Not too shabby. The exposition and set-up is a bit clunky, but when things start humming, boy do they! And thank GOD for a better villain than the paper cut-out that was Nero in the first go-around. I especially appreciate the parallels to contemporary issues (ie: drone warfare and terrorism) as well as the fact that it allows things to get a little morally murky. It'll be interesting to see where the series goes from here as it's already developed…

In my opinion, the undercurrent of Jean-Luc Godard's first fifteen features (produced within the span of a mere seven year) was the battle between the head and the heart. In the beginning, Godard still held strong ties to the traditional Hollywood cinema he had grown up on and devoured via the Cinémathèque Française. Sure there were lots of highfalutin references to philosophers and poets, but it was still possible for a mainstream audience to get invested in the characters and…

Film students and critics love to make a big deal about the "showy" moments in this movie. They go on about the long takes, the prologue, the hidden 82s, the narration, the sing-a-long and the frogs. It's kind of hard not to. And with an epic run-time of 188 minutes, there is no shortage of "showy" acting too. Not a single moment comes easy. People hurt and people get hurt. Every single character is an exposed raw nerve. So yeah,…