Get Your Freak On

The movie Happy Death Day was both better than you might expect and financially successful. This led not only to a sequel, but to attempts to twist the formula of retelling non-horror plots in the horror genre. Freaky is one such movie (from the same director even!). Starring Vince Vaughn and Kathryn Newton, Freaky makes a horror movie out of the "body swap comedy" genre. A brutal serial killer and the high school girl who was his intended victim swap bodies, and hilarity ensues.

I suppose I'd say that Freaky is not quite as good as Happy Death Day, but there isn't really a need to make too direct a comparison (and it's only by a small degree in any case). Freaky is still quite clever -- not just interested in touching on fun tropes in both movie genres, but in actually exploring how the two main characters would behave in the wild situation. There's good horror to be found in "what would a murderous psychopath do with more perfect camouflage?" and great humor to be found in the other side of the swap.

Freaky leans into the comedy hard enough, in fact, that I could almost imagine someone enjoying it only as a fan of movies like Freaky Friday, 18 Again, The Change-Up, and so forth. (Almost. It's pretty gory.) Vince Vaughn seems to be having a ball playing the very girly character of Millie inside the body of "the Blissfield Butcher." (Yes, the town is named Blissfield. I think that tells you right away how serious the movie is overall.) Meanwhile, Kathryn Newton is really quite good at playing the cold-blooded killer -- more believable in that role, in fact, than she is at the start of the movie as the bubbly teen.

I can't really go on at length about this movie, because it is a pretty straightforward "high concept" idea that needs little explanation. And of course, it's not high art that affords plenty of opportunities to discuss what it does well. Yet... it does a lot of things well! It's a fun movie worth watching as we start to roll up on Halloween season. If the premise sounds to you like a movie you'd like, chances are very high that your expectations will be satisfied. I give Freaky a B.

Lower Decks: We'll Always Have Tom Paris

The latest episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks was the 800th episode of Star Trek in the franchise's history. While there may not have been anything special about it to mark the occasion, it did show that Lower Decks specifically is hitting its creative stride and could itself have many more episodes ahead.

(As usual with my Star Trek posts: SPOILERS!)

Mariner and Tendi, realizing that they've never gone on a mission as a pair, team up to retrieve something for Dr. T'Ana. Boimler, determined to best a ship that doesn't acknowledge his presence, crawls through the guts of Cerritos to reach the bridge with his Tom Paris collectible plate. And Rutherford, stunned to find security chief Shaxs returned from the dead, is determined to learn how that happened.

All along, Lower Decks has poked loving fun at earlier Star Trek series, playing with their episode formulas, mining their plot points, pointing out continuity errors, and effectively using it all for comedy. In this episode, Lower Decks turned its gaze toward a mirror, having good-natured fun at its own expense. The Mariner/Tendi story line repeatedly pointed out how Mariner and Tendi don't ever have story lines together. Each character was shocked to learn things about the other that we the audience already know. And there were fun jokes about recurring Star Trek aliens from Nausicaans to Orions to Klingons to Caitians.

Bringing Tom Paris on for a brief cameo (voiced by the man himself, Robert Duncan McNeill) was something of a magic trick. Though he had perhaps just two minutes of screen time -- and that time mentioned some of the worst elements of Voyager, from Kazon to the episode "Threshold" -- it didn't feel at all like they were being mean to either the series or the character. (Not even when the captain cautioned Paris against getting them lost in the Delta Quadrant as he took the helm.) If anyone seemed to be the target of a maybe-not-just-playful ribbing, it was "Boimler as Star Trek fan," dragging around his cherished collectible in search of an autograph. (But then, they have actually now made that Tom Paris plate in the real world, and plenty of Trekkers who can take a joke are apparently buying it.)

In perhaps a failure of my own imagination, I never considered the possibility that after dying in the season one finale, Shaxs would be resurrected to continue on the show. But in an especially Lower Decks take on that idea, we aren't told exactly how it happened. (Though we were told nearly a dozen other ways such resurrections have happened on previous Star Trek episodes.) And it was actually meaningful -- about as serious as Lower Decks ever gets -- that this return aroused feelings of guilt in Rutherford, who felt responsible for Shaxs' death.

It was another really great episode of Lower Decks, which so far seems to have stepped up to a consistently higher level this season. I give "We'll Always Have Tom Paris" an A-.

Voyager Flashback: Prototype

Over the years, I've made what I feel to be multiple good faith efforts to get into Doctor Who. I always wind up bouncing off -- Doctor Who always comes off cheesy to me. I suspect this reaction is rather like how people who can't get into Star Trek feel about the sci-fi franchise I do love. That's a reaction I can understand when considering an episode like Voyager's "Prototype."

B'Elanna becomes obsessed with repairing an advanced robot found drifting in space. But when she gets "Automated Personnel Unit 3947" up and running, it soon abducts her and forces her to unlock the secret of building more robotic life forms. Outgunned by the robots' powerful spaceship, Voyager must find another way to rescue their chief engineer.

There was apparently some odd creative friction behind the scenes of this episode. Executive producer Michael Piller bought the premise from outside writer Nicholas Corea, even though he suspected that a "robot war" might be a corny idea. Piller just liked the notion of a different kind of villain from what the series had tried so far. But he was apparently alone in believing in the idea at all. Ken Biller, the staff writer who did an uncredited script polish, thought it sounded like hokey 50s sci-fi. Executive producers Rick Berman and Jeri Taylor didn't think they'd be able to depict robots convincingly.

I think they're basically all right: this is a vintage sci-fi idea. Robots fighting each other long after their creators are dead just looks, sounds, and feels like a story that's been remixed countless times before. And its treatment here is old-fashioned, with silver-plated robots on one side of the war and gold-plated copies on the other. The robots themselves -- minimally flexible silicon masks on a no-doubt-suffering actor -- seem cheap in exactly the way the premise suggests. Voyager indeed did not depict these robots convincingly on their budget.

And yet, if the premise weren't tantalizing in some ways, it wouldn't be so repeated and feel so familiar. It says something elemental about the human condition to strip emotion from war, depict it with cold logic and intractability, and then leave the viewer to quickly draw conclusions about just what war is good for. This take on the story weaves in some elements of Frankenstein too, casting B'Elanna as a mad scientist obsessed with creating life, who must ultimately turn on her own creation.

