Binge-r #266: Cowboy Bebop + The Wheel of Time
Bring the Poise: John Cho (Spike) in Cowboy Bebop
COWBOY BEBOP S1
Streaming Service: Netflix
Availability: All 10 episodes now streaming
The best thing about this busy Netflix adaptation of the revered Japanese anime series is that it knows John Cho (Star Trek, Columbus) is a star and lets him prove it time after time. From his first entrance, strolling into a heist to stay cool and bring the heat, Cho’s solar system traveling bounty hunter Spike Spiegel makes impeccable use of the fight choreography and the deadpan retorts that tend to precede the carnage. With colleagues such as the gnarled former detective Jet Black (Mustafa Shakir) and newcomer Faye Valentine (the terrific Daniella Pineda), the character is a worthy guide for a dystopian 2071 where the Earth is out of action and corporations and crime have the most of the say in the many domed colonies.
Netflix have put up 10 episodes of the original animated series, which has only grown in influence since debuting in 1998 and disappearing soon after. It makes for an interesting comparison, because the adaptation from Andre Nemec (Alias, Zoo) is deeply intent on duplicating the source material. The eclectic elements are impressive in their fealty: film noir regret, western showdowns, sharp edits to brazen camera angles, a west coast jazz score, tactile technology, stylised villains, and John Woo moves all feature. It helps immensely that the leads are up for everything this intricate reproduction demands of them, but sometimes it feels as if Cowboy Bebop is so focused on trying to satisfy freighted expectations that it forgets to distinguish itself.
Gold Dust Woman: Rosamund Pike (Moiraine) in The Wheel of Time
THE WHEEL OF TIME S1 (Amazon, all eight episodes now streaming): It is pointless trying to be the next Game of Thrones (even next year’s Game of Thrones prequel will struggle), and this adaptation of Robert Jordan’s expansive series of fantasy novels knows it. The problem is that this light-versus-dark adventure is awfully keen on being the next Lord of the Rings. Awkwardly set up, with a mediaeval world’s good and bad factions searching for the Generation Z reincarnation of a crucial magical warrior, creator Rafe Lee Judkins (Chuck) has tried to mix familiar tropes such as wizards and oversized orc substitutes with some of the books’ defining traits, including women being the stewards of magic and equal to men in many locales. This gives Rosamund Pike, as the powerful spell caster Moiraine, both great power and the right to take four “Dragon Reborn” candidates on the run. The Gone Girl star is an intriguing presence for this genre, even if she has to keep delivering lines such as, “the old blood runs deep in those mountains”. But between the naff digital effects, the lack of any geographic structure, and the predictable character dynamics this is a notable miss.
NEWLY ADDED MOVIES
New on Netflix: Bad Neighbours 2 (2016, 92 minutes) furthers the raucous comedy of the franchise’s first film, making a female sorority the focus but most of all continuing to let Rose Byrne go bananas as Seth Rogen tries to keep it together; the palpable chemistry between George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez is just one of the many delights in Steven Soderbergh’s masterful crime thriller Out of Sight (1998, 122 minutes).
New on SBS on Demand: Shot with a naturalistic attention to detail and warmth towards both the lead characters and bit players, Dheepan (2015, 111 minutes) is Jacques Audiard’s Palme d’Or-winning follow-up to A Prophet, which tracks three lone Tamil refugees who pretend to be a family in order to escape Sri Lanka’s civil war and end up on a Parisian housing estate where the trauma and hope lodged inside them struggles for ascendancy.
New on Stan: A compelling, unflinching examination of heroism’s realities, David Gordon Green’s Stronger (2017, 119 minutes) stars Jake Gyllenhaal as a Boston marathon bombing victim whose anger threatens to overwhelm him; with Tom Hiddleston, Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson, and John C. Reilly, Kong: Skull Island (2017, 119 minutes) puts a satisfyingly droll 1970s spin on the giant monster movie genre.
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