The Raid 2, and power-ups in which you should imbibe.

Last week I saw Captain America: The Winter Soldier, which I thought was pretty cool (I want to see more FALCON in the future, goddammit!). But it in no way held a torch in any way, shape, or form to the awesomeness that was The Raid 2: Berandal. The sequel to the 2012 slam-bang mile a minute action extravaganza does have a serious flaw, though, in the story that's a little too long and a little too ambitious for its own good.

The undercover cop infiltrating the big bad crime syndicate and starting to crack under the pressure. The mob boss' pompous, entitled son who feels he is heir to the throne and wants to be more than his dad's feckless errand boy. People getting smoked and buried in shallow ditches out in the middle of nowhere. Enough wiretaps to give Detective Lester Freamon a hard-on. It's the crime story we've seen before, in the likes of Casino, A Better Tomorrow, Scarface, The Wire, et. al..

Now, I'm not saying Gareth Evans and crew are dummies. Far from it, friends! Merantau was awesome. The Raid was awesome. Even the "Safe Haven" segment in V/H/S 2 kicked some serious ass. If you're a kick-ass writer, don't let Evans' talent go to waste; send your stories and treatments to Indonesia in his general direction immediately. I'm talking to you, Hollywood. That's all I'm saying.

But the martial arts and action sequences, when they happen after calms in the storm, truly shine. The third act, for example, kicks off with a high-speed chase and shootout where our hero Rama has to fight multiple opponents inside a speeding vehicle.

Pretty wild stuff. I hate so much to use the vernacular by conversing in "bro-speak", but there's no other way to put it: if you don't see The Raid 2, or if you haven't seen the first one, you're a whiny eunuch. A pussified punk-ass bitch. That is all.

While I'm on the subject of ultra-violence, if you're a Battle Royale fan you should pick up The Battle Royale Slambook. Lots of cool essays on Koushun Takami's novel, the subsequent manga, and Kinji Fukasaku's 2000 film. One essay comes from a writer that was one of the first people on the planet to read Takami's Battle Royale manuscript, back when it was a submission to a horror writing contest.

Another writer extrapolates what may have inspired Takami to write the dystopian novel in the first place, and writes a heavily detailed and informative essay about Japan's "Lost Decade" as a result. Check it out.

Also, grab Dark Souls II. And Chocolate Necco Wafers (Harlan Ellison is a huge fan of this candy, which fills me with pride). Who cares if I've worked in one of the dirtiest parts of my factory this week? I'm on a roll.

I think I watched "Aliens" too much as a kid.

Almost a year ago I'm at my local chain bookstore, ready to purchase the latest volume of Negima! and perusing through all (but few, sadly) splatterpunk novels that are in place within the horror section. I'm trying to decide if there's something here I want to buy too. Then out of the corner of my eye I see someone's wrist holding something shiny and metallic. My field of vision and sound is suddenly overwhelmed with both a bright green LED light and an electronic buzzing sound.

My first thought? Stun gun. Some years ago someone told me about how he fended off a derelict turned would-be robber that was armed with one. So I felt my swift reaction was at the time justified: I smacked the offending object out of my assailant's hand, then shoved him into the bookshelf, sending paperbacks cascading.

It was a scared-looking teenage kid, but even after deducing he was harmless, I was a little too pissed to care at that moment. Namely, I asked him what kind of shit he was trying to pull, and how he thought he got off on sticking foreign objects into other people's faces.

"It's the Doctor's sonic screwdriver," he half-shrieked. "I was just playing around! I'm sorry!"

I had no idea who The Doctor was. Or what kind of a twisted purpose a "sonic screwdriver" served. Because THAT was my first ever experience with the Doctor Who franchise, people. Some dumbass kid walking all over a Books-A-Million and jamming his 11th Doctor's Sonic Replica into other people's faces full blast.

I made the vague threat that his sonic whatever-it-is would become a sonic suppository if he kept up his sonic shenanigans. Then I left my potential purchases, the spilled books, and the shaken kid there, fuming and livid. What kind of a show was this Doctor Who anyway? Who did these people think they were? So I started to ask around.

It wasn't long before I got a mysterious response from someone I follow on Twitter: "No answers for you. Start with the 9th Doctor. Go!" So I obliged. Why not?

My verdict at first? I hated the first few episodes I saw. The Doctor's flippant and passive attitude in the face of mortal peril was one big goofy grey area for me. Plus he wanted to negotiate peace terms with other very violent sentient life-forms. What bullshit, I first thought.

There were aliens trying to KILL this other hero alien, for crying out loud, which in my book justifies what I call the Ripley Response. I watched Aliens maybe way too much as a kid. If an ugly-looking alien screws with someone in a movie, I think they have the God-given right to shoot it, flamethrower it, or blast it out of an airlock into oblivion. Yeah!

Then this episode came along called "The Long Game". I won't go into tiny details here, but basically The Doctor kicks this dude out of the TARDIS because the latter was trying to wrongfully exploit a cybernetic enhancement he had put into his brain for profit. GTFO of the TARDIS, Adam. Nice seeing you. It's been real. FINALLY, there was a tangible right and wrong that this character followed.

Then I got into the show. I'm by no means a die-hard fan, but I've enjoyed most of the episodes and I'm awaiting the new season too. I'll also venture so far as to say Doctor Who has made me a slightly better and more open-minded nerd where I wasn't before. Whenever I dust off Fallout 3 and play it again, for example, I try to help some of the NPCs instead of focusing on blasting Raiders with a Mini-Nuke for the umpteenth time.

But by no means am I buying a replica Sonic Screwdriver. Ever.