Review Day

There are no major spoilers in these reviews.

Supacell, Season One:
This superhero show feels like a British version of Heroes before it went off the rails. It isn't very different from what has come before it, but offers a fresh setting and a lot of hip-hop music. There's one frustrating episode where delaying the plot hinges on a contrived unwillingness to communicate by the lead character, but it wraps up in an excellent season finale with twist after twist. On Netflix.

Final Grade: B

Warcraft (PG-13):
This movie flopped enough when it came out that there probably won't be a sequel -- it's not as bad as described, but has an uncertain identity. It felt like it couldn't decide whether it was catering to new viewers, casual fans of World of Warcraft, or diehard fans of the original Warcraft lore, and only did a passable job for each audience. The movie is also overwhelmed by CGI which, while pretty well done, makes it hard to take anything seriously. Watch it as a throwaway popcorn movie and it will probably entertain your teenager. On Netflix.

Final Grade: C+

Veronica Mars 4:
The fourth season of Veronica Mars starts ten years after the original series and movie. It's uneven, with some dropped unexplained threads originally raised to make the central mystery more chaotic, and sometimes feels like an excuse to get the cast back together. However, the core relationship between Veronica and her dad is still a strong tent pole that gives everything heart. I do love that there's no "case of the week" B story -- a device that worked fine in the aughts, but that modern TV has long since grown out of.

Final Grade: B

Welcome to the Madhouse by Tones and I:
This Australian artist came on my Pandora station on one of the rare occasions where it wasn't trying to force that "I need a dollar" song down my throat. The songs are catchy in isolation, but the album has too many similar timbres (like Eisley, or the third act of Les Mis). The singer is ALWAYS singing, which makes every song start to sound the same. If she took some breaks and inserted some interesting interludes into the (very repetitive) backing tracks, there'd be more uniqueness.

Final Grade: C+