Piers Mearns

It may be an exaggeration that Logan's reasoning for his depression is so paper-thin and nonsensical, but watch any number of prior X-Men movies and it becomes incredibly difficult to buy into. Which is a shame because the movie teases the mystery to Logan's failings often. Xavier, in the film Logan, comparatively strikes out of the blue with a startlingly horrific and believable revelation to the death of his students -- and this is lead up to with the actual cause happening (but prevented) in present. At least Deadpool's character arc shows more warmth and humanity than his previous films. The mercenary's relevancy is at stake, both with a mid-life crisis and a commentary to the MCU lavishing it up. Whilst he really is nothing but quips, Deadpool values experiencing life with friends and family. The overall story, particularly Deadpool & Wolverine's utter abhor for one another, does a decent job reinforcing this. But man. When I said Deadpool is "nothing but quips", that really applies to the entire CAST. All of them. Whilst I get that it's just the flavour of the franchise, and the Wolverine is no stranger to sarcasm, even the MCU leaned too hard on it. But hearing a bevvy of extended Marvel characters trying to drop spicy 15-rated jokes really began to annoy me. The raunchy jokes just evaporated by the half-way point and the laughter began ebbing from the audience around me. Otherwise? The action scenes really are fast, frenetic and well directed. Cassandra Nova's unhinged familiarity is unnerving. It's tender to see so many past Marvel movies brought up to spotlight in the context of it all, as film fans absolutely have existed before Spider-Man and X-Men of the 2000's got the ball rolling.

Revenge tale that won't offer you anything interesting that a bevy of other High Fantasy stories hadn't already done — and what it executes on is oftentimes in a panicked rush. Four key characters all have their own adversity to face and the story does balance these aspects with some precision. The interactions between characters were made carefully, as well; Fymwyn has to bear with Invoker's brutal, piercing facts to advance forward, but finds warmth in Davion's veneer of optimism and pride. This is perhaps more impressive given what the show has to try and juggle with these characters whilst attempting to remain faithful to the lore and abilities from the video-game -- which recently released its newest playable character, ticking the roster up to a whopping 121, each of whom have their own backstory and relationships with the rest. Game of Throne's cast may have been mammoth in size, but at least the original book was written from grassroots. Even then, the season was punching above its own weight with important scenes either not presented clearly enough or not even shown at all; the animation was admirable to being hand-drawn, but questionable in artistry logic when so many action scenes turned to 3D modelling to get the job done. Above all; Dragon's Blood wants to be a sensible Netflix story for adults, but is forsaking DOTA 2's weird and wonderful cast of characters and premise, rather than embracing it to make a series that could actually stand out amongst the rest. But I am invested to see what becomes of Davion and Mirana, so the writing managed to carry the show to a victory in that sense.