible Terrall mystifies Ruth. His assessment of poor Molly might be better applied to the ever-wilting Victoria (well, the sniveling part).

Terrall: She’s a mean, snivelling little minx.

A so-so episode. But it’s not as if other lengthy (quality) stories aren’t the victim of similar less-than-essential padding. Both Invasion of the Dinosaurs and Planet of the Spiders include lengthy chase sequences that take up an entire episode.

I think I’m Pablo Picasso!

Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021) (SPOILERS) I get the impression that, whatever it is stalwart Venom fans want from a Venom movie, this iteration isn’t it. The highlight here for me is absolutely the wacky, love-hate, buddy-movie antics of Tom Hardy and his symbiote alter. That was the best part of the original, before it locked into plot “progression” and teetered towards a climax where one CGI monster with gnarly teeth had at another CGI monster with gnarly teeth. And so it is for Venom: Let There Be Carnage . But cutting quicker to the chase.

I don’t think Wimpys still exist.

Last Night in Soho (2021) (SPOILERS) Last Night in Soho is a cautionary lesson in one’s reach extending one’s grasp. It isn’t that Edgar Wright shouldn’t attempt to stretch himself, it’s simply that he needs the self-awareness to realise which moves are going to throw his back out and leave him in a floundering and enfeebled heap on the studio floor. Wright’s an uber-geek, one with a very specific comfort zone, and there’s no shame in that. He evidently was shamed, though, hence this response to criticisms of a lack of maturity and – obviously – lack of versatility with female characters. Last Night in Soho goes broke for woke, and in so doing exposes his new clothes in the least flattering light. Because Edgar is in no way woke, his attempts to prove his progressive mettle lead to a lurid, muddled mess, one that will satisfy no one. Well, perhaps his most ardent fans, but no one else.

It looks like a digital walkout.

Free Guy (2021) (SPOILERS) Ostensibly a twenty-first century refresh of The Truman Show , in which an oblivious innocent realises his life is a lie, and that he is simply a puppet engineered for the entertainment of his creators/controllers/the masses, Free Guy lends itself to similar readings regarding the metaphysical underpinnings of our reality, of who sets the paradigm and how conscious we are of its limitations. But there’s an additional layer in there too, a more insidious one than using a Hollywood movie to “tell us how it really is”.

It becomes easier each time… until it kills you.

The X-Files 4.9: Terma Oh dear. After an engaging opener, the second part of this story drops through the floor, and even the usually spirited Rob Bowman can’t save the lethargic mess Carter and Spotnitz make of some actually pretty promising plot threads.

He's not a nightstalker, and it'll take a lot more than bench presses to defeat him.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988) (SPOILERS) The most successful entry in the franchise, if you don’t count Freddy vs. Jason . And the point at which Freddy went full-on vaudeville, transformed into adored ringmaster rather than feared boogeyman. Not that he was ever very terrifying in the first place (the common misapprehension is that later instalments spoiled the character, but frankly, allowing Robert Englund to milk the laughs in bad-taste fashion is the saving grace of otherwise forgettably formulaic sequel construction). A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master boasts the most inventive, proficient effects work yet, but it’s also by far the least daring in terms of plotting, scraping together a means for Freddy to persist in his nocturnal pestilence while offering nothing in the way of the unexpected, be it characterisations or story points.

Give daddy the glove back, princess.

Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991) (SPOILERS) Looking at Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare , by some distance the least lauded (and laudable) of the original Elm Street sextet, you’d think it inconceivable that novice director and series old-hand – first as assistant production manager and finally as producer – Rachel Talalay has since become a respected and in-demand TV helmer. For the most part, Freddy’s Dead is shockingly badly put together. It reminded me of the approach the likes of Chris Carter and Sir Ken take, where someone has clearly been around productions, absorbing the basics of direction, but has zero acumen for turning that into a competent motion picture, be it composition, scene construction, editing or pacing. Talalay’s also responsible for the story idea here, which does offer a few nuggets, at least, but her more primary role actively defeats any positives.

Monster nom nom?

The Suicide Squad (2021) (SPOILERS) This is what you get from James Gunn when he hasn’t been fed through the Disney rainbow filter. Pure, unadulterated charmlessness, as if he’s been raiding his deleted Twitter account for inspiration. The Suicide Squad has none of the “heart” of Guardians of Galaxy , barely a trace of structure, and revels in the kind of gross out previously found in Slither ; granted an R rating, Gunn revels in this freedom with juvenile glee, but such carte blanche only occasionally pays off, and more commonly leads to a kind of playground repetition. He gets to taunt everyone, and then kill them. Critics applauded; general audiences resisted. They were right to.

Give poor, starving Gurgi munchings and crunchings.

The Black Cauldron (1985) (SPOILERS) Dark Disney? I guess… Kind of . I don’t think I ever got round to seeing this previously. The Fox and the Hound , sure. Basil the Great Mouse Detective , most certainly. Even Oliver and Company , so I wasn’t that selective. But I must have missed The Black Cauldron , the one that nearly broke Disney, for the same reason everyone else did. But what reason was that? Perhaps nothing leaping out about it, when the same summer kids could see The Goonies , or Back to the Future , or Pee Wee’s Big Adventure . It seemed like a soup of other, better-executed ideas and past Disney movies, stirred up in a cauldron and slopped out into an environment where audiences now wanted something a touch more sophisticated.

What about the panties?

Sliver (1993) (SPOILERS) It must have seemed like a no-brainer. Sharon Stone, fresh from flashing her way to one of the biggest hits of 1992, starring in a movie nourished with a screenplay from the writer of one of the biggest hits of 1992. That Sliver is one Stone’s better performing movies says more about how no one took her to their bosom rather than her ability to appeal outside of working with Paul Verhoeven. Attempting to replicate the erotic lure of Basic Instinct , but without the Dutch director’s shameless revelry and unrepentant glee (and divested of Michael Douglas’ sweaters), it flounders, a stupid movie with vague pretensions to depth made even more stupid by reshoots that changed the killer’s identity and exposed the cluelessness of the studio behind it. Philip Noyce isn’t a stupid filmmaker, of course. He’s a more-than-competent journeyman when it comes to Hollywood blockbuster fare ( Clear and Present Danger , Salt ) also adept at “smart” smaller pict

Oh hello, loves, what year is it?

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021) (SPOILERS) Simu Lui must surely be the least charismatic lead in a major motion picture since… er, Taylor Lautner? He isn’t aggressively bad, like Lautner was/is, but he’s so blank, so nondescript, he makes Marvel’s super-spiffy new superhero Shang-Chi a superplank by osmosis. Just looking at him makes me sleepy, so it’s lucky Akwafina is wired enough for the both of them. At least, until she gets saddled with standard sidekick support heroics and any discernible personality promptly dissolves. And so, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings continues Kevin Feige’s bold journey into wokesense, seemingly at the expense of any interest in dramatically engaging the viewer.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

Search This Blog