The Equalizer
I like action movies well enough that I keep buying tickets, but I try not to get my hopes up. This one, based on a TV series that I never watched, didn’t strike me as a good bet.
I was so very, very wrong. The Equalizer was awesome, one of the best action movies I saw last year. It had a slow burn Clint Eastwood vibe that led up to some eminently satisfactory ass kicking. They also did that zooming trick where right before the shit gets real the human wrecking ball kind of flicks his eyes around the room planning how he’s going to use ordinary household objects to kill everyone. I love that trick
Definitely worth watching if you haven’t seen it yet. Now that I think about it, the one with Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg from the year before (Two Guns) was pretty good as well—not quite up to the Equalizer, but a solid B+. Go Denzel.
Penny Dreadful
In the same way that I keep buying tickets to lousy shoot-em-ups in hopes of the occasional gem, I also at least glance at most of the new horror and/or fantasy series. For the most part, I don’t make it very far. I don’t have a lot of TV time, and my patience for “it’s good at least once a month” scenarios is limited.
I gave Penny Dreadful a shot and ended up binge watching the whole thing over the course of a weekend. I didn’t absolutely love every single episode, but I did truly love about four out of the six. The writing was really top-notch, the effects were awesome, and all of the leads turned in great performances.
Eva Green does seductive-yet-dangerously-unbalanced better than anyone. Josh Hartnett was fantastic, and Timothy Dalton appears to be one of those people who simply doesn’t age. As far as I know, the second season isn’t available if you’re not a Showtime subscriber, but I’m looking forward to it.