Author Archives: tldrmoviereviews

Video Game Review – Master of Orion (2016)

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TL;DR – A good entry into the 4X genre, but it does not quite have the staying power of others in the field.

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

Master of Orion. Image Credit: Wargaming.

Review –

2016 is turning out to be the year of the 4X (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate) games, with a number of quality releases not seen since the mid-90s golden age. Already this year we have had the quite good Stellaris, and as well as this, soon we will get the sequel to the great Endless Space and then the next entry into the granddaddy of 4X Civilization. At this point, it should be clear that I love me some 4X, whether it’s turn based or real time, bring it on. So I was interested to hear that one of the classics of the golden era Master of Orion was getting a remake/sequel/reinterpretation, so now that it is out of Early Access I thought I would pick it up to see how it goes. Now I need to say growing up I did miss the original Master of Orion games, I was playing more Civilization at the time and we didn’t have the luxury of Steam or GOG for those more obscure games, but I did get to play some of the games it inspired, like Birth of the Federation, so while I won’t be able to personally compare Master of Orion with the original, I will be able to compare it with the 4X genre generally speaking.

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Movie Review – Pete’s Dragon

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TL;DR – A beautiful film with real heart, it is well filmed, well-acted, and the dragon is a delight

Score – 4.5 out of 5 stars

Pete’s Dragon. Image Credit: Disney.

Review –

Well, the Disney remake season continues unabated, and after The Jungle Book earlier in the year (which was a good but not great film – Full Review), they have now reached back into the great magical Disney Vault to remake one of their lesser known films Pete’s Dragon. I do have some vague memories of the original film, that it was this weird look into poor America, but it has been years so I can’t tell you if this is a good remake/reinterpretation/whatever, but what I can tell you is that this is an amazing film in its own right.

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TV Review – Chef’s Table France

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TL;DR –  Chef’s Table is one of the best documentary series on TV at the moment, beautifully filmed, amazingly crafted, and it will ruin you for other food documentaries and shows.

Score – 5/5 Stars

Chef’s Table France. Image Credit: Netflix.

Review –

Without a doubt Chef’s Table is my favourite documentary series airing at the moment, it beautifully blends this look at gourmet food with the human stories of the chefs who create them. With the new mini-season Chef’s Table France airing I wanted to both review the new season and look as to why Chef’s Table works as well as it does. This season we get to see an insight into four very different chefs working on the frontier of the gastronomical scene in France the country oft considered to be the home of the best chefs in the world. Now as I am going through the season as a whole, and as such, there will probably would you would class as spoilers, so I recommend watching the four episodes first before you read this review, or not, it’s up to you I’m not your boss.

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Movie Review – Nerve

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TL;DR – Nerve is an ambitious film that gets a lot of credit for tackling one of the big problems of the Internet, its mob mentality, but it doesn’t quite stick the landing

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

Nerve. Image Credit: Lionsgate.

Review –

Nerve as a film is sort of a first, well at least for me it is, as it is the first mainstream film I have seen that really attempts to address the rise of the YouTube celebrity, the Social Media star, the Internet Mob, and the clear problems that come from displaying your lives online for all to see. However, unlike other attempts to engage in this topic which come off as either old people making a film, they think young people will like or indeed, the moralising ‘lazy silly millennials have it too easy’, Nerve is trying to engage with these important issues, but not in a condescending way.

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Movie Review – Ben-Hur (2016)

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TL;DR – I’m sorry to be blunt, but this film is just boring, only the chariot race redeems it slightly

Score – 1.5 out of 5 stars

Ben-Hur. Image Credit: Paramount Pictures.

Review –

Arg, I’m going, to be honest with you, I went into Ben-Hur with very low expectations, this year of remake/re-interpreting/sequels galore is really starting to grate on me (see Ghostbusters, The Legend of Tarzan etc), as well as this, of all the films that did not need to be remade, the original Ben-Hur is up there with movies like Gone with the Wind, timeless classics, and nothing in the pre-release media blitz caught my attention. But I am a long suffering optimist, and I really wanted to be proven wrong here, unfortunately even my low expectations were sadly left wanting, the final product does itself, and its legacy, a real disservice for being just as bad as it is.

