My Little Pony Friendship is Magic 2×01+02: “The Return of Harmony” (2011)

Click ^here to skip past the introduction to the review proper.

If people had told me a year ago I would become a fan of a My Little Pony television series, and even become a fairly regular contributor to the wiki about the show, I would have laughed in their face and declared them to be insane. That’s an immature and premature reaction from someone with a sizable collection of Disney DVDs who is used to defending their hobby, but an understandable reaction all the same. After all, Disney is one thing; the company may mostly be considered (unfairly, I might add) a peddler of audiovisual babysitting material today, but at least many people have a nostalgic connection to older Disney products, which were/are mostly considered decent family entertainment. My Little Pony is supposed to be for really small children. Specifically, little girls, which is even worse, because we all know “girls-only” programming is absolutely horrible, something all adults can see and admit, regardless of whether they’re male or female. (Not because anything made for girls was inherently stupid, mind you, but because apparently the people producing the majority of girls-only content think their audience likes stupid, stereotypical and soulless stories and characters; see below for elaboration.) Right?

Right. Probably. I mean, I’ve now seen clips of the first, original My Little Pony television series, and while the animation is low-budget, the songs are grating and the characters appear to have no personality whatsoever, at least there seems to be a semblance of plot, danger, tension and adventure. It’s my impression that the My Little Pony franchise had a tolerable, if not decent start into the television world, and became progressively worse every time Hasbro retooled the franchise — worse, and closer to the clichés I associate with “girls-only entertainment”: zero actual plot, cutesy and childish dialogue, no hard edges, no conflict (either external or internal), a mostly or purely female cast obsessed with stereotypical “girly-girl stuff” (makeovers, shopping, dieting, playacting, sleepovers) and nothing else. This is what I would have expected from any My Little Pony film or series a year ago.

Of course, that was before ponies took over the internet. Or at least made friendship-touting incursions into several corners of the internet I frequent regularly. I won’t bore the reader with the details of my conversion; to summarise, I went from “are those pony avatar-sporting MLP evangelisers part of an elaborate exercise in irony?” to “I may as well watch the first episode to see what all the fuss is about” to “holy crap! PONIES ARE AWESOME!”.

Dive Bomber (1941)

Despite having been released in the summer of 1941, a couple of months prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor and America’s entry into the Second World War, Dive Bomber is clearly a propaganda film. The US Navy gave the production generous support and access to real locations and planes, something you can certainly see on the screen. Undoubtedly the highlights of the film are its flight scenes, many of which look real because they are real, or at least intercut with actual planecam footage. The editing (and the wonderful music by Max Steiner) make even most of the obvious model work look impressive and convincing. Sure, CGI makes it possible today to have fancy camera moves and long shots of the actual actors in the cockpits; this film doesn’t have that. But I have yet to have a computer-generated dogfight thrill me as much as seeing the planes in Dive Bomber in action.

I kind of see this film as a cousin (or, I guess, great-uncle) to Top Gun (1986). Both films feature a main character who starts out cocky and has to learn humility. Both films were designed as propaganda or at least recruitment pieces to get young people to sign up with the Air Force (resp. the Navy, since the Air Force proper did not exist in 1941). Both films are full of patriotic fervour; rivalries, camaraderie, and male bonding; dangerous stunts and delayed teenage rebelliousness; rousing music; adventure and tragedy; women interested in men in uniform, and a pointed disinterest in women by those men. Both also have heroes willing to sacrifice themselves for the cause, but Dive Bomber lacks a proper on-screen “bad guy” — the war has not yet begun, though the coming action is alluded to a few times. People who accuse Hollywood of having always been anti-war haven’t watched enough movies like this one.

Edge of Darkness (2010)

A while ago, I watched State of Play (2009). It’s probably a decent journalism thriller, akin to, if somewhat less accomplished than, All the President’s Men (1976). I couldn’t say, though. It’s a remake, I had already watched the original BBC version (2003) earlier, and it ruined any enjoyment I might have gotten from the American film. Instead of judging it on its own merits, all I could see was what was missing in terms of scenes, character depth, atmosphere. I suspect that had it been the other way around, I might have enjoyed both versions.
To test this hypothesis, I decided to conduct this experiment: I would watch the American remake of Edge of Darkness (2010) first, followed by the 25-year-older BBC miniseries (1985).

