Tag Archives: thieves

August 26, 2019

Review: Fast and Furious Presents Hobbs & Shaw

By Rebecca M. Horner

Normally, I leave the action movies to Ginny. However, the Fast series has a small piece of my heart. I love Vin, and then they brought in the Rock for the first one I ever saw, and I was hooked. So when I saw that we were doing a film centered around Johnson’s character, I had to go see it. I’m even reviewing it while it’s still in theater!

Both Luke Hobbs and Deckard Shaw are complete opposites, as proven by the opening sequence! But when an artificially created virus is stolen, they are forced to team up, Hobbs because he is the leading tracker in the world and Shaw…because the last one seen with the virus was his younger sister, Hattie, and his mother has laid on a guilt trip. If they don’t kill each other in the process, they will have to face down the considerable might of the Eteon group, who are determined to save humanity from itself, by any means necessary. The lead soldier? An old acquaintance of Shaw’s named Brixton, who remembers the man who left him for dead.

Despite being “presented” by the Fast and the Furious, the only real members of the franchise that we see are Hobbs and Luke, which not only lets us flesh their characters out more, but also gives us new characters to play with that tie specifically to them instead of to the whole Fast gang/family. For example, we got to see more of Sam, Hobbs’s daughter, and of Shaw’s mother. I loved that we got more of Sam and single-dad Hobbs, not only because it’s an unconventional family dynamic in media but also because she is hysterical. And I love the way that they wrote Magdalene, so I’m always happy to see more of her and her interacting with her children.

But the story was very tight on Hobbs, Shaw, and the new addition of Shaw’s sister, Hattie. Hobbs was his usual self, though I saw a little more return to how he was in the first movie Johnson starred in rather than the last one. No complaints, but it was a nice meld of the two characterizations. I also liked how it delved into his back story for the back half of the film, since the front half is more focused on Shaw since it introduced his sister in that part. Speaking of Shaw, I thought he was his usual abrasive and yet suave self. (I don’t know how the actor pulls that off.) It took longer than I admitted to completely comprehend the joke to his prior work, but it still made me snort the half I immediately got. They overly played the combative nature between the characters for me, and I think that was because they didn’t want them getting along too much too soon.

Hattie gets her own special call out. She didn’t use her sex appeal as her only skill, nor was she limited to just a hand-gun. Instead, they gave her a wide range of skills, and didn’t go out of their way to over-sexualize her aside from occasional shots of she’s pretty, it’s going to look that way. She was the Plot Ball, but she was a competent Plot Ball that was doing just fine on her own before our heroes showed up. I like how she was ready to make whatever sacrifice that was needed in order to protect the world. Also, she gets bonus points because even though she had a flirt-mance going on with Hobbs, they didn’t let it take over the movie and it didn’t get hot and heavy, it was just a light little flirt and attraction. This gives me hope for them being a longer romance arc.

(If you want the sexpot thief/spy, there is Madame M and her whole group of girls in Russia, you get your fill, but she is also amusingly competent.)

This gets me talking about a plot a little. Now, I don’t have a high standard for story in action films. It has to be enough to keep me entertained, not necessarily enough to make me think. This one…was about at that level. They pushed jokes and the bad blood between Hobbs and Shaw until the plots broke, and then built them back up again. It was pretty straight forward with not a whole lot of surprises. That being said, it didn’t try to pull a surprise out of nowhere either. (Yes, that’s a GoT call out, no, I do not care.) I’m just happy that they didn’t make the Plot Ball a weeping damsel in distress who needed saved, and at the same time she wasn’t a robot-agent either. It took time to show that she was angry or scared or regretful, and it really focused on the family aspect. Some people may hate it, I for one liked it.

Setting, oh gosh, it was pure scenery porn at times. Samoa in particular was beautiful, and I loved how they changed the lighting depending on which part of the story was supposed to be the focus in terms of Hobbs’s expertise versus Shaw’s, or whose narrative we were following. We didn’t have the usual street racing or custom cars as we did last time, but I think there still some legit car chases and explosions that are very much the standard for a Fast film. It was just of a different type, which makes me wonder if they are trying to pull the “save the world” plots out of the main franchise and focus more on the street-level racing and crime, and then let Hobbs and Shaw deal with spy shenanigans. (But that’s just me guessing.)

Overall, not only was Hobbs and Shaw a fun romp, but while there was some second hand embarrassment from the very guy centric jokes, there wasn’t some of the blatant sexism that the other Fast films have despite their best efforts recently. That made it one of the more enjoyable films for me to watch. If you don’t like the other Fast films, I hesitate to say you’ll like this one, but if you have a couple of nitpicks with them but otherwise find them good, this is right up your ally.

