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The Avengers

2.26: Killer Whale

The Avengers explores the delightful world of intestinal slurry, as Steed and Mrs Gale enter the fetid domain of ambergris smugglers. Killer Whale can certainly boast a distinctive subject for criminal plot, but unfortunately the proceedings are less than remarkable, an unholy clash of fashion and boxing.

This one, written by John Lucarotti (his third of six for the series, he was also a contributor to some of the best William Hartnell historical Doctor Whos) begins with the unlikely coincidence that Cathy is hanging out with a wannabe professional boxer just when Steed is becoming suspicious of a smuggling ring based around a gymnasium (and fashion shop). So he becomes the backer, and she the manager.

Not dissimilarly, Steed has been thumbing a book on whales, but it’s Cathy, during Act 2, who imparts the vitals on ambergris to him. He wouldn’t have it in the first place if he didn’t know full well. This isn’t sufficiently engaging that you’re willing to skirt such obvious script failings, and the cast generally don’t live up to their potential. Of note, though, is that ambergris could get you £32k if you picked a piece up off the beach (about half a million today). Before duty, of course.

Patrick Magee (A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon) overdoes the gym owner/ringleader Pancho, while on the evidence of this and Edward Waterfield in The Evil of the Daleks, John Bailey (Fernand) appears to have been typecast as the weak-willed lackey (he runs the fashion boutique, is up to his ears in debt, and is generally put upon by everyone). Kenneth Farrington’s Joey is so ruggedly devoted to Cathy, he could be switched with a pet dog and no one would notice the difference (except the dog might turn out better in the ring). Robert Mill at least makes the most of his heavy, Brown (who doesn’t get a beating), and refers to everyone as sport. Also appearing are Morris Perry as Harry (Dent in Colony in Space), another heavy, Christopher Coll (Stubbs in The Mutants) as a lab assistant.

Steed: How are you, Mrs Gale? I’ve been unravelling the intricacies of your drinks cabinet.

Steed’s on fine form, ordering a new wardrobe for “his niece” (34-24-26, fair and 5ft 4in), and unflappable when meeting Brown (“Carry on, sport”). He also has a rather engaging, unnerving ruse of fetching the body previously dumped by Harry and dumping it in Fernand’s shop (“I am sorry, we are closed” announces Fernand, “But open to suggestions?” inquires Steed).

He uses the pseudonym Caruthers again, when calling the police, and presents Cathy with a bottle of whale perfume as a parting gift (“I’m afraid that’s the last of the line”); he’s off to the Caribbean, she to a judo convention in Tokyo (but, of course). And that’s it for the second season, a patchy affair, far from the consistently strong run of, say, Season Four, but with its definite bright spots.

Season Two Top 10

1. Mr Teddy Bear

2. Warlock

3. The Mauritius Penny

4. Death of a Great Dane

5. The White Dwarf

6. Intercrime

7. The Big Thinker

8. Propellant 23

9. School for Traitors

10. The Golden Eggs

Comments

Maybe he had one too many peanut butter and fried banana sandwiches.

3000 Miles to Graceland (2001) (SPOILERS) The kind of movie that makes your average Tarantino knockoff look classy, 3000 Miles to Graceland is both aggressively unpleasant and acutely absent any virtues, either as a script or a stylistic exercise. The most baffling thing about it is how it attracted Kevin Costner and Kurt Russell, particularly since both ought to have been extra choosy at this point, having toplined expensive bombs in the previous half decade that made them significantly less bankable names. And if you’re wondering how this managed to cost the $62m reported on Wiki, it didn’t; Franchise Pictures, one of the backers, was in the business of fraudulently inflating budgets .

We’re looking into a possible pattern of nationwide anti-Catholic hate crimes.

Vampires aka John Carpenter’s Vampires (1998) (SPOILERS) John Carpenter limps less-than-boldly onward, his desiccated cadaver no longer attentive to the filmic basics of quality, taste, discernment, rhyme or reason. Apparently, he made his pre-penultimate picture to see if his enthusiasm for the process truly had drained away, and he only went and discovered he really enjoyed himself. It doesn’t show. Vampires is as flat, lifeless, shoddily shot, framed and edited as the majority of his ’90s output, only with a repellent veneer of macho bombast spread on top to boot.

I dreamed about a guy in a dirty red and green sweater.

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) (SPOILERS) I first saw A Nightmare on Elm Street a little under a decade after its release, and I was distinctly underwhelmed five or so sequels and all the hype. Not that it didn’t have its moments, but there was an “It’ll do” quality that reflects most of the Wes Craven movies I’ve seen. Aside from the postmodern tease of A New Nightmare – like Last Action Hero , unfairly maligned – I’d never bothered with the rest of the series, in part because I’m just not that big a horror buff, but also because the rule that the first is usually the best in any series, irrespective of genre, tends to hold out more often than not. So now I’m finally getting round to them, and it seemed only fair to start by giving Freddy’s first another shot. My initial reaction holds true.

