Category Archives: Immortality

If Dick Allen, who died Monday, is as many expect elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame next year, he will be only the latest in a string of stars whose immortality appeared to have been enhanced by their mortality.

Allen is considered one of the most likely candidates for enshrinement when the Golden Days committee convenes a year from now. Allen was most recently on a Veterans Committee ballot in 2015. He and Tony Oliva led the field, but both fell one vote short of election.

Between 1983 and 1997, Allens candidacy was considered 14 times by the Baseball Writers Association of America, but he never emerged as a leading candidate. In fact, under present rules, his name would have been removed from the ballot in 1983, when he was supported by just 3.7 percent in his first year of eligibility.

Allens candidacy peaked at 18.9 percent in 1996, when he finished 11th. He was a career .292 batter with 351 home runs and 1,119 RBIs over a 15-season career. Playing for the Chicago White Sox, Allen led the American League in both home runs (37) and RBIs (113) in 1972, and led again in home runs in 1974, when he hit 32.

He played nine of his 15 seasons with the Philadelphia in two stints, 1963 through 1969 and 1975-76.

Allen played in one post-season series, the 1976 NLCS, which his Phillies lost to the Cincinnati Reds.

As maudlin as it sounds, Hall decision-makers have a long history of overlooking a candidate until his death, and then suddenly sweeping him into enshrinement. At least a half dozen times in the course of the Halls history, candidates lingered on the ballot well into old age without receiving the necessary support, then were elected at the earliest opportunity following their mortality.

Were not talking here about enshrinees like Roberto Clemente or Lou Gehrig, who were quickly inducted in circumstances anticipating or immediately following an early death. Nor does it consider non-players such as Marvin Miller, who was elected last year following his death, which followed many years of consideration of his candidacy.

Heres a look at one of the Halls oddest, most awkward, election tendenciesone that may find Dick Allen next in the starring role.

Originally posted here:
MLB Hall of Fame: Their mortality brought them immortality - Call to the Pen

Ill praise my Maker while Ive breath;

and when my voice is lost in death,

praise shall employ my nobler powers.

My days of praise shall neer be past,

while life, and thought, and being last,

Fully aware of Gods presence with him on his deathbed, Wesley desired to praise God in his last hours. Friends said that with his final breath, he said twice, The best of all is, God is with us! The first Methodist was praising God for the joy of his presence!

Some of my dear friends have shared with me that they are indeed praying earnestly for Dean and me to feel the joy of Gods presence in these days. And to help me realize Gods presence, they have been emailing me songs that affirm his presence.

Several that do that for me are precious songs such as Jesus is All the World to Me, Trust and Obey, There is Power in the Blood, I Stand Amazed in the Presence, What a Day that will Be and Because He Lives.

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Albritton: Pray they will experience the joy of Gods presence - Opelika Auburn News

The futuristic Cyberpunk 2077 offers players a number of useful hacks, but the best hack is actually one you have from the start of the game.

Hacking is a major part of Cyberpunk 2077. Over the course of the game, players are able to hack a variety of objects - like doors, cars, and cameras. Through upgrades and character progression choices, players can gain access to a number of other abilities. However, it's a hack that's available from the beginning of the game that actually proves to be the best one.

The story of Cyberpunk 2077 concerns a player-made protagonist named V, who's in search of a special implant that could be the key to immortality. By exploring Night City, a futuristic urban landscape, players come into contact with a variety of intriguing characters, including Keanu Reeves' Johnny Silverhand. The hack system in Cyberpunk 2077allows players to do a number of useful things, including opening locked doors, controlling nearby cameras, and distracting nearby enemies.

Related: Cyberpunk 2077: How Long Until Keanu Reeves (Johnny Silverhand) Appears

Although players can unlock a multitude of different kinds of hacks inCyberpunk 2077, the best hacking ability they have at their disposal is the one V already has at the start of the game. Introduced early on inCyberpunk 2077's plot through a tutuorial, the Camera Control quickhack is one of the most useful tools players have at their disposal.

