Three Torches (Out of Five)

The Losers socked several of my movie pet peeves squarely on the nose, but even so, it’s not a terrible hero flick, as long as you remember to adjust your expectations to “B movie” — because, as you know, it’s not summer yet.

The Losers is based on the graphic novel of the same name, and follows a group of mercenaries whose failed black ops mission has left them stranded in the Bolivia. Because the CIA assumes they’re dead, they wallow in the third world jungle until Zoe Saldana’s Aisha shows up and hires them to exact revenge on a villain who bombed a bus load of kids in the movie’s opening sequence.

Whether or not you can enjoy what follows depends entirely on your ability to interpret it as highly-stylized satire. The set-up to the stunts was either edited out or never written in, so don’t expect to understand character motivation. The Losers is action, action, action, broken up with gratuitous shots of Zoe Saldana’s ass and a clumsy romantic sub-plot between Aisha and Clay (Jeffrey Dean Morgan).

Hero movies are only as good their villains — I’m looking at you, bungled Spider-Man 3 — and that’s where The Losers actually shines. Jason Patric’s Max is one of the most deliciously over-the-top baddies in recent memory. Patric just gives himself over to the absurdity of the script, lacing his lines with quip and kook and Just Plain Evil. He’s like the three-way love child of Johnny Depp, Christopher Walken and Bowler Hat Guy from Disney’s Meet the Robinsons.

I even enjoyed the slick, hand-held camera work, when it wasn’t trying to make amends for lack of plot by roaming all over Saldana’s body.

The real failure of The Losers — and number one on my list of movie pet peeves — is that, rather than telling a whole story, it sets itself up for a sequel, which will probably never be made. It is the open-ended curse of Hollywood lately, and it drives me bonkers. If Pirates of the Caribbean can’t get it right, there’s no way a low-budget film like The Losers is going to find the formula.

The Losers is fun, but mostly forgettable, yet I still had a sense of unease when I left the theater. I finally realized it’s because Chris Evans has been cast in The First Avenger, and if he infuses Captain America with half the smarm he gave Jensen in The Losers, I will never, ever forgive him.

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Three Torches (Out of Five)

Unlike most of Marvel’s superhero movies — which can be enjoyed by fanboys and families alike — Kick-Ass is not a film for the uninitiated. Nor is it a film for anyone who is uncomfortable with Tarantino-esque gore, foul-mouthed kids, or gratuitous carnage.

No, Kick-Ass is a highly-stylized, superhero pole dance aimed directly at the kind of genre fans who can tell the difference between the silver and golden ages of comics.

Based on Mark Millar’s comic book series, Kick-Ass follows New York teen Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) as he

does the thing every avid comic book reader has contemplated doing at some point in his or her life: buying a garish costume off the internet and, with absolutely no training whatsoever, going out to fight crime.

It’s all there, right in the movie’s tagline: I can’t fly. But I can kick your ass.

Sadly for Lizewski, that’s not exactly true. He almost gets killed on his first night on the job, and even though he narrates he film, he worries aloud to the audience that he’s going to die halfway through the thing.

Honestly, it would have been OK with me if he didn’t make it, as long as he stuck around long enough to introduce us to Hit Girl (Chloe Grace Moretz), a twelve year old sword-wielding, spark plug of a tween, whose father, Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage), has been training her to fight crime since birth.

Big Daddy (a former policeman), Hit Girl and Kick-Ass join, er, forces and find themselves tangled up with the mob, ultimately spawning their own arch-nemesis (as heroes are wont to do), Red Mist.

Kick-Ass’s fun comes from the winks to its iconic predecessors. Nicholas Cage, for example, delivers lines just like Adam West. And the play on Spider-Man’s moral compass (”With no power comes no responsibility”) is an astute social commentary. But the story, the action, and the fun are all secondary. The main goal of Kick-Ass seems to be shocking the audience.

