True Blood: Season 2 (2009)

*CONTAINS SPOILERS*

What I liked:

• Bill and Sookie finally have a little more physical chemistry developing between them, it isn’t such an awkward thing to watch them together anymore.
• The humour in this one was pretty sharp.
• Pam and Eric when they are together. They are exceptionally entertaining – always sniping at each other, always loving each other, though goodness knows neither will admit it.
• Seeing more Alexander Skarsgård as Eric Northman in this one. He is the one character that is really interesting, and I feel he was underused in the last season. He is the one that most people seem to love to see more of – his ruthlessness, his history, his attitude, all of it.
• Eric and Sookie’s exchange about using words the other doesn’t understand.
• The relationship between Hoyt and Jessica – it was really sweet.
• Allan Hyde as Godric. He was truly amazing and very well done. His character had quite a bit of depth, even though he was only a brief part of what happened. Hyde was perfect to play him, he had that looks of having seen the world, yet he was still so beautiful. Big fan, me.
• The relationship that Godric and Eric share, as well as the past. Both are very deep, both very sad. Eric is very loyal to Godric, which is something I like, and Godric is definitely very changed after two thousand years of living.

What I didn’t like:

• The maenad having such a huge role.
• The town’s craziness. It was fine, then it just got freaking stupid. It went from funny to annoying, and really, really quickly.
• The whole way that Bill and Sookie “have a child” so to speak with Jessica. They make it so much like that and it just really shouldn’t be.
• Eric’s fascination with Sookie is finally here – but it is out of nowhere and not properly explained.
• I am still not enamoured with the wrong teeth being the fangs… small thing to grate on a person, but it does.

Rating:
Again, another pretty decent season. I loved getting to see more of Eric and Pam in this one, they are worth the watch all the time. I felt extremely bad for Lafayette and all the things that he went through, he was so broken when all was said and done. Maryann annoyed me, seeing as she was supposed to have an important role, but not that important that it became a whole season’s worth of stuff. Watching how it was implemented was funny initially, all these people going cooked and not remembering, then it rapidly progressed to being a drag. Drifting back into Eric’s past of being the honourable Viking who turned was something I thoroughly enjoyed, and Godric as his maker was simply perfect. Eric really did actually feel something for his Maker, though it is something that confused Sookie endlessly. I think the thing with Godric and Eric was far better in the show than the books – Ocella was just annoying, and the history didn’t quite resonate the same. Jason’s retarded decision to join the Fellowship of the Sun proved to be incredibly funny, as Jason most certainly either didn’t attend Bible studies or Church, or just really didn’t absorb what was said. Thinking that Moses walked on water and wondering who Judas was really had me cracking up. Hoyt and Jessica meeting was just the most adorable thing, and he really seems to have pulled the ridiculously annoying side out of her, which was pretty cool. Steve and Sarah Newlin really made my stomach turn. He was just not… a man (I cannot explain this enough – any tying a pastel sweater around your shoulders does not help matter whatsoever), and Sarah was such a loose woman. Anyway, as far as it goes, some things were straightened out in this season and were most certainly enjoyable. You have to laugh at the cheese True Blood provides.

Review: X2 (2003) – Silver Screen Serenade

So when Zoë shared her plans to have an X-Men Blogathon to prepare for the upcoming Days of Future Past, I was totally in. I’d been thinking I ought to do something to get in the spirit, and I think this is just the ticket! Kudos for the awesome idea, Zoë!

When given a choice between the X-Men films to review, I immediately snatched up X2: X-Men United. In my opinion, this is the X-Men film to beat. Let’s talk about why, shall we?

Synopsis: “The X-Men band together to find a mutant assassin who has made an attempt on the President’s life, while the Mutant Academy is attacked by military forces.” –www.imdb.com

Why it’s awesome:

That opening! X2 doesn’t waste any time getting right into some action. I mean, an assassination attempt on the president within the first five minutes? I’m paying attention! And as for the would-be assassin…

• NIGHTCRAWLER IS THE BEST. Seriously, he might be my favorite thing about this film. Played brilliantly by Alan Cumming, Kurt Wagner a.k.a. Nightcrawler is just too freaking cool. His look, his power, his personality—I feel like this film nails it. He looks scary, but he has a heart of gold, and with only a few details, you get a sense of his tortured past. Plus, I love the designs on his skin. “One for every sin,” he claims. Very nice touch.

• Patrick Stewart as Professor Charles Xavier. Yes, Professor X is a character we’re introduced to in the first film, but he continues to shine here as the strong, wise, soft-spoken patriarch of the X-Men family.
• Hugh Jackman just…is Wolverine. At this point, I do believe Logan a.k.a. Wolverine has been a bit overexposed (he has a huge role in every X-Men film except First Class, where he’s limited to a brief albeit delightful cameo), but this is the surly tough guy’s second film appearance, and it’s great.