Cyberpunk 2077'sCamera Control quickhack skill allows players to take control of security and surveillance equipment. This is great, because it can be used in a variety of helpful ways throughout the game.Players can access cameras to spy on enemies, they can mark enemies in advance, and even distract them. Although early reviews of Cyberpunk 2077 are reporting plenty of bugs and glitches, reviewers are praising the game in almost every other aspect - including gameplay, and proper use of the Camera Control quickhack in Cyberpunk 2077 is key to planning out a method of attack - especially if players are trying to go for a non-lethal playthrough.

Controlling the camera essentially lets players come up with an entire plan before entering an area full of enemies. It's a great way to initiate a preemptive strike, and players should take full advantage of it when traversing the many dangers of Night City. It's also a great way to ease through the main story and beat Cyberpunk 2077quickly, since hacking cameras sets the advantage early on and can make enemy encounters much easier.

Overall, the Camera Control quickhack skill is extremely useful, and hacking into cameras is a perfect way to plan an assault beforehand - especially in areas with a lot of enemies. Thankfully, the best hack in Cyberpunk 2077 is also one players have from the start, and it makes life in Night City much easier.

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Cyberpunk 2077's Best Hack Is Already Unlocked At The Start - Screen Rant

By Matthew Redmond

Since her death in 1886, Emily Dickinson has haunted us in many forms.

She has been the precocious little dead girl admired by distinguished men; the white-clad, solitary spinster languishing alone in her bedroom; and, inmore recent interpretations, the rebellious teenager bent on smashing structures of power with her torrential genius.

As the world continues to endure the ravages of COVID-19, another ghost of Dickinson steps into view. This one, about 40 years old, seems by turns vulnerable and formidable, reclusive and forward. She carries the dead weight of crises beyond her control, but remains unbowed by it.

It was while drafting my dissertation, which explores the meaning of old age in America, that I first encountered this Dickinson. She has been with me ever since.

Most admirers of Dickinsons poetry know that she spent a considerable part of her adult life in what we callself-imposed confinement, rarely venturing outside the family homestead in Amherst, Massachusetts. Less known, perhaps, is that the final 12 years of her life were passed in a state of nearly perpetual mourning.

It began with the death of her father. For all his stern comportment, Edward Dickinson had enjoyed a special relationship with Emily, his middle child. When her surviving letters declare him the oldest and oddest sort of a foreigner, one hears the affectionate annoyance that comes with real devotion. He died in 1874, away from home.

Loss followed loss. Favorite correspondent Samuel Bowles died in 1878. With the passing of Mary Ann Evans, otherwise known asGeorge Eliot, in 1880, Dickinson lost a kindred spirit a mortal who, in her words, had already put on immortality while living. A very different loss was that of Dickinsons mother, Emily Norcross Dickinson, with whom she enjoyed little or no rapport for much of their life together, but who became at least somewhat precious to her daughter on her deathbed. That was in 1882, the same year that took from her literary idolRalph Waldo Emersonand early mentorCharles Wadsworth.

The following year saw the death of her cherished eight-year-old nephew, Gilbert, from typhoid fever, his illness having spurred one of Dickinsons rare excursions beyond the homestead. The year after that, Judge Otis Phillips Lord, with whom she pursuedthe only confirmed romantic relationship of her life, finally succumbed to an illness of several years and was wearily dubbed by the poet our latest Lost.

What impact did so much grief have on the mind of one of Americas greatest visionary artists? Her letters say little enough. Writing to Mrs. Samuel Mack in 1884, however,she frankly admits: The Dyings have been too deep for me, and before I could raise my heart from one, another has come.

The word deep is an arresting choice, making it sound as though Dickinson is drowning in a pile of dead loved ones. Each time she comes up for air, yet another body is added to the great mass.