Hit Girl has a mouth that would make George Carlin blush, and I’m not kidding about the graphic violence.

Some people will juxtapose Kick-Ass to Pixar’s The Incredibles, I’m sure, and also probably Watchmen — but South Park seems like a much better comparison to me.

If you’re in the right mood, the “Wow, did they really just do that?” thing can be entertaining — but only for about 25 minutes. Unfortunately, Kick-Ass‘ “Oh my God, they killed Kenny!” goes on for two solid hours.

Two and a Half Torches (Out of Five)

Look, I know there’s nothing I can say to persuade you not to see this movie. If I was a reader of this website and not its editor, there is nothing I could say that would persuade me not to see this movie.

But I feel it’s my job to warn you: it’s surprisingly bad.

Which is a real shame. Given all the goodwill surrounding the 1981 original (which I feel too), all they had to do to create a blockbuster here is just not screw it up.

Well, they (mostly) screwed it up.

With much improved special effects (CGI vs. stop-motion), things definitely look great, especially the Stygian Witches, Charon (the ferryman of the dead), and, of course, Medusa. (I was a little disappointed in the kraken, which I thought looked like a hand-puppet.)

But they barely updated the story at all. True, part of the charm of the original is that they played a simple, old-fashioned story completely straight (even if it’s very campy in retrospect).

Such a simple story doesn’t wear well in 2010, not without the original’s patina of nostalgia and/or camp. The new version, frankly, feels dumbed down — which is saying something in the era of Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen.

As in the original, Perseus, the half-son of Zeus, is tasked with defeating the undefeatable kraken. In doing so, he can usher in an era where humans are not the playthings of the petty, capricious gods (and also save the girl!).

In the updated version, there’s a little bit more of a conflict among the gods — Hades is plotting to overthrow Zeus. And they’ve added a bit to Perseus’ character in that he disavows his half-god heritage.

But otherwise we’ve pretty much got a story about a guy who tries to defeat a dragon kraken in order to rescue a pretty princess.

And please don’t say, “Of course, it’s a simple story! It’s based (very loosely) on Greek myths!”

The psychological underpinnings of the Greek myths are the underpinnings of Western civilization. Had they bothered, there are all kinds of fascinating themes they could’ve explored.

Instead, they just needed an excuse to show a series of action scenes — that, for the record, are also simplistic and by-the-numbers.

At least there’s a very funny joke involving the mechanical owl from the original movie.

And it must be said: Sam Worthington (Avatar’s Jake) is surprising wooden. He’s not quite Jake-Lloyd-in-The-Phantom-Menace bad, but I can’t remember the last time a leading actor in a major movie was this uninvolving.

The movie is surprisingly retro in its supporting players too, and not in good ways. The female characters are all literally male fantasies: either virginal sex goddesses or evil hags (Medusa, the Stygian Witches). And if there was a person of color in the movie, I missed it. In 2010? Please, that’s just embarrassing.

Like I said, I know you’re going to go see this movie no matter what I say.

So go, enjoy the special effects, and then go out with your friends afterward and say, “Wow, that was a wasted opportunity, wasn’t it?”

Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Three Torches (Out of Five)

We know Alice in Wonderland is a Tim Burton movie, but exactly which kind of Tim Burton movie is it?

Is it the sublime kind that uses stunning, off-kilter visuals to tell a quirky, but fully realized story, like Edward Scissorshands, Sleepy Hollow, or Beetlejuice?

Or is it the incoherent-mess kind, where Burton’s stunning trademark visuals are wasted on an indifferent or outright sloppy script, like Planet of the Apes, James and the Giant Peach, Mars Attacks!, Big Fish, or 9?

The truth is, it’s not really either.

To be sure, it’s visually fantastic. Whether it’s the smiling, levitating Cheshire Cat, Matt Lucas as Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum, or the wonderfully oversized head on the Queen of Hearts, Wonderland — or “Underland,” as it’s called here — has never looked so good.

