The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more

Some Belated Rankings

Indiana Jones was the second in a new feature I’m calling Film Franchise Fridays, where I pick a movie series and watch one picture a week until the end. Before that was Jason Bourne, and up next after the holiday will probably be The Matrix (so far all examples where I know I’ve missed at least one of the later entries). Now that I’m done, here’s my rankings of those first two sagas:

INDIANA JONES:

★★★★★ Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
★★★★★ Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
★★★★☆ Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)
★★★☆☆ Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)
★★☆☆☆ Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)
overall rating: ★★★★☆

JASON BOURNE:

★★★★☆ The Bourne Identity (2002)
★★★☆☆ The Bourne Supremacy (2004)
★★★☆☆ Jason Bourne (2016)
★★★☆☆ The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)
★★☆☆☆ The Bourne Legacy (2012)
overall rating: ★★★☆☆

Movie Review: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)

Movie #24 of 2025:

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)

Never say never in Hollywood, but the press statements from star Harrison Ford and current Lucasfilm owner Disney have all indicated that this fifth Indiana Jones movie is meant to stand as the final entry in that long-running saga, which began four decades ago with Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). If so, it’s a fairly strong conclusion, sending the intrepid hero off on another globehopping treasure hunt that nimbly recaptures the thrills of the past.

This is in fact a story about time travel in many ways, opening with an extended sequence set near the end of World War II — the period of the original trilogy — that uses de-aging technology to restore the lead actor to a pretty good approximation of his youthful appearance. While there he clashes with a new villain played by Mads Mikkelsen over the latest maguffin antiquity, a mathematical calculation device invented by Archimedes that some believe can enable literal transport across history. Later in the film’s most eye-popping spectacle, the object does just that, hurtling the characters backwards to the Siege of Syracuse in 214 BCE (which might be ludicrous in a more grounded franchise, but I’d argue is no stranger than certain other scenarios the archaeologist has encountered over the years). And in between, this is the tale of a man out of step with his era, looking back on regrets near the end of his life as he’s forced to battle enemies he’d once thought vanquished.

A lot of this works for me! Phoebe Waller-Bridge as the adventurer’s goddaughter is a particular delight, and the Nazis continue to be the ideal antagonists for this series, with their supremacist ideology forming a natural contrast to the archaeology professor’s rugged determination to recover ancient artifacts for the public eye. While the primary action is set in 1969, the decision to incorporate the supposedly-reformed scientists in Operation Paperclip is a terrific way to keep that German faction relevant — and a welcome improvement over the awkward attempt to refashion the Soviet Union as the resident bad guys in the previous title. Sallah and Marion are nice to see again too, although the explanation that Shia LaBeouf’s Mutt has died between movies seems unnecessarily rude.

The plot logic could be tightened up in a few places, and I feel only slightly more warmly towards Teddy as a junior sidekick than I did for Short Round, but overall this is an above-average genre piece. It may be nowhere near the classic of Raiders or Last Crusade (1989), but I’m very comfortable calling it the next-best installment after those.

[Content warning for gun violence, racism, and gore.]

★★★★☆

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Book Review: The Good, the Bad, and the Uncanny by Simon R. Green

Book #180 of 2025:

The Good, the Bad, and the Uncanny by Simon R. Green (Nightside #10)

One of the weaker entries in this 2000s urban fantasy series, which is unfortunate, since it also directly sets up the endgame and includes the deaths of some fairly major recurring characters. But plotwise, this is a mess. These books are never very long to begin with, and this installment features an extended early case of the protagonist escorting a fugitive elf across the city that doesn’t especially connect with the remainder of the tale. After that resolves he’s hired to find an old ally who vanished back in volume six, while his frenemy Walker keeps trying to convince him to take over his job as what passes for an authority figure in the Nightside.

Individual moments here work okay, but the writing is as repetitive as ever, which is increasingly noticeable this deep into the saga, and none of the action scenes or worldbuilding descriptions stand out as particular creative highlights. With only two novels remaining, it’s a shame this title doesn’t make a stronger impression or significantly challenge our hero, who’s been in any number of more desperate scrapes before now. But at least it clears the board of a few issues we don’t need to revisit again, I guess.