This is characteristic of Dickinson. If her imagination shrinks from visualizing breadth, it thrives on depth. Some of the most captivating images in her poetry are piles of things that cannot be piled:thunder,mountains,wind. During the Civil War, she uses the same technique to represent soldiers heroic and terrible sacrifice:

In describing her more personal losses of the 1870s, Dickinson seems to imagine yet another pile of human corpses rising before her eyes. Or maybe it is the same pile, her loved ones added to the dead troops whose fate she kept contemplating to the end of her own life. Seen in this light, the Dyings appear not just too deep but unfathomably so.

At the time of this writing, the pile of lives that overshadows our livesis 800,000 deepand getting deeper by the hour. Dickinsons imagery shows how keenly she would have understood what we might feel, dwarfed by a mountain of mortality that will not stop growing. The same anger, exhaustion and sense of futility were her constant companions in later life.

Fortunately, she had other companions. Asrecent studieshave shown, Dickinson was the best kind of social networker, maintaining profoundly generative relationships by correspondence from the family homestead. Her poetic output, though greatly diminished toward the end of her life, never ceases, and its offerings include some of her richest meditations on mortality, suffering and redemption.

These words resonate in the current crisis, during which protecting the daily mind has become a full-time job. News reports, with their updated death tolls, erode our intellectual and spiritual foundations. All seems lost.

But if strain and sorrow are palpable in this poem, so is courage. Dickinsons lonely speaker chooses to express what she has felt, to measure and record the burden of loss that life has thrust upon her. Beliefs, once bandaged, may heal. And while no man has ever been bold enough to confront the deeper Consciousness that so many deaths expose within the human mind, the speaker will not rule out doing so herself. There is still room in this blighted world for the kind of visionary experience from which hope not only springs, but flourishes.

Living in the shadow of death, Dickinson remained enamored of life. This, as much as anything, makes her a hero of our time.

Matthew Redmond is a Ph.D candidate in the Department of English at Stanford University. He wrote this piece for The Conversation, where it first appeared.

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Emily Dickinson is the unlikely hero of our time | Opinion - Pennsylvania Capital-Star

While the most exciting pop culture news of Thursday was a trailer for a movie where Bob Odenkirk gets the John Wick treatment, Disney also had its 2020 Investor Day, which some people care about. OK, a lot of people. The nearly four-hour presentation featured such an overwhelming deluge of announcements that sifting through the entirety of its ramifications would be too much to fit into one blog or podcast without turning into some weird Mickey Mouse manifesto. (This is where Im contractually obligated to tell you to keep an eye out for more Disney Investor Dayrelated content in the coming days at The Ringer dot com!) In the meantime, lets take stock of some of the companys biggest announcements with some Disney Investor Day winners and losers.

Disney made it clear earlier this year that its biggest priority as a company going forward would be its streaming empire, and the early returns have been promising. As announced during the Investor Day presentation, Disney+ is already up to 86 million subscribers. For a streaming service thats been active for just over a year, thats an incredible achievementespecially when you factor in that its slate of buzzy original programming basically begins and ends with The Mandalorian.

But Baby Yodasorry, Groguis finally getting some backup. Disney+ is going to be home to, per the companys own announcement, roughly 10 Marvel series and 10 Star Wars shows, to go along with more new content from National Geographic, Pixar, and Disney Animation. (To say nothing of more new programming coming to Hulu and ESPN+.) All told, most of the newly announced projects from Investor Daywith the exception of 2021 blockbusters like Black Widow and Jungle Cruise, which Disney confirmed will have theatrical releasesare going straight to streaming. If there were still any doubts that Disney+ would stake its claim as one of the biggest competitors to Netflixs streaming dominance, Investor Day was one hell of a mic (Thors hammer?) drop.

For the exhausting number of projects that Disney flexed, looking for something with an original conceit was like finding a needle in a haystack. Take the Star Wars news: There will be not one but two Mandalorian spinoffs; an already-announced prequel show about Rogue Ones Cassian Andor; a stand-alone Lando Calrissian series; the return of Hayden Christensen in the Obi-Wan miniseries (OK, thats lit); and something called A Droid Story, which will feature C-3PO and R2-D2. The only project that sounds remotely original is The Acolyte, a mystery-thriller set in the High Republic era from Russian Doll creator Leslye Headland. (The next Star Wars movie, Rogue Squadron, is also in safe hands with Patty Jenkins.)

