RogerBorg Reviews

Fallout (2024– )

Superficially flawless, but with a calamitously conceived retconning.

[6/10 · 16 April 2024]

There's an awful lot to like here, both for hardcore fans of the games, and new or casual viewers.

The visuals are absolutely spot on, with sets, costumes, props and many many Easter eggs all being taken directly from the games, right from the start where S. P. E. C. I. A. L. And skills are directly and cleverly referenced. The colour palette is more varied and the lighting is brighter, but this is a plus point: had it been shot in grimy, muted tones, it would have been jarring and anti-immersive.

With a score either taken from, or influenced by, the games, there's nothing to complain about there either.

The alternative-history of 2077 is equally well realised and convincing, although since it's filmed with the same palette as 2296, the flashback transitions aren't instantly obvious.

Commendably, the showrunners don't shy away from the gore and gibs of the games, with some scenes verging on body horror. These are counterpoised with comic relief, and character drama, again consistent with the source. Most of the writing and dialog is solid, with some standout scenes: it takes a brave writer and director to have two main characters talk over each other with competing narratives, but it works here. There are a lot of characters and plotlines to juggle and interweave, but credit to the writers, they knit them together in the finale.

The core cast is strong, with Ella Purnell in particular being wonderfully winning and convincing as the innocent-abroad Vault Dweller.

However, there are significant flaws which have to be addressed.

Finn - I mean, Maximus - is played competently by Aaron Moten, but he's far too old for the role. Ella Purnell is also 5 or 6 years beyond her part, but plays the ingénue more credibly, helped by those startling eyes.

The treatment of Ghouls is wildly inconsistent. The writers can't make up their minds from one episode, or even one scene, to the next, whether they're near-indestructible superhumans or not. And this does matter because it would matter in-game.

Sadly, the overarching plot for the season is a mystery box reveal which - as an original idea of CURRENT_YEAR Hollywood scriptwriters, aimed squarely at their own peers and the Modern Audience that they are convinced exists - is as infuriatingly farcical and ideologically driven as you'd imagine. It retcons an entirely new Fallout lore driven purely by virtue signalling from the most hypocritically enthusiastic beneficiaries of the very thing that the writers profess to eschew.

Tragically, the final few scenes are simply an extended "To be continued... question mark!" montage. There's no conclusion here, just a tease that might be fulfilled in 3 or 4 years. Given the hectoring that was just delivered, and the lack of any firm premise about what future seasons might entail beyond more retconning flashbacks, this is a weak and insipid way to conclude what was shaping up to be a solid season. The writers simply ran out of ideas and punted the ball.

Lucifer: My Best Fiend's Wedding (2021) Season 6, Episode 7

What a tragic end to everything Lucifer was conceived to be

[2/10 · 2 April 2024]

After the utterly foul, execrable and divisive episode that preceded it, this is by default only the second worst episode of Lucifer by dint of being merely trite, clumsy and cringe.

This season is the "Where's Wally" of Lucifer, where the titular character is essentially written off the screen in favour of a bunch of CURRENT_YEAR tropes where every character just parrots The Message in one form or another in order to signal the virtue of the bitter, talentless wine-aunts that had captured the writers' room.

Here, we eviscerate the literal first man - and figurative everyman - by presenting him as a doughty Dude Bro, complete with a 1990s jean-shirt. The Detective and Blackmenadiel continue their heart-to-hearts about how White men are the root of all evil, and the desperately emaciated Eve and Maze performatively lez out - just roll with it - and cry about having children. What? WHAT?

Where's the humour? Where are the quirky character nuances and brilliantly subversive dialog? Where's the risk, where are the stakes? There's none of that any more, just bombastic exposition of the LA concerns of LA people.

The Shadow that bred this can only mock, it cannot make: not real new things of its own.

The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy (2024– )

Animation updated for a Modern Audience that doesn't exist yet

[3/10 · 27 February 2024]

Little more than a stream of semi-consciousness, broken down into 15 second TikToks with a structure that's "and then, and then, and then".