And just like so many recent Tim Burton movies, the story is infuriatingly weak.

But weirdly, the movie is worth seeing anyway.

Here is the story: in the 19th century, 19 year-old Alice, faced with a life of unbearable convention, follows a rabbit down a rabbit hole. There she finds a magical dreamland where someone named “Alice” once visited before. Is it her? It matters, because that Alice is prophesied to slay the evil Jabberwocky.

That’s the whole story. There’s some very vague talk about how Alice needs to learn that something can be “impossible” and “real” at the same time in order to be more like her dead father, but honestly, the movie doesn’t even bother giving us the slightest reason to care about Alice or her quest.

As is typical with Burton, it’s all about the visuals.

But as I said, the movie is worth watching anyway. I think it’s because it’s such a wonderfully weird Wonderland — er, Underland — and for such an iconic place, it’s never really been so successfully visually realized before. It’s not just that everything here looks so cool; it’s that it also has a perfect visual coherence.

In short, everything fits together perfectly.

What else works? Helena Bonham Carter, who has long seemed to have been slumming in her husband Tim Burton’s movies, absolutely shines here as the Queen of Hearts. She’s hilarious, shrieking “off with their heads” at every opportunity — and the image of her over-sized head (about which she is understandably very sensitive) is fascinating in itself.

Johnny Depp, in an expanded Mad Hatter role, basically plays Edwards Scissorshands crossed with Willy Wonky. And Anne Hathoway is all hand flutters as The White Queen.

Twenty five years ago, Disney famously fired Tim Burton, because they thought his short film Frankenweenie, was too scary for kids. It’s now a cult classic, and the studio has hired Burton back for this production, which reportedly cost an astounding $250 million dollars.

They’re sure to make their money back, as the project, which has been wildly (but cleverly) hyped, is certain to be a big, big hit.

So it seems that Tim Burton and Disney are both getting their happy endings.

Does the audience? Oh, kinda.

But in a way, it’s a shame, because with visuals as fully realized as the ones in this movie, Alice in Wonderland had the potential to become almost as much of a classic as the books upon which it is based.

It isn’t — not by a long shot.

Two and a Half Torches (Out of Five)

I hate reviewing mediocre projects.

If something is great, I’m always eager to share the news of it with the world. If something is truly terrible, I admit I don’t mind directing a little vitriol at those involved.

But what do you with something like the new Fox show Past Life, which debuts on a special night this Tuesday (and then starts a regular run Thursday nights)? It’s not terrible, but there’s nothing particularly novel or memorable about it either.

Here’s the premise, loosely “inspired” by the novel The Reincarnationist by M. J. Rose: a skeptical by-the-books cop with dark secrets is assigned to a risk-taking, true-believing doctor who investigates past lives. Together they use past life regression to solve long-unsolved crimes.

Basically, it’s a paranormal Cold Case or Bones, although the leading characters don’t have the personality or the chemistry of the latter show, at least in the first two episodes made available for preview.

Past Life seems mostly plot-driven, like Cold Case or Law & Order, not as character-driven as Supernatural or The Vampire Diaries. Still, I found Kate, played by All My Children’s Kelli Giddish, to be more interesting than her partner, Price, played by Home & Away’s Nicholas Bishop.

The good news:  the episodes start quickly and dramatically, and there’s an interesting plot twist or two along the way — in the pilot episode (which is reportedly running on Thursday), I didn’t expect “Maria” to be who she turned out to be.

And there’s occasionally some nice humor. There’s a cute scene in the Tuesday episode when, after being stonewalled by the manager of a country club, Kate flirts with the teenage bus boy, who, of course, is willing to do whatever the attractive older woman wants.

The bad news is that so much of the show is so by-the-numbers, from the skeptic/true believer male-female partnership, to the assortment of oddball support staff.

My first complaint is that the show takes such a simple-minded approach to past lives. Basically, they’re real, and everyone who says they’ve had a peek at their past is right. I know it’s a TV show, but would it have killed them to add a little nuance?