Plus, they brought in Roman Reigns. I DIED.

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October 28, 2018

Character Study: Arianna Silverkin a.k.a. Anna

By Rebecca M. Horner

Anna is probably my favorite of my rogue-types that I’ve played, if only because of how much she’s influenced so many of my other rogues. She really was me pushing myself to play something different than I usually do, and I’ve found that it was a lot of fun! Though calling her a rogue-type is a little…misleading.

Abandoned at a temple dedicated to the goddess of luck, Anna was raised by priests of a different temple that was the goddess of children along with other orphans. But she hated the rules and structure, and quickly fell into a little gang of children thieves. She even got very close to her best friend’s family, making it like the family she’d always wanted. Except there was an accident with the guards, who caught part of the group and killed the rest. Anna did all she could to keep them all alive…revealing that she was a spontaneous divine caster. So rather than sending her to prison, she was handed over to the temples (specifically the same temple she was abandoned as) and forced into getting trained as a cleric, hoping it would turn her towards a better path. (Nope.) She did make a new friend who helped her inch towards respectability, convincing his family to formally adopt her. Though rather than as a child, she insisted on taking the last name Silverkin, to indicate she was just related to the Silvers by law and sentiment than blood.

So for those keeping score at home, she grew up as a rogue, but was trained as a cleric. None of which is what she actually was–a favored soul of the goddess of luck. And, as I managed to pry out of the DM once that campaign fell apart, she is actually the daughter of that goddess.

Part of what made Anna so much fun was her items. I started the campaign later than the other members of the party, and so I had a lot of gold to play with. The results ended up being a bit like a Mary Poppins bag, and was a running joke through the campaign. Between her stash of odds and ends and a case of scrolls that she looted from somewhere, she started to be a little ridiculous. Her spells ended up running the same gambit. Yes, she was a healer, but I occasionally took some spells that had…interesting effects on the plot. (Enthrall has become one of my secret favorite spells ever sense.) She also later ended up with a sword that was tied to her goddess, and eventually grew a little as the story advanced.

(Pause. Okay, I’m getting deja vu, maybe Anna has infected Hekate a lot more than I thought…)

She was also more of a flirt and a downright selfish character than I had ever played in a DnD setting. The poor DM spent a lot of time wrangling Anna, and it was not helped that due to her mercurial nature and identity issues, the other player’s character found her amusing as all get out so he let her get away with a lot or found a way to make it work towards the group…or helped with the wrangling, lol. It was a crazy good time. She also went through a turning point, where she started to treat everything more seriously as she was forced to deal with her guilt and her grief from her past.

At some point, I’d like to play with Anna’s story a little. There was a lot of need for her goddess in the city where Anna grew up, and there’s a part of me that is intrigued by what happens after she finishes her journey (and level path) and becomes fully her mother’s daughter. What happens when she returns to her home, to try and make it better in anyway she could? I even have an image in my head of what demi-goddess Anna looks like, and some of the struggles that she most likely would have.

Anna really gave me my courage to play a bolder character than my prior types, since while Chocho was bubbly (and admittedly annoying) and Bevan was my go-to, silent and efficient. It’s not something I want to do a lot, because uh, that’s uncomfortable. And I do prefer to do it with Skype/Steam campaigns rather than in person. Because I will turn into a tomato. (Or at least do a very good impersonation of one.) I’m pushing myself to try something in Anna’s vein, just a lot more angsty, but you know, we’ll see how that goes. But for now, she’s sitting on a shelf, waiting for me to find the right story for her.

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October 26, 2018

Review: Ocean’s 8

By Rebecca M. Horner
I kept meaning to watch the Ocean’s franchise, and then either something would annoy me within the first few minutes or I’d get distracted and blah. The fact it was an almost entirely male cast probably factored into this, since at this point of my life, I am highly reluctant to invest in male-centric franchises, I don’t care how much I love George Clooney. But Ocean’s 8 is an all female main cast, they didn’t cast the Bitch Who Shall Not Be Named (as I shall refer to the actress who got given the opportunity to PROVE A POINT and to fight for representation and turned it into a fat joke), and while it was in theaters, I was in desperate need of a distraction. So I went. And while it makes my heart heavy to remember what happened that night, I can’t regret getting to see a good movie out of it.