The audience is very specific. See if you can work it out: garish, psychedelic colour palette. "Bro, don't even, like, think about it, bro" Deux Ex Technobabble resolutions. She/them leads who all speak with West Coast vocal fry. Yes, it's Californian progressive stoners. Again. Write what you know, I guess.

It's not even a particularly original premise, being essentially the classic Sector General novel series, plus nihilism and the same identity politics that made the likes of She/Her-Hulk and Velma such absolute joys for the non-activist audience who just wanted to be entertained and not lectured.

Pluto (2023)

A dumb person's idea of what a smart person would write

[5/10 · 4 January 2024]

Well, here we go again: do kid-droids dream of electric lambs.

There are some high aspirations here, trying to say something profound about the human and post-human condition. But it's lost in repetition, an excessive runtime, repetition, too many characters, and repetition.

The animation is strictly mediocre, the score overblown, and the English dub is shoddy. There are some decent voice actors there, but they're just phoning it in and - with the exception of the always reliable Keith David - barely recognisable.

By the end, the cod-philosophy breaks down and it turns into a regular old biff-kapow anime. You can pretend it's better than it really, is, and plenty of midwits will, but ultimately it's the Emperor's New Clothes of concepts.

Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire (2023)

Everything you've seen done before, blended together, with a scoop of mud

[3/10 · 30 December 2023]

A purely visual spectacle, and not even a great one at that, hidden behind a muddy filter.

Every scene is farcically derivative of Star Wars, Battle Beyond the Stars, Warhammer 40K, Turok, and many other, better sources.

Boutella just isn't credible leading lady material, characters are zero dimensional points, it's gratingly expositional, and the action scenes are comically ineptly choreographed, burdened with jump-cuts and slow-slow-slower-motion.

The plot is a series of "And then, and then, and then" fetch-quests that seem like an episodic TV show, crammed into a badly edited 2 1/4 hours that feels much longer. And it ends with a jarringly pointless "To be continued".

But... why, film, why? Why continue?

The English (2022)

Red Dead Redemption 1.5

[6/10 · 9 December 2023]

A case of a superb cast that exceeds the writing and direction. It's competent enough, but trite, cliched and just a little too hammy and self-satisfied to match its high aspirations.

The reason why I mention Read Dead Redemption is that this series is set in the same time period - the taming of the West - and covers similar themes, characters, and situations.

But as it turns out, the game is substantially more compelling, solidly conceived, written, acted, scored, choreographed, and shot. Curious, but this is where we're at now. All the very top notch talent, time and effort is going into interactive rather than passive entertainment.

That said, there's a lot to like here. This is a solid late-era Western with plenty of thematic and stylistic callbacks and iconic homages. Emily Blunt is as compelling as ever and has a fabulous wardrobe. The supporting cast know exactly what they're doing, and often exceed the material, although Chaske Spencer is a strictly mid token casting with little range or nuance beyond "stoic".

The score, cinematography, lighting and costumes are decent if derivative, but it's all let down by slightly disjointed writing that doesn't produce clear and consistent plot or character motivations. You can see what's happening, but it's not always apparent why, or how one scene or arc or decision leads to another. It's a series of vignettes that only comes together into a coherent narrative in the final few episodes, at which point it quickly overplays its hand.

Direction is the big problem, and specifically the delivery of lines. Every single character, in every single scene, intones single every line in a portentous, intense manner as though they've delivering their own epithet. And fairly often they are, but this is not how real people speak. The gravitas exceeds the domestic mundanity of the material.

Enjoyable enough, but not deserving of the rave ratings that disavow the possibility that it could have been any better. But it could, and should, have been.

The Night Agent (2023– )

Very enjoyable nonsense

[6/10 · 19 November 2023]

There's a lot to like there at a personal level. It's well cast, directed and acted. All of the protagonists are appealing, have convincing chemistry, and relationships are given time to unfold at a believable pace.

The political plot is basic but solid enough, and the pacing of it is fine, revealing complexity and betrayals gradually enough to keep the interest going all the way through. This is very bingeable, and the runtime flies by.

Action scenes are mostly competent and Gabriel Basso is credible enough in his fight scenes. There are the usual TV tropes of firearms being much quieter than they really are, and tasers being a magical knockout device, but that's not the biggest problem.