But at the same time, there isn't much to this story that makes it feel to me like Star Trek's take on the tale, rather than "another version." There's some half-hearted talk of the Prime Directive in the middle, but the episode isn't handling that bit of Trek lore with consistency; the Prime Directive is for non-warp-capable cultures, and these robots seem more advanced than that. Moreover, Janeway's characteristic curiosity is strangely absent here, as she displays no interest in learning more about the robot culture to add context to the debate about whether to help them.

"Star Trek," and Voyager in particular, only exists at the margins of this episode. The character of Data is briefly mentioned. Tuvok's concerns are shot down, as security chief concerns are always shot down by captains in order to further the plot. Neelix gives a strained analogy about spicing an omelet. We learn another thing the Doctor is not. (An engineer.)

And yet, it's not like the episode feels bad as you watch it -- just a bit corny. I think it has a lot to do with Roxann Dawson, who manages to make this out-of-nowhere obsession with robotics seem realistic. She actually has chemistry with an actor whose face you can't see. She has even better banter with Harry Kim, who revive their "Starfleet/Maquis" pet names for each other in a moderately flirtatious scene.

Other observations:

• The teaser of the episode is fun, telling the story in glitchy black-and-white and in the first person. (The episodes was originally delivered with the warning that nothing was wrong with the tape for the first two minutes.)

• Robots like this don't have to be hokey... or at least, that quality can be made to fit in a larger whole. I offer as evidence the character of Isaac on The Orville.
  

"Prototype" isn't really a bad episode of Voyager. It's just absolutely not the episode to show someone skeptical of Star Trek in general. It's never going to convert a new viewer. I give it a B-.

Bly Me

Earlier this year, I wrote about the Netflix mini-series The Haunting of Hill House. I thoroughly enjoyed the horror-thriller, its gradually unfolding story, its creepy production values, and more. And I was excited to check out the newer mini-series made by most of the same people, The Haunting of Bly Manor.

As Hill House was a loose adaptation of Shirley Jackson, Bly Manor is (I hear) a loose adaptation of The Turn of the Screw by Henry James. An au pair is hired to look after two young children at a manor in the English countryside. She's soon forced to deal not only with their own strange behavior, but odd goings-on at the house, the dark past of what happened to the au pair before her, and her own tragic history.

For me, Bly Manor is a notably weaker effort than Hill House -- though I've heard from some that it might come down to liking whichever one you see first. Though both mini-series use a similar format of focusing most episodes on one character and revealing their personal history in the context of the larger narrative, there was something about Bly Manor that struck me as a Lost knockoff where Hill House had felt more organic. Bly Manor seems more limited too; the shared trauma of the Hill House characters seemed to manifest in more varieties.

There's a fair bit more "smoke and mirrors" to The Haunting at Bly Manor. Many of the character back stories work as islands unto themselves, siloed episodes of "Black Mirror" depicting one horrific trauma -- but they don't always fit into the whole in a satisfying way. Plot threads "attach," but they aren't always "woven" together in a compelling way.

But there are good points about Bly Manor. It serves up plenty of good scares and many creative and evocative images of horror that stay with you. The cast is solid -- both the returning "alumni" of The Haunting of Hill House and the new additions. Particularly strong are the two children who figure prominently in the story. Creepy kids loom large in horror, though it's hard to find a good child actor. This show found two in Benjamin Evan Ainsworth and Amelie Bea Smith; the challenges they're thrown are considerable in this story, but they're both reliably great.

Also, though I said the various plot threads didn't all connect for me, I still enjoyed the ending of the 9-episode series. Though the series spends most of its run trying for thrills and chills, the final installment embraces the gothic side of "gothic horror," and is peculiarly sweet, even heart-warming. I liked the change of pace -- which, by the way, wasn't completely from nowhere, but gently teased throughout the run.

Still, The Haunting of Bly Manor didn't feel to me like the essential experience that The Haunting at Hill House was. I'd give it a C+ overall. It's hard for me to say that it's "only for Hill House fans," because maybe that theory is true about liking whichever one you watch first. But it's almost certainly only for fans of methodical, eerie horror.

Lower Decks: Kayshon, His Eyes Open

The latest episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks is a serious contender for the best episode of the series to date. Maybe I'm saying that because it was a jam-packed Easter Egg hunt for references to other Star Trek episodes (and the more you spotted, the more happy you got), but I also liked the story that was told. 

Mariner and Jet clash over who is going to become the "leader" of the Lower Deckers, right as they're assigned a mission with new Tamarian security chief Kayshon. When they try to pack up a collection of antiquities amassed by a deceased alien, the collection fights back and tries to destroy them. Meanwhile, aboard the Titan, Boimler must get used to a faster, more action-oriented (and more "serialized") kind of life in Starfleet.

(Spoilers follow...)

Season one's Cerritos security chief was going to be a tough act the follow, comedically. Shaxs was a reliable source of laughs just by transposing stereotypically Klingon aggression into a Bajoran character (plus, he got a push from Fred Tatasciore's over-the-top voice performance). But this new character of Kayshon is here to play. "Darmok" is one of the all-time great episodes of The Next Generation, even if it does ask for extreme suspension of disbelief over whether a culture that speaks only in metaphor could practically exist. (We're trying to prove it's possible with online GIF-driven discourse!) Bringing on a Tamarian character to play with that conceit, repeat some fan-famous lines for comedy, and add some ridiculous new ones ("Kayshon, when he became a puppet.") is inspired.

That would have been all the fan service I needed to be happy as a clam. But the collector's museum was a Where's Waldo of "how many episodes can you recognize?" that included every "vintage" Star Trek series (including the animated series), and which will surely reward later freeze-framing. Throw in the countless shout-outs to TNG made by Boimler and Riker, and this episode was a nostalgic walk down memory lane -- albeit handled more craftily than a simple parade of "hey, remember when that happened? Wasn't that cool?" moments.

It's debatable -- maybe even on a week-to-week basis -- whether Lower Decks is here to tell a story, or to tell jokes, but this episode did well on both counts. Boimler was never going to stay cut off from the rest of the characters for long, but the writers found an especially clever answer to "how does Boimler end up leaving the Titan and returning to the Cerritos?" That answer was that he both won't leave the Titan and he'll return the Cerritos. I suppose any time Jonathan Frakes wants to drop by a recording booth, we could see the Williams -- Riker and Boimler -- on another adventure, but Bradward's back where he needs to be for Lower Decks to have all its characters back in one place.