All told, Disney seems reticent to expand its idea of Star Wars beyond the characters and ideas that George Lucas already builteven a breath of fresh air like The Mandalorian is being stripped for parts for spinoff material. (And to be fair, the two main characters on that show were already inspired by Yoda and Boba Fettnot exactly original stuff.) Its not just Star Wars: Disneys lack of original ideas spreads across the whole company. Even Pixar, long admired as a beacon of creative (and tear-jerking) ingenuity, is making a Buzz Lightyear movie with Chris Evans and spinoff shows featuring characters from Up and Cars. If Disney put even the slightest bit of effort into exploring new ideas instead of milking nostalgia dry, maybe it wouldnt feel so much like the Galactic Empire.

This is Buzz Aldrin erasure.

This is where the fun begins.

It hasnt been a great couple of years for Noah Hawley. The latest seasons of Legion and Fargo werent up to the showrunners usual high standards; his first feature film, Lucy in the Sky, was panned by critics and completely bombed at the box office. Naturally, then, the only thing to do with a guy whos strung together a years-long series of duds is hand him the reins of the Alien franchise?!

Yes, Hawley will be helming the first ever Alien TV series for FXand while my love of the franchise is such that I will always go to bat for Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection (theyre good!), I have my doubts that this will be a fruitful pairing between creator and material. The sparse details of the project arent off to a great start, either: For some reason, the universe-spanning series will be taking place on [Checks notes.] Earth?! Thankfully, Ridley Scott is in talks to be involved as an executive producerfingers crossed he directs some episodes?so hopefully the granddaddy of the franchise will be able to curb some of Hawleys worst impulses. If not, well, at least we still have Raised by Wolves.

Lost amid all the Disney-related announcements were substantive updates about the film studio formerly known as Fox Searchlight (now Searchlight Pictures). All that the Investor Day could offer was a single tweet confirming that many films from Searchlightas well as 20th Century Studios, or what was once 20th Century Foxwill be making their way onto Hulu.

Searchlight is basically the Lets get some Oscars! arm of Fox, responsible for distributing recent Best Picture winners like 12 Years a Slave, Birdman, and The Shape of Waterto say nothing of buzzy nominees like The Favourite, Black Swan, and The Tree of Life. Searchlight is, in other words, one of the few areas of the Disney empire that is still committed to making nonfranchise films. (In a nonpandemic timeline, the studio would have already brought us Wes Andersons star-studded latest, The French Dispatch.) The lack of Searchlight-related updates isnt necessarily a death knellDisney knows that its investors are there to learn more about Marvel and Star Wars, not less-bankable-but-mostly-better moviesbut on the heels of Warner Bros. announcing that theyre dumping their entire 2021 movie slate onto HBO Max, the studio becoming a feeder system for Hulu isnt exactly a reassuring alternative for champions of the theatrical experience and nonfranchise cinema.

Not only does Disney+ have a subscriber base that dwarfs that of HBO Max, but the Mouse House is also sticking with theatrical runs for 2021 releases like Black Widow and Jungle Cruiseand will almost assuredly do the same with future movies from the Marvel Cinematic Universe and a fifth (and supposedly final) Indiana Jones entry from James Mangold.

A week after Warner Bros. put the future of the theatrical experience on blast, some huge-ass blockbusters being confirmed to make it to theaters counts as a bit of good news. (Hopefully movie theaters will be able to accommodate more than just $200 milliondollar blockbusters so that all other films arent dumped onto streaming services in our uncertain future, but thats a worry for another day.) Meanwhile, in the middle of Disneys showboating presentation, Dune director Denis Villeneuve published an op-ed in Variety slamming the Warner Bros. deal. This is fine.