[Content warning for drug abuse and gore.]

★★☆☆☆

TV Review: 12 Monkeys, season 1

TV #55 of 2025:

12 Monkeys, season 1

There’s a fun Fringe vibe running through the first year of this Syfy program, and not only because Kirk Acevedo is around in a supporting role. Like that earlier show, it also offers a story that deepens as it goes along and starts digging into the personal stakes for certain characters, rather than relying on the worldsaving heroics alone to sell the drama. The focus is still on using time travel to prevent a virus from destroying human civilization, but by the end of this season it’s clear that one particular person is motivated by having lost a child in the fall, while another is working for the other side to maintain the timeline and keep their own family from being erased. That’s a conflict that resonates and doesn’t offer easy answers, to the overall improvement of the series.

12 Monkeys is a 2015 reboot of the 1995 film of the same name, in which a man from a plague-ravaged future seemingly travels back in time and gets locked up in a mental hospital, but it sheds the manic Terry Gilliam energy and ambiguities over the protagonist’s sanity. This version of Cole is obviously on-the-level, though his superiors aren’t necessarily giving him the full picture, and his own ordeal as an institutional patient doesn’t last very long. He’s mostly teaming up with a modern CDC doctor to undo the outbreak before it occurs, and getting increasingly frustrated as their successful missions aren’t changing anything back in his home era. The plot is twisty, sometimes beyond the point of believability, but it’s definitely the kind of tale that’s more satisfying to look back on once the pieces have fallen into place than it always manages to be in the moment.

I don’t think the finale sticks the landing, especially for rushing a romantic connection between the leads that could have used more room to develop naturally, and the narrative as a whole doesn’t seem like the writers have quite worked through what the rules of paradoxes and such should be in this setting, in terms of whether it’s genuinely possible to ever rewrite history or merely upend people’s flawed understanding of past events. (I’m not saying the scripts can’t square everything we see in this initial outing under a grand unified theory of worldbuilding, just that it hasn’t happened yet.) But the effort improves across these thirteen episodes for sure, and leaves me hopeful for what the remaining seasons will bring.

[Content warning for gun violence, torture, and gore.]

★★★☆☆

Book Review: The Strength of the Few by James Islington

Book #179 of 2025:

The Strength of the Few by James Islington (Hierarchy #2)

I don’t really know what to do with this title, rating-wise. I have major critiques about its structure that I’ll get into below, but taking every section on its own terms, I suppose I’ve enjoyed the unfolding story and how it continues what was started in The Will of the Many. I’ll go with 3.5 stars, rounded up, which is sort of the opposite of how I felt about that initial volume, where a dazzling majority was brought down by a confusingly unsupported ending. Unfortunately, author James Islington’s odd choices there continue to shatter the resulting narrative in this sequel.

But let’s set the stage here (and spoil the conclusion of the first book, as a warning). Our returning hero is a young man with quite a lot of secrets: he’s the orphaned heir of a small kingdom that his militaristic empire conquered, hiding the identity that would mark him for death but being blackmailed over it by a band of rebels, while also trying to pierce a shadowy conspiracy at his cutthroat academy. At the end of the last adventure, he succeeded in that latter goal, only to trigger a ritual that copied him into the two alternate dimensions that apparently broke off from his own several millennia ago. From that point on, there are three of him, and this novel follows them all as they proceed to pick their respective paths forward.

It’s not so unusual in the fantasy genre to divide a sprawling cast and then bounce around among them, as any Game of Thrones fan could attest. Still, I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a tale like this before, where the protagonists are identical versions of the same person, engaging in completely separate subsequent plots. This isn’t a Sliding Doors situation exploring how small differences cascade into significant ones as they diverge — the worlds are all strikingly distinct in their histories, present societies, and rules of magic, not parallel in any meaningful sense — nor do the heroes ever reunite and integrate their storylines, at least in this installment. They’re just starring in a trio of totally different scenarios, each of which is a plausible continuation of their common previous ordeals. Adding to the confusion, the chapters are all told in first-person, unlabeled, and in no specific rotating pattern, and although it’s usually easy to determine from the first few sentences which copy we’re now with, the impact is jarring every time.

