Now Watching Falling Skies

Have you heard about TNT's new SciFi drama, Falling Skies.  I had heard about it vaguely, and had been meaning to watch it, but totally forgot about it.  I just don't watch a lot of TNT and Sunday night seems to be HBO night.  This weekend, I caught all of the current episodes on demand.  I don't know what I was expecting, but I was pleasantly surprised by the TNT SciFi outing.  It is immediately clear that this is better than anything currently running on SyFy.

Why do the mechs only have two legs? asked in episode.

Plot- Aliens have invaded the Earth.  They set off some kind of super EMP that has fried all the electronics all over the world.  They capture kids and put a mind control devise on their backs.  Adults they just kill.  The aliens are called Skitters, because they all skitter around on 6 legs.  there are also mechs.  The mechs are hard to take down, but seem slow and combersome.  The story follows a military outfit (the 2nd Mass) and the civilians that they are protecting.  At this point, they are in retreat and defend mode and humanity has not developed a strategy for taking back anything that they have given up.  The Skitters have us on the run and it all looks pretty bleak. 

Hot, even after an Alien invasion!

Acting-  The acting is pretty good.  They have the delectible Moon Bloodgood and dependable Noah Wyles in the cast.  While Bloodgood can act, her track record with success seams to leave a lot to be desired, but this could be the role that gets her over that hump. 

Production-  there are aliens and mechs so they have to do special effects.  The effects are better than a made for Syfy movie, but are well below movie quality.  I imagine that they are spending a huge portion of their budget on FX, and if the show isn't getting enough viewers then TNT will likely pull the plug for a lower costing alternative.  It is TNT though and they tend to look at awards as well.  They are really pushing themselves as a cable network with a full lineup of original dramas and not just showing NCIS in syndication five nights a week.  This gives me hope. 

This is a skitter

Overall-It is a fun serial drama that has already introduced some mysteries that have me thinking.  The show pulls you in and takes you along for the ride.  Political commentary and metaphor have not really shown up as yet, which I think is good.  While it worked in BSG to some degree, BSG often came off as preachy.  The show has tackled religion though.  Odd considering the show takes place in Boston with the main character being from Cambridge.  It handles it in a respectable manner and even puts it in a positive light.  It comes off as part of one of the character's life that she is unashamed of.  Bravo for getting this right. 

I would highly recommend this show.  It might be a little to scary, bloody, thematic for most younger children but kids around 10 and up should enjoy it.  It comes on Sundays at 10/9 central on TNT (they know drama). 

Street Fighter:The Legend of Chun-Li spoiler free movie review

Against the Judgment of many before me, I decided to give this one a watch.  I got it from the library so the only thing it cost me was 2 hrs of time, so about $60.  Well I didn't watch it at work so that two hours is worth more.  I digress.

The movie starts out real slow and it spells everything out to you.  Apparently, there is a secret good guy organization and all the members keep the organization secret by tattooing the insignia on their hand.  Any time the movie starts to speed up and flow, the director slows it back down again.

This movie also has that one kid from American Pie in it.  No not that guy the other one.  No the other, other one.  It seems like he is trying to channel Jason Lee from my name is Earl as an Interpol agent.  His acting is horrible in this movie so it actually fit right in. Moon Bloodgood was wasted as hot female cop.  Kruek made her Smallville performances look good.  When the actors tried to act, dialogue got in the way. 

The plot, it had holes.  I watched the deleted scenes and it actually filled in some of the holes.  The characters did dumb things for dumb reasons and didn't act realistically at all.  It took a simple revenge plot and mucked it all up.  The martial arts sucked in this movie.  The fight scenes could have made this movie, but it was all wire work.  They do some crazy stuff in the video game, but everything about every fight was way over the top.  It was overkill and made it uninteresting. 

The director was the worst part.  Sure Kruek is there for looks but she can act better than she was.  Wardrobe was horrible especially Chun-Li's outfit in the club where she lesbian dances.  He obviously cut scenes from the movie that explained other scenes.  For instance Moon Bloodgood's character asks interpol agent Nash for money to buy something to drink while they are on stakeout.  That is the whole scene.  That is it.  She doesn't go buy a soda and miss something.  The place doesn't blow up.  Just her in a car asking for money to buy a soda and then cut to a different scene.  The deleted scenes show him pull out his wallet to get money and reveal a picture of his Daughter whom Bison killed.  They cut the daughter completely out of the film apparently.  But dumb things are happening like that all through the film.

My 9 year old thought it was stupid and didn't make sense.  She wanted to like Kruek and Bloodgood because they are both half Asian like she is.  But in the end, the only reason to see this film is to find out how bad it really is or to help you go to sleep.  Get the 90's Street Fighter instead.  Ming Na is hot.