The Time of the Doctor and the Fall of the Eleventh

And so we come to the end of Matt Smith's run as the Doctor, with the frankly divisive trilogy of Name, Day and Time.

The Name of the Doctor wrapped up a season of speculation about Clara, the impossible girl, and had both good and bad aspects. I liked that Clara's specialness was based on something she did, rather than on being just super special, but the involvement of the Great Intelligence felt rushed. After their appearance in The Snowmen, it felt as though they were somehow supposed to have been a recurring menace like the Silence or Bad Wolf, but in fact they never showed a snowflake until popping up to be the Doctor's great nemesis. That was a failing.

Now, unlike many people, I didn't think Name ended on a cliffhanger; Clara chased the Great Intelligence through the Doctor's timestream, undoing the damage it caused by becoming a succession of short-lived Claras throughout his lives, and the Doctor fished her out into a conceptual space where she caught a glimpse of the War Doctor.

The Day of the Doctor I have discussed elsewhere in great detail. Again, I was less troubled by it than many people.

And that brings us to The Time of the Doctor, which wraps up the entire Eleventh run from the crack in Amelia Pond's bedroom wall onwards. There is a story in there that I really liked, about the Doctor giving up his final life to defend something that, in many ways, doesn't need defending, except for the handful of lives in danger. He's not guarding the Time Lords, or the door to Gallifrey, but the people of Christmas/Trenzilore, and that I liked. I also liked the resolution of the name plot: "His name is the Doctor." Well, of course it is.

But... And what a characterisation of this trilogy that word is. But, in this case, and as with the others in many ways, what it doesn't do well is tie up the loose ends. It's as if the last Season (and two specials) has been struggling with two or even three Seasons worth of plot ideas, and doing none of them well because they won't do without any of them.

The Papal Mainframe is yet another not-entirely-matching view of the Church marines, and why it's led by a flirty chick in heavy eyeliner is unclear, except that apparently everything in the nuWho future is run by flirty chicks in heavy eyeliner who fancy the Doctor.

The Doctor tricking the wooden Cybermen was something I liked a lot. If felt very Doctorish, and we don't get a great deal of that some days.

I liked Handles, but again, I really wanted to have seen his genesis; even if it was just as a piece he'd picked up at the end of Nightmare in Silver. That would have made a connection and made the eventual 'death' of Handles more affecting (although it kind of would have done already).

Finally, I'm not sure about the ending. It was a bit token for the end of the Doctor's final lifetime (and I'm leaving aside here that I would have liked to have seen at least a nod to the Valeyard somewhere) and I've never been a fan of the regeneration of mass destruction.

All in all, I think it was probably time, but in the end the series didn't tie together enough to earn this ending. It's a shame, because Eleven opened with such promise.

And now Twelve, or perhaps Doctor 2.1. I guess we'll see what they manage with him.

The Eagle

Hannah and I decided to watch a DVD on Friday, and after considerable searching, we settled on The Matrix, simply because I don't own many DVDs that she was interested in. It's not that our tastes don't overlap, they do, I just don't own those DVDs. Thus, on Saturday we opted to pick up a cheap DVD in Asda for a future evening's entertainment (in the end, Sunday's).

After much careful consideration, we opted to spend £3 on a copy of The Eagle, with Channing Tatum and Jamie Bell, rather than Black Death, with Sean Bean.

Based on Rosemary Sutcliffe's The Eagle of the Ninth and referenced by James Holloway of the Gonzo History Project in his discussion of Picts who look like Native Americans, The Eagle is an odd-couple buddy movie, in which Marcus - son of the last Centurion of the lost 9th Hispania - seeks to restore the honour of his family by recovering the eagle standard of the legion, aided by his British slave, Esca.

This is one of those films where they distinguish nationality by accent, having the Romans chiefly played by Americans - or in one case, Mark Strong doing an accent, which is a bit odd - and the British by British actors. Marcus and Esca argue and talk about whether Rome is awesome or awful; they get captured by the Picts and Esca claims Marcus is his slave, then at the end of the film they basically swan into town hall, give a Tribune the finger and swan out again like they're in a cop movie and they just took down the mob.

It's kind of interesting to watch from that angle.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

The background was so metal that
Gandalf was surprised no-one had photoshopped
a guitar into the image yet

After a year's wait and the game-changing experience of Sylvester McCoy, Peter Jackson and Ian McKellan's turns in The Fivish Doctors, here it is; part 2 of the epic adaptation of the not-really-very-epic novel The Hobbit.