All that, plus some surprisingly insightful commentary on leadership, which basically amounted to understanding that you don't always have all the answers, there's more than one way to do things, and that a good idea can come from anywhere. Lower Decks framed this as a learning moment for Mariner, but I also felt like it was a low-key subtweet at Star Trek: Enterprise and the depiction of Captain Archer, who (in my memory, at least) always made a snap decision and then stuck to it no matter what. (Because in the early 2000s, that was apparently the brand of "leadership" our culture celebrated.) Part of me chooses to think that the relative lack of any Enterprise memorabilia inside the collector's museum says that the Lower Decks writers agree with me on the relative merits of that series.

I give "Kayshon, His Eyes Open" an A-. Early in season two, it sets a high bar for Lower Decks.

My Assumptions Come to a Head

Last year, I read (and enjoyed) the John Scalzi book Lock In. Recently, I finished the sequel, Head On.

Like the first book, Head On follows the adventures of FBI investigator Chris Shane (and partner Leslie Vann), as they investigate a crime in a near-future sci-fi setting. That setting: a world in which a percentage of the world population -- "Hadens" -- suffer from a disease that locks their active minds inside their immobile bodies. Hadens are able to interact with the outside world using robot bodies ("threeps"), which itself changes society in interesting ways. Head On centers around a sport played using threeps, and a suspicious on-field death that sparks an investigation.

The world of Lock In remains just as compelling to me in Head On. John Scalzi is really good at conjuring a deep "what if?" scenario and then exploring its ramifications in detail. He's even better about never losing sight of a story being told, and letting that control his novel rather than the flights of world-building fancy.

That said, I didn't find Head On to be as engaging as the book before it. The mystery here seems considerably more complicated -- which might be a plus for mystery readers who don't mind a touch of science fiction (as opposed to science fiction readers looking for a touch of mystery). But there are tons of minor characters here, and not all of them seem fully developed to me, with clear personalities or motivations. In the final chunk of the book, as revelations of the crime were coming to light, I found myself asking -- more than once -- "wait, who is this person again?" Not a great feeling as you're trying to unravel a mystery.

The main characters remain just as fun, though. It would be great to watch the episodic TV adventures of Chris Shane and Leslie Vann (though it would be too expensive to produce). And with this book, I had a new perspective on those characters. Where I read Lock In, I listened to the audiobook of Head On. This version was narrated by Wil Wheaton... and that itself proved interesting.

Very late in the book (as in, with mere minutes to go), I learned that there is an entirely different edition of the audiobook narrated instead by Amber Benson. "That's interesting," I thought. "I don't think I've ever heard of an audiobook written in the first person but narrated by a reader of a different gender." That thought led me to a discovery that challenged my assumptions of the book.

Chris Shane is never identified by gender in either Lock In or Head On. John Scalzi did this deliberately, and indeed claims not to know himself if the character is male, female, nonbinary, or fluid. When constructing the world of these books, it occurred to him that because "Hadens" interact with the world using robot bodies, gender might seem an especially superfluous notion to many of them. Situations would be far more common in which others could not automatically assume a Haden's gender, and many of them might embrace (or simply not care about) the ambiguity. So Scalzi opted for a first person narrative from Chris' perspective, and left it to the reader to decide.

Clearly I brought my own biases to book one, Lock In. I'd read it myself, with no audiobook clues, and had reached the conclusion that Chris was male. John Scalzi says his wife is convinced that Chris is female. For any given reader, either or neither might be true -- and I find it fascinating that this detail is part of the stories. Had I enjoyed Head On more, I could very well imagine getting the other version of the audiobook to hear Amber Benson read it and see how that altered my perception of the narrative.

But while I liked Head On, I didn't like it well enough for that. I'd give it a B-. It's probably worth a read, certainly so if you've read Lock In. But now I find myself suddenly looking forward to a book three someday, one that I might approach with a more open mind and more of a blank slate about who I think the main character is.

It's Funny Because It's True

I have been "aware" of comedian Tig Notaro for a while. I'd certainly seen a snippet or two from her act, though never an entire set. It's geeky, but the thing that pushed her fully onto my radar was when she began appearing regularly on Star Trek: Discovery. (Her character is a delightfully acerbic ingredient in the meal.)

I had planned to seek out some of her stand-up specials to watch, but it turned out that the thing I found first was the 2015 documentary Tig, on Netflix. It chronicles, frankly, the reason most people would probably have heard of her: her diagnosis with breast cancer and the double mastectomy that followed. After a nightmarish year that also included the death of her mother, she got up on stage at a famous Los Angeles venue and performed a shockingly honest comedy set loaded with gallows humor. Already beloved among comedians, it made Notaro virtual royalty among them.

And when you watch Tig, you very quickly come to understand why. I already knew from what I'd seen of Tig Notaro that her delivery was so deadpan and distinct that no one is quite like her. (It might be tempting to think of Steven Wright, but he was making jokes about golf pencils while she found a way to make cancer funny.) The documentary really reveals the full extent of her genius, though, in just how strong the juxtapositions are throughout. One moment, Tig is giving an interview to the filmmakers about just how much her mother meant to her -- an emotional, tear-jerking interview -- and the next moment, you get a 20-second clip from her act that still manages to make you laugh despite the tonal whiplash.

Still, Tig is a rather difficult documentary to watch. Tig Notaro does get back up every time life knocks her down, and that is powerful. But wow, does life keep knocking her down. The documentary goes on well past her original cancer diagnosis, only to reveal there are more pitfalls in store. The tone does manage to be triumphant in the end, I think... but not so much along the way.

Certainly, there is inspiration to be found here: this is a movie about a person I could hope to be more like. Every now and then, you also get passing insight into the mind of a comedian and what goes into creating stand-up comedy. Nevertheless, this is paradoxically one of the lightest hard-to-take movies you might ever watch. I liked it a lot, and would give it a B+... though I can't say with confidence that that means I'd recommend it.

Voyager Flashback: Resistance

For years, Star Trek had been hoping to get Oscar-winning actor Joel Grey to appear on an episode. Voyager finally sealed the deal, as he'd worked with Kate Mulgrew in the past and there was a friendship there. He took a role in the episode "Resistance."

Dangerously low on fuel, Voyager seeks to resupply at a totalitarian planet. While those efforts succeed, B'Elanna and Tuvok are captured, and Janeway escapes only with the help of a local named Caylem. Caylem's wife has been imprisoned by the regime, and his mind has slipped to a point where he thinks Janeway is his daughter. The captain doesn't want to put Caylem in danger, but she may need his help to rescue her crew from prison.

