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Reviews
Torchwood: Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (2008)
The Buffy Episode
The writers of Torchwood must be Buffy fans. They wrote the episode like a Season Six when Buffy and Spike (James Marsters) fall into a love / hate, trust / distrust thing just like Captain Jack Harkness (playing the part of Buffy) and John Hart. They even have to keep Captain James Marsters out in front as Xander had to in BtVS. Come to think of it:
CaptainJackHarkness......................Buffy
GwenCooper...................................Willow
OwenHarper...................................Giles
ToshikoSato....................................Anya
IantoJones.......................................Xander
CaptainJohnHart..............................Spike
Beowulf (2007)
Poor version of an epic story
I have seen and heard (radio dramas) many versions of this story. I even was the TD and sound engineer on a NPR release of Grendel. I have great respect for Neil Gaiman and yet, this is by far the worst retelling of this saga. Maybe Neil's writing was butchered by the editing of the production, but the beauty of the prose was absent. The drama between Beowulf and Unferth was lacking. The ending seemed to be just an afterthought.
Now the animation, an attempt at photorealism, was pathetic in its artistry. Why spend so much time, effort, and money to have Angelina's character look exactly like Angelina? What is the point? What is the intention? All this work and the character animation still look like stiff automatons with only brief moments of brilliance. The lighting and color palette are right out of any of a dozen cheap video games.
Again, why?