So, first up, you should probably know by now that I am a sucker for Jackson's big mad epic schtick, although not to the point that nothing he does bothers me. The ride to Osgiliath in Return of the King, for example, was a thing of beauty, but basically dumb as rocks, and he has a habit of knocking down the supporting cast and playing keep away with their dignity in order to make the heroes seem more heroic which I don't care for.

Of course, with the Hobbit the real issue is the inclusion of all the extra material relating to Dol Goldur, most of which just appears in the appendices of The Lord of the Rings, and the general Lording up of the Hobbit, which is a much lighter and simpler tome. Honestly, I don't have a big problem with either of these; the problems I do have will be discussed in the spoilery section lower down.

In general, I had a good time with this one. There was some nice action and some good drama. Also, Smaug is fucking badass. As has happened before, however, I find that the devil is in the details, which is to say that while the broad strokes pleased me, the close brushwork gave me more trouble.

So; spoilers.

Reviewer Lindsey Ellis identified two key problems with the Lord of the Rings film trilogy: Too many battles, and the 'forced Peej conflict'. The latter refers to Peter Jackson's tendency to add extra character conflicts, in the hope that more misery will make the characters more interesting and likable.

In terms of too many battles, here we have an extended spider fight, an orc raid on the wood elfs and a running battle on the river following that, a fight in the mountain between the dwarfs and Smaug, as well as a flashback to Smaug's first attack on Esgaroth, and another orc fight in Laketown. Then we have the forced Peej conflicts, which come thick and fast. Thranduil - in the books just a stubborn king - follows (or rather, precedes) Elrond into the willfully blind to the need to interact with the world club, while at the same time being pissy about his kid's romantic aspirations, just like Elrond. Clearly, someone has a case of hero worship. The film also throws us Legolas - not in this book - and Tauriel - not in any book, partly for some bad ass elfing, but also apparently for him to moon over her while she has a doomed romance with Kili the dwarf.

I don't think the film really needed any of these.

A couple of weird changes: the 'black arrow' being a harpoon fired from a double-armed mounted crossbow, rather than Bard's lucky arrow; and the weakness in Smaug's armour being a result of a past fight rather than chance.

Also, Kili being wounded with a 'Morgul shaft' and healed by Tauriel using kingsfoil was... bizarre. Is there a whole line of fine Morgul products? And is Tauriel really the Queen of Numenor?

Free Birds and Frozen

So, the last couple of weeks we've been to see some of the seasonal animated fare, partly because it's less likely to spook Arya than the screaming monkeys.

First up was Thanksgiving adventure Free Birds, with Owen Wilson's neurotic slacker turkey Reggie and Woody Harrelson's manly battery escapee Jake teaming up to travel back in time and disrupt the first Thanksgiving, in order to escalate the treatment of the Native American tribes from merely shabby to viciously cannibalistic.

Okay, to 'get turkey off the menu', but who is counting?

The film is pretty up front about its historical inaccuracy, opening with an announcement that nothing is real except the talking turkeys. With that out of the way, it's a jolly enough romp, and even has some depth to it, as Jake learns that the wild turkeys aren't a simple people in need of rescuing, but over all it is unashamedly fluff. I do worry about the notion that no-one would be hunting turkeys if not for the European settlers, which furthers the myth of the Native American 'harmony with nature', especially given the somewhat stereotypical depiction of the Native Americans themselves. I was also a little baffled by the notion that the first thanksgiving was essentially the settlers throwing a dinner party to impress the new neighbours, but I don't have good enough American history to know how off that is.

I was also upset that the straight couple got their happy ending, but the macho gay beta couple just got a moment, although the film still has the most overt and positive homoerotic subtext of pretty much any animated children's film ever.

Last week, we saw Frozen. Now, I only caught Tangled more recently, which is by the same team and has many similarities (in particular Sven the Reindeer clearly owes a lot to Maximus from Tangled), but the story is based on a different fairy tale and is its own beast. It is also beautifully animated, with the same attention to detail lavished on the snow and ice as on Rapunzel's hair in Tangled.

Lifting loosely from The Snow Queen, our story is essentially of two sisters. The elder, Elsa, has magical powers over snow; the younger, Ana, is lively. While playing, Else injures Ana, and while she is saved by the trolls, she has to forget magic and Elsa to retreat from the world until her powers can be controlled.

A painful flash-forward - it's no Up, but watching Ana try desperately to reach her distant sister as they grow older and their parents are lost at sea does tug on the heart strings - leads to the coronation of Queen Elsa, and brings in the supporting cast: A handsome prince, an ambitious trading partner, and Kristoff, a young ice-cutter who witnessed the healing of Ana in the prologue.