This idea for this episode was pitched by two authors, Michael Jan Friedman and Kevin J. Ryan, who for years had been writing for Star Trek's tie-in book line. That pitch was for somebody to become a Sancho Panza (or Dulcinea) to a Don Quixote-like alien. Unfortunately, what resulted puts a lot of emphasis on Quixote and doesn't offer much of a story to his "sidekick."

It's no wonder Joel Grey was finally wooed to Star Trek by this script: Caylem is a huge, meaty role with range, pathos, and a great death scene. But he interacts with only one main character, and that character barely gets a journey at all. Janeway's arc, I suppose, is that she comes to show kindness to someone she had dismissed. But empathy and mercy have never been in short supply for her. That might have been a meaningful character journey for Picard or Kirk, but for Janeway it's pretty much starting and ending in the same place.

Along the way, you have to overlook a lot of tiny details that don't add up. An awful lot of people seem not notice Janeway's lack of the alien nose makeup here. Sensors and other technology conveniently/inconveniently do/don't work as needed to fill exactly 42 minutes. Why is Janeway leading the Away Team mission in the first place and not Chakotay?

How exactly does Caylem rescue Janeway from armed soldiers at the start of the episode? They have to cut to the opening credits there because nothing would have made sense. The alien leader says that keeping some crazy old man alive sends a message about opposing his regime? It seems to me that anyone who even knows who Caylem is at all is only going to read the "message" as needless cruelty. (But I suppose real-world authoritarians aren't any more self-aware than the fictional ones.)

There are a couple of elements that do work -- to an extent that I really wish we'd gotten more of them. B'Elanna and Tuvok seem to be a great character pairing: she is ruled by her roiling emotion, and he is stalwartly in control of his. Her reaction to his barriers breaking down is surprisingly powerful. Elsewhere, character rehab of Neelix seems to be continuing in earnest; he basically saves the day here, resolving the problem already in progress at the start of the episode.

Other observations:

• Joel Grey is not the first Oscar winner to appear on Star Trek, of course. Deep Space Nine had already landed Louise Fletcher in a recurring role. 

• Any fan of 24 will recognize "Aaron Pierce" actor Glenn Moshower, who shows up in a bit part as an alien guard. That guy was made to play guards, apparently.

• The trailer promoting this episode back in the 1990s was needlessly salacious. Ignoring pretty much the entire episode, it focused on the 15-or-so seconds in which Janeway poses as a prostitute to distract the guards, implying that the captain faces a dilemma of giving her body to save her ship. Gross.

Joel Grey is solid in this episode, but ultimately I'm just not that invested in Caylem compared to the problems of the Voyager crew. And given that balance of interest, the balance of action in the episode is way off. I find "Resistance" to be a fairly dry C.

A Trip to the Bakery

I've seen most of the classic horror films of the 70s and 80s -- at least, the first film in various franchises. But one that had slipped through the cracks was An American Werewolf in London, the 1981 movie about a pair of American backpackers in the English countryside who are attacked by a werewolf (each meeting a wildly different fate).

I had heard two things about this movie. One of them proved to be absolutely true; the other, I felt, was absolutely false.

The true thing: the makeup is exceptional. This movie made Rick Baker as famous as a film makeup artist can be. It won him the very first Academy Award ever given for the category of Best Makeup. And almost all of it frankly still holds up. We get various degrees of human-wolf hybrid. We get transformations achieved with makeup that today would be a simple CG morph. All that, and the rapid corpse decay of the film's secondary character. (40 year old spoiler, I guess?) It is beyond fitting that they essentially created an award for this movie.

My asterisk on that praise: I compliment the makeup. There's also some puppetry in the movie, and what looks like some stop-motion animated creature work. These elements are hit-and-miss, and even when they "hit," they're far inferior to the makeup effects.

The second thing I'd heard about this movie was that is was a horror-comedy. Well... comedy is, of course, a matter of taste. But I'd say it strains the term to apply it here. There are perhaps one or two jokes in the movie -- less even than most actual straight-up horror films sprinkle in just to cut tension. The rest of the movie is simply not funny, and doesn't even suggest that it's trying to be.

My asterisk on that critique: maybe it depends on whether you think melodrama is funny? Playing a wild situation with utter sincerity can start you in the direction of comedy, I'd say. But you have to be pretty unflappable as you sail pretty far over the top to get a laugh from me. Melodrama often just strikes me as weak acting, and doesn't reflexively tickle my funny bone. But if your take differs here, then perhaps you would find An American Werewolf in London quite funny.

John Landis both writes and directs here. As a director, he really charts the course for the future: this is a violent and gory movie, and struck me as considerably more so than its contemporaries. As a writer, though, he's shoehorning in a lot of extra stuff, like a romantic subplot that makes no sense whatsoever, at any stage of the film.

All told, I'd give An American Werewolf in London a C-. I wouldn't recommend it to most, but it does feel like a movie that real horror enthusiasts who want to do their film "genealogy" should check out at some point.

Lower Decks: Strange Energies

Star Trek: Lower Decks is back for season two... and while it does seem to be in the process of "picking up its toys" to return things to roughly the state they were in season one (before the season finale), it doesn't seem to be in a hurry to do so.

Mariner is enjoying the freedom granted her by Captain Freeman, making up her own "side missions" and frustrating Commander Ransom. But when Mariner accidentally "Gary Mitchells" Ransom and he becomes corrupted with god-like powers, the Cerritos is suddenly in a danger of her own making. Meanwhile, Tendi is convinced that Rutherford's implant is malfunctioning, and sets out to "fix" him.

Lower Decks has always featured plots that seem like they could have taken place on one of the more serious Star Trek series. This episode took an adjacent approach: do an episode that was done on a serious Star Trek series, but add jokes. "Strange Energies" explicitly mentions the Gary Mitchell episode of the original series ("Where No Man Has Gone Before"), but is also similar to The Next Generation's "Hide and Q," while dropping a fairly overt reference to "Who Mourns for Adonais?" (when Ransom's giant "space hand" -- and then head -- comes after the ship).

New to this take on the "someone gets god-like powers" story was that it played on an already existing conflict: Ransom's insecurity about where Mariner and Freeman's relationship has left him. We went on a fun journey before arriving at "Mariner maybe won't have so much freedom after all." Insecurity was also the theme of the subplot, as Tendi doubted her relationship with Rutherford and went to sitcom lengths to preserve it. It all demonstrated just how far the characters of this series have come in the 10 prior episodes. They couldn't really have done this episode in season one; the relationships weren't developed enough for the characters to "hurt each other" like this, and the audience would not yet have been invested in the outcome.