My second complaint is more substantial: the writers use plot-cheats. Every new plot twist comes not from the main characters unraveling some clue cleverly set up earlier in the episode, but from the subject of each past life investigation suddenly “remembering” something essential about the mystery.

As a result, the main characters don’t really drive the stories, making it almost impossible for me to get very emotionally involved.

So what do I say about a show that’s so … mediocre?

I guess what I’ll say is this: if you’re interested in the genre or the premise, give it a shot. Otherwise, forget it.

Past Life debuts Tuesday at 9 PM on Fox. Another episode runs Thursday at 9 PM, and future episodes will also have that time-slot.

Three Torches (Out of Five)

It could’ve been a whole lot worse.

When I saw the previews for the new Guy Ritchie-directed movie adaptation of Sherlock Holmes, I thought, “Oh, good God, they’ve turned him into a Matrix-like action hero!”

The truth is, the scenes where Holmes uses his understanding of anatomy to pummel an opponent in slow, perfectly-choreographed motion are a very small part of the film (distracting and unnecessary though they may be).

No, this movie more or less hews closely to the Sherlock Holmes we know and love: the anti-social detective (Robert Downey Jr.) who, along with his hapless companion Dr. Watson (Jude Law), draws sweeping, eerily-accurate conclusions from the most mundane, maybe even ridiculous of details.

This time out, Holmes and Watson are up against Lord Blackwood, the leader of an evil cult that’s terrorizing London (despite the fact that he was recently executed — and Dr. Watson was the one who declared him dead!). Has he really somehow unlocked a secret power of the universe?

The movie has beefed up the humorous “bromance” relationship between Watson and Holmes, who resents his faithful companion for moving out to get married. Meanwhile, Holmes is involved in a tempestuous relationship of his own with Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams), a beautiful con artist who once outsmarted him.

Still, this is a Joel Silver movie, and he’s the producer of The Matrix, Die Hard, Speeder Racer, and a zillion other action movies both good and bad.

That means it looks great — I’m not sure I’ve seen a more convincing 19th century London — but that “story” gets short-shrift.

Frankly, the reason why I like mysteries is that you tell yourself that if you pay attention very closely, you can figure it all out before the main character does — and even if you don’t, you can still enjoy that moment when it all comes together, and you say to yourself, “How did I miss that?! It’s so obvious in retrospect!”

Forget that. The mystery here is strictly boiler-plate. Meanwhile, the villain is absolutely by-the-numbers in every way, clearly just a place-holder until we get to the “real” villain in the next entry in this would-be movie franchise.

And while I thought Law was hilarious as a particularly put-upon Watson, I found Robert Downey Jr.’s performance to be way too Method Actor-y, all quirky and brooding. And not for one second did I ever buy that McAdams is half as smart as her character is suppose to be.

Sherlock Holmes is not the total disaster I feared it to be. But it’s also not nearly as fun as it could’ve been.

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Two and a Half Torches (Out of Five)

Put a fork in Terry Gilliam. I think his career as a major film director is done.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, his most eagerly awaited film in years because it happened to be the last movie Heath Ledger ever made, is also his most inaccessible, and not in a good way.

Once word gets out, it will almost certainly be a massive box office flop (despite the Heath Ledger buzz). And since the budget was somewhere between $25 and $45 million, I have a hard time believing that any investor will be willing to indulge him again, especially considering his history of making expensive, often self-indulgent failed films.

And this is a total shame, for two reasons.

First, I’m a huge Gilliam fan, who is responsible for several of my all-time favorite fantasy films: Time Bandits and The Adventures of Baron Maunchausen. When he’s good, there’s no one better.

I happen to think he’s not only a true visual genius, but a genuine “artist” — someone who listens only to his own inner muse, sticking to his vision. As a result, a Terry Gilliam film is absolutely its own unique creation.