The real issue is that there's so much daft technobabble and completely unrealistic procedural details that it becomes jarring. Far too many things that should happen, simply don't for the sake of plot convenience. Ballistics and shell recovery? Remedial security measures? The very basics of securing crime scenes? All glossed over to allow both protagonists and antagonists to continue their plot lines. And it all really falls apart in the conclusion, where the aspirations of the plot exceed the budget and directing ability on offer.

Still, it remains amiable enough to the end, with only the slightest of identity politics and no lectures. I'm in for more.

Punisher: War Zone (2008)

Comic accurate violence, but comical acting

[4/10 · 24 September 2023]

The third swing-and-a-miss for Marvel trying to bring Punisher to the big screen.

There are a few commendable things here. It skips retelling the origin story yet again, and it just gets straight into the action. And that action is full of exploding headshots, bleeding-out neck wounds, squibs galore, and consequences.

Sadly, that's about it. The casting and tone is as poorly handled as in previous attempts. The late Ray Stevenson was a reliable character actor, and a big lad, but was never athletic and there's no sense of menace to him here. His performance is unconvincing, both physically and vocally - he comes across as a bored nightclub bouncer just running out the clock on his shift.

Big Colin Salmon does a decent job, but tiny little Doug Hutchison is comically miscast as a cackling tough guy, about as menacing as a Munchkin. Dominic West as the main protagonist tries his best, but he's given an absolute mess of a character to play in Jigsaw, a comical Batman-style villain with a badda-boom, badda-bing Eye-talian accent.

Pretty much all the acting and voice work is poor to awful, with even the normally compelling Julie Benz flubbing her New Yoik accent (when she remembers she's meant to have one). Fortunately her role is largely token anyway.

As with both previous attempts, the tone is uncertain, not sure if it's meant to be gritty and real, or cartoonish. This isn't helped by a blaring score which is desperate to oversells what's on screen.

The filmwork isn't great either, with cramped, under-dressed sets, basic lighting, close-ups on expressionless faces, and jumpy editing.

The pacing is at least decent and it rocks along with few slack spots, but it's more of a relief when it's over. Audiences rightly avoided it, and it was a box office disaster that was pulled from theatres within two weeks.

We had to wait another 9 years for a really decent version on Netflix that did everything right that this film does wrong. You're far better seeking out that version (by any means you can get it) rather than wasting your time on this one.

One Piece: The Girl with the Sawfish Tattoo (2023) Season 1, Episode 7

Oof, right in the feels

[10/10 · 14 September 2023]

This episode is all about one scene, right at the end. It's a famous scene from the anime, and I take the point that there are other ways it could have been played in the live action.

But this isn't the anime, it's a condensed version of it, made for binge watching, and necessarily a little louder and quicker.

So what I'm basing my rating on here is that I went into this show with no knowledge of the source, bringing a lot of cynicism for Netflix adaptations, and primed to not like it.

And in episode 1, I very nearly bailed. I found Luffy to be overly trite, and Nami was introduced as a Rey-style cocky, independent, self-assured grrlboss with nowhere for either character to go.

Wow, was I wrong. Over the episodes, we got backstory, motivation, development, examination, deconstruction, and interactions that led to a beautifully acted, character based payoff that left me in floods of tears.

That's a very rare thing, and even more remarkable in a show that initially promises nothing more than fantastical pirates. I never expected this much depth or nuance, and it was a very welcome surprise indeed.

One Piece (2023– )

What an absolute frenetic joy this show is

[9/10 · 9 September 2023]

Even with no knowledge of the original anime or manga, even going in pre-primed to cynically dump on it, this won me over within minutes.

Why? Because everyone involved, the writers, directors, set dressers, costumers, choreographers, and the title stars to the briefest of guest spot actors, are absolutely committed to it. None of it makes any sense, the milieu is bonkers, the close-in face-focused cinematography is deranged, but none of that matters because this show is just so much fun. Big, bold, unalloyed, unapologetic, basic, old fashioned fun.

Everything that I thought would irk me about it, like the nonsensical premise, the manic lead, the cocky independent grrlboss Nami, the pantomime villains, all of it works out, by careful design.