Edge of Darkness was supposed to be a comeback vehicle for Mel Gibson. For the record: I don’t care about the private lives of film makers. So what if Gibson has anger issues or unfortunate political views? That’s none of my business, and even if I was interested in celebrity gossip, I’m able to ignore that when I watch a movie, particularly if the actor is good enough to disappear into his part (which Gibson is, at his best). If I stopped watching movies from or with people who are unpleasant in real life, I’d soon run out of films to watch.
In the end, the general public did not care enough about this film’s premise (or maybe Gibson’s image was still too toxic); its performance can at best be called tepid. That’s fitting.
Martin Campbell can be a frustratingly variable director in terms of quality. On the one hand, he’s responsible for the best two post-80s Bond flicks, and for one of my favourite films, period (The Mask of Zorro, 1998). On the other hand, The Legend of Zorro (2005) is a horrible mess, and the critics have savaged his Green Lantern (2011). And then there is this film.
On Campbell’s GoodZorro/BadZorro spectrum, it slots in somewhere in the middle. It’s not terrible, but I also feel that there’s potential here that wasn’t fulfilled.

Therefore Repent (2007)

If the recent hullabaloo about the impending end of days served any useful purpose, then that it reminded me of a graphic novel about the same topic I had never finished reading. Over the weekend, I took the opportunity of a train ride to correct that mistake.

Turns out, it’s not actually about the Rapture so much as it is about what happens after the Rapture, which occurs just how many fundamentalist Christians in America thought it would: the true believers literally levitate up to heaven, leaving behind Jews, Hindus, atheists, and other people unworthy of immediate salvation. The premise reminds me of another enjoyable comic, Robert Kirkman’s decade-old Battle Pope, but Repent is less gleefully blasphemous. In comparing the two, it’s interesting how Kirkman’s no-holds-barred, satirical approach makes it read like a fantasy story, with a colourful cast of fantastical creatures that just so happen to have a biblical coat of paint, whereas Repent goes for a somewhat more realistic and subdued way of showing the aftermath of the Rapture, and in the process seems more biblical and “mytho-real” despite featuring fewer supernatural elements.

This is reflected in the art, drawn/painted by Salgood Sam. It’s black and white; not starkly so, but nicely shaded, in a way that’s occasionally more reminiscent of fine crayons or pastels than pen or pencil lines. I’m not a big connoisseur when it comes to graphic novels; if I’m able to tell what’s going on, that’s all I need. Sam’s art goes beyond that: postures are clear and manage to convey both moods and movement well; the faces are detailed, expressive, and consistent. I did at times find it hard to tell characters apart, but that confusion mostly cleared up by the end (with the exception of the angels, where I’m still not exactly sure who is who).

The Looking Glass War (1969)

And yet another film based on John le Carré source material. This is a weird coincidence, since I chose the title more or less randomly. Let’s hope the next one is far in the future, because I think I’m getting an overdose of espionage-is-a-terrible-terrible-business movies. I don’t know if the original novel is to blame, or whether the adaptation (by Frank Pierson, who co-wrote such films as Dog Day Afternoon, 1975; Presumed Innocent, 1990; and Cool Hand Luke, 1967) wasn’t up to the task. Whatever the reason, The Looking Glass War is a bit of a disappointment.

Part of the fault may lie with the DVD cover (seen to the left), which is rather misleading. Anthony Hopkins does not play the main character, nor does he dominate the film (either in screen presence or in screen time). In fact, there’s a stretch of 40 minutes where his character is barely on screen at all and doesn’t say a word.
The actual main character is played by Christopher Jones, who was unknown to me and who has only half a dozen credits to his name, according to IMDB. He plays Leiser, a young Polish man who wants to defect to the West in order to be a father to his English girlfriend’s unborn child. He is roped into a plot to go behind the Iron Curtain one last time, to confirm the presence of Russian missiles in an East German town: Operation Mayfly.