Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows If anyone offers to take you to Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows, punch them.

-- by tiggersol

The Legend of Drunken Master Yet another highly rated movie... cool. There hasn't been a lot of decent movies to go to lately, so I haven't been. There are a couple I'll see in the next little while... Bedazzled being one of them. But back to this on. This is a re-release of a 1996 Jackie Chan movie, dubbed in English and put on the big screen. Various reviews I read (including this mybc.com review where it was called the martial arts comedy. The story is there but isn't really coherant or relevant. This is about fighting, fighting and more fighting. I went to see this with Kethryvis, Pommie, Tiggersol and Firefly, and we all agreed, Jackie Chan is The Man.

A quick rundown is that a mixup occurs and Jackie Chan (40 but playing a 20ish year old) gets mixed up in a fight to stop the British (bloody british!) from taking the heritage of China away in the form of ancient treasures. Or something like that. Lets get this straight, you're going for the fighting scenes, and you will be impressed. No two ways about it. Jackie Chan is possibly the fastest man I've ever seen fight, the moves he makes are incredible. The "Drunken" part of the title refers to the style that his father teaches (and he is good at) in the movie. Drunken Boxing is the art of fighting while prentending to be, or slightly, drunk. The theory is that you are looser and your pain tolerance is higher. There is comedy aplenty in the fighting watching Jackie Chan drunk and kicking ass. And oh boy does he ever kick ass... taking on many many (I hesitate to say hundreds, but in the fight with the axe gang himself and one guy are going against probably 100+ bad guys.

Dark Angel (TV) This isn't something that is normally reviewed here, but as it's something that is (I think) of interest to the people who read this site, I'll review it here. Dark Angel, as you may or may not know, is the new show that Fox and James Cameron (yes, that Cameron) are putting on. I could give you an episode review, but they're already out there. It's a pretty standard story of a genetically engineered (and superior) human who escaped from a test lab somewhere cold. She is embodied as the very attractive Jessica Alba (fan site, imdb) who kicks ass and takes names, all the while trying to stay as un-noticed as possible.

The story takes place in Seattle Washington *cough*Vancouver*cough* of 2019. Of course, the area has gone through a semi-nuclear war (The Pulse) which knocks the future back to a state that is similar in looks of the city today if you go down the wrong street. More cool flying gizmos though.

The characters are quite well done. Michael Weatherly does a good job (though he's under used in the pilot in my opinion... I know we'll get to know him better in future episodes) as Logan Cale, a cyberpunk hacker anarchist fighting against The Man. Max (Alba) is the focus of the first show, and it is done well I think. You get a good look at her current life, past (some brief parts of it anyway). Her character is well laid out as the unwilling hero in a fight for... well, something. The end result of the episode is she gets to be the hired hand for a man who could be seen as a conspiricy theory freak and a plain old nutter.

But hey, you gotta make a living somehow right?

Other than giving her character some depth, the premier also gave you a good look at her abilities. Genetically engineering the perfect human can be fun kids! Holding your breath for long periods of time, dodging bullets, kicking big guys asses without breaking a sweat, jumping very high, and doing some moves that were very Trinity-esque. Also, in addition to becoming a hired gun she is also searching for the rest of her genetically engineered friends whom she escaped from the snowy evil place with. When, when will the military learn that making super strong/smart people and then not treating them well is a BAD IDEA?

I don't know how the series will go, but I predict more information on where Max came from, where her new buddy Logan came from, and some more on the evil miliary dude's character. In a way it's like the TV show The Pretender. Good smart character pursued by military that created them, searching out truth/justice/loved ones. Still, it's Cameron, so it'll be good. Even if the series absolutely sucks, it's staring a cute brunnet who wears a leather jacket and rides a fast motorcycle... there's got to be a market for that with someone :)