There may be no one else working in films today who is quite as “pure” as he is, and the world needs more like him.

Second, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is a failure as a movie, but like all Gilliam failures, it’s a fascinating one.

Dr. Parnassus (an unrecognizable Christopher Plummer, who is sensational in the part) is a thousand years old, having made a deal with the devil (a perfectly cast Tom Waits) to live forever. Now he travels the world as head of a old-fashioned circus show that includes a magic mirror as its centerpiece.

But Dr. Parnassus has unexpectedly given birth to a daughter, and it turns out that in exchange for immortality, the doctor promised the soul of the daughter he never thought he’d have. Now the devil has come to collect — but being the devil, he offers another deal: if the doctor can collect five other souls before the devil does, and the daughter is saved.

The second half of the movie is Dr. Parnassus’s attempt to collect the souls, with help from a mysterious stranger named Tony (Health Ledger, who truthfully doesn’t make much of an impression), luring unsuspecting people into his magic mirror to capture them for the devil.

It’s a terrific premise, and the dimensions beyond the magic mirror, created by the imagination of both Dr. Parnassus and whoever enters it, are absolutely surreal — classic Gilliam in the best possible sense.

Likewise, because Ledger died mid-way through shooting, the director had to come up with some way to “replace” him. As it is, he appears “different” every time he goes into the mirror — and he’s played by different actors: Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell, in turn.

It’s seamless and beautifully done.

The problem is that the rest of the movie is such a muddled mess. The first half of the movie is borderline unwatchable, and basic plot exposition is presented in such a confusing, awkward way that you quickly run out of patience. Likewise, it takes way too long to get to the actual story.

The movie perks up considerably in the second half, but I suspect most audiences will have long since checked out. The only reason I didn’t is because I’m such a huge Gilliam fan (and truthfully, he even tried my patience quite a bit).

I’m fascinated to know why the fact the movie clearly doesn’t work wasn’t obvious to Gilliam — or why he didn’t listen if people tried to tell him this. Was Gilliam’s greatest strength — his refusal to compromise his vision — ultimately his own undoing?

A man with great power ignores the nay-sayers, pushing his limits further and further — until he ends up destroying himself completely.

Hey, it almost sounds like a Terry Gilliam movie!

Alas, it’d probably be better than The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.

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Three Torches (Out of Five)

The good news is that the new fantasy webseries Riese has surprisingly impressive production values. Better still, it’s an example of “steampunk,” a relatively rare fantasy genre usually set in an early-industrial era where steam-power might still be used.

The bad news is that the producers don’t understand, in a very basic way, how the pacing of a web series is different from that of a television series.

Face it: we absorb information differently online. We’re more intent on the screen, so we take things in more quickly, finding visual cues on the screen in a way we don’t when we’re watching television. Web series episodes are almost always only five to ten minutes long, but they can cram in much more plot than five minutes of a TV show, because we, sophisticated media consumers that we are, can take it all in that much faster.

Riese would do well to learn this fact, because while it has the grinding, driving music of a face-paced action web series, it doesn’t have the pace of one. There are simply too many long, thoughtful pauses, too many too-long establishing shots, and too many scenes of characters simply walking from here to there.

(Part of me wonders if this whole web series wasn’t conceived of as a traditional TV series, and this web series aspect is part of some pitch geared toward getting an established network like SyFy to bite. The actors are definitely the real deal. Patrick Gilmore appears on Stargate Universe, and Ben Cotton appeared on Stargate Atlantis. Christine Chatelain, who plays Riese, has credits that include SyFy’s Sanctuary.)

All this said, the first three episodes that have been released so far are visually impressive, and it’s especially nice that there are female characters driving the plot (on both the good and the bad end of things).

Meanwhile, the set-up itself is definitely intriguing. The industrial age setting alone is something we definitely haven’t seen much of before.