Remember. Decision. Consequence.

Day Break (2006) (SPOILERS) Day Break is the rare series that was lucky to get cancelled. And not in a mercy-killing way. It got to tell its story. Sure, apparently there were other stories. Other days to break. But would it have justified going there? Or would it have proved tantalising/reticent about the elusive reason its protagonist has to keep stirring and repeating? You bet it would. Offering occasional crumbs, and then, when it finally comes time to wrap things up, giving an explanation that satisfies no one/is a cop out/offers a hint at some nebulous existential mission better left to the viewer to conjure up on their own. Best that it didn’t even try to go there.

I must remind you that the scanning experience is usually a painful one.

Scanners (1981) (SPOILERS) David Cronenberg has made a career – albeit, he may have “matured” a little over the past few decades, so it is now somewhat less foregrounded – from sticking up for the less edifying notions of evolution and modern scientific thought. The idea that regress is, in fact, a form of progress, and unpropitious developments are less dead ends than a means to a state or states as yet unappreciated. He began this path with some squeam-worthy body horrors, before genre hopping to more explicit science fiction with Scanners , and with it, greater critical acclaim and a wider audience. And it remains a good movie, even as it suffers from an unprepossessing lead and rather fumbles the last furlong, cutting to the chase when a more measured, considered approach would have paid dividends.

You seem particularly triggered right now. Can you tell me what happened?

Trailers The Matrix Resurrections The Matrix A woke n ? If nothing else, the arrival of The Matrix Resurrections trailer has yielded much retrospective back and forth on the extent to which the original trilogy shat the bed. That probably isn’t its most significant legacy, of course, in terms of a series that has informed, subconsciously or otherwise, intentionally or otherwise, much of the way in which twenty-first century conspiracy theory has been framed and discussed. It is however, uncontested that a first movie that was officially the “best thing ever”, that aesthetically and stylistically reinvigorated mainstream blockbuster cinema in a manner unseen again until Fury Road , squandered all that good will with astonishing speed by the time 2003 was over.

We got two honkies out there dressed like Hassidic diamond merchants.

The Blues Brothers (1980) (SPOILERS) I had limited awareness of John Belushi’s immense mythos before The Blues Brothers arrived on retail video in the UK (so 1991?) My familiarity with SNL performers really began with Ghostbusters ’ release, which meant picking up the trail of Jake and Elwood was very much a retrospective deal. I knew Animal House , knew Belushi’s impact there, knew 1941 (the Jaws parody was the best bit), knew Wired was a biopic better avoided. But the minor renaissance he, and they, underwent in the UK in the early ’90s seemed to have been initiated by Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers, of all things; Everybody Needs Somebody was part of their That Sounds Good to Me medley, the first of their hits not to make No.1, and Everybody ’s subsequent single release then just missed the Top Ten. Perhaps it was this that hastened CIC/Universal to putting the comedy out on video. Had the movie done the rounds on UK TV in the 80s? If so, it managed to pass me by. Even bef

Maybe I’m a heel who hates guys who hate heels.

Crimewave (1985) (SPOILERS) A movie’s makers’ disowning it doesn’t necessarily mean there’s nothing of worth therein, just that they don’t find anything of worth in it. Or the whole process of making it too painful to contemplate. Sam Raimi’s had a few of those, experiencing traumas with Darkman a few years after Crimewave . But I, blissfully unaware of such issues, was bowled over by it when I caught it a few years after its release (I’d hazard it was BBC2’s American Wave 2 season in 1988). This was my first Sam Raimi movie, and I was instantly a fan of whoever it was managed to translate the energy and visual acumen of a cartoon to the realm of live action. The picture is not without its problems – and at least some of them directly correspond to why it’s so rueful for Raimi – but that initial flair I recognised still lifts it.

I admit it. I live in a highly excited state of overstimulation.

Videodrome (1983) (SPOILERS) I’m one of those who thinks Cronenberg’s version of Total Recall would have been much more satisfying than the one we got (which is pretty good, but flawed; I’m referring to the Arnie movie, of course, not the Farrell). The counter is that Videodrome makes a Cronenberg Philip K Dick adaptation largely redundant. It makes his later Existenz largely redundant too. Videodrome remains a strikingly potent achievement, taking the directors thematic obsessions to the next level, one as fixated on warping the mind as the body. Like many Cronenbergs, it isn’t quite there, but it exerts a hold on the viewer not dissimilar to the one slowly entwining its protagonist Max Renn (James Woods).

White nights getting to you?

Insomnia (2002) (SPOILERS) I’ve never been mad keen on Insomnia . It’s well made, well-acted, the screenplay is solid and it fits in neatly with Christopher Nolan’s abiding thematic interests, but it’s… There’s something entirely adequateabout it. It isn’t pushing any kind of envelope. It’s happy to be the genre-bound crime study it is and nothing more, something emphasised by Pacino’s umpteenth turn as an under-pressure cop.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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