A heist comedy, Ocean’s 8 centers around Debbie Ocean (the late [or better be] Danny Ocean’s sister) as she is released from prison, and falls back into the family business. Her plans are ambitious, her old partner Lou is ride or die though with a touch of emotional concern, and Debbie has spent years making sure everything will work as long as the right people are in the right places at the right time. And without the help of a single man…aside as a fall guy, that is. And she has the perfect one in mind. A diverse cast makes up Debbie and Lou’s contacts and newcomers to their types of games, and in the end, revenge is served best cold as ice.

So the movie starts off in a very subtle way that I think is supremely powerful. It shows exactly how experienced Debbie is at these types of cons, and how she takes control of any situation she is. It proves to us that this Mastermind has the skills to back up her plan. Now cue the character meetings and setting up the bare bones of the heist. Each character, in their handful of scenes, had plenty of time to establish their situations, their personalities, and their own goals, as well as their skill sets. Were some of the backgrounds hokey? Yes, but it wasn’t just the ethnic characters. I mean, how hokey is a stay at home mom who is a fence? The Indian character dealing with a mother being pushy about marriage seems hokey to us because it’s a common trope, but it’s also a common trope because it is important to their culture and the character played with it a little at least.

We also started to establish some back story for Debbie and Lou without it being some giant info dump, it was relevant to the job. There are also plenty of secrets still remaining for the women to dive into later. The heist itself was amusing, with just enough tension to keep the story moving (no spoilers!). I was trying to figure out where the ending was going and where a missing piece went, so the end reveal to me was actually pretty satisfying, even if it was predictable. (It’s a heist comedy, I don’t go in expecting to be super-duper surprised, here.)

With any kind of ensemble cast, you always have to juggle your balls in the air carefully to make sure nothing goes horrible wrong or static. This is especially difficult with an already established franchise, depending on how tightly you want to link back to it. Now, the writers did a very smart thing for Ocean’s 8. They divorced themselves almost entirely from the main group, splintering off after a sister of a main character, and building up around here with a deliberate focus, and then they kept the numbers down. So rather than trying to expand or grow a character, they got to focus the entire movie on these different personalities shifting to slot together as a team, so no one character had to be the end-all-be-all, or worse, all of them having to grow to prevent comparisons. The weakest ones to my memory are Constance and Nine-Ball, but I think both have room to grow and develop further. I also liked how two of the characters weren’t the type we normally expect for their actresses.

Helena Bonham Carter has been pretty type cast to Belletrix and Tim Burton type characters, so getting to see her in an almost bubbly (if frail) and ditzy character was a very welcome change. And I love how Anne Hathaway’s character was trying to sell the image of who we know Anne to be, but actually was a much stronger, more assertive personality type, not to mention much smarter than initially expected by the team. Now with sequels, theycan build on this core group or add or take away, depending on the job. Personally, I hope they tie in with some of the women from the main franchise.

The setting is harder to comment on due to it being set in the real world, but I did like the different shots they used, and I thought Nine-Ball’s comments on the headquarters really was cool commentary on heist clichés. Why are they always set in old abandoned warehouses? I know, out of the way and lots of room, but still, points to the hacker that the cyber security for those places is usually awful. I also loved the different styles of gala dresses that they did for the Met scenes, and actually during the movie, I had a thought. Based on Sandra Bullock’s line about her dress being old, I thought they’d actually had the actresses pull old dresses that they had previously worn to events. Bullock has been blonde before, pulling from her wardrobe at that time would make sense to me, and I thought it was a cool touch about one-time-only dresses and getting a chance to wear them again. (Ya’ll can imagine my vivid disappointment when I found out I was wrong, I was heartbroken. It was such a good idea!!!) I did like how celebrities were there playing themselves except for our main cast, and it really helped add a touch of viewing a world that we normally only get to see on television.

This movie out of all the franchise has gotten a lot of ragging for being unoriginal or lacking in tension. And I’m just really confused. After the first Ocean’s movie, we all know the formula, there is no shocker to be had her. It’s the same as the old book serials–you know Holmes is going to solve the case, you know these set people are involved. The fun isn’t in the conclusion, it’s in getting there, like that missing piece I was hanging on to. (And I started slapping Aubrey’s shoulder over…I’m a violent movie buddy, ya’ll.) It’s about enjoying eight smart women getting to be eight smart women and getting one over a male dominated world. And even if it glorifies thieves and unethical characters… I’m okay with that, because at least it shows that we can do anything we set our minds to, a message that girls and women don’t get enough of, especially in today’s political climate. To quote Debbie, “Somewhere out there is an 8-year-old girl dreaming of becoming a criminal. Do this for her.”

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