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Movie Review – War Dogs

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TL;DR – It’s an interesting film, well-acted, and produced, but if you have seen any of the recent films in this genre, or on the same themes, namely greed, then you will probably guess how this one plays out.

Score – 3 out of 5 stars

War Dogs. Image Credit: Warner Bros.

Review –

War Dogs is many things, it’s a subversive film underscoring the incompetence of the Bush/Cheney government in both starting and managing the Iraq War, it’s a modern interpretation of the classic morality tale, it’s the proving ground for one of the most weirdly obnoxious laughs in movie history, and it’s the personification of the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition in movie form.

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Movie Review – Sausage Party

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TL;DR – Wow, this movie is all kind of messed up, but it is also really quite interesting at times, but the whole anti-Toy Story spin does start to wear thin after a while.

Score – 2.5 out of 5 stars

Sausage Party. Image Credit: Sony.

Review –

I think for the first time since Deadpool (Review) I need to open up this review with a clear advisory warning, this is not a movie for children, it is full of violence, sex, drugs, and language, please for the love of everything do not take your 5 year olds to it. As well as this, I am sure that Sausage Party will offend a lot of people, which should come to no surprise given Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s last film The Interview (Review) was so offensive to North Korea they went out of their way to stop it showing in theatres, but this is something to prepare yourself for, if you plan to go watch it.

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Movie Review – Suicide Squad

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TL;DR – Sigh, oh DC, it really looked like you tried on this movie, but boy the best that you can do is an aggressively mediocre outing that adds nothing to the franchise, and as a self-contained film – well you can do a lot worse, but you can also do a lot better.

Score – 2 out of 5 stars

P.S. There is a mid-credits scene

Suicide Squad. Image Credit: Warner Bros.

Review –

When it comes to that whole DC v Marvel comics rivalry which seems to permeate the internet these days, for me this was one of those arguments that was never really a factor in my life growing up. This is because we didn’t really get the comics where I lived, but what we did get was the animated series, like X-Men and Batman, and they were not aired in competition with each other, and indeed sometimes aired on the same TV channel. So growing up you were not a DC or Marvel person, it was more “did you see that episode yesterday”, I feel I really need to start with this up front because I really want this Justice League series to work, I really do. However I don’t think Suicide Squad is the film that will do it, and in fact all it does is show that DC/WB just don’t seem to know how to get this movie series off the ground. At best it is average, and at worse it is quite problematic, but in the end it is not really all that engaging and you’ll probably forget most of it within a day of watching it.

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TV Review – Stranger Things

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TL;DR –  Engaging, Emotional, Tense, and about the most 80s thing you could ever watch, but boy should you ever watch it.

Score – 4.5/5 Stars

Stranger Things. Image Credit: Netflix.

Review –

Stranger Things is a weirdly wonderful TV show, it is a complex web of 80s references, homages to films of that era, and call backs to the classics of the horror genre. All of that could have been done as a ham-fisted cash grab, banking on nostalgia over substance, *cough* Transformers *cough*, instead it is a well-crafted story with real talent, both in front and behind the camera, that draws you in at every moment. Now as I am reviewing the entire season at once there will undoubtedly be spoilers ahead, so if you have not seen Stranger Things yet, beware, and maybe come back once you have watched it.

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Movie Review – Jason Bourne

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TL;DR – This movie is everything you have come to expect from a Jason Bourne film, but that means all the good and the bad is here.

Score – 2.5 out of 5 stars

Jason Bourne. Image Credit: Universal Pictures.

Review –

I have to say before we start that the original Bourne Trilogy (Identity, Supremacy & Ultimatum) is probably one of my favourite trilogies of all time, for me I put it up there with the original Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. The follow-up Legacy had some interesting ideas but it lacked the style and understanding of the previous films, and it felt like they had just inserted the Bourne universe into an original IP. So given how high my impression of the first films was, and how low the follow up was, I was preparing myself for this iteration to be a train wreck, but thankfully it’s not. For me, it is everything the old Bourne’s were, however, the last of those films were made almost 10 years ago, and that is a bit of the problem if you are just doing the same thing over again.

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