• Ian freakin’ McKellen as Erik Lehnsherr a.k.a. Magneto. So much yes. Aside from Tom Hiddleston’s irresistibly fun Loki, McKellen’s Magneto is my very favorite Marvel villain. He’s wonderfully suave, clever, and brutal, and his complicated “frenemy” relationship with Professor X is brilliantly portrayed. Also, his prison breakout scene is arguably the best moment of the film. Sheer awesomeness.
• Rebecca Romijn as Raven Darkholme a.k.a. Mystique. We don’t know much about her, but what we do know is that she’s sexy, sassy, smart, and an undeniable badass. She has some great moments in this film, but my personal favorite is when she breaks into William Stryker’s facility, then slides through a closing door while flipping her enemies the bird. Win.

• The coolness of Colossus (Daniel Cudmore). We may not know much about him, but man does he look awesome.
• The creepy intensity of William Stryker (Brian Cox). It’s hard for a plain old human villain to measure up to mutants, but Stryker does the job perfectly.
• Bobby’s “coming out” scene. When Bobby Drake a.k.a. Iceman (Shawn Ashmore) leads a group of mutants to his family’s house, he has to confess to them what he really is. The family’s reaction is less than favorable. You can’t help drawing parallels between this and the struggles of the gay community. It’s a smart tie-in to a very relevant social issue.
• The Phoenix teasers. There are a couple of them in this film, and even though Phoenix a.k.a. Jean Grey (Famke Janssen) doesn’t turn out quite like fans had hoped, the hints of power are still pretty great.
• Yuriko Oyama a.k.a. Lady Deathstrike (Kelly Hu). When those adamantium claws sprout from her fingertips and she takes on Wolverine, it’s the best.

That scene near the end where the mutants talk to the president. Everything freezes, it’s dark and stormy, the mutants speak from the shadows…Mr. Prez, you’d better LISTEN!

• In general, I just think the script is really sharp for this one. The dialogue is great, the pacing pretty spot-on, and the story, though ambitious, works well. Kudos, X2!

Clearly, I love this one. But if I have to pick on a few things…

The (few) things that bother me:

I don’t love Jean, Rogue (Anna Paquin), or Storm (Halle Berry), and I hate that because they’re all such potentially awesome characters. The problem is Famke Janssen can’t act her way out of a paper bag, Rogue doesn’t have nearly enough sass and is a little whiny (I blame the writers more than Paquin), and Storm is miscast as well as sans the cool African accent she is supposed to have. I read a list the other day of miscast X-Men where the writer suggested Angela Bassett instead of Berry in the role. Anyone who has seen Bassett in American Horror Story: Coven knows why that idea made me giddy.

BEST. STORM. EVER.

I hate the Logan/Jean/Scott love triangle. Is that a thing in the comics? I hate it. I hate how it makes Scott a.k.a. Cyclops (James Marsden) act toward Logan, I hate how Jean kind of leads Logan on, and I hate how it makes Logan a bit mopey. Do you guys feel the same? I don’t know. Maybe the prevalence of love triangles in, like, every recent book and movie has made me bitter toward them.

make them staaaaahp!

• Stryker’s team breaks into the X-Mansion like it’s child’s play. Isn’t that place supposed to be super duper guarded? I feel like Professor X would’ve put more thought into that.
• John Allerdyce a.k.a. Pyro (Aaron Stanford) is just an annoying psycho. There’s not much done to develop his character, and by the time he abandons the X-Men for Team Magneto, I’m like, “Whatever, bro.” Could not care less. Do we even really need him?
• So if you’ve gotten this far, I’m sure you don’t care about spoilers, but SPOILERS! So Jean heroically sacrifices herself by stepping outside of a jet full of her X-Buddies and powering it up before rushing waters come to drown them. Here’s my question: Why couldn’t homegirl power up the jet from the inside? I guess you could argue that she also has to hold back the waters, but earlier in the film she stopped a missile from inside the jet. I see no reason she couldn’t hold back the water from inside it, too.

GET IN THE JET, YOU DUMB BITCH.

Summary:

I love this film. In my opinion, it’s the best X-Men so far (we’ll see how Days of Future Past stacks up), and it does all the things a good sequel is supposed to do: show us more of the characters we love while introducing a few awesome new ones, thicken the plot and put it on a grander scale, and improve upon and/or equal the previous film in greatness. Check, check, and check. This is one of my favorite superhero films for good reason.

My Rating: 9/10 (Probably an A on my rating system)

Thanks so much for letting me participate, Zoë!  X-Men Blogathon ruuuuuules! 😀

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Thanks a million for participating Cara, this was an awesome review! I would have loved to see Bassett rock the Storm role!