Graphic Novel Review: ANGEL: OLD FRIENDS

Before IDW publishing tackled the “After the Fall” ANGEL comic book series currently running which asks the question of “What happened after Season Five Ended?” of the series they tackled this story “ANGEL: OLD FRIENDS” which reunited Angel with all the characters of the hit television series for the first time in comics. Being a spin-off of the hugely popular BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER (both television show and comic) IDW’s Angel put Angel mostly on adventures by himself never explaining what happened after Season Five of the show ended (presumably because creator Joss Whedon had plans to produced television movies of some of the characters).

After some time had passed and it didn’t seem like the television movies were going to come to fruition IDW got the go ahead to use all the characters of the Angel-verse and thus “Old Friends” was born with writer Jeff Mariotte and artist David Messina at the helm. “Old Friends” finds a one-eyed Gunn seeking out the help of loner Angel when he believes that Spike may be responsible for several murders in the city. Believing that Spike may have gone evil Angel and Gunn team-up to bring the rogue vampire-with-a-soul down. When they finally encounter Spike he is more powerful then before and almost bests both Angel and Gunn until “the real” Spike shows up to dust the doppelganger-Spike.

After this encounter Spike joins Angel and Gunn as they soon realize that someone is using doppelgangers of them to try and kill them, which leads them to a chance encounter with Illyria (in which they all battle doppelganger-Wesley and doppelganger- Fred) and with Lorne (who has his own doppelganger that they have to deal with). Before the culprit it unveiled everyone in Team-Angel will be re-united and need to overcome their personal demons before an old enemy from their pasts reveals himself.

Although not a great story, “Old Friends” is not without it’s moments. It’s great to see all the gang back together again however brief (Illyria’s appearance being nothing more really then a cameo) and everyone gets a fair share at causing damage especially Gunn (who was unceremoniously left to the sidelines many times in the television series). It’s also nice to see that as the characters battle a villain from their past they finally come together…again, as a team. This is a good warm up for the real story going on in the current ongoing IDW series ANGEL: AFTER THE FALL.

WANTED on Review!

I’ve never read the Mark Millar & J.G. Jones series and graphic novel for which the new film WANTED was based but just by looking at the graphic novel and hearing feedback from film goers I knew going into this film that it was a “loose” adaptation of the source material. Upon viewing the final product I can honestly say that I’m not disappointed and the film actually makes me want to go and read the original source material just to know how they differ (this will have to be for a different article).

The film concerns an office worker by the name of Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy) whose existence is non-existent. He knows this as his name when searched on the Internet brings up nothing and his girlfriend is sleeping with his best friend and co-worker. His life is about to change when assassin Fox (Angelina Jolie) saves his life and tells him that his father was an assassin and he belongs to an elite group of people with special abilities that have formed a secret organization that keep life on the planet in balance by assassinating certain people. Under the leadership of Sloan (Morgan Freeman) Gibson must learn how to use his ability in order to help the organization bring down the person whom Gibson is told killed his father and who is trying to bring the organization down to its knees.

Even though this is a heavy action film the personal journey of Gibson is never lost and McAvoy does a great job with bringing the character to life. He reminds me a lot of the Leon character in THE PROFESSIONAL in which both Leon and Gibson’s lives are turned upside down by one individual which alters their perspectives on life and thus help dictate the choices they make throughout the film. In Leon’s case it is Mathilda and in Gibson’s case it is the revelation that the father that he never knew was killed by an assassin. These personal journeys are what drives the character and make for such films.

As directed by Timur Bekmambetov (making his Hollywood debut after the excellent Russian films NIGHT WATCH and DAY WATCH), WANTED is a hyper kinetic action frenzy of style in the way of a Wachowski film which actually is in the film’s best interest. Bekmambetov brings to the screen some amazing ideas not yet familiar to the American audience making the film seem very fresh and new. If this is a sign of things to come for action films then I’m all ready!