The series opens on a injured woman, Riese, running wildly through the woods — being chased by a wolf, it seems. But the wolves that are seeking her blood are actually of the far more dangerous “human” kind. She’s being pursued by a group of religious fanatics called The Sect that have somehow taken over the land.

Why are they so determined to get Riese — and what exactly are their nefarious plans for this dying world? There are tantalizing hints of what’s to come in the first three episodes. The next episode will be released on December 14th.

In the meantime, the first three episodes follow:

Visit the series website.

Some fantasy films are made and immediately become a part of the cultural zeitgeist, integrating themselves into pop culture and slang, so that every movie-goer worth his or her salt understands a reference to Middle Earth, or can tell you what happens when you flick and swish your wand, chanting “Wingardium Leviosa.”

But not every film can be a Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings. Some films are made and, through no fault of their own, never manage to find the enormous mainstream success that is so coveted. When this happens, these movies are banished to an ethereal storage dimension called the Cave of Forgotten Tales, and become lost to time.

But here in the offices of TheTorchOnline.com, we have a portal to this mysterious dimension, and from time to time, we venture into this cave, looking for the blockbusters that might, could, or should have been.

And then we review them.

The Forbidden Kingdom (2008)

Two and a Half Torches (Out of Five)

The first film to be dragged out of the Cave is The Forbidden Kingdom, a self-aware film that fits mostly into the genre known as wuxia, or Chinese martial arts fantasy films, in which characters battle acrobatic and gravity-defying duels, usually with the assistance of many, many wires.

I say “mostly fits” because the movie as a whole uses one of those wonky Wizard of Oz plot devices where a character who lives in our plain, banal world gets konked on the head and wakes up in a magical land filled with witches, warriors, and spells. The main character, Jason, is a young man who is obsessed not with Kung Fu but with Kung Fu films, and is even the victim of the inevitable bully who by his teenage years seems to have mastered the martial arts.

Kingdom is probably most significant as it is the first on-screen collaboration of the two titans of martial arts films, Jet Li and Jackie Chan. When Jason is knocked out, he awakens in ancient China, and quickly meets up with a drunken fighter (Chan in a Jack Sparrow-wig). He then learns its his destiny to rescue the mystical Monkey King, and before long they are joined by a beautiful girl and a mysterious monk, played by Li.

Jackie Chan and Jet Li face off in a brilliant fight, gorgeously choreographed by Yuen Wo-Ping, who also designed the fights from The Matrix and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. But alas, they battle only once, and spend the rest of the film as mentors to the young Jason, who seems like a nice kid but, unfortunately, has all the charisma of a cherry blossom.

I wanted so badly to like this film, and there is much to like: the fight choreography, the breathtaking landscapes, and simply the fact that it’s Jet Li and Jackie Chan! On Screen! Together! At the same time! Furthermore, the script is based on very real Chinese mythology, carefully laid down by the screenwriter, who had his own personal journey into martial arts and was moved so much he wrote a movie about it. (Yes, friends, you can find Bonus Features in the Cave of Forgotten Tales, as well.)

But alas, the film was simply not inventive or original enough to truly stand on its own, and was often mired down by its own cliches. Bumbling old man? Placid Buddhist monk? Wire-fu? Beautiful and deadly female costar? The film has all of them, and rather than seeming to honor these tropes, it just seems like it couldn’t think of anything more original. It was one of those experiences where you think, “I wish more movies like this would made — but I just didn’t love this one.”

Should this film be left to the oblivion of the Cave? Unless you’re so into martial arts movies that you have to see every one ever made, the answer is, sadly, yes.

Until next time, friends…remember that for every multi-billion dollar fantasy flick that comes along, a great many are swept into the Cave of Forgotten Tales. It’s our job to see if they really belong there.

Looking to buy The Forbidden Kingdom? Support TheTorchOnline.com by purchasing it through this link.

