AthenaPN Reviews

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017)

Great fun, not an historical bone in it's filmy body!

[7/10 · 7 October 2022]

If you're looking for Arthurian legend or anything even vaguely resembling any aspect of any element of actual English history whatsoever, then this is not the film for you.

If you enjoy a really well-done Guy Ritchie romp with little bits of Arthurian legend & vaguely Celto-Romano overtones then you're gonna love this. Ignore the tee-shirt/leather jacketed Arthur and his evil uncle Vortigern (!), and just go with it.

There's some truly exceptional film editing here, a quite decent score, and a whole passel of excellent actors making the most of the fun, and it really is just a lot of fun at heart.

Pride and Prejudice (1995)

Best P&P on film!

[10/10 · 5 June 2022]

Closest to the book of any of the P&P films; Ehle & Firth are *the* definitive actors as Elizabeth & Mr. Darcy, but there are fine performances all the way around.

The writers did a good job translating the last third of the book for the screen without letting the film bog down or get too choppy, or even worse, eliminating sub-plots & lesser characters altogether. Everyone is here & it all comes together beautifully!

Obviously by now the quality of the cinematography is a bit dated as this is pre-HD but don't let that stop you - this really is the best film version yet (2022).

Love & Friendship (2016)

Delightfully funny!

[9/10 · 25 May 2022]

Anyone who enjoys a Regency drawing room comedy (no zombies) will enjoy the heck outta this film. Outstanding cast, wonderful direction, script, camera work, lovely score - just an all round winner.

I've seen this 3 times & laughed aloud every time; I'll likely watch it a few more times too. My only criticism is that the sound gets a bit low in several scenes.

Spousal Warning: my husband usually sleeps through it, though his favorite Pride & Prejudice film is that one with the roaming undead.

Alienated (II) (2021)

Slow, badly scripted & directed, featuring truly dreadful acting

[1/10 · 15 May 2022]

Not enough beer in the world ...

There's a reason this is free on Amazon Prime, always - it's atrocious. Given the number of No votes on negative reviews & the weirdly glowing positive reviews I'm guessing the cast, crew & all their family members are frequently upvoting & positively reviewing this mess. They need to find different hobbies.

The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild (2022)

Short, badly animated, raptors plagiarized from How To Train Your Dragon

[1/10 · 18 April 2022]

When the original voice talent won't sign up for easy voice-over money you know something's very wrong. I'm an animation fan, I'll watch Tinkerbell 'movies' for pete's sake! Really like the Ice Age series but this, this is RIDICULOUSLY bad.

It's way too short, barely over an hour of actual movie & the first 10 minutes of that is devoted to recapping all the previous movies followed by 10 minutes of Manny & Ellie bickering - that's actively unpleasant. Peaches is nowhere, no mention of her at all not even a throw-away line explaining her absence. Then you get to Crash & Eddie in the Lost World which would fill up a 30 minute slot as long as it also had ads.

The Lost World itself has raptors rendered differently than previous raptors in The Lost World - you'll recognize 'em though cuz they look exactly like the dragons in How To Train Your Dragon. The huh!?

Oh, they did get better at rendering hair & most of the animation focus is on hair, blowing in the wind. Seriously. Lotsa Buck riding around with the wind in his chest hair. Facepalm.

Tremors (1990)

Comedy horror classic

[9/10 · 27 October 2021]

One of the great comedy-horror films out there, a tongue-in-cheek homage to every bad 1950s sci-fi/horror film ever made featuring a lot of strong performances from everyone in the cast. The plot is cheesy, the stereotypes abound & the controlled chaos of the silliness all combine for a nearly perfect little movie.

Celebrate Halloween by watching this with 'Slither' for a terrific double feature of silly & snarky monster fun.

Slither (2006)

Campy, snarky, FUNNY, gory Halloween fare-have a party & watch with Tremors.

[9/10 · 27 October 2021]

For those not bothered by language as spoken by actual adults, this is one damn funny movie. Full of snarky takes on nearly every gore-horror trope ever, a whole lotta wackily weird & gross special effects, & the whole thing topped off by the wonderful performances of Nathan Fillion & Gregg Henry, this is a gem in the mold of Tremors.

You'll definitely need to watch it more than once to catch most of the humor & if you like it at all you'll certainly *want* to watch it more than once.

St. Trinian's (2007)

Watchable but lacks the spark

[4/10 · 18 July 2021]

Generally excellent cast & entertaining enough to pass an even, but it just doesn't quite come together, it doesn't have the chemistry/spirit/spark to take it from watchable to delightful. I don't believe that original films or books are always the best but in this case the 1954 'Belles of St Trinians' with Alistair Sims has much more wacky joie de vivre & is still the better of these two fluffily light, silly films. This version really should have been the better of the two, alas.

Jeeves and Wooster (1990–1993)

10 stars for Season 1; the rest are dismal mockeries

[5/10 · 5 June 2021]

Definitely watch the Season 1 of this brilliant series & then say goodby. The joie de vivre of this daffy, cheerful satire on the 1920s British upper crust sparkles throughout the first season which appears to have had a very great deal of effort put into it. Sadly the production then coasted on that effort, cookie-cutter creating following episodes & changing important secondary character actors willy-nilly, totally cutting the legs out from under the series as a whole.

The two leads are always a joy to watch but the sparkle that illuminated the series as a whole is just not there after Season 1.

Good Omens (2019– )

You NEED to see this series

[10/10 · 21 February 2021]

Seriously, just watch it already. It is everything the book is & that rare thing in film, it is far more than its origin-novel: brilliantly cast, acted, directed & written without flaw - everything about it is perfect, a sparkling gem of a series.