In the event that I ever become a famous actor, Id like to follow Will Smiths and Chris Hemsworths lead. Both A-listers will be leading their own shows on National Geographic: In Welcome to Earth, Smith will take viewers on an awe-inspiring journey to unlock the secrets of this planets most extraordinary, unexplained phenomena that is, for some reason, executive produced by Darren Aronofsky; in Limitless, Hemsworth travels the world on Disneys dime to explore the limits of the human body. (No relation to the brain-enhancing pills from the Bradley Cooper movieas far as we know.)

The way I see it, Will Smith is getting paid to travel the globe and maybe take off-screen hallucinogens with the guy who made Mother!, and Hemsworth, who already looks like a Norse god, is trying to find the secret to immortality. We will all be watching with envy.

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The Winners and Losers of Disneys Investor Day - The Ringer

In August 2017, Keith R.A. DeCandido took a weekly look at every live-action movie based on a superhero comic in the weekly 4-Color to 35-Millimeter: The Great Superhero Movie Rewatch. He caught up to real time, as it were, in January 2020, but is revisiting the feature every six months or so to look back at the new releases in the previous half-year. This week, we have The Old Guard, while next week, well look at The New Mutants.

Greg Rucka got his start in the writing biz as a novelist in 1996, with the novel Keeper. Two years later, Oni Press published his comic book Whiteout, with art by Steve Lieber, and at the turn of the millennium, he became one of the major writers in DCs stable, novelizing the No Mans Land event in the Batman comics, followed by lengthy runs on various comics (including Gotham Central, a favorite of your humble rewatcher, in collaboration with Ed Brubaker and artist Michael Lark).

In 2017, he collaborated with artist Leandro Fernndez on The Old Guard: Opening Fire, a miniseries published by Image. Three years later, Netflix released a film adaptation of the series.

It is rare, though not unheard of, for folks who worked on comics to later work on the movie adaptation of those comics. Frank Miller cowrote the first Sin City movie and wrote the sequel A Dame to Kill For solo, David Quinn co-wrote the movie version of Faust: Love of the Damned, Geoff Johns contributed to the stories of Aquaman and Wonder Woman 1984, and J. Michael Straczynski contributed to the story for 2011s Thor, but theyre the exception. (Having said that, a lot of Batman comics writers contributed to Batman: The Animated Seriesbut comics writers have had an easier time breaking into animation scripting than live-action.)

Rucka, however, wrote the movie based on his comic book, and hes the only one credited, so its a rare case of the writing credits on both source material and adaptation matching perfectly, which has only ever happened in this rewatch once before (A Dame to Kill For).

Mind you, the movie almost didnt have this distinction, as Charlize Theron had issues with Ruckas first draft and hired her own writers to redo it. However, Netflix wasnt happy with that rewrite, and Rucka was brought back on to rewrite his script in a way that satisfied Theron.

Opening Fire, as well as its 2019 sequel Force Multiplied, are about immortals. For reasons that are never made clearand that lack of clarity is sometimes a source of frustration to the characterscertain people are immortal. When a new immortal activates (when theyre killed for the first time), the other immortals dream of them until they find each other. Eventually, the immortality wears off, but theres no warning or rhyme or reason to that, either.

The immortals are all warriors of some kind or other, and in modern times they take on jobs that (a) involve violence (at which they all excel) and (b) help people.

Theron plays the main character, Andromache of Scythia, who is thousands of years old, and goes by Andy. As the oldest of the immortals, shes the leader. Shes joined by KiKi Layne as Nile Freeman, a U.S. Marine who becomes the latest immortal during the movie, Belgian actor Matthias Schoenaerts as Sebastien de Livre, who goes by Booker, Dutch-Tunisian actor Marwan Kenzari as Yusuf al-Kaysani, who goes by Joe, Italian actor Luca Marinelli as Nicol di Genova, who goes by Nicky, and Van Veronica Ngo as Quynh, an immortal who is believed to have died. (The character in the comic was Japanese and named Noriko, but when the Vietnamese Ngo was cast, she asked that the name be changed to one that reflected her own heritage.) Rounding out the cast are Chiwetel Ejiofor (last seen in this rewatch in Doctor Strange) as Copley, Harry Melling (best known as Dudley Dursey in the Harry Potter films, and currently in The Queens Gambit as Beltik) as Merrick, and Anamaria Marinca as Dr. Kozak (gender flipped and renamed from Ivanov in the comic).