Not much Boimler this week, but as I said, the show isn't done picking up all its toys yet. We got a fun taste at the end of the episode of how an exciting life on a more front-line ship might not be for him... but that'll be for another episode.

A solid season premiere, I give "Strange Energies" a B+.

Infinity Only Lasts 40 Episodes

One of the advantages of television moving beyond cable (and well beyond "the Big Three" networks) is that there's supposed to now be a place out there where every piece of entertainment can live with its tiny niche audience. The problem with that theory is that there's so much out there that it's impossible for the perfect audience to find the niche. So it went with the animated series Infinity Train.

Infinity Train takes place on a magical train of unlimited size, chugging along endlessly through a wasteland landscape. Passengers aboard the train move from car to car, each car itself an impossible space with fantastical wonders. Each of the four seasons focuses on a new story line aboard the train, sometimes with tendrils that connect to the next season. In just ten 12-minute episodes, each season depicts a complete and fulfilling story arc, a sort of two-hour movie in this incredibly imaginative universe.

The first two seasons of the series ran on Cartoon Network, before then transferring to HBO and becoming an "HBO Max Original" for its next two seasons. Creator Owen Dennis reportedly planned for eight seasons in all (because an "8" is like an infinity symbol)... but the show went criminally underwatched, and has now been unceremoniously cancelled.

I have to admit -- I get it. I had never heard of Infinity Train, nor do I have any idea how I ever would have had my husband not somehow stumbled upon it. And when he told me about it, and repeatedly urged me to watch it, I resisted the notion many times. It looked fluffy and slight and "kiddie." When I finally gave in, it took until episode 3 or so for me to go with the flow and realize I was starting to like it. Really like it. (Not that three 12-minute episodes really required me to "hang in there" for that long.)

I might say that each of the four seasons is slightly less good than the one before, were I forced to rank them. But it's starting at a very high level and finishing at a still very high level. What was clear by the time all was said and done: the show doesn't seem "kiddie" to me at all. You could watch Infinity Train with your kids, but be prepared for the possibility of big talks about life and death, good and evil, oppression and resistance... really deep stuff. This is far more like the Pixar masterpiece you're allowed to like on your own, not the garbage movie you take your kid to and sit by miserably as they stuff their face with popcorn.

And the cast! As I said, different seasons have different focuses, so cast members do come and go. But over the course of the show, there are characters voiced by Lena Headey, Kate Mulgrew, Bradley Whitford, Margo Martindale, J.K. Simmons, Ben Mendelsohn, Margaret Cho, Ernie Hudson, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Rhys Darby, Wayne Knight, Laraine Newman, Matthew Rhys, Alfred Molina, Donald Faison, and many, many, many more. Fun, memorable, distinct characters. It feels like all these people had figured out how great Infinity Train was, and were happy to drop into a recording booth for anything just to be a part of it.

As I said, each season of the show tells its own self-contained story, so even if Infinity Train was cut down too soon -- too niche, too quirky, too unknown for this world -- you can still be fully satisfied watching as much of it as we did get. Overall, I'd give the series an A-. Odds are it's the Best Thing You're Not Watching on HBO Max.

Time Out

There have now been so many superhero movies, starring so many different people, that any random new movie you come across could be a "superhero team-up" movie. Released last year on Netflix, The Devil All the Time stars Tom Holland (Spider-man), Robert Pattinson (the next Batman), and Sebastian Stan (the Winter Soldier). It also features debatably adjacent heroes like Jason Clarke (one of many John Connors), Mia Wasikowska (Alice ?), and Bill Skarsgård (um... Pennywise the Clown ?).

This movie, as you might suspect, isn't actually like any of that stuff. Based on a book by Donald Ray Pollock, The Devil All the Time is a period piece framed on one end by World War II and the other by the Vietnam War. Two generations, split across rural West Virginia and Ohio towns, are haunted by the past and pulled under by evil entering their lives. I could be less flowery and describe the movie's plot more literally, but the thematic content feels like the main point here. This tale is here to declare a thesis statement.

While I think everyone could arrive at the "rough coordinates" of that thesis, I think the exact nature of it will be in the eye of the beholder -- in particular, in what view they take of religion. Depending on your attitude, this could be a story about anything from "religion makes people do terrible things" to "terrible people use religion as a cloak" to "you can find terrible people everywhere, including within religion." In any view, this is a religion/corruption sandwich; I'm just not sure which part is the bread.

Even though there is room for interpretation here, the theme is not subtle. This is a disturbing, horrific movie that goes way beyond what it needs to in making its points. Violence of all levels pervades the movie from beginning to end, no character comes out clean, and it is generally an uncomfortable, unpleasant watch. (The biggest manifestation of its lack of subtlety, though, isn't violence, but the voice of a constant narrator, who turns out to be the original book's author himself. A bit on the nose.) How much of this movie is oogy and gross? It's right there in the title.

Presuming you're not excited to watch a violent movie, the only reason to watch is if you want to see some of these actors do some capital-A Acting. Everyone in the movie is solid; Tom Holland and Robert Pattinson are particular stand-outs. Yet you can also imagine that both will have (or have already had) even better work at some point in their careers.

I'd say The Devil All the Time deserves a C+. It will soon be forgotten in the vast morass of Netflix, if it hasn't been already.

Voyager Flashback: Maneuvers

After revealing Seska to be villain in season one, it was inevitable that Star Trek: Voyager would bring her back. That happened in season two's "Maneuvers."

Voyager is lured into a trap, and the Kazon steal one of its transporter components in a precise attack. Janeway is determined not to leave the technology in their hands... but Chakotay soon takes matters into his. The raid was successful because it was planned by Seska, and Chakotay takes personal responsibility for undoing the damage that, as he sees it, he caused.

At this point in season two, you might imagine Chakotay is the main character of Voyager; this is the third episode to feature him, when it feels like other characters have barely been the focus of one. It's also the third decidedly mediocre Chakotay episode, and I do have to wonder if this somehow informed the sidelining of the character in later seasons.

