The Substance is a tale of two movies. It starts off with a really cool premise. An aging Hollywood star is given a chance to create a younger version of herself, but the process has many strings attached. Each body has to be used for exactly a week without fail and each body must be fed a fluid weekly. And then the process is only supposed to happen one time. Deviating from these rules has dire consequences as we find out later.
Besides the cool concept, the execution was pretty good. It was still an odd, quirky movie, but there was a certain logic to it as well as tension being created between the old version of Elisabeth Sparkle, played by Demi Moore, and the new version of her who is becoming a star as the new Elisabeth.
About two thirds of the way through the movie, everything falls apart. Saying that it went off the rails is not strong enough. This movie turned out to be a complete trainwreck. It was just an utter mess of nonsense and illogical actions by the characters. Also, the makers of the Substance repeatedly stated that both the new and old versions are the same person, but this wasn’t true at all. They acted as separate entities with no shared memories. The actions at the end with what the new version of Elisabeth does to the original Elisabeth was completely illogical. The culminating scene was just idiotic. The ending absolutely kills the movie. Like most Oscar nominated movies, this is not worth watching.
This is the second novel that I read from Simone St. James, and much like The Sundown Motel, this novel was a winner. This novel involves a true crime blogger interviewing a woman acquitted of serial murder forty years ago. The novel bounces back between present day and flashbacking to the events from forty years earlier in a really gripping manner. Despite the blogger being a true crime devote, the supernatural figures very heavily in this novel with the presence of ghosts in the accused’s house.
Writing one good novel could be a fluke, but this novel showed that St. James is talented at the craft of writing. The suspense builds throughout the novel. The tension is high throughout. It’s hard to diagnose why a novel works because it’s often hard to pinpoint why a novel is enjoyable, but the characters, the flow and pace, and the quality of the writing are all quite good. Constructing an enjoyable novel is kind of like a chef mixing various ingredients, and cooking them for a certain time and temperature and coming out with an enjoyable meal at the end. Clearly St. James has this process down quite well. The ending was quite explosive and delivered a satisfying ending. Although I didn’t quite enjoy this one as much as The Sundown Motel, I would recommend reading this.
In this very, very long novel, it seemed like 90% of it is setup, and 10% is the realization of this setup, which isn’t a great ratio of action and consequence to setup. I’ve been enjoying the Stormlight Archives series to this point, and I did generally like this novel as well, but some of the flaws became a bit more prominent in this novel. The biggest problem is that this book is overly long. I listened to the audio, and it was over 57 hours of recorded audio. That’s not a problem in itself. If it were, I would never have endeavored to set out to listen to this. But there is so much that I think can be cut. I would say about a quarter of the book can be cut. There are significant parts that are just very slow moving, and the pace of this novel is its biggest problem. I think there is a lot of bloat, and although it is not as severe as the later novels in George R.R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire, it still could use an editor with a hatchet to cut it down. My other issue is that there at times significant actions that happen that aren’t explained well, which seems crazy given the length of this novel. Although most of the novel is overwritten, there are key parts that are underwritten.
Now, I don’t want to be overly negative. Brandon Sanderson is a great writer, and the writing in this novel is top notch. The worldbuilding is also very strong, and I find myself wanting to learn more about the cosmic nature of the story and how it relates to other worlds. The characters are also very well developed. There’s enough here to make me want to read the finale, but I’m not certain that if the first book were written in this manner that I would have reached the same conclusion.
My basic premise coming into this movie is that there is no reason for it to exist. Gladiator is one of the greatest movies ever made, and the story was all told. There was no need for a sequel, and to me this is clearly a money grab. All of that said, how was the movie itself? Pretty Good. Not great. Certainly not in the caliber of Gladiator, but on its own merits, this was a solid movie.
There were certain aspects of it that were clearly not good. Given that this isn’t a fantasy movie and it’s historically based, I don’t know what the heck those baboon like creatures at the beginning of the movie were supposed to be. And sharks in the Colliseum? I doubt it. The twin emperors were a little over the top, but given what some of the actual Roman emperors like Nero and Caligula were like, not entirely unbelievable.
So, what did the movie excel at. The action and fighting scenes were really good. The set design and costume and all that good stuff that makes the movie look and feel like Ancient Rome were also pretty good. By and large the acting was also top notch. Denzel Washington is awesome in any role he performs and this is no exception. Pedro Pascal and Paul Mescal also were quite good. The story was pretty solid. None of these things were as good as the original, but it’s a very watchable movie and you will not be wasting two and a half hours of your life.
It took a bit longer than I anticipated, but The Traveler’s Door is now out in Audio in a variety of platforms. This is the first time I used more than one narrator and I’m really excited about how it turned out. A special thanks to my narrating duo of Bill Stephenson and Julianna Wolfe for their stellar narrating and producing. You can get your copy on Barnes and Noble, Audible, Chirp, and Google Play.
