Review – Page 59 – Mosher'sUnimaginativelyEntitledBlog

Nothing To Lose by Lee Child

Cover of "Nothing to Lose (Jack Reacher N... — Nothing To Lose

Nothing To Lose is the twelfth Jack Reacher novel by Lee Child, soon to be joined by a thirteenth. It’s also, in my opinion, probably the weakest so far.

In this escapade, Reacher finds his way to a town called Hope where he’s welcome though just passing through – as ever. Just down the road is neighbouring Despair which is far less friendly. Of course, Reacher wants to know why they want him out of town so badly. Out come the old investigative skills and a small smattering of justified violence.

The thing is, Child seems to have used Nothing To Lose as a frame to hang some anti-religious and anti-Bush sentiments from and then shoe-horned a plot in afterwards. There are the usual number of pages, but not really enough story to fill them and when I got to the end I just felt a little cheated.

In fairness, this is partly down to having enjoyed the previous books so much. I think the main issue is that the overall premise (I won’t give it away) is just too far-fetched. Every clue Reacher comes up with is knocked on the head by the “bad guy” of the piece with a fairly acceptable rejoinder. The conclusion is more down to luck than anything else – is he really a bad guy or not? I’m just not used to this vagueness in a Reacher novel.

Otherwise, it’s as well written as ever. Plenty of detail, some good action, great descriptive work and no spoilers for earlier books in case you read them out of order.

I’d still recommend it, but don’t start the series with this one as it may disappoint.

Angels & Demons

Another (well, the second) Dan Brown adaptation and already things are wearing thin. I will confess that Angels & Demons is a better film than The Da Vinci Code, partly because of the beautiful scenery in Rome. However, the stilted dialogue still glares and a couple of the plot points from the novel are missing for no readily apparent reason.

Plot-in-a-nutshell: A new Pope is being elected, but the four main contenders have been kidnapped with a threat to kill them publicly released by the culprit. So of course, The Vatican calls in a symbologist. As you do.

The film is fairly close to the novel aside from the aforementioned slight discrepancies. Unfortunately, this means there’s a lot of scientific inaccuracy and a plot which is – to a large extent – fairly predictable. Oh, and awful dialogue. Don’t get me wrong, Dan Brown, or at least his publisher,Â is owed a thank you for bringing his type of novel into the popular mainstream. However, there are many authors who’ve done a better job of it than he has. His stories are good, but his writing’s dreadful. By keeping the film so close to the book, these weaknesses also transfer over.

Obvious differences are references to the events of the first film. Obvious as the original Angels & Demons novel was actually published and took place before The Da Vinci Code. If there’s anything more forced it’s that the film studio have offered Brown a fortune to write a third novel just so they can film that as well. Please, no.

Now don’t get me wrong. It’s not a bad film, as such. It’s just – like the novels – it could have been so much better. The story’s pretty good, the history (apocryphal or otherwise) is a good basis, the set pieces are well done but it’s just hand-holding story-telling. It’s A to B to C to climax with laborious explanations at each turn. In a novel, it’s easy to make this an aside but more of a challenge in a film. As the whole story revolves around historical events, there’s no end of explanation. Interesting, but very stop/start.

The cast are OK but like the film just nothing special – all by-the-numbers. Tom Hanks can do so much better and Ewan McGregor needs to pick one accent and stick to it. His Irish/Scots/English mash-up is just painful.

So as an adaptation, it’s not one of the worst being quite faithful to the original material. As a film, though, it’s a bit of a let-down.

The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton

The Andromeda Strain has gone through quite a few incarnations. This, the original novel, the 1971 film, a 2008 TV mini-series… and even a 1992 experimental film (The Strain Andromeda) where the original movie was re-edited in reverse, shot by shot.

I’ve not yet seen the original movie, but I was fairly impressed with the TV series as far as 4-episode television goes. From what I gather, the 1971 version is definitely worth a watch. I’m sure I have it kicking around somewhere – as I did with the novel for long enough.

There’s a copy of the book in a box under the house somewhere. I bought it years ago, but never got around to reading it. I then saw it in a charity shop in Perth, Western Australia earlier this year and picked it up. That copy is now sat here, finally finished, in Perth, Scotland.