I don't blame Robert Beltran here, but rather poor writing decisions. The raw premise is good enough: let's give Voyager a recurring nemesis, and give one of the main characters in particular some personal stakes in the rivalry. But the "cat and mouse" game here always seems to make one side look dumb more than it makes the other side look smart. The attack on Voyager feels too easy; Tuvok is made to fail at every turn, and gets taken to task by Janeway as a result. Chakotay weirdly just gives up rather than even try to escape, failing to keep more valuables (his knowledge) out of Kazon hands. Then in the end, the Kazon just leave their pants down (or rather, their shields) to allow Voyager to easily resolve the situation.

Way too much time is spent with the uninteresting Kazon. We get it guys: you have sects. You have a lot of sects. Anywhere you go in Kazon space? More sects. Multiple scenes trying to convince us we're seeing some kind of Joker-Penguin-Riddler-Catwoman teamup all fall flat, because most of these monologuing villains haven't been established before this episode. The monologues from the established villains aren't that compelling, either. Seska is Lady Macbething all over the place, but her motivations don't seem at all clear. Is there an endgame for any of this power grabbing? And what aim does she have when she drops the soap operatic twist that she's impregnated herself with Chakotay's baby?

Not that Seska has the monopoly on inexplicable behavior here. Chakotay must be wildly less stable than we thought to now strike out on his own after Seska. Why doesn't Janeway actually punish him in the end? It seems like brig time would be called for here; the morale hit of losing/penalizing the first officer seems like nothing compared to rolling out the red carpet for this kind of behavior. (Episode writer Ken Biller reportedly felt the same on this latter point; he'd wanted Chakotay thrown in the brig, but the executive producers overruled and rewrote him.)

And why, oh why, is Seska still at large at the end of all this?! Janeway has four Kazon Majes in her custody, and barters for the return of all Starfleet technology. Why not throw in that traitor who's on the Kazon ship while she's at it? There is simply no explanation for this that can make sense; this is purely the writers wanting to do at least one more Seska episode somewhere down the road.

One character does manage to have a good episode, though: B'Elanna. The scenes where she advocates to Janeway on Chakotay's behalf are quite effective. And it feels like Roxann Dawson is infusing her performance with the subtext suggested a few episodes back: B'Elanna might be in love with Chakotay. Certainly, their opening "post-hoverball" scene in the turbolift feels like a flirtation. I can't help but wonder about the road not taken had the writers continued to lean into this relationship.

Other observation:

• The writers really have Vulcan passive-aggressiveness down, and Tim Russ always delivers the performance in those moments. When Tuvok suggests that maybe Chakotay could use his knowledge of Seska to put one over on her next time, I can almost hear the "oh, snap!'
  

With too much dumbing down of smart people, too much wild character behavior, and too much emphasis on Kazon villains we don't care about (too much "sects!"), this episode that feels great on paper comes out flat to me. I give "Maneuvers" a C+.

A Sight for Sore Ears

A few months back, I wrote about how my first encounter with fantasy author Brandon Sanderson came through his science fiction book, Skyward. I enjoyed that book enough that the genre he's better known for is now certainly on my radar. But first: I had to move on to the follow-up, Starsight.

Starsight picks up the story of brash Spensa, desperate to protect her planet from attacks by the alien Krell. Much has changed for Spensa -- more than I can relate without spoiling a lot of the first book -- and the sequel picks up on all this in exciting ways while continuing to build out the intriguing world Sanderson has created here.

One of the most exciting things about Starsight is the bait-and-switch it pulls very early on. Just a few chapters in, it feels like the contours of a new book have been clearly mapped out: here's what the story is going to be, it's going to be like the first book in these ways but unlike it in these other ways, and it sounds like it's going to be another fun adventure. Then -- surprise! -- Sanderson lobs a plot grenade right into the center of that carefully built scaffolding, and then the book becomes something entirely different.

My only reservation about the direction things take is that it's a direction that doesn't get to make full use of all the fun and memorable characters that Sanderson created in Skyward. But that reservation quickly fades as he basically does it all from scratch again: Starsight introduces many new characters, presents new settings and plot threads that are just as compelling, and works out a nice blend of familiar and new in another satisfying story. Starsight ends on a more explicit cliffhanger than Skyward did, but it certainly didn't need to do so for me to be completely "all in" by the ending; I will be eagerly awaiting the publication of book three (and book four after that) to see where the tale goes next.

My wait might be a little longer than it would otherwise be, though, because I'll be waiting for the audiobook version (if it isn't released the same day as the book itself). I've never been in the position of being this attached to an audiobook narrator and series before, but I think Suzy Jackson is better than any other audiobook narrator I've ever listened to before. She picks back up all the book one characters, makes distinct and memorable the huge cast of new book two characters, and delivers Spensa's own first-person narrative with deft skill. The story is very good, but the performance undoubtedly makes it even better. (And should they ever adapt these books for film or television, Jackson will be a tough act to follow in my mind.)

Starsight gets an A- from me, with the "minus" really only reflecting my minor disappointment at not getting more of many of the book one characters I enjoyed so much. With almost every other book series I'm reading seemingly stalled indefinitely between volumes, the Skyward books might just be my favorite running series right now.

What a Difference a "The" Makes?

The new (confusingly named) movie, The Suicide Squad, is better than Suicide Squad. But that's an inevitability, not a review. So what do I really think of James Gunn's new... sequel? Reboot? Spin-off? Installment in the DC universe. In a nutshell, I'd say I was left with the overall feeling that it was a mediocre movie with some very bright spots in it.

It's mediocre in how dutifully it adheres to the superhero formula without really making enough use of what's inherently different in its premise. This is supposed to be a movie starring villains, the "worst of the worst," but we really don't get much villainy -- and arguably none more extreme than director Amanda Waller, whose callous methods and low threshold for forgiveness are the only things in the movie to actually illicit horrified reactions from other characters. This gang of baddies is generally pretty noble, and to me their violence seems more pronounced more because this is a rated R movie than because they're villains.

It's also mediocre in how often James Gunn borrows from his Guardians of the Galaxy movies in the creation of this one. I suppose conspicuous needle drops were part of the formula in the first Suicide Squad, though the set list here absolutely could be sold as "Awesome Mix, Vol. 3" and no one would think it odd. King Shark is Groot with a slightly greater vocabulary, a CG bruiser voiced by an actor known mainly for meathead action roles.

But I have to admit that the parts of this movie that are good are really good. One, as you'd expect, is the only thing that was good about the first Suicide Squad movie: Margot Robbie. The best scenes of the movie are all Harley Quinn's, from a key plot twist to the best prolonged action sequence. She gets the best one-liners. And Margot Robbie delivers it all with glee.

