★★★
“…In Which Sydney Experiences The Mother of all Hangovers.”
Where is Sydney, and what have you done with her? We might have been forgiven for uttering this cry at the end of season three, which exited not with a bang, but a whimper. “We need to talk.” That’s pretty much what Jack said to Sydney after she discovered, apparently, that her entire life had been a CIA operation. This was hardly a surprise, if you remembered Project Christmas from earlier on, Jack’s plan which tested first-graders – including his own daughter – for spyworthy attributes. The news that the show wouldn’t restart until January 2005 thus provoked little more than mild disappointment.
The deficiencies this time were particularly obvious when viewed alongside the first on DVD. The twists and turns back then were far superior; in series 3, the main ‘surprise’ was Vaughn’s wife being a Covenant agent. Again, this was no shock once we realised nothing would be allowed to get permanently in the way of the Vaughn-Sidney relationship. That this over-extended soap-opera plot thread was allowed to be the focus of the third series (along with everyone bar Sidney appearing to know where her missing two years went) is evidence of shortcomings in the writing department.
Can I also make a plea for Rambaldi to be retired honourably? He’s been rolling along for three seasons now, and any surprise value long since evaporated. We have become jaded by stories involving Rambaldi’s shopping list or whatever, which absolutely must be located by the good guys before SD-6/K Directorate/The Covenant get their hands on it. This is beginning to feel like The X Files, where Chris Carter never did provide “the truth” which was supposedly out there.
Moving away from the storylines, also apparent is a big drop in the quality – and quantity – of the action. The battle between Sydney and Lauren in the final episode was a blur of two-frame shots, edited together so as to leave the viewer with little clue about what was going on. That’s not the tingle of excitement, it’s the beginning of a migraine headache. Again, one can compare and contrast the first series; it may or may not have been Jennifer Garner doing the stunts, but you could at least see them.
Okay. Let’s take our foot off the show’s throat for a minute, and talk about what it did well. The central characters remain the show’s strength, and the relegation of Will to a minor role was a definite plus – he had become an irrelevant distraction and a spare wheel. All the major players, however, showed they could still surprise us; can anyone deny a shudder when Jack Bristow gave Vaughn a set of keys, and told him where he could dispose of Lauren’s body?
If you’ve read these reviews previously, you’ll know we adore Marshall, and once again, he managed to steal just about every episode he was in. Fatherhood doesn’t seem to have changed him much; it’s just a shame we missed the past two years of his life too, which would likely have been most amusing [Marshall fans will get a kick out of the Alias video game, in which he has some classic lines.]
There were also some interesting guest stars this season, led by Isabella Rossellini as Sydney’s aunt (on her mother’s side, natch – though between that and the sudden appearance of a sister, she has an entire new family to deal with). Quentin Tarantino also came back, and another cult director appeared, in the shape of David Cronenberg, whose understated approach was a marked and refreshing contrast to QT.
The ratings for the show remained mediocre: even the finale was seen by only 7.7 million viewers, down from an average 9.7 and 8.9 through seasons one and two. A change in the way Nielsen measure ratings means it’s difficult to make comparisons, but this suggests a vague disenchantment among more fickle, casual viewers, without a huge loss of the core fanbase [and certainly, we remain some way from a Buffy-esque turn-off for the series] The ABC network also underwent a shake-up, with the president and chairman of its entertainment division departing. With them will hopefully go the cringeworthy product placement, in particular for the Ford F150. As if it weren’t bad enough to have to sit through the adverts.
Still, a fourth season has been commissioned, although as mentioned, it’s not starting until January – the fall sees Desperate Housewives instead, which isn’t the reality show it sounds like. Mind you, perhaps it would be best for the network if it were, given ABC’s dreadful track-record with drama. See the awful Karen Sisco and the entirely pointless Stephen King’s Kingdom Hospital – and we loved Lars Von Trier’s original – for details. Roll on January, and let’s hope for a return to the form and content which made the first two seasons of Alias such a refreshing, energetic delight.
Star: Jennifer Garner, Victor Garber, Michael Vartan, Ron Rifkin
I’m still trying to work out what the title actually means; it certainly bears no relevance to the film. More generaly, the biggest point of interest is its similarity to Blade 2, which took the basic concept (hunt for the carrier of a virus that turns its victim into bald, psychotic bloodsuckers) and did a lot more with its Eastern European setting. Henstridge is Delon, a policewoman who has her partner dismembered while they search a house, and Lambert leads the backup team – they follow their target into some vents which connect to an old prison, and where they rapidly become the prey. All this is set just outside a post-apocalyptic (plague, specifically) Boston – though the cop cars have ‘POLICIA’ on them. There’s also a subplot about Delon’s son, and a black-market passport she bought for him, which is of no significance whatsoever, and is probably there only to get the running time up to feature length (and at 76 minutes, only barely!).