The movie was one of Netflixs most-watched movies this year, and plans for a sequel are underway, likely an adaptation of Force Multiplied, set up by the final scene, which adapts a scene from that sequel miniseries.

Sometimes you got to work with people you dont want to eat with

The Old GuardWritten by Greg RuckaDirected by Gina Prince-BlythewoodProduced by David Ellison, Dana Goldberg, Don Granger, Charlize Theron, A.J. Dix, Beth Kono, Marc EvansOriginal release date: July 10, 2020

Screenshot: Netflix

Four immortals, Andy, Nicky, Joe, and Booker, meet up in Marrakesh. Its their first time together in a year, and theyve been approached by a former employer, James Copley. Andy is reluctant, as they dont like to repeat employers. If they stick with anyone for too long, they start to notice that they havent aged. But Booker says the job is worth it, and so Andy and Booker take the meeting, with Nicky nearby with a sniper rifle.

Copley isnt working for the CIA anymorehe left when his wife died of ALS. Hes now running a freelance security company. Hes learned of children whove been kidnapped in the Sudan, and they need a quick rescue operation before the kids are separated and moved to where they cant find them. Andy agrees, and they gear up for the mission.

Unfortunately, its a setup. There are no kids, just a big team of commandos who ambush them and shoot them to ribbons. Unfortunately for the commandos, they then get up and kill everyone.

In Afghanistan, Marines are chasing a terrorist. Sergeant Nile Freeman asks some women, through an interpreter, if theyve seen him. Aloud, they say nothing, but one older woman, who says verbally that no man would hide behind women, also indicates a house with her eyes.

Freeman and another Marine enter the house, and subdue the terrorist, but hes been wounded. Freeman tries to treat the woundtheyre supposed to bring him in aliveand the terrorist slices her neck open.

The quartet are livid at being set up by Copley and want to go after him. They burn their clothes and sneak onto a train. While sleeping, they dream about Freeman. For her part, Freeman wakes up in a base hospital, with not even a scar, and very confused, especially after dreaming about people shes never met.

Screenshot: Netflix

The quartet of immortals piece together their dreams and figure out that the latest immortaland the first since Booker in 1812is Freeman. Andy doesnt want to divert from their task of finding Copley and making him pay, but letting Freeman wander around immortal and alone and unknowing could compromise them. So she goes to Afghanistan while the other three work to find Copley.

Andy is able to kidnap Freeman right before shes to be flown to Germany for more tests. Freeman is confused at first, and unwilling to accept whats happening, even after Andy shoots her in the head and she recovers. They hop a Russian drug runners plane, which Freeman tries to hijack by threatening the pilot. Andy says something in Russian and then shoots the pilot, and the plane starts to go down. A panicking Freeman frees Andy, at which point Andy says, You dont speak Russian, do you? She reveals that what she said to the pilot was Play dead. The pilot wakes up and retakes control while Freeman and Andy fight. Eventually, Freeman calms down and goes along with whats happening.

Freeman learns about the other immortals. Theres Andy, whos been around so long she has no memory of how long shes been alive, and cant even remember her mothers face. Booker was the youngest before Freeman, as he fought for Napoleon and died on the Russian front. Joe and Nicky were on opposite sides during the Crusades and kept killing each other over and over again; eventually they became lovers and have become inseparable in the millennium since.