Anyone who has seen Blockers knows the comic chops of John Cena. This movie uses them even more effectively than his action skills (which, of course, it also does). His banter with the other characters -- particularly Idris Elba's Bloodsport -- is a highlight of the movie.

The Polka-Dot Man is another surprise highlight, though one I think I could have used even more of. The silly-on-the-surface character pairs well with actor David Dastmalchian's tormented performance, and that brand of goofiness works better throughout than the CG characters that are supposed to be the comic relief here.

Still, there are plenty of missed opportunities here too. The script relies on Idris Elba's own considerable charisma more than it effectively establishes his character. Viola Davis is once again wasted. The inevitable giant CG climax is a little weirder and grosser than usual, but -- typical of a superhero movie -- doesn't make the stakes feel very real or important.

So overall, I think I'd call The Suicide Squad a B-. That does certainly put it in the realm of "worth a watch" (especially if you like violent action-comedy). Still, it feels very much like a sequel that's not as good as the original... meaning Guardians of the Galaxy, not Suicide Squad.

Fit for a Queen?

The 7-part mini-series The Queen's Gambit went up on Netflix over nine months ago. It took me a while to get around to watching this story of fictional phenom Beth Harmon, struggling against sexism and addiction on her way to glory on the 1960s chess circuit. But oh, was I aware of it. So very aware of it.

For what felt like most of that nine months, any time I opened Netflix, I'd get the same auto-running clip of two smug twins informing the protagonist (and me) that "we have a clock sharing system" if you don't have your own clock. I swear, I could recite this chunk of the show verbatim. But did the rest of the show appeal to me enough to undermine the numbness beaten into my brain by that recurring 60-second clip?

Well, yes, The Queen's Gambit is enjoyable overall. But also, it might be more "well made" than "good." In terms of narrative, it's rather slight. The story (based on a novel by Walter Tevis) seems to have gone through the line at the cliché buffet -- without even totally filling its plate. Orphan rising above her circumstances, brilliant diamond-in-the-rough polished by one caring mentor, self-destructive genius with an addiction and an attitude problem, expected three-act story structure. It's all here, and doesn't quite feel like a full meal.

However, clichés are often used because they can still be effective, and that's fairly true here. Many of those tropes I mentioned don't usually feature a female protagonist. And doing so against a backdrop of chess -- an oddly macho milieu for how few of society's "masculine" trappings it seems to require -- really amplifies the gender themes at play.

Beth is the focal character -- literally (I believe) in every scene of every episode -- but she's not the only interesting one. Here is where The Queen's Gambit shines, giving us a raft of interesting supporting players that weave in and out (and sometimes back in) over the course of seven episodes. They're all well-cast too, with interesting looking actors giving often "a little bit odd" performances that stick in the mind in a positive way.

Star Anna Taylor-Joy is excellent, as she of course must be for this story to work at all. Her performance as Beth is sometimes brash (while still sympathetic), sometimes pent up (while still showing us what boils beneath the surface), but always engaging. Virtually every interaction she has with a supporting character is great, but highlights include Marielle Heller as Beth's adoptive mother, Thomas Brodie-Sangster as a young chess wizard who's part Bobby Fischer and part cowboy, Bill Camp as the stern school custodian who first teaches Beth the game, and Moses Ingram as the rebellious friend Beth makes in the orphanage.

And, like I said, it's all very well made. The 1960s environment is lovingly rendered in every frame, with outrageous wallpapers, perfect clothing, and wild period props. A story that inherently calls for little of what most people would call "action" is often still very tense; the mini-series must feature at least 20 montages of playing chess over the course of its 7 episodes, and writer-director Scott Frank manages to make each of them different and compelling.

Yes, you'll know the destination from a long way off. (Indeed, a flashback in the final episode seems to think it's "revealing" information that you've known since the first episode or two.) Yet the "scenery" along the drive is quite beautiful, making the journey worthwhile. I'd give The Queen's Gambit a B+.

Voyager Flashback: Cold Fire

In my review of the series premiere of Star Trek: Voyager, I wrote that the show never followed up on its dangled thread of a female Caretaker out there somewhere. I suppose that's an indication of how memorable I found the the episode "Cold Fire" to be.

Voyager discovers a smaller "Caretaker array" where a group of Ocampans live under the watchful eye of Suspiria, a Caretaker entity who has helped them increase their life spans and boost their latent mental abilities. As their leader Tanis takes an unnatural interest in Kes, he's also setting up the rest of the crew for vengeance at the hands of an angry Suspiria.

The "second Caretaker" concept was an escape clause built into Voyager's premise at the request of studio executives. If fans didn't take to the "lost in the Delta Quadrant" premise of the show, it would be the way to reset, bring the ship home, and reintroduce Star Trek staples like Klingons and Romulans and all the rest back to the show. Evidently, by this point in the second season, there wasn't much need for an escape clause anymore, as "Suspiria" (no relation?) is used here as a somewhat garden variety Menace of the Week.

There are a lot of interesting elements at play in this episode, though I'd say a lack of commitment permeates it all and keeps it from being truly great. At the top level is the question of tone. This episode is almost a horror movie, from "boiled Tuvok" to suspended bodies that drip blood to a creepy little girl who is filmed with Dutch angles and speaks with a woman's voice (Majel Barrett's!). Yet for these very effective trappings, things never really seem that dangerous. Tanis' creepy interest in Kes is an entirely different type of horror (a "140-year old" lusting after a "20-year old"?), and the odd prop used to disable Suspiria reaches "improv prompt" levels of ridiculous.

It is a solid show for Kes. Not only does she go on an interesting arc in this episode -- unlocking her mental abilities and recoiling from what she finds -- but we're reminded just how integral a character she already is on the show: she studies with Tuvok, apprentices with the Doctor, runs the arboretum, and can even be called on for diplomacy. (It is simply bonkers that, among the entire cast, she would be the one written out to make room later for Seven of Nine.) Jennifer Lien has to do a lot of "stare intensely" acting in this episode, and manages to pull it off surprisingly well. But the show lacks the commitment to make a lasting change in Kes' character; by the end of the episode, she's mysteriously lost her souped-up mind powers (leaving you to wonder if Tanis was somehow responsible... but if so, also wondering how Kes was able to attack him).

