03-16-2020, 06:18 AM
Never seek out the answer to the question "How bad could this be". It will be worse than expected.
I knew from watching the trailer for Spenser Confidential it was going to infuriate me. I've been reading the Spenser novels by Robert Parker for almost my entire life. I've even read the Ace Atkins stories as well. Atkins carried on the books after Parker passed away. Confidential is based on one of the Atkin's penned Spenser books called "Wonderland"
My big question in all the cases faithless productions of literary products is why by the book in the first place? Why not just make a mystery story about a Boston PI and not use the famous name. The obvious answer is name recognition. The name Spenser is the only thing recognizable about this Boston detective.
There are 47 books in this series so it's pretty easy to characterize Spenser. He was a really good boxer and doesn't lose fights. He left the police force when he realized he could deal with the authority. He was raised by his father and his uncles. He own's a pointer named Pearl the Wonder Dog. He has a girlfriend named Susan. He reads a lot. He's a great dresser. He's the smartest and toughest guy in any situation. He has a friend named Hawk who was a fellow boxer but turned to a life of crime. Hawk is bald and has much more refined tastes than Spenser.
In Spenser Confidential, every single one of those things is the opposite. He goes to jail. He talks about his mother's influence on him growing up. He has a dog and a girlfriend named Pearl. And the dog is an aging Beagle. Hawk is a schlub learning to box. Spenser loses every fight he gets into. He seems out of his element at all times. It was just relentless in it's denial of canon.
As for the mystery at the heart of it all, it never engaged. Somewhere towards the end, we are told about the framework of the mystery and then it's resolved by driving a truck through it. It seemed liked they remembered the title of the book so they thought that now would be a good time to bring that up.
It was all so maddening. But it has an MCU factor of 1 as Winston Duke from Black Panther plays Hawk.
I'm still mad.
I knew from watching the trailer for Spenser Confidential it was going to infuriate me. I've been reading the Spenser novels by Robert Parker for almost my entire life. I've even read the Ace Atkins stories as well. Atkins carried on the books after Parker passed away. Confidential is based on one of the Atkin's penned Spenser books called "Wonderland"
My big question in all the cases faithless productions of literary products is why by the book in the first place? Why not just make a mystery story about a Boston PI and not use the famous name. The obvious answer is name recognition. The name Spenser is the only thing recognizable about this Boston detective.
There are 47 books in this series so it's pretty easy to characterize Spenser. He was a really good boxer and doesn't lose fights. He left the police force when he realized he could deal with the authority. He was raised by his father and his uncles. He own's a pointer named Pearl the Wonder Dog. He has a girlfriend named Susan. He reads a lot. He's a great dresser. He's the smartest and toughest guy in any situation. He has a friend named Hawk who was a fellow boxer but turned to a life of crime. Hawk is bald and has much more refined tastes than Spenser.
In Spenser Confidential, every single one of those things is the opposite. He goes to jail. He talks about his mother's influence on him growing up. He has a dog and a girlfriend named Pearl. And the dog is an aging Beagle. Hawk is a schlub learning to box. Spenser loses every fight he gets into. He seems out of his element at all times. It was just relentless in it's denial of canon.
As for the mystery at the heart of it all, it never engaged. Somewhere towards the end, we are told about the framework of the mystery and then it's resolved by driving a truck through it. It seemed liked they remembered the title of the book so they thought that now would be a good time to bring that up.
It was all so maddening. But it has an MCU factor of 1 as Winston Duke from Black Panther plays Hawk.
I'm still mad.
As a matter of fact, my anger does keep me warm
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