When Ana declares her intent to marry a prince she barely knows, Elsa's powers kick off and she flees, leading to the extended third act in which Ana - aided by Kristoff, his reindeer Sven and a magical snowman named Olaf who dreams of summer - search for Elsa, Prince Hans searches for Ana, and plots and schemes are revealled, leading to Ana's second injury by Elsa - as in the fairy tale, the first is to her head, the second and more deadly to her heart - which can only be healed by an act of true love.

Now, getting into spoilers, the payoff on this was what I really loved. Naturally, the fourth act is all about trying to get Ana to her true love's kiss, but in the end what saves her is a display of her own love for her sister, simultaneously lauding familial love alongside romantic and making the princess her own rescuer. Props.

Robot and Frank

Frank (Frank Langella) is a bad-tempered, increasingly sentile retired former cat burglar with a stubborn attachment to his own independence; robot is a mechanical health-care aid with advanced motor and cognitive abilities. They commit crime.

That's pretty much the plot of this independent film. OIn the near future, our elderly ex-fellon is bought a robot helper by his son (James Marsden) and, when it suggests a 'project' to give him structure and help maintain his memory, he teaches it to pick locks so that they can commit burglaries together. Complications occur in the form of the librarian (Susan Sarandon) he has a crush on and a radical anti-robot daughter (Liv Tyler), as the unlikely partnership provides him with a new lease of life.

I'm not a great fan of either James Marsden or Liv Tyler, but they were both pretty decent in this, and Langella and Sarandon are serious class acts. It's an odd little film, but rather sweet and not a little sad in parts, being not just a sci-fi buddy comedy about a man an his robot stealing jewels, but also a touching exploration of the nature and importance of memory, and of its loss.

Catching Fire

It's been a long wait for the second part of the Hunger Games trilogy and a slightly fraught one, as we weren't sure we would be able to take Arya to see it (babe-in-arms tickets are only allowed up to the 12A certificate), but in the end we went as a family. I think we're going to have to start making alternative arrangements, however, as Arya is now alert enough that the moving images keep her awake long enough to then be upset by the loud noises, and especially the baboons.

More than half of this movie does not take place in the arena of the Games themselves. The Hunger Games was a movie about the Hunger Games, while Catching Fire deals more deeply with the issues surrounding them. We open with a good hour showing the growing dissent and oppression within the Districts following Katniss's act of defiance. We see Katniss try to calm things down under the threat of her family's death, and the tension between fear and rage which alternately drive the characters to toe the line and rage against the machine.

This section is grim, but excellently done, and as before the contrast between the Districts and the Capitol are superbly played, not just in the acting and the dialogue, but in the superb set and costume design.

The second section is the announcement of the Quarter Quell and the Reaping of the former Victors. The absolute star here is Elizabeth Banks as Effie Trinket, transforming her vacuous Hunger Games persona through a few vocal inflections and key character moments. The choking pain as she goes through the same Reaping routine as in the first movie; her seemingly trivial suggestion that the 'boys' should have tokens to match the 'girls', which evolves into a genuine show of solidarity. Also of note are Jena Malone's Johanna Mason and Lenny Kravitz returning for Cinna's final act, which he telegraphs perfectly and understatedly.

Malone gets about ten minutes of screen time to establish Mason as cunning, bold and angry as hell, set her up as an antagonist, an unlikely ally, and then manage an apparent heel-turn and a reversal; that it works is a tribute to the actress and the filmmakers.

Watch me gush!

And this is not to say that the core players are slacking. Jennifer Lawrence continues to get Katniss just right; courageous and principled, but also devoted to protecting her family above some high ideal and, in many ways, a spiky, suspicious, unlikable individual. Her flaws are played as well as her strengths, meaning that she remains the complex, sympathetic character from the books instead of a stock 'strong' heroine. Josh Hutcherson continue to provide what would conventionally be the feminine touch as Peeta; wise, intuitive and empathic, and driven by love and not a sense of duty. Veteran players Woody Harrelson, Donald Sutherland and Philip Seymour Hoffman provide stalwart support, with Sutherland and Hoffman carrying a lot of the exposition scenes with aplomb and Harrelson a joy as the surly, erratic Haymitch.

The final section of the film is the Quarter Quell itself, and this is almost an afterthought. With the arena driving against the tributes, most of the deaths are offscreen, with just enough shown to remember that, even if most of the fighters in this Games aren't children anymore, the Hunger Games are still obscene.

So, yeah, I loved the hell out of this movie, even the bits I had to watch walking up and down the ramp trying to get the baby to sleep because it scared her with its shrieking monkeys.