Despite all that, I can’t help but like the main character(s). His undercover mission in the primary setting remains very Red Rising-coded, ruthlessly gaining stature amidst his enemies so as to better destroy them from within, and he’s clever enough to discover a few Mistborn-style worldbuilding twists that will presumably be of increased relevance later on. He develops into more of a soldier / druid in one reality and a revolutionary spy in another, but all are fun to watch level up their skills in those arenas to overcome their particular opponents. The aggregate effect is enjoyable but decidedly bizarre whenever you stop to consider the bigger picture, and I have no idea how the series will maintain its current direction(s) in any future releases. But I guess I’m still on board to find out.

[Content warning for torture, gore, and mention of rape.]

★★★★☆

TV Review: Wednesday, season 2

TV #54 of 2025:

Wednesday, season 2

I gave the first season of this Addams Family modernization a rave review, praising its heroine, plot, comedy, and tone, but I’m afraid I’m rather cooler on this belated follow-up. (Seriously, I know this is not an issue limited to Netflix, but taking three years to produce eight episodes is an absolute absurdity. It kills the creative momentum and audience buy-in for a show and leads to ludicrous age-ups for child actors like the one playing Pugsley here.) Jenna Ortega as Wednesday herself is thankfully still a deadpan gothic gem, but the series around her this time is an overstuffed mess that seems to be prioritizing a loose hangout vibe over a compelling story.

It’s not that things don’t happen in the protagonist’s sophomore year at Nevermore; the scripts have the rough shape of rising action and gesture at narrative arcs. But so little of it feels rooted in any character making agentive choices or overcoming significant challenges to get what they want. Instead the program has seemingly fallen victim to its own perceived successes and formulas — Wednesday is a show where X, so the writers make sure we get plenty more X, without much effort to justify or follow through on any particular developments. I’m reminded of the streaming platform’s kooky superhero adaptation The Umbrella Academy, which increasingly suffered from similar problems as it went on.

The most understandable choice is to give more space to the girl’s famous relatives, though I think it proves to be a misguided one. A YA fantasy noir like this, set in a school of werewolves and psychics and the like, in a broader society that knows and generally tolerates such “outcasts,” is never going to manage to recreate the culture clash of previous Addams Family titles. Wednesday’s standoffishness, which continues to read as autistic-coded in a rewarding way, at least sets her apart from the other freaks on campus, but who are her parents contrasting with? The series has to settle for hurt-feelings drama between mother and daughter, which then proceeds to hit the same notes over and over again.

A bevy of subplots and episodic troubles keep the production moving, and it’s not all bad. The main character’s grudging friendship with her chipper roommate Enid remains enjoyable, and the hour when they magically switch bodies represents a real tour-de-force for both actresses, who are plainly having a blast temporarily performing against type. I’m glad the romantic entanglements of season 1 are gone and not replaced; I just wish there was more in their stead with an obvious point for us. It’s fine! Steve Buscemi and Billie Piper are here for some reason. So is Christopher Lloyd’s head in a jar. Thing gets an utterly unnecessary backstory. There’s a mystery about a zombie with a clockwork heart and some supernatural murders. It’s fine.

[Content warning for gore.]

★★★☆☆

Movie Review: Babylon 5: The Road Home (2023)

Movie #23 of 2025:

Babylon 5: The Road Home (2023)

This is, for now, the latest screen entry in the winding Babylon 5 franchise, though there’s no indication that it’s meant to represent a conclusion or anything. In fact, this title is a prequel of sorts — taking place near the end of the TV show and before other follow-up projects like The Legend of the Rangers or Crusade — and it’s easy to imagine subsequent releases adopting the same approach, if not pushing forward into further sequel territory. It’s also the first animated feature for the series, reuniting most surviving cast members and recasting the remaining parts, in a medium that’s inherently forgiving of such moves to downplay how a quarter-century has passed for the actors in real life.