It’s one of Michael Crichton‘s earlier works and published in 1969. The science inside is therefore a mixture of “out of date” and “second-guessing the future”. In honesty, I think he does a decent job of fusing the two. The list of references at the end is enormous, as is the number of in-text scientific asides.

The plot is fairly simple – a meteor lands, someone finds it and the population start to drop like flies as a result of some kind of disease. Instead of turning into a huge disaster story, the author instead concentrates on the efforts to determine what is causing the deaths (and how two people survived) while – to a large extent – ignoring the world outside of the secret testing facility where all the science takes place.

What’s surprising is that there’s no real drama. Everything is so clinical once the science part starts that there’s little to emotionally involve the reader. From a science point of view, it’s fun to try and second-guess things and there are a couple of “problems” with the hermetically sealed bunker that are obvious plot hooks waiting to be brought to life. However, when they come they do seem weak.

The way the book changes once the “action” moves from outside to inside is a shame, but perhaps that’s because I’ve been brought up on more action-oriented fare such as Outbreak. More of people running around and explosions. This is the direction the aforementioned mini-series took in its adaptation of the source material.

It’s still a good book, if you like your science fiction based heavily in science fact (and a large dollop of conjecture). I enjoyed it, and it’s easy to read but it just doesn’t seem “complete” the way some of his later books were. However, it was an early novel and led onto greater things so it can be forgiven.

And there are no bloody dinosaurs in it.

Night at the Museum 2

Or Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, to give it its full title, is an example of why Ben Stiller should stick to playing “ordinary” people and ditch all the over-the-top characters he insists on resorting to. One Larry Daley is worth fifty bloody Derek Zoolanders.

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Larry, from NatM1, has gone on to bigger things. Sadly, he’s too late to find that his friends from the museum are being shipped to the Smithsonian to go into long-term storage. He sets off to rescue them and stop a mad pharaoh from taking over the world. As you do.

NatM2 is a prime example of how to do a sequel. Take the best elements of the first film, forget about wasting time setting up the premise (most of the audience saw the last film anyway) and roll with it. This manages to be one sequel that’s at least as good as the film it follows on from.

There are some genuinely witty moments and Stiller shows some great comic timing. The new characters are, in honesty, better than the ones they replace or add to from the original. Hank Azaria, in particular, is superb as the lead bad guy Kahmunrah (and The Thinker and Abe Lincoln). You may recognise him from such roles in the Simpsons as Chief Wiggum. And Comic Shop Guy. And Professor Frink. And Apu. And about 150 other roles. Vocal talent, he has it.

A quick thumbs-up for Steve Coogan in one of his best rÃ´les, as well. Oh, and for Amy Adams (no, I’d not heard of her either) who sparkles as Amelia Earhart. It’s good to see a sidekick in a film who’s not annoying.

The effects are also superb, and lend themselves well to the film. The original made do mostly with miniaturisation of a few of the cast and a bit of CGI, mainly on Rex. The scriptwriters and effects team have let their imaginations run a little wilder on this one with some excellent visuals. I particularly liked the paintings that came to life and the black and white gangsters.

If there’s a downside, it’s that Hollywood keep throwing money at Ricky Gervais. He’s not funny – stop it. The film could have managed fine without him – as could the first one. Please, please, just stop feeding his ego and let him quietly slide into obscurity where he belongs.

Oh, and sit into the credits briefly. There’s a cracking little joke a minute or so in.

Great all-ages fun. The kids will love the big effects and whacky bad guys. Adults will appreciate a lot of the humour and historical nuances. Recommended.

Fighting

Good. Grief. What a bloody awful film.

Seriously. If you could film tedium, this would be it. One hour and forty-five minutes of mind-numbing boredom, horrendous acting and the worst “twist” I think I’ve ever seen.

The positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes simply said that watching Channing Tatum beat people up was the only good thing about Fighting. Thing is, even the fight scenes are crap. They’re not particularly well filmed, are ridiculously predictable and far too short.

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Random guy in the street somehow ends up taking place in bare knuckle boxing. And wins. The end.

Just don’t bother. Save your cash. If you’re female (or gay) and want to see Channing Tatum topless then please just find some pictures on the internet. For all that’s precious in this world, don’t pay money to see this film or they may think people actually like it.

Awful. Awful. Awful.

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