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The good, the bad, and the meh...
Aug. 6th, 2013 08:30 pmThe Wolverine was all kinds of meh. I didn't go in with high expectations, and it really wasn't *bad* - it just wasn't really *good*, either. I don't know - I just think superhero movies should be *fun* (see: Avengers Assemble), but this was just an action slog with a lot of bonkers aspects that made no kind of sense at all. I liked Yukio a lot, but she wasn't in it that much, and the combination of Jean visions and Mariko love story left me completely cold. I will continue to go to most superhero movies as they come out, in hopes that at least some of them might provide some entertainment value, but (with a few exceptions - see: Avengers Assemble) I've been finding the whole genre mostly very disappointing in recent years.
Hammer of Witches by Shana Mlawski was actually pretty bad. Not even the dulcet tones and consummate storytelling skill of Jeff Woodman could save the audiobook from being intensely tedious and, in places, almost offensive. The casual racism was probably very accurate for the time when the book was set, but I found it very unappealing, not to mention the wildly fluctuating presentation of religion. The book didn't seem to know what it wanted to say, so it floundered around and ended up not really saying anything at all. The plot was dull, the characters were largely unlikeable, and I have no interest whatsoever in what happens next in the series.
The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham, on the other hand, was hugely entertaining. It took me a while to get into the proper tone, because it was read by the guy who narrated the first five Artemis Fowl books, so I kept expecting a boy genius with fairy technology to turn up and save the day. The old-fashioned speech and attitudes of the characters was unintentionally amusing to begin with, too, but I quickly got used to this and the story itself was very effectively and quite chillingly told. The ending was rather abrupt, but the journey was highly enjoyable.
Hammer of Witches by Shana Mlawski was actually pretty bad. Not even the dulcet tones and consummate storytelling skill of Jeff Woodman could save the audiobook from being intensely tedious and, in places, almost offensive. The casual racism was probably very accurate for the time when the book was set, but I found it very unappealing, not to mention the wildly fluctuating presentation of religion. The book didn't seem to know what it wanted to say, so it floundered around and ended up not really saying anything at all. The plot was dull, the characters were largely unlikeable, and I have no interest whatsoever in what happens next in the series.
The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham, on the other hand, was hugely entertaining. It took me a while to get into the proper tone, because it was read by the guy who narrated the first five Artemis Fowl books, so I kept expecting a boy genius with fairy technology to turn up and save the day. The old-fashioned speech and attitudes of the characters was unintentionally amusing to begin with, too, but I quickly got used to this and the story itself was very effectively and quite chillingly told. The ending was rather abrupt, but the journey was highly enjoyable.