Both the look of the animation and the mix of voices that are familiar with those that are only rough approximations remind me of Marvel’s What If…? cartoon, as does the specific storyline here. The plot takes our old protagonist John Sheridan and sends him on a tachyon-fueled journey through other times and alternate realities, although the results are never as wildly imaginative or as immersive into the established continuity as I would ideally prefer. There are rewards for fans that newcomers won’t pick up on, like Zathras muttering about the One and not-the-One, but it’s pretty welcoming of audiences who might not have all the proper context, too. Overall it’s not a bad 79 minutes of sci-fi, and I’d certainly accept it as a proof-of-concept for the format, but I wouldn’t call it an essential part of the B5 canon.

★★★☆☆

Movie Review: The Ewok Adventure (1984)

Movie #22 of 2025:

The Ewok Adventure (1984)

My daughters (aged 6 and 4) lost interest midway through both A New Hope and The Phantom Menace, so I decided to see if this TV movie from the 1980s — later retitled to Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure, though I’ve never called it by that name — would be any more effective at hooking them on the Star Wars franchise. And by that metric, I’d say it was a hit! They sat captivated for the whole thing, only getting a little scared near the end, and overall seemed to like watching the funny teddy bear creatures and their friends.

As an adult viewer, I do have some critiques. The Ewok actors themselves are actually rather charming in their bumbling physicality and the emotion they put into their untranslated vocalizations, but the four human characters — two of whom are admittedly played by children — leave a lot to be desired, performance-wise. Eric Walker as Mace especially feels like he was cast solely for a slight resemblance to Mark Hamill, and while the script doesn’t give him a ton to work with, he doesn’t exactly rise to the occasion, either. Aubree Miller is less objectionable as his younger sister Cindel, but at that age, all she really has to do is look appropriately adorable anyway. And their parents thankfully aren’t on-screen very much, serving mainly as the kidnapped maguffins driving the plot.

Still, the opening half of this film is pleasantly solid, besides the intrusive narration from Burl Ives explaining details that ideally should have been covered more naturally via dialogue. We meet the crash-landed protagonists and a few key members of the local tribe, they overcome their initial mistrust to grow closer, and then they all team up on a quest to find and rescue the missing grownups. It’s there that the story falls increasingly flat, spending too long adding further companions and having random scrapes on the way to the villain’s citadel, most of which get solved by waving one of several magic artifacts at it.

And that’s probably the biggest disappointment here, that the production plays so fast and loose with the surrounding canon. Even upon release it was an awkward fit for the series it theoretically belongs to, introducing obvious contradictions like when Warwick Davis’s Wicket first learns of the existence of offworlders. It’s also hard not to notice how this version of the forest moon of Endor is populated with familiar animals like owls, ferrets, horses, and lizards, whereas its big-screen counterparts offer intricate alien fauna throughout. By the time we’re facing curses and spells and decidedly non-Jedi mysticism, it’s clear that this fairy tale setting is basically irreconcilable with the original space opera concept.

Now, will kids care about any of that? Absolutely not, I’m certain. Nor will the cheap-looking stop-motion effects likely register to them, although they again mark a significant difference from the big-budget stuff. I’m almost tempted to round my rating up a bit on the basis of that intended audience, but in the final analysis, I just can’t say that this meets the standard I expect for Star Wars.

★★☆☆☆

TV Review: The Sopranos, season 4

TV #53 of 2025:

The Sopranos, season 4

Another season of this family/crime drama that’s only periodically at its most effective, although the finale does a lot to clarify how the gradual dissolution of the central marriage ought to have been our primary focus all along. Unfortunately, however, the year leading up to that terrific outpouring of emotion is packed full of subplots that move in fits and starts, each often disappearing for multiple weeks in a row. Theoretically, there’s some great material here — Adriana getting pressured by the feds to cooperate as an informant, Uncle Junior finally going on trial, Christopher’s descent into an ugly addiction problem, etc. — but such matters are hard to enjoy when they develop so sporadically and are drowned out by weaker pieces like Janice’s infatuation with the widowed Bobby or Tony’s own with a random racehorse. Even Carmela’s dream of romance with Furio, one of the more consistent elements underpinning this stretch, is compromised by how suddenly it pivots his prior characterization from a tough heavy-hitter into a tender lothario so as to make a better contrast with her husband.