I have a fairly short list of films/series that I'll watch, should I know I will die in x amount of time. Good Omens is at both the beginning & end of this list: I want to die having just finished this series, with a smile on my face & joy in my heart.

The Watch (2020–2021)

Not Pratchett's Watch at all but plenty to enjoy for fans o' the odd

[8/10 · 21 February 2021]

So no, this isn't Pure Pratchett, or even near-Pratchett, at best it's Pratchett-adjacent. That said I think Sir Terry would acknowledge with his usual glee that his canon has room in it for mucking about, & this is pretty good mucking-aboutery. The actors do a grand job, the gender-switching is utterly irrelevant & the whole thing is an enjoyable, well, watch.

It's clear that many of the Discworld-devoted went directly into disappointment & have filled up the comments with 1-star reviews. Oh well. Truly this ISN'T Pratchett, anymore than the Good Omens series was even 50% Pratchett (e.g., the Aziraphale & Crowley shipping was never part of the original, much as many of us wished it so, thus all the subsequent shippery.)

The Watch has several flaws, the quality of the sound & a few weirdly obvious edits being two of them, however it's well worth viewing: well-directed, well-acted & decently if not Pratchettly written.

Just don't expect it to be the same as the Watch in your head, & if you don't have a Watch in your head you'll likely quite enjoy it.

Whisky Galore (2016)

Quietly lovely fun - a real gem of a film

[9/10 · 30 January 2020]

Ignore both the reviews claiming the original film was better, it wasn't (standard B comedy with female characters that were walking stereotypes), & also those saying that it's somehow Irish & not 'authentically Hebridean:' nonsense! The Hebrides have their own culture, & I found the music & accents as true to the islands as a movie could be.

The story is simple, beautifully acted & directed with minimal fuss. There are a few goofs but they don't detract from the joy of the story & watching Eddie Izzard, Gregor Fisher & all the cast at their craft is an evening well-spent.

Suitable for the entire family, this is a perfect little film.

Britannia (2017–2021)

Well done historical FANTASY - it's not meant to be history

[8/10 · 18 September 2019]

Stick with this one! The first couple episodes left me griping, scratching my head & saying 'Um, no' a lot (history major here).

So this is historically based but it's definitely a fantasy (the trips to the underworld & weird take on the Druids being the giveaway.) The first couple of eps were finding their way & since it wasn't obvious exactly what I was watching I almost gave up: glad I didn't: stick with this & you'll end up having a grand time!

There's a lot that's good here: decent, solid scripting & direction; terrific settings & production values and some absolutely outstanding acting. The young Eleanor Worthington-Cox (Kait) is simply splendid, as are Zoë Wanamaker, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Kelly Reilly, David Morissey, & the creepily, freakily daft Nikolaj Lie Kaas (Divis) but fine jobs are turned in by all.

I was confused into viewing this as fictional history, similar to the series 'Rome,' by the historically accurate bits: Aulus Plautius was a real person & in supreme command of the invasion's 4 legions (II, IX, XIV, XX) though not the general of any one of them; Romans didn't much care about skin color so both legionaries (citizens) & auxiliaries (non-citizens) were surprisingly, to our eyes, cosmopolitan; multiple contemporary accounts relate that Celtic women most certainly did fight alongside Celtic men as a matter of course in combat, they frequently held tribal rule in their own right, and both polygamy & polyandry existed as 'whatever was best for the tribe' (see Plutarch, Diodoros Siculus, & several other contemporary sources); the Regni & Cantiaci were actual tribes though they may not have shared much border, etc. etc.

Just remember: this is a fantasy spin on the Claudian invasion of Britain, a bit of whimsical "it-might-have-been." Don't expect historical accuracy & just enjoy yourself: it's worth the time investment!

I Am Legend (2007)

It's a film, it's NOT the book

[10/10 · 18 July 2015]

Outstanding film with Will Smith giving a tour-de-force performance seldom seen in modern film-making: it's no spoiler to say that he IS the movie for about 97% of screen time and he never disappoints. THAT'S an actor at the top of his form. Sadly the combination of a Science Fiction theme & the word 'God' immediately disqualified him from a well-deserved Oscar Best Actor nomination owing to the minutiae various self-styled intelligentsia dredged up to justify slamming the film.

After reading 'I Am Legend' & seeing 'Omega Man' both when released and more recently, Smith's 'Legend' makes a statement all its own & it's a statement that some worked to dismiss out-of-hand (such as those who nominate for Academy Awards & Popular Mechanics(!), the latter not exactly a Top Ten arbiter for excellence in film).

The biggest complaints are absurd: "this isn't the book". Of course not, it's a film *based* on the book. The "retrovirus is impossible". Not a retrovirus, pay attention: it's mutated Paramyxovirus & could indeed spread just that quickly (Ebola, anyone?). Last, someone claimed 'God' spoke to them bringing the three letter word into an *SF film* - heresy!! - even though Neville's response is an interesting comment about Science & 'God'.

Smith's performance elevates this film to a Must See - I *believed* it from the start. Neville is a man who makes mistakes, who by this point is hanging on to his sanity & his will to persist by his fingernails: far more than a science fiction action flick this is a film about humanity & a man driven to not give up on it.

How odd that some SF fans want to trash this film because it mentions the God word. Einstein be damned, film S/F has turned into the art form where science *must* ignore any aspect of faith, unless to it is stand in arrogant denial of any philosophical statement that doesn't have a formula for proof even if those disdaining such have only a Discovery Channel appreciation for any of the sciences. Film S/F seems to have turned itself into Science Fundamentalism, an equally narrow-minded approach to the massiveness of the universe.