I tried, I really tried, to not enjoy it, but it just powered through and delivered scenes and a story and characters that are so fundamentally satisfying that I went from tolerance, to enjoyment to a fan within the first two densely packed episodes. And it only got better from there, with backstory and development and an absolutely astonishing character payoff in episode 7 that left me in tears at the pitch perfect writing and performances.

The nature of Monkey D. Luffy is... irrepressible.

Gamera: Rebirth (2023– )

A surprisingly satisfying story, but unclear about its target audience

[7/10 · 7 September 2023]

Gamera is a friend to all children, and on the face of it, that's what we get here: three plucky Japanese boys thrown together with a cowardly, low-IQ, thuggish US antihero - careful now, there's a bit of politics creeping on the stage here.

The first three episodes follow the same basic kaiju trope of introducing a new villain-monster which eventually gets stomped or toasted by ol' rocket-shell. But before the showdown, you have to sit through half an hour or so of annoying kids doing annoying kid things, and getting into all sorts of avoidable scrapes.

And that's where it gets weird, as the pre-teen lads getting up to their boys-will-be-boys hijinks makes this seem as though its for children of that age. But this is intercut with graphic and bloody dismemberment and devouring, and some unnecessarily jarring adult language in the English dub, which makes it unsuitable for Gamera's younger chums.

The art and animation are also disjointed. There's a mix of hand drawn and CG backgrounds and buildings, basic low frame rate flat cell-shaded CG characters and vehicles, and spiky 3D kaiju that look very peculiar when they share the same scene. It's possible that this is a deliberate homage to the compositing in the original films, but it doesn't make it any less quirky.

All that said, if you stick with it, you'll find that the protagonists are well fleshed out with backstories, their interactions become increasingly character-based, and there's a commendable amount of development among the boys - with some very surprising twists and payoffs that I've carefully avoided spoiling - so full credit for that. The series gets a lot more mature and consequential as it progresses, and actually develops a solid plot, which is a surprise given its frivolous early feel.

This isn't the worst animation that Netflix has produced, not by a long way, and it improves as it goes on. It's just that I suspect some of its audience will tune out in the first two episodes as it doesn't settle on a consistent tone quickly enough.

Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities: The Outside (2022) Season 1, Episode 4

A hugely over-stuffed corpse of an idea

[3/10 · 25 August 2023]

The plot here could be synopsised / spoilered in a sentence or two, and sadly, that's the WHOLE plot, including details. So what we get is a dragging, plodding episode which has to draw out scenes, stretttttch the dialogue, and repeat the same point multiple times just to kill time.

Sadly, Kate Micucci is badly miscast here. She's a very talented actress (and singer / songwriter / musician) but only within a very narrow niche. So while she does a great job playing the awkward ugly duckling, she flounders as the ostensible swan. Only her personality really changes, not her gawky looks, and it doesn't feel at all authentic. Micucci over-plays it and produces parody rather than satire - she's a comedy actress, not a dramatic one.

Perhaps that's the intent, but since the episode presents and teases a physical metamorphosis, it's confusing and unsatisfying.

A huge swing and a miss by all involved.

Ahsoka (2023– )

Not the worst Disney Star Wars, which is damning with the faintest of praise

[5/10 · 23 August 2023]

The visuals are barely adequate. Unlike Andor, much of this was clearly shot in the volume, with some jarringly cheap looking effects breaking any immersion. The sets that are present are too clean and under-dressed, lacking the grime and greebles necessary to sell them in an era of 4K cinematography.

Score is, well, it's there, and it rarely becomes too overblown, is the best that I can say. None of it is memorable.

The casting is mostly decent. Dawson has the looks to play Ahoska, Winstead does a fair job as Hera, and the late Ray Stevenson is hugely compelling as Skoll - but won't be reprising this role.

However, looks are all that Dawson brings. She's a mid-40s character actress with a penchant for playing serious and downbeat roles that Disney are trying to turn into a high energy action star, and it just doesn't work. It's unfair to blame Dawson for lacking the physicality, but her fight scenes are comically bad.