Three Torches (Out of Five)

We all know a change is coming in the way we consume entertainment. With Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, Joss Whedon proved that content created solely for the internet has a very real future, or even, perhaps, a present. Many television shows have websites where you can go for additional, web-exclusive content.

With more of our time spent on the go, short webisodes seem more and more appealing, a fact that is being capitalized upon by a new web series, Woke Up Dead, starring Jon Heder of Napolean Dynamite fame.

The series begins with Heder’s character, Drex, being hit by a bus, only to wake up in the morgue and freak out the resident, Cassie, to whom he then shares a flashback — he was at a party where he was given a mysterious pill by a guy who was making out with a girl he was in love with. He took the pill to try to beat a headache, but deciding he wasn’t worth it, he went home to drown himself in the tub. He died, but it didn’t stick.

He’s not a zombie, exactly, though his friend Matt (who comes off as a love child of Jonah Hill and Jack Black, without the sex appeal) is certain that’s what he’s become.

The series is shot in webisode form that runs about 3 to 5 minutes, making it easy to absorb, but, like chapters in a Dan Brown novel, tempting to just watch one more. That is, if you’re interested in the story. Which, depending on your aesthetic, you may or may not be.

Woke Up Dead has a quirky comedy about it, but it seems to not always work that comedy successfully. Heder is funny and interesting as Drex, and I like the fact they cast him and not a super-sexy CW hunk as is all the rage these days, but he doesn’t always seem that concerned about his newly-found status as an immortal. Also, for someone who appears to be a nice guy, I couldn’t understand why he was friends with someone as unlikeable as Matt.

It’s a fine line to walk when you’re constructing a somewhat complex story and want to keep a light, oddball silliness to it, but it can be done. The real trick, no matter how you’re dressing up the story, is to make the characters believable, or, at least, likable. Four webisodes in, and I sort of liked it, but I wasn’t absolutely hooked. However, as stated before, the short running time makes it easy to stick around just a little longer.

As far as web content goes, the look is extremely professional. This wasn’t done on a shoestring budget. There was good camera work, everything was well lit, the sound was great, and the special effects were on par with anything on cable. It’s clearly a well-run ship.

I’m interested to see where the show goes, but even more on my thoughts as I watched it was just what else might be popping up solely on computer screens in the future. Which probably wasn’t a good sign for Woke Up Dead.

“Up and At ‘Em” (the first episode of Woke Up Dead)

See all the episodes.

Two and a Half Torches (Out of Five)

I’ve always been a fan of Terry Brooks’ Magic Kingdom novels. I’m of the opinion that Brooks is at his best when he doesn’t take himself too seriously — and in these books, he found the perfect balance between humor and his trademark earnestness.

But A Princess of Landover, the latest book in the series that began in 1986 with Magic Kingdom For Sale — SOLD!, just doesn’t measure up to the four predecessors (of five total) that I’ve read.

Willful and impulsive, Mistaya, the now-15 year-old daughter of Ben Holiday and the half-dryad Willow, doesn’t fit in at the “real”-world boarding school where she’s been sent by her parents to expand her horizons. After being expelled, she returns to the magic land of Landover, where she insists on staying. It’s suggested that she try to revive the land’s forgotten library, Libiris.

But Mistaya has no interest in, well, much of anything, so she decides to run away — although she does eventually go to Libiris anyway (the place that anyone is least likely to look for her!), where she’s called upon to solve a mystery.

The biggest problem with the book is the main character herself. Mistaya is a princess — in both senses of the word. She’s petulant, impulsive, and often downright irrational.

Are there actual teenagers like this? Maybe so, but they don’t make for very interesting main characters in books.

Mostly, Mistaya read to me like a middle-aged man’s idea of what a teenage girl is like. But here’s the thing: even teenage girls have legitimate points-of-view. And if you spend time inside their heads, that point-of-view would make perfect sense.

Mistaya’s never really did. And the oh-so-sensible lectures that the adults in the book keep giving her indicate where the author’s true sensibilities lie.