Then there are the two who are no longer around. One is Lykon, who one day just stopped being immortal. His wounds stopped healing and he died. The other is Quynh, who rode and fought alongside Andy for centuries until they were captured by Puritans who condemned them as witchesand their inability to die just proved the accusation. They finally put Quynh into a suit of armor and threw her into the water, where she drowned over and over again.

Andy takes Freeman to an abandoned church outside Paris, to discover that Nicky, Joe, and Booker were ambushed. Nicky and Joe were taken, while Booker is left for almost-dead. They come back for Andy, but Andy takes them all out easily and bloodily, which both shocks and impresses the hell out of Freeman.

While Booker tries to figure out where to find Copley, Nicky and Joe are taken to Merrick Pharmaceuticals, run by Steven Merrick, a very young CEO who wants to figure out the secret of the immortals healing to mass produce it. The doctor hes assigned to the task, Dr. Meta Kozak, takes a ton of samples from Nicky and Joe, but is unable to figure out what makes them immortal.

Freeman cant handle the notion that she can never talk to her family again. This despite Booker telling her that his entire family disowned and hated him when he didnt grow old and they all did. Andy decides to let her go and also charges her with ditching their car and the extra weapons. Andy also gives her the handgun Booker had handed her so shes armed.

Booker and Andy arrive at Copleys office, to discover that Copley figured out that they were immortal on his ownand did copious research to find all kinds of connections, including people they saved who later went on to do great things.

Screenshot: Netflix

Copley betrayed the group to Merrick because he wants people to not suffer the way his wife did. And Booker helped him, as he proves when he shoots Andy. Booker just wants to finally be able to die. Unfortunately, Andy seems to have lost her immortality the way Lykon did, and she isnt healing, to Bookers devastation.

Merricks people take Booker and Andy away and render an objecting Copley unconscious. By the time Freeman shows up (having realized that the gun Booker gave to Andy, and which Andy gave to her, had no ammo in it, at which point Freeman has realized that Booker betrayed them), Copleys all alone. Freeman shoots herself in the foot to prove shes who she says she is, and Copley leads her to Merrick.

All four immortals are imprisoned by Merrick, Andy bandaged up, and all three of the others pissed at Booker. Freeman arrives and rescues everyone, though she loses Andys axe one of the times shes shot dead. She frees the others, at which point, even with Andy no longer functionally invulnerable, they wipe out Merricks entire team of mercenaries.

Merrick, Andys axe in one hand, a gun in the other, threatens to shoot Andy if Freeman doesnt give up. Andy asks if she thinks he speaks Russian, at which point Freeman pretends to shoot Andy herself. She plays dead long enough to distract Merrick.

Then Freeman jumps out a high-story window with Merrick, crashing into a car, killing Merrick, and it takes Freeman a bit to recover.

The five immortals gather at the Devils Tavern pub in London. Booker and Freeman sit outside while the other three decide on Bookers punishment for betraying them. Freeman tells Booker that Copley arranged things so that Freeman will be declared killed in action. Andy then tells Booker that he has to stay away from them for a hundred years. Theyll meet back up at the pub after a century, and Joe, Nicky, and Freeman will decide his fate then. (Andy will be dead by then.)

After seeing how Copley managed to track down everything they did, the remaining immortals inform him that hell be responsible for finding jobs for them, and also covering their tracks so that someone else cant do what Copley and Merrick did. Though they arent giving Copley a choice, the ex-CIA agent is, nonetheless, happy to do it.

Six months later in Paris, Booker stumbles home, drunk, to find a woman waiting in his apartment: its Quynh.

She stabbed me, so I think she has potential

Screenshot: Netflix

My favorite bit in this movie when I saw it the first time was when Nicky and Joe are captured. One of the mercenaries asks snottily if Nicky is Joes boyfriend, and Joes reply is: Youre a child. An infant. Your mocking is thus infantile. Hes not my boyfriend. This man is more to me than you can dream. Hes the moon when Im lost in darkness and warmth when I shiver in cold. And his kiss still thrills me, even after a millennia. His heart overflows with the kindness of which this world is not worth of. I love this man beyond measure and reason. Hes not my boyfriend. Hes all and hes more.