Then there's the character of Ahsoka herself, which is a dour, muted, version of what had been built up from an obnoxious brat into a fully realised, rounded and fascinating person over years of hard work and care across many animated series. Most of that is thrown away here: Dawson just under-emotes a few lines with no real spark or personality to intent to them. If this is an Ahsoka show, where's Ahsoka?

And to top all that, Ahsoka is then pushed into the background in her own show in favour of Sabine, in a disastrously miscast and misdirected part that's just another example of the supercilious smirking Mary-Sue grrlboss that Disney seemingly can't stop serving up in the belief that there's an audience demanding to see it. Sure, Sabine is mildly inconvenienced at the end of the first episode, but not in any way that matters. Just rub some dirt in it, and get back to being The Girl Who's The Key To Everything.

The plot (if we can call it that) of the first two episode is just a series of fetch-quests and Rebels, Assemble! Scenes loosely stitched together, but without any clear narrative drive, goal, or stakes. We have to find Thrawn! Who? Why? Don't know, just accept it. Almost none of it is character driven, and events unfold simply because the plot requires them to do so.

After a commendably brisk and involving opening fifteen minutes, the pace drops right off. Far too many scenes are just expositional dialogue, delivered in a hushed fashion and with interminable pauses between each line that makes it seem like the characters aren't really interacting with each other on the same set - and perhaps they weren't.

The scenes that aren't dialogue consist of walking to, picking up, or staring at McGuffins, all of them excruciatingly drawn out - a decent editor would have lopped 10 minutes of filler out of each episode, but apparently watch-minutes is king. And even by Star Wars standards, the mystery box (or sphere) plot points are idiotic and incomprehensible beyond parody. How can the current location of a person be found in an artefact created thousands of years before he was born? Don't know, don't think about it, just consume content and buy toys.

Were these scenes even directed? There's no evidence of it. Every character has the same blank, stoic look on their face in every scene, and delivers every line with identically ponderous faux import. There's a scene where two characters are loudly killing each other, while the background extras don't react at all, because nobody thought to give them any direction beyond "Push buttons, do starship things".

Since Skroll is the only remotely interesting character - and sadly I have to include Ahsoka in that - it's hard to see why we're meant to care. I found myself skipping through to find where the pace picks up again, or a real plot beyond fetch-quest after fetch-quest starts during the first two hours, but to no avail.

Even when I'd set my expectations low, Disney has yet again come in squarely under them with another dragging, insipid, uncompelling bait-and-switch where I find myself squarely on Team Antagonist. Go Skroll!

Captain Fall (2023)

Disastrously disjointed waste of great voice talent

[4/10 · 16 August 2023]

It's hard to figure out what tone they were going for here. There's F is for Family level animation, there's graphic gore and sex, there's farcical cringe, there's pathos, there's slapstick, and there's always, always wheel-spinning and side-tracking because the only thing that's clear is that the writers have no idea where they're heading, or how to get there.

It's particularly disappointing as they do have the ability to write scenes, and characters, just not to tie them together into a coherent narrative. Just when you think there might be a plot developing, with continuity and consequences, off it veers into yet another vignette featuring new characters that we've never met, and who we quickly learn will be done away with inside of 20 minutes, so there's no point in investing in them.

The weakest anchor for this meandering cruise is Captain Fall himself, a character so contemptibly timid, stupid and insipid that I'm baffled as to why I'm meant to care about his pathetic travails. He's treated with utter contempt by every other character, without any sort of growth or redemption arc, which only invites the audience to view him the same way.

All of this is a huge pity as the voice talent is top notch, with Lesley-Ann Brandt in particular having a great time using her natural accent, a fascinating mashup of South-African and Kiwi. It's just that they're given so little to work with.

As the season closes out with an ostensible cliffhanger, I'm left asking what the point of it was, or why I'd want to watch more, and just not finding any answers.

Mech Cadets (2023– )

Decent enough for younger kids with low standards

[5/10 · 12 August 2023]

But otherwise a disappointingly juvenilise and derivative waste of a strong voice cast. This is essentially a mash up of Gundam, Evangelion and Pacific Rim by way of a 1980s Saturday morning kid's cartoon, with bizarrely stunted proportions, eerily incompetent animation, and low frame-rates that seem to be all keyframes and no tweening.