A second problem is a seriously meandering plot. It’s great to be back in Landover again, and it’s a pleasure to see many fondly-remembered characters — especially the wonderful Edgewood Dirk, the prism cat.

But too much of the book’s action seems random. A multi-chapter trip for Mistaya to see her grandfather the River God seems to exist solely so she can get yet another lecture from a “wiser” adult.

Worse, the novel doesn’t have anything resembling an antagonist until about halfway through the book. Meanwhile, the “mystery” of Libiris is boilerplate all the way.

A prologue and epilogue — both more intriguing than the contents of this book — hint that they’ll be another entry in the series, and that it’ll involve the return of Nightshade, the Witch of Deep Fell.

I’m less excited about that now than I was before I read this book.

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Three Torches (Out of Five)

There are two kinds of programs on the Sci Fi Channel: those like Battlestar Galactica that are better and more sophisticated than almost anything you’re going to see on the traditional networks, and those like Sanctuary that, while they may have a certain campy charm, simply don’t hold a candle to the more established network shows in terms of acting, production values, and, especially, writing.

Now that I think about it, Battlestar Galactica might be the only Sci Fi Channel show to fall into the former category. But definitely put Warehouse 13 in the latter.

The show isn’t a disaster. But given that it’s Sci Fi’s Big New Show — the one they’re rolling out with much fanfare on the day they’re changing their name to “The SyFy Channel” — it’s also a bit of a disappointment.

Pete and Myka, two seemingly down-on-their-luck Secret Service agents, are assigned to work a secretive facility in South Dakota, a warehouse where mysterious magical items and inventions are stored by the government. Artie, an eccentric caretaker (veteran character actor Saul Rubinek), tries to make sense of them all.

“It’s an invitation to endless wonder,” says Mrs. Frederick (CCH Pounder), the enigmatic woman who oversees the project.

Awkward hyperbole aside, it’s a great premise — part X-Files, part Indiana Jones.

What works in the show?

The producers have definitely gone the “Ken and Barbie” route in casting oh-so-pretty Eddie McClintock and Joanne Kelly as Secret Service Agents Pete and Myka, but the two have a nice, easy-going chemistry together.

Rubinek steals almost every scene as Artie, and Pounder is terrific (as usual) in a small, but effective part.

Likewise, the show really embraces its humor, which is a nice change after decades of earnestness and angst in similarly paranormal-themed shows like The X-Files, Fringe, and Supernatural.

What works less well?

Well, too much of the humor falls flat. A “wishing pot” creates a ferret whenever the holder wishes for something impossible? And compared to shows like The X-Files and Supernatural, Warehouse 13 has very little subtly and doesn’t miss a chance to dumb things it down.

Many of the items in the warehouse combine lousy science and with outright hokiness. A car built by Thomas Edison runs on body electricity (to the show’s credit, it’s the slowest-moving car ever created — but, weirdly, this isn’t played for laughs).

Artie keeps in contact with the agents with something called a “Farnsworth” — an awkward, bulky video communicator built in 1929 by the inventor of the television. But wouldn’t a cell phone adapted for use in Warehouse 13 be a whole lot easier?

It’s not just the humor that’s broad; the plots and characterizations are too. The central mystery in the two-hour premiere episode involves an ancient Italian comb that turns the wearer in a power-hungry despot and … well, let’s just say the episode won’t be winning any Peabody Awards.

(And can I just say? It seems bizarre to me that the show pairs an ultra-competent, “by the books” woman with an easy-going, rakish guy — a dynamic that already a cliche way back when The X-Files did it. Why make The X-Files comparisons even more inevitable?)

But this isn’t a show that was made to be seriously pondered. It was made to be fun.

And for the most part, it is.

Warehouse 13’s two-hour premiere movie airs Tuesday, July 7th at 9 PM. Future installments will air on Wednesdays at 9 PM. Check out their genuinely clever website here.