One thing I do like here is the simmering potential war with New York, in a dynamic that previously hadn’t featured too prominently. I realize this series predates Game of Thrones, but it’s very reminiscent to me of how that later HBO program steadily built out its own web of geopolitical connections, with characters and factions introduced naturalistically enough that audiences could easily accept they’d been known to the established cast for ages and just coincidentally gone unmentioned.

While that conflict ultimately comes to nought, it’s a storyline that expands the worldbuilding nicely, which I’m always happy to see. Ralph’s arc reaches a fitting conclusion too, and overall I appreciate the darker tone that underscores how sociopathic our antihero gangster boss can be. This was the first season of the show to be written and aired post-9/11, as is clear from the conspicuous removal of the Twin Towers in the opening credits, and that’s a happenstance that the scripts use to their advantage for a grimmer atmosphere all-around. But still, the balance leans too much towards episodes like “Christopher” and not “Whoever Did This” or “Whitecaps” for me to wholly love it.

[Content warning for domestic abuse, racism, gun violence, and gore.]

★★★☆☆

Movie Review: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)

Movie #21 of 2025:

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)

After nearly two decades, the Indiana Jones trilogy of the 1980s got another big-screen outing, although the brand had survived in the meantime with a succession of video game projects, a TV show about the character’s childhood adventures, and the like. There’s an undeniable thrill in seeing Harrison Ford don the familiar hat, whip, and jacket again, and while the ensuing story is occasionally goofy, it’s never the complete trainwreck of Temple of Doom. He feels like Indiana Jones no matter the extra years, seamlessly slipping back into the role of archaeology professor slash tomb raider as he punches bad guys and dodges traps in pursuit of the latest maguffin.

This is not a great movie, to be clear. It’s too indulgent in its 1950s period trappings and its now-dated CGI animal effects, and like a lot of the series, it’s unavoidably problematic on close inspection. The plot hinges on the racist idea that ancient indigenous populations were too primitive to build things like pyramids, which are instead attributed to alien intervention. (Okay, technically these are “interdimensional beings” and not extraterrestrials, but come on. They have a flying saucer and are plainly modeled after the stereotypical Roswell greys. And either way, it’s an odd fit for a franchise that’s previously trafficked exclusively in the divine for any special powers, on top of the implicit bigotry.) The modern native people are likewise reduced to a nameless unintelligible horde, just one of many jungle threats that the adventurers have to overcome on their way to the fabled treasure. And I have mixed feelings about the use of the Soviet Union as an obvious stand-in for the original Nazis as villains, which suggests an equivalency between those enemy forces that risks minimizing the unique horrors of the latter.

But on a surface level at least, this is fun. The opening sequence where our hero survives a nuclear blast by climbing into a refrigerator that’s then tossed into the air and rolled down a hill has been widely and correctly derided, but the introduction of Shia LaBeouf as his son Mutt works better than its reputation would suggest. I also appreciate that the film brings back Karen Allen as Marion Ravenwood from Raiders of the Lost Ark, reframing her as the love of the protagonist’s life when he was formerly a James Bond womanizer with a different romantic interest in every installment. She and Ford are the only actors to reprise their roles here — although John Rhys-Davies and Sean Connery were reportedly offered cameos that they turned down — and it’s nice that a star in his 60s isn’t shown chasing after the typical young Hollywood type.

Ultimately the title is a family-pleasing spectacle that recalls its predecessors without ever repeating them, which is basically the goal of a legacy sequel like this anyway. Did it need to be made? No. Does it offer any particular closure or answer longstanding questions? Not really. But it lands as both a continuation and a possible conclusion to the Jones saga, though one more release would eventually follow in 2023.

[Content warning for gun violence and gore.]

★★★☆☆