There's no real plot, characterisation, or drama here, just an absolutely basic presentation of Deus Ex Astra mechs who choose teen pilots (for no reason, since they don't need pilots) versus giant space bugs, with a plucky underdog wish fulfilment motif.

For those easily confused, stereotypes may be recognisable and even satisfying but that doesn't mean they're well conceived, original, or developed. And dialogue composed of little more than straight exposition of ultimately selfish and egotistical desires is not growth.

That's all you get, and it's fine for what it is, but Netflix should have been clearer in the marketing and synopsis. The 10-star review-bombing at the moment of release to get the initial numbers up was embarrassingly obvious.

Hawkeye (2021)

The Kate Bishop Show, occasionally guest-starring Hawkeye

[5/10 · 27 July 2023]

Bait, meet switch.

What I wanted was a substantial Hawkeye show, with a slice of saucy sidekick. And we got a solid opening, with a scene that balanced top notch Marvel quirkiness with a surprising PTSD twist - but promised a lot more than what then gets delivered.

Because make no mistake, Hawkeye is the sidekick here, as this very rapidly flips into the Kate Bishop show.

If that's what you wanted, well, enjoy and be happy. Steinfeld is a competent and appealing actress, and the character isn't quite a Mary-Sue in the now entirely predictable and tedious Disney mould of Rey. However, she's not NOT a Mary-Sue either, as Kate starts off with all the skills that she'll ever need, and her journey is simply about being told to believe in herself while people and events re-arrange themselves to form the plot necessary to gets her to her goals.

Fine, on the face of it, and there's a solid cast here, but Kate's journey involves sidelining Clint, traducing Kingpin, and with opposition from a gang that's about as threatening as the Wet Bandits. Tony Dalton twirls his moustache villainously enough, but Alaqua Cox is painful as the ESG-high-score Echo, a non-character which only CURRENT_YEAR Disney could think worthy of being given her own show.

For a series that starts off with such nuanced promise, it ends up all over the place, veering from looming threat, to slapstick farce, to taking itself far more seriously than it can be taken. There's no consistent tone, no investment in the characters, and therefore no payoff.

In the end it's just yet another disappointing D+ show that doesn't know what it's trying to achieve, or why it's even been made.

Spriggan (2022)

Competently animated infantile exposition fantasy

[4/10 · 12 July 2023]

The art, animation, music, foley and effects are workmanlike enough. The people making this knew what they were doing, they just didn't have a compelling reason to do it.

The plot, as such, is just the thinnest of fetch-quests and peril-porn linking together a series of "Must! Defeat! New! Super! Foe!" teenage fantasy-fulfilment fight scenes and damsel rescuing.

The characters are comically thin archetypes with no depth or motivation beyond what the instant plot requires. The English dub in particular is phoned in by the most mediocre of jobbing voice actors who don't even bother trying to add any subtlety or nuance.

Every line is pure exposition, of the "Now I will tell you all my plans and my powers, but that shall not avail you as I will surely defeat you, Spriggan!" (dies)

And that's really all we get for 6 episodes. Enjoy it for what it is, but please don't pretend that it's anything more than a childishly written snuff serial.

The Punisher (2004)

Wildly uneven, a film out of time

[6/10 · 9 July 2023]

For a film released in 2004, this feels bizarrely like it's from the 1980s, and not intentionally so. Trenchcoats and tank-top mafia, midlife-crisis sports cars, copious hip-shooting, and a disjointed and unengaging score and foley make it seem like it's from decades earlier.

The writing tone is all over the place, and just can't decide what sort of movie this is supposed to be. There's some family-unfriendly family massacres, visceral gore and very light body horror, but it's juxtaposed with clownish performances from Castle's duo of witless neighbours, and a few fight scenes that cross the line from comic book to comical.

That's not to say that it's all bad. Thomas Jane is almost, but not quite, movie leading man material, and he does the best with the uneven script and direction that he's given. Will Patton turns in his usual good value performance, although John Travolta doesn't really know what to do with a muddled script that doesn't give him a fully realised character to work him, only a few Cliff notes.

