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Whining myself to sleep
Aug. 24th, 2004 11:31 pmI was all set to squee giddily about my shiny new (well, used, but new to me and nigh perfect) Playmobil Saloon, the long-sought centerpiece to my Playmobil Four Corners and home for Playmobil Ezra, but my brain has melted out my ears with exhaustion, so I'll do it later (mostly. Squeeee! It's so pretty! Yaaaay!). And instead I'll complain. Typical, no? Heh.
Anyway, The Mummy Returns. Not a patch on the first one, but not a bad bit of fluff if you can stretch your disbelief far enough, and I mostly can. Rick and Evie having produced a quippy moppet who's not only not horrible, as movie children are wont to be, but is actually kind of cute? Sure, just look at how cute and quippy they are. People looking exactly like their pre-reincarnated (heh) selves of three thousand years ago? Important characters' genes are often a little wonky, so okay. The Rock as an actor? Bit tougher, that, but Hollywood certainly seems to want it badly enough, so I'll play along for now. But Anck Su Namun running off and leaving Imhotep to get melted? I don't buy it. They have the Big Swoony Forever Love, complete with suicide and resurrection and kissing of icky mummy faces, and she just rabbits instead of giving him a hand? Nuh uh. I'll buy miraculously healed dirigibles, climactic battles against evil action figures, and Brendan Fraser, Warrior of Light, but I won't buy that. It's somewhat silly to talk about bad characterization in a flick like The Mummy Returns, but, yeah. Bad characterization. It bugs me every time. Isn't that sad?
I'm also slightly bothered by Action!Evie. Not that she wasn't a fun Conan the Librarian. I rarely look askance at good Xena moves. And with nearly a decade of marriage, motherhood, "archaeology," and (presumably) grudging acceptance from her peers (take that, Bembridge Scholars!) under her belt, it's not unreasonable to expect that some of her long-standing intellectual confidence would be expressed physically. But even so, I miss the klutzy, museum-wrecking Evie whose brain balanced Rick's brawn. In The Mummy, he's not dumb and she's not a hopeless fighter, but they still have their own obvious and different strengths. In TMR, that difference is collapsed and they end up too much alike. Which isn't to say that they're no longer cute and fun, because they are, and I like that they seem to have been living happily ever after all that time. Still, I miss the interlock, rather than overlap, of their characters. Ah well.
There, whining accomplished. I feel better. I think I'm going to curl up with Fool's Gold and a cup of mint tea, and hopefully I'll actually get some sleep for once. Stupid insomnia. I never had a bit of trouble with it before grad school, and I've had nothing but trouble since.
Hawaiian Dick: The Last Resort #1 is out tomorrow! Yay! Steven Griffin is only doing pencils for the first issue and is being replaced by a guy I've never heard of (Nick Derington). Boo! At least Griffin is sticking around to do colors, but why the switch on a story in progress? Hmph. And why does Image list it as a monthly when according to all the preview press it's another mini? Mysterious. And why does the comic shop not have a transporter to materialize my copy here instantaneously? Just what are scientists doing with their time these days? If I had that flying car that should have been available by the '90's at the latest, I could just zoom down and pick it up. Darn the movies for lying to me anyway.
Anyway, The Mummy Returns. Not a patch on the first one, but not a bad bit of fluff if you can stretch your disbelief far enough, and I mostly can. Rick and Evie having produced a quippy moppet who's not only not horrible, as movie children are wont to be, but is actually kind of cute? Sure, just look at how cute and quippy they are. People looking exactly like their pre-reincarnated (heh) selves of three thousand years ago? Important characters' genes are often a little wonky, so okay. The Rock as an actor? Bit tougher, that, but Hollywood certainly seems to want it badly enough, so I'll play along for now. But Anck Su Namun running off and leaving Imhotep to get melted? I don't buy it. They have the Big Swoony Forever Love, complete with suicide and resurrection and kissing of icky mummy faces, and she just rabbits instead of giving him a hand? Nuh uh. I'll buy miraculously healed dirigibles, climactic battles against evil action figures, and Brendan Fraser, Warrior of Light, but I won't buy that. It's somewhat silly to talk about bad characterization in a flick like The Mummy Returns, but, yeah. Bad characterization. It bugs me every time. Isn't that sad?
I'm also slightly bothered by Action!Evie. Not that she wasn't a fun Conan the Librarian. I rarely look askance at good Xena moves. And with nearly a decade of marriage, motherhood, "archaeology," and (presumably) grudging acceptance from her peers (take that, Bembridge Scholars!) under her belt, it's not unreasonable to expect that some of her long-standing intellectual confidence would be expressed physically. But even so, I miss the klutzy, museum-wrecking Evie whose brain balanced Rick's brawn. In The Mummy, he's not dumb and she's not a hopeless fighter, but they still have their own obvious and different strengths. In TMR, that difference is collapsed and they end up too much alike. Which isn't to say that they're no longer cute and fun, because they are, and I like that they seem to have been living happily ever after all that time. Still, I miss the interlock, rather than overlap, of their characters. Ah well.
There, whining accomplished. I feel better. I think I'm going to curl up with Fool's Gold and a cup of mint tea, and hopefully I'll actually get some sleep for once. Stupid insomnia. I never had a bit of trouble with it before grad school, and I've had nothing but trouble since.
Hawaiian Dick: The Last Resort #1 is out tomorrow! Yay! Steven Griffin is only doing pencils for the first issue and is being replaced by a guy I've never heard of (Nick Derington). Boo! At least Griffin is sticking around to do colors, but why the switch on a story in progress? Hmph. And why does Image list it as a monthly when according to all the preview press it's another mini? Mysterious. And why does the comic shop not have a transporter to materialize my copy here instantaneously? Just what are scientists doing with their time these days? If I had that flying car that should have been available by the '90's at the latest, I could just zoom down and pick it up. Darn the movies for lying to me anyway.