A longer version of this speech is in the comic book, and it turns out that it was stipulated in Greg Ruckas contract that any filmed version of this story had to include that sequence.

Which is awesome, and is one of the reasons why I adore this movie (and the comic it adapts) so much. Our five immortals arent just characters in a story, theyre people. And they all do such a good job of showing the weight of their years, especially Charlize Theron, whose Andy is just so exhausted. Shes just so obviously done with everything. Matthias Schoenaerts Booker has a similar affect, as his continental ennui is cranked up to eleven.

Director Gina Prince-Blythewood deserves a ton of credit here, as the movie manages that perfect balance between strong character work and powerful action sequences that superhero movies rely on if they want to be any good. The fight choreography is also stellar. The four immortals fight like a well-oiled machine, and Freemana combat Marinemixes in well with them. I particularly like how easy they all make it?, and I particularly like how the immortals all fight with more aggression than their opponents, simply because they know they cant be hurt permanently. (I also like that the filmmakers are aware that guns dont have an infinite supply of ammunition and need to be regularly reloaded.)

The exception is Therons Andy, but not just because she becomes mortal partway through the movierather its because shes really so much better than anyone else. Its so effortless for her, she almost seems bored. I used to do karate with a high-ranking black belthes since left our dojo to open his own dojo in a different disciplineand he is an amazing fighter. What blew me away watching him in sparring tournaments is that he barely moved and just made everything look so easy and effortless as he knocked people repeatedly to the ground and kicked them repeatedly in the head. Theron has that same style about her in her fight scenes.

Screenshot: Netflix

Its fascinating to look at the changes made from the source material, especially because both had the same writer. Some changes are for the better: the movie adds that Copleys wife died of ALS, a particularly brutal, debilitating disease, thus providing him with a more solid and more noble motive for betraying the team to Merrick. Others are not improvements: Freeman is a woman of many talents in the comic, but thats toned down in the movie, going so far as to not make her fluent in Pashto as she was in the comic, instead relying on a translator. And others are neutral: in the comic, Andy is a drunk, smokes a ton, has a metric buttload of casual sex, and struggles with modern technology, where Therons Andy does none of those things.

The biggest change, though, is that Andy has become mortal, which did not happen in the comics. It certainly raises the stakes of the climactic fight, as Andy, unlike the others, can be hurt. Im wondering if this was a trap door for Theron in case she didnt want to keep playing the role once she got into her 50s (she turned 45 this year).

The only place where the casting falls down is in the villain, though there isnt a lot to work with here. The Merrick of the comic is a one-dimensional cartoon psycho, a fourth-rate version of Jared Letos Joker from the Suicide Squad movie. As played by Harry Melling, the movie iteration is, instead, a fourth-rate version of Tom Hiddlestons Loki, which isnt as much of an improvement as it needs to be. This is a role that calls for the bureaucratic blandness of David Strathairn in The Bourne Ultimatum, and as played by Melling you just cant take him seriously as a bad guy.

Chiwetel Ejiofor makes up for this, though, giving Copley a depth of character he didnt even have in the comic. You feel his pain in betraying them, but also his fervent desire to try to find a way for people not to suffer. And Theron, Schoenaerts, Marwan Kenzari, Luca Marinelli, and especially KiKi Layne are superb.

This is a great adaptation of a great comic book, and I very much look forward to seeing how they handle Quynhs return in the sequel adaptation of Force Multiplied. (I also hope that the movie has a better title)

Next week, well take a gander at the only superhero comic book adaptation to be released in theatres after the COVID-19 pandemic struck the U.S. to date: The New Mutants.

Keith R.A. DeCandido also is doing a rewatch of Star Trek: Voyager every Monday and Thursday for this site, plus reviews of each new episode of Star Trek: Discovery when it is released on Thursday.

Excerpt from:
Humanity can go screw itself The Old Guard - tor.com