Rebecca Romijn is stunning, although her role is jarring as it's far too soon for Castle to have any sort of new love interest, unrequited or otherwise. Laura Harring is only present to fill out a bra and over-emote.

The action sequences are adequate, but nothing special, with no real style to them, just a series of pseudo-Western duels between Castle and a set of goons who conveniently line up one or two at a time.

Some major suspension of disbelief is required to take any of this seriously, particularly the empty world in which it occurs, without bystanders or emergency response, in which Castle is free to roam around without interference, despite law enforcement knowing exactly who he is and what he's doing.

It's an amiable enough way to pass a couple of hours, but a stumble and backslide for Marvel after the superior X-Men movies that preceded it, and the Iron Man that followed.

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015)

A disjointed, uncommitted Guy Ritchie indulgence

[5/10 · 6 June 2023]

All the elements were here for a great film. Top notch lads as leads, two super hot broads, period music, meticulously well dressed cast and sets, and enough budget for decent effects.

However, what we got was a deranged Guy Ritchie ramble with no joy, chemistry or nuance in any of the scenes, and a consistently inconsistent tone and cinematography from one shot to the next. Booms and steadicams, zooms and pans, whatever Ritchie felt like in the moment, Ritchie got.

The result is a movie with a weak, meandering and uninvolving plot that feels like it was written and directed by a random collection of film school students, that they then desperately tried to save with an insistent, overblown score. It's too random to be taken seriously, but takes itself too seriously to be campy fun. And wherever the budget went, it wasn't on the effects, which consist of model and CGI shots so unintentionally comically cheap and shoddy that they look like they were from the 1960s series.

With the talent to hand, it could have been better, and it should have been better, and audience ratings seem to reflect what we wanted it to be.

But it was only what it was, and it's no wonder that it bombed harder than its nuclear premise, and was quickly relegated to being half-watched as background on streaming services.

Make My Day (2023– )

Uncanny art and mediocre voice acting makes the story and characters hard to take seriously

[5/10 · 3 February 2023]

The visuals here are bold and interesting, a mix of traditional hand-drawn backgrounds and prop art, and stylised cell shaded CGI characters, not entirely unlike Arcane.

But not very much like it either, and this suffers badly by comparison. Bold and interesting doesn't imply success: the characterisation, clumsily keyframed facial expressions and frame rate are all sub par here - this is practically a slideshow.

The other thing that you could compare the character animation to is the Sims, and again, not particularly kindly.

The plot feels gamerish too, like watching an endless cut-scene for a 2010-era survival horror, where the unexperienced but spunky young protagonist in his exo-suit battles alien tentacle-bugs.

And that really is all we're getting here, an inexplicably hyper-militarised convict mining operation versus bad-touch space tardigrades. Nothing that we haven't done seen before - many, times - and better.

At eight 20 minutes episodes, you can rip through it quickly enough, although even at that length I found myself skipping some tedious flashbacks, and cringe inducing attempts at forcing pathos and drama into later episodes.

The plot, such as it is, reveals itself fully by episode 3, but with a whopping great contradiction in it. What we're told differs from what we've just seen, and there are constant reminders of this that make our protagonists' peril more than it needs to be.

Our main protagonist Jim doesn't have an arc so much as a flipped-switch, again in episode 3. Paired with the uninvolving animation and strictly workmanlike voice acting that quickly dissolves into the tedious anime "Oh!" and "Aaargh!", it makes it hard to take any of this seriously.

Perhaps that's not a bad thing. Sometimes you just want to watch space bugs eat faces and blow up, and you get a fair amount of that here. Not really enough to justify the tedious talky bits in between though.

Watch it, or skip it and forget it, your life won't be different either way.

The Witcher: Blood Origin (2022)

The only point to this is the comedy "elf" ears.

[1/10 · 27 December 2022]

With a cast, dialogue and attitudes that reflect CURRENT_YEAR Hollywood rather than the source material, an infantile plot that's literally spoilered in the first 5 minutes, trash-tier acting, and action choreography and effects that makes Xena: Warrior Princess look like Jackson's Lord of the Rings, this is a strong contender for "worst show ever made", and it's been up against some strong competition in 2022.

