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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

She writes Twilight fan fiction.

Vampire Academy (2014)
My willingness to give writer Daniel Waters some slack on the grounds of early glories sometimes pays off (Sex and Death 101) and sometimes, as with this messy and indistinct Young Adult adaptation, it doesn’t. If Vampire Academy plods along as a less than innovative smart-mouthed Buffy rip-off that might be because, if you added vampires to Heathers, you would probably get something not so far from the world of Joss Whedon. Unfortunately inspiration is a low ebb throughout, not helped any by tepid direction from Daniel’s sometimes-reliable brother Mark and a couple of hopelessly plankish leads who do their best to dampen down any wit that occasionally attempts to surface.

I can only presume there’s a never-ending pile of Young Adult fiction poised for big screen failure, all of it comprising multi-novel storylines just begging for a moment in the Sun. Every time an adaptation crashes and burns (and the odds are that they will) another one rises, hydra-like, hoping…

Move away from the jams.

Aladdin (2019)
(SPOILERS) I was never overly enamoured by the early ‘90s renaissance of Disney animation, so the raves over Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin left me fairly unphased. On the plus side, that means I came to this live action version fairly fresh (prince); not quite a whole new world but sufficiently unversed in the legend to appreciate it as its own thing. And for the most part, Aladdin can be considered a moderate success. There may not be a whole lot of competition for that crown (I’d give the prize to Pete’s Dragon, except that it was always part-live action), but this one sits fairly comfortably in the lead.

You're reading a comic book? What are you, retarded?

Watchmen: The Ultimate Cut (2009)
(SPOILERS) It’s a decade since the holy grail of comic books finally fought through decades of development hell to land on the big screen, via Zach Snyder’s faithful but not faithful enough for the devoted adaptation. Many then held the director’s skills with a much more open mind than they do now – following the ravages he has inflicted on the DCEU – coming as he was off the back of the well-received 300. Many subsequently held that his Watchmen, while visually impressive, had entirely missed the point (not least in some of its stylistic and aesthetic choices). I wouldn’t go that far – indeed, for a director whose bombastic approach is often only a few notches down from Michael Bay (who was, alarmingly, also considered to direct at one point), there are sequences in Watchmen that show tremendous sensitivity – but it’s certainly the case that, even or especially in its Ultimate Cut form and for all the furore the change to the end of the story provoked,…

Why would I turn into a filing cabinet?

Captain Marvel (2019)
(SPOILERS) All superhero movies are formulaic to a greater or lesser degree. Mostly greater. The key to an actually great one – or just a pretty good one – is making that a virtue, rather than something you’re conscious of limiting the whole exercise. The irony of the last two stand-alone MCU pictures is that, while attempting to bring somewhat down-the-line progressive cachet to the series, they’ve delivered rather pedestrian results. Of course, that didn’t dim Black Panther’s cultural cachet (and what do I know, swathes of people also profess to loving it), and Captain Marvel has hit half a billion in its first few days – it seems that, unless you’re poor unloved Ant-Man, an easy $1bn is the new $700m for the MCU – but neither’s protagonist really made that all-important iconic impact.

I’d kill you too, Keanu. I’d kill you just for fun, even if I didn’t have to.

Always Be My Maybe (2019)
(SPOILERS) The pun-tastic title of this Netflix romcom is a fair indication of its affably undemanding attributes. An unapologetic riff on When Harry Met Sally, wherein childhood friends rather than college attendees finally agree the best thing to be is together, it’s resolutely determined to cover no new ground, all the way through to its positive compromise finale. That’s never a barrier to a good romcom, though – at their best, their charm is down to ploughing familiar furrows. Always Be My Maybe’s problem is that, decent comedy performers though the two leads may be – and co-writers with Michael Golamco – you don’t really care whether they get together or not. Which isn’t like When Harry Met Sally at all.

Bleach smells like bleach.

Million Dollar Baby (2004)
(SPOILERS) I’d like to be able to say it was beyond me how Clint’s misery-porn fest hoodwinked critics and the Academy alike, leading to his second Best Picture and Director double Oscar win. Such feting would naturally lead you to assume Million Dollar Baby was in the same league as Unforgiven, when it really has more in common with The Mule, only the latter is likeably lightweight and nonchalant in its aspirations. This picture has buckled beneath the burden of self-appointed weighty themes and profound musings, which only serve to highlight how crass and manipulative it is.

What you do is very baller. You're very anarchist.

Lady Bird (2017)
(SPOILERS) You can see the Noah Baumbach influence on Lady Bird, Greta Gerwig’s directorial debut, with whom she collaborated on Frances Ha; an intimate, lo-fi, post-Woody Allen (as in, post-feted, respected Woody Allen) dramedy canvas that has traditionally been the New Yorker’s milieu. But as an adopted, spiritual New Yorker, I suspect Gerwig honourably qualifies, even as Lady Bird is a love letter/ nostalgia trip to her home city of Sacramento.

It could have been an accident. He decided to sip a surreptitious sup and slipped. Splash!

4.10 A Surfeit of H20
A great episode title (definitely one of the series’ top ten) with a storyline boasting all the necessary ingredients (strange deaths in a small village, eccentric supporting characters, Emma even utters the immortal “You diabolical mastermind, you!”), yet A Surfeit of H20 is unable to quite pull itself above the run of the mill.

My name is Dr. King Schultz, this is my valet, Django, and these are our horses, Fritz, and Tony.

Django Unchained (2012)
(MINOR SPOILERS) Since the painful misstep of Grindhouse/Death Proof, Quentin Tarantino has regained the higher ground like never before. Pulp Fiction, his previous commercial and critical peak, has been at very least equalled by the back-to-back hits of Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained. Having been underwhelmed by his post Pulp Fiction efforts (albeit, I admired his technical advances as a director in Kill Bill), I was pleasantly surprised by Inglourious Basterds. It was no work of genius (so not Pulp Fiction) by any means, but there was a gleeful irreverence in its treatment of history and even to the nominal heroic status of its titular protagonists. Tonally, it was a good fit for the director’s “cool” aesthetic. As a purveyor of postmodern pastiche, where the surface level is the subtext, in some ways he was operating at his zenith. Django Unchained is a retreat from that position, the director caught in the tug between his all-important aesthetic pr…

I should have mailed it to the Marx Brothers.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
When your hero(es) ride off into the sunset at the end of a film, it’s usually a pretty clear indication that a line is being drawn under their adventures. Sure, rumours surfaced during the ‘90s of various prospective screenplays for a fourth outing for the whip-cracking archeologist. But I’m dubious anyone really expected it to happen. There seemed to be a natural finality to Last Crusade that made the announcement of his 2007 return nostalgically welcome but otherwise unwarranted. That it turned out so tepid merely seemed like confirmation of what we already knew; Indy’s time was past.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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