Hi all, while I’m not ready to fully commit to long-form reviews I didn’t want to lose out on months of watching / listening / reading / playing so I thought I’d put up a series of “mini-reviews” for the time being, going over my thoughts on things without going into deep detail. If/when I get fully back into the swing I can always revisit some of these things and give them a proper review, though I’ll admit when it comes to this trio it’s unlikely… Let’s take a look!
The second season of the unusually well adapted Fallout show continued its streak of just being really fun and suitably violent. Naïve Vault Dweller Lucy (Ella Purnell) is still searching for her father Hank after he went rogue at the end of the previous season, and her and “The Ghoul” a.k.a. Cooper Howard (Walton Goggins) head to New Vegas on his trail. Howard is convinced that his family is being kept on ice somewhere in New Vegas as we flashback to post war during the season and see he had a few run-ins with Mr. House, plus his wife was sort-of evil for a while and then not… ish. Being set in New Vegas meant not only Mr. House but also The Legion and more newly revealed New California Republic stuff, so good fun for fans of the series but once again it was kept at a level where even if you’re just a fan of the show you’ll be able to follow along no problem.
Hey I recognise that sign! … It’s amazing it’s still in as good a condition as it is, really…
We also continue to follow Maximus (Aaron Moten), the Brotherhood of Steel Knight who is working his way up the ranks only to eventually see the light, at least in terms of his chapter and the overall hierarchy of the Brotherhood. When he does rebel again his leader, Elder Cleric Quintus (Michael Cristofer) he flees with some Power Armour and ends up helping Lucy and The Ghoul clean out the New Vegas strip after it was invaded by Death Claws, making their CGI debut here as well. When Lucy does catch up with Hank she finds out what we’ve been seeing all season: he was working on a chip that when stuck in the back of people’s necks it makes them completely obedient. There are a few moments where you think Lucy might see how much of a positive effect it could have on the Wasteland, but her distrust of her father leads to her sticking one on the back of Hank and forcing him to admit that he’s been working with the Enclave. He then deleted his own memory to avoid any further issues. Hank finds his family’s pod empty and a note about Colorado and we get a tease with Liberty Prime blueprints being found too, so between the Enclave and Prime it seems after a New Vegas inspired season we’re getting a more Fallout 3 inspired one next time!
Overall it was another fun season, full of laughs and ultra-violent action, a combination the game series always does so well recreated in live action.
I’ll admit I was one of the people not sold on Wonder Man’s direction. Not the casting, obviously, but to focus so strongly on the acting side of things rather than anything else. After actually watching it… it’s sort of a mixed bag for me. I can’t deny that Yahya Abdul-Mateen II’s Simon Williams / Wonder Man isn’t extremely endearing and easy to route for, nor can I deny that his chemistry with Ben Kingsley’s Trevor Slattery is always fun to watch (and equally endearing) but as I feared a lot of the humour surrounding the world of acting just didn’t click with me. Episodes based around auditions, video readings, visiting the directors house, and lots of meta-humour just didn’t really land with me. The same goes for when Williams actually gets the role of Wonder Man and begins acting like a pretentious dick on set. There was a really great bottle episode called “Doorman” which focused on a, well, doorman who ends up getting the super power to create door-like holes in things that can teleport people around the place, including within himself. This leads to him becoming a celebrity, and then a bit movie star with his catchphrase going viral, and then when his five minutes of fame are up he doesn’t take it well and his lack of concentration leads to him swallowing a popular actor and not being able to access his dimension again, trapping him in a void. It led to an act about celebrities not being allowed to have super-powers and the reason Williams is hiding his powers throughout the show. It was a really good mini-story.
Given how hated the character was at the start, it’s nice to see Mr. Slattery become such a fan favourite!
Throughout the series there’s an agent of the “Department of Damage Control” called P. Cleary (Arian Moayed) who is trying to prove Williams has powers and is a danger to society because his boss wants more super-powered prisoners to justify their new prison complex. It was really confusing as Damage Control is normally the people who have to clear up after super-powered incidents, but here they seem to be acting like SHIELD or the FBI. Either way, it all comes to a head and without going too deep into spoilers Williams does complete his film but potentially puts his career at risk to help out Slattery, who seemingly sacrificed his own career to save Simon (by reappearing as the Mandarin, no less!)
Overall I enjoyed Wonder Man more than I disliked it, and even the bits I didn’t like I can’t say weren’t well written or performed, they just weren’t the kind of thing I like watching. Interested to see where a Season 2 takes the show, given it’s now been confirmed (ha, actually me from a week or two ago I have some news for you…) I guess we’ll have to see what Doomsday and Secret Wars does to the MCU first!
I mentioned in the Fallout review above how amazing it was that the game got such a good adaptation, but that pales in comparison to One Piece’s live action effort. I’m still in a constant state of confusion as to how this is not only a thing but a really good thing. Great acting, fun fight choreography and full of the zany humour and visual flourishes that makes One Piece what it is, somehow retained in live action. This Season covers the build up to the Alabasta arc, including Loguetown with Luffy nearly being executed but being saved by his Dad (seemingly… but pretty much yeah), Laboon the whale, which this time includes Brook as a regular human, something that you can only do retroactively (The live action Brook was really great by the way, got the trademark laugh down to a tee), the fights with Baroque Works at Cactus Island including the crazy Zoro vs. 100 men fight, the Little Garden stuff with giants Brogy and Dorry (which was funny given the pay-off of that story is just now being adapted into the anime two and a bit decades later from the anime’s perspective…) and finally Drum Island, compete with the, um, “Live action” version of Tony Tony Chopper and Wapol (Rob Colletti), as well as Dr. Kureha (Katey Sagal) and Dr. Hiriluk (Mark Harelik, which is far closer a surname than you’d have thought possible!) They’re all adapted well, rewritten to be in 50-60 minute episodes and don’t overstay their welcome, nor do they feel rushed.
You know I probably should’ve chosen an image with Chopper in, really. Oh well, this sort-of has Vivi in it at least!
There isn’t a bad one in the cast, the returning Inaki Godoy (Luffy), Emily Rudd (Nami), Mackenyu (Zoro), Jacob Romero Gibson (Usopp), and Taz Skylar (Sanji) all still nail their characters, while Charithra Chandran does a great job as Vivi and Mikaela Hoover voices Chopper well, rounding out the Straw Hats for the season, well, sort-of for Vivi. You can include future Straw Hat Nico Robin in that list too as Lera Abova does the role justice, even if she’s just an occasionally appearing antagonist in these early days. Callum Kerr and Julia Rehwald bring Smoker and Tashigi to life well, and the Baroque Works are all top notch, I really can’t praise the casting enough. It will be interesting to see how the show handles the Alabasta Arc given it’s far longer and should take up pretty much the whole season, but I’d be stupid at this point to assume they won’t nail it.
One Piece – Season 2 continues the frankly still-hard-to-believe streak of excellent live action One Piece adaptations, and long may it continue.