The desperately sad part is that Michele Yeoh was somehow suckered into this disaster, but even she can't rise above the lack of material. It's simply unremittingly awful and cringe inducing in every possible way. Rather than being cut from 6 episodes to 4, the whole production should just have been Batgirled.

Brightburn (2019)

Another take on the "inspired by Alan Moore" Satanic Superman

[6/10 · 27 December 2022]

Nothing particularly original, just a straight up Viltrumite treatment of how a superhuman alien would really turn out. Some of the scenes are lifted straight from Miracleman/Marvelman, but then what isn't these days?

The first act suffers from a prematurely ominous score and jump scares over what is initially perfectly normal adolescent behaviour to the extent that I'm not sure if it counts as a parody.

And even at 90 minutes, the 2nd act drags out. When it turns into a super-slasher film, the writers rapidly run out of ideas about how to escalate it gradually. Once Johnny Bates - I mean, Brandon Breyer - loses his inhibitions, it's just not credible to dial it back down again.

Still, it's solidly acted all round, has a few neat Easter eggs, uses its very modest budget cleverly, and commits to its ending through an unexpected aversion of Chekhov's Kryptonite. It just lands in an unfortunate place between too big to be cult, and too small to be epic.

Monty Python's Flying Circus: Scott of the Antarctic (1970) Season 2, Episode 10

A dreadful, tortured episode that should never have made it to screen

[3/10 · 1 December 2022]

One of the few genuine turds floating in the Python punchbowl, this is a tough watch, composed of just two excruciatingly over-extended meandering scenes, split by one animation, that resulted in a handful of scattered, uncertain chuckles from an audience waiting for a punchline that never came.

It's hard to see what the team were thinking here: there's no narrative to justify this structure, and precious little ideas within each scene beyond some try-hard but mild surrealism that is itself drawn out long after the laughter has stopped.

Unless you're a completist, this is one that you can easily skip and not miss a single thing.

The Sandman: Dream a Little Dream of Me (2022) Season 1, Episode 3

Jenna Coleman is the stinker that just won't flush

[4/10 · 19 November 2022]

Oh dear. I have no particular problem with femswapping John Constantine for his descendent Joanna. I don't even particular care that they have her playing a lipstick-lesbian - that's an issue for lesbians (if any still exist) to get salty over.

No, my problem here is that they cast Jenna Coleman to play exactly the same character that Jenna Coleman always plays: the smug, cocky, self assured, arrogant, ageing-girlboss-who-is-the-key-to-everything.

And that's exactly what we get here, an insufferable performance where Coleman barely tolerates other actors - including the series lead - sharing her scenes. She shows no uncertainty, no insecurity, no vulnerability. Contrast with the original source, and with the performances by Keanu Reeves and Matt Ryan in previous and far better incarnations of Constantine.

It's sad that Coleman has never developed any range, but sadder still that she keeps getting cast by people who should know that, but who inexplicably expect something better from her.

Sicario (2015)

Gritty, substantial, consequential and realistic

[9/10 · 17 October 2022]

I have to admit, I'd avoided this for years because of the marketing which implied that it was a girlboss film. Oh, no, no, no, it's quite the opposite. Huge credit to Emily Blunt for taking on a role that shows the results of a petite, basically decent woman entering a world of very serious men and trying to front and flex. The consequences of that are shown with commendably unvarnished frankness.

There's a solid plot here that credibly personalises the basic concept of "drug wars". Characterisation isn't its strong point, but that's fine, because all of the characters are presented as being focussed to the point of obsession on achieving their various goals - and for once, the woman blinks first. I honestly don't think this film could be made in CURRENT_YEAR.

The sets, costumes, equipment, cinematography and score are all top notch, leading to real immersion in the story.

I have to ding it just a little on the gunplay, which features too much super-accurate hip- and point-shooting. This is cinematic, almost a homage to Westerns, but you wouldn't see it on a properly advised production now.

That aside, there's really very little to criticise here. I can thoroughly recommend this film to anyone who is looking for taut, compelling realism rather than The Message.