Shot in what looks like four rooms, it’s up to director Pyun to make the most of a higher-profile cast than he usually manages – unfortunately, he fails, though I liked the snap-zoom technique applied to bullet hits. This is straightforward ‘spam in a tunnel’ cinema, with little tension, character, or anything else that might elevate this above the mundane. Henstridge, bless her, does what she can, and comes over like a grubby version of Lara Croft; her undeniable action heroine potential has so far been wasted in stuff like this or the lame She Spies. Partly shot in the capital of Herzegovina, Mostar, the “just-bombed” look is likely genuine, from a conflict that only ended the previous year; it may be exploitative, but at least Pyun brought employment to the locals. I imagine he’s now scouting locations in Kabul and Baghdad.
The moment that I heard this female samurai pic was from the director of Versus, I started drooling uncontrollably. [See the 
Cutting to the chase; the action is excellent, with several sequences which would be fitting climaxes to any other movie. When you see this one’s finale, you’ll realise why they’re not: Azumi’s master is captured, and an entire town of sword-wielding rogues and assorted scum is in her way, plus villain #1, a rose-wielding psychopath who dresses in white (Odagiri). Settle back, and pass the popcorn. While the swordplay itself is mostly nothing special (save one Very Special decapitation), Kitamura captures it beautifully, the visual highlight being a full circle around two characters – vertically. The sound is also fabulous; you could close your eyes and just listen to the battles.
As a rule, we don’t watch dubbed anime, finding it a painful experience; unfortunately, this version, which compacts four OAVs into a feature, is 
Supermodel-thief Mimi (Melanie Marquez) steals an artifact from a Chinese temple, then heads to the Philippines, via Hong Kong. HK and Chinese cops (Khan & Yeung) are on her tail, as is former partner Ko. This is, frankly, a mess. Yeung apparently does no detective work; Khan goes on a date to an illegal street fight; they’re supposedly partners, but only share one scene; and what 
With so many threads too, the story arcs seemed disjointed: in some cases, you’d go for weeks without hearing anything, before an abrupt reappearance. However, a continuing strength was the development of the supporting cast, with Sloane switching from evil mastermind to sympathetic antihero, even within the course of a single episode. Dixon, too, enjoyed a spectacular character arc over the second half, going from committed SD-6 employee to a borderline psychopath, whose obsession with catching Sloane surpassed even Sydney’s.
So where do we go in Series 3? We still have the Rambaldi machine; assembly now complete, but expect further machinations as they piece together the instruction manual, and discover they need a 240/110V convertor. :-) It looked for a moment like we would be missing one major character (who finally Got The Point), but sounds like he’s okay. However, the main thread appears to be Sydney, and her efforts to recover from what could simply be the mother of all hangovers – I mean, I sometimes wondered how I got home, but at least I usually woke up on the same 
It’s amusing to see that even New Concorde – who released it – don’t seem to have watched the film, their website describing it as “about the legendary lost tribe of warrior women”. Er, no: the A word doesn’t actually get used in the movie, which is really about the quest for a legendary sword, the only thing which stands between an evil sorcerer and world domination.
Add supporting roles for Michiko Nishiwaki and Yukari Oshima to Khan and Lee, and you should have a winner, all four being in perhaps the top half-dozen or so action heroines from Hong Kong. Yet while the fights here are grand, the film wastes far too much effort elsewhere. Khan is a Chinese cop who comes to Hong Kong and bumps into gangstress Lee while looking for former lover Waise Lee, who is a) also Lee’s love, and b) now involved with a painting that hides documentation on Japanese wartime human experiments, which Nishiwaki is trying to sell to Oshima. Like I said, far too much effort (if you want to know about those experiments, track down the grim but jaw-dropping Men Behind the Sun).
Things do perk up later on; after all the oestrogen, Chin Kar Lok is welcome light relief as an amusing dumb cop, and the finale is excellent, with echoes of Thelma and Louise. However, it’s too little, too late. It’s worth pointing out that while the title and artwork imply some kind of team-up, as in The Heroic Trio, the reality is unfortunately totally different, and nowhere near as interesting.