It helps that Jennifer Lien has a solid scene partner in guest star Gary Graham as Tanis. I may not like the character's major motivation, but Graham does a good job finding many levels in the role. Tanis is part cult leader, part mentor, (and yes, part horndog) -- and you can see how Kes is drawn in. It's no surprise to me that Graham would later be tapped for a recurring role on Enterprise. Indeed, some sources claim he was considered as a possible captain for Deep Space Nine and Voyager, at early points in development before the decision was made to expand the racial and gender diversity of Star Trek's leading roles. It is perhaps funny that Graham chose to come back to Trek, however; he commented in an interview about how "tightly wound" the Voyager set was (despite the fact that he liked the main cast), and that the experience of making this episode was "about as fun as taking a midterm when you really, really have to make a good grade."

Other observations:

• Outside of explicit two-parters, not many Star Trek episodes to this point begin with a recap. The one at the start of this episode is almost jarring.
  

• It's also a good episode for Tuvok (who shows himself to be a patient teacher and a cautious, capable security chief) and Tim Russ (who shades his performance with the right levels of annoyance and jealousy for a Vulcan).

• It's also -- against all odds -- a good episode for Neelix. While I could complain about the inconsistency of him not getting jealous over the guy moving in on Kes, I'm far more relieved that Neelix is instead fully supportive of her efforts to learn and grow.
  

Maybe it's the way this episode resets everything at the end. (Even the "other Caretaker" is still "out there somewhere.") Maybe it's the way the episode pulls up shy of going full horror. In any case, "Cold Fire" is mostly good, but certainly not great. And, as I've already personally demonstrated, not very memorable in the long run. I give it a B (maybe just barely).

To the Victor...

Last year, I blogged about season one of a television series that was at times really cheesy but also occasionally quite good: Love, Victor. Now season two has arrived, and has effectively switched the adjectives: it's now occasionally quite cheesy but also really good.

Love, Victor is a spinoff of the movie Love, Simon, and is centered on a high school teen whose family has relocated to a new city. In season one, he's working through his sexuality as he tries to fit in at a new school, all while not upsetting a home life already rocked by parents near the brink of divorce. Love, Victor was originally conceived as a show for Disney+, and the first season had some Disney Channel vibes as a result: a healthy dose of packaged soap operatic elements, and a rather chaste depiction of teen sexuality in general (and Victor's LGBT sexuality in particular). But a game cast, fun characters, and the occasional scene that would rise above the rest all made it a show I enjoyed watching.

The series never actually aired on Disney+, though. Calculating that "mildly homophobic" was a better brand than "not family-friendly for homophobes," executives shunted the series to Hulu instead. But when the series was renewed for season two, the creators and writers now had the chance to write a season for a different audience. And so, while still very much a high school drama, season two of Love, Victor "grew up."

The series still often tacks toward the most soap operatic plot developments it can -- this person now loves that person, even though that person has moved on to some other person. But there's a lot more serious plot elements in the mix. Victor comes out to his parents, and one of them has a difficult time accepting it. The girl he was dating, Mia, experiences the complex emotions of anger over being deceived and dumped while feeling like she can't be angry when she has to be supportive -- all while navigating a challenging relationship with her ambitious father and new prospective stepmother. Victor's parents continue to deal with their crumbling relationship, and like it or not, Victor's coming out is playing a role in how that's going.

I find that Love, Victor expertly walks the tightrope of incorporating LGBT themes without letting that be the only thing the show is about. Victor is definitely the focus (I mean, his name is in the title), and him navigating his first gay relationship is a major arc of season two. But every major character has a story arc in the season, Victor's boyfriend has a story line that ultimately has nothing to do with being gay, and several straight relationships among the high school characters get nearly as much screen time as Victor's. The season's most emotional story line (and it's not even particularly close) involves Victor's friend Felix, who is quietly trying to deal with his mother's mental issues without letting anyone else know.

In short, between seasons one and two, Love, Victor transformed from "a show I probably wouldn't watch if the LGBT content didn't speak to me personally" to "a show that's worth recommending, without qualification." I'd give season two a B+. And recently, it was announced that it will be returning for a season three. I'll be looking forward to it.

Face Time

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure was an enjoyable, funnier-than-you'd-expect little romp. Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey was a far weaker sequel. Recently, I watched the newer, third installment, Bill & Ted Face the Music... and found that it continued the sharp decline.

Decades after being told they'll write the song that unites the world, slacker would-be rock gods Bill and Ted have failed to do so, and the pressure is only mounting. But now the very fabric of time is unraveling, and so there can be no more delays: the world needs the song! As Bill and Ted hop through time trying to find the song, their daughters Thea and Billie set out on their own adventure to assemble the backing band who will play it.

I'd like to think my expectations weren't too high for this movie, but it feels like they were still too high. I think that stems from the question that comes naturally whenever there's a big gap in a movie franchise like this: why now? After nearly 30 years, inertia is clearly on the side of "not making another movie," so it's natural to expect at least something special enough to justify "getting the band back together."

Bill & Ted Face the Music kinda-sorta puts a profound question at the heart of the story: what if you're well into your life and "it" still hasn't "happened" yet? Of course, the movie doesn't really want to dig into that question very seriously so much as use it as a framework to hang jokes on. Unfortunately, the movie simply isn't that funny, serving up one or two moments that at best will make you smile. For a movie with the same "thesis statement" that is both funnier and surprisingly more profound, check out Clerks II.

This movie, by contrast, is mostly just boring. It's stuffed full of re-treads from the first two movies, never done as well as they were the first time around. We've seen "assembling famous people from throughout history," and we've seen "Bill and Ted are complete goobers when interacting with their future selves," and this movie is mostly just those same two ideas on repeat.

Should you find yourself watching it, though, there is at least one saving grace. Two, actually: Bill and Ted's daughters, Thea and Billie. They are played to perfection by Samara Weaving and Brigette Lundy-Paine, each channeling the essence of "Bill" and "Ted" from the original movie (and far more capably, I'm sorry to say, than either Alex Winter or Keanu Reeves manage to do now). Those one or two moments I mentioned that make you smile? They involve Thea and Billie... and they probably aren't actually any funnier on the page than anything else here, but are rather muscled into amusing by Weaving and Lundy-Paine.

I'd give Bill & Ted Face the Music a D+. The only thing stopping me from declaring it the worst of the trilogy is that while I have re-watched the original more recently (it holds up well enough, overlooking a somewhat "80s standard" amount of "that joke was never funny, but we know better now"), I never bothered to revisit Bogus Journey (and a few people I know who have say it's even worse than I remember). Either way, there's really no need to go back and revisit to watch this third movie. You should just skip the third movie.