Category Archives: 2023 Reviews

NCIS: Sydney – Gone Fission – TV Review

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TL;DR – This is a clunky yet interesting start to NCIS Down Under.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Paramount+ service that viewed this series.

The Sydney Opera House.

NCIS: Sydney Review –

Growing up in my era, it felt like everyone and their dog watched JAG and NCIS at the start. Since then, we have run to Los Angeles, New Orleans, and Hawai’i, but where will they go next? Australia? Well, as an Australian media reviewer with an international relations degree, and who taught Australian politics, it is a perfect time to see how they pull this off.

So to set the scene, at Fleet Base East, Woolloomooloo, the USS Navajo is standing by as a presentation about Operation Talisman Sabre is given. It symbolises unity between Australia and the United States of America. But when everyone is distracted by a protestor, they miss a sailor in distress before he falls into the ocean. It is a public relations disaster, so the AFP and NCIS are forced to team up for the optics, and it is time for Michelle Mackey, NCIS Special Agent-in-Charge (Olivia Swann) and Jim “JD” Dempsey, AFP (Todd Lasance), to play nice. We will be looking at the episode as a whole from here, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.    

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The Marvels – Movie Review

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TL;DR – This was just a fun delight from start to finish.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is a mid-credit scene and an audio tag at the end.

Disclosure – I paid to watch this film.

Sing and dance.

The Marvels Review –

We are in an interesting time for the MCU. The once dominant cultural force in the cinematic landscape is now starting to find itself on rocky footing. It has struggled to find its voice in the post-Endgame world, with only Guardians 3 shining in the mix. It is in this space we get a film that stars two characters that we only introduced in the Disney+ series, and that might be a tall order to pass.

So to set the scene, Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) is enjoying spending time writing comics about her hero, Captain Marvel (Brie Larson), instead of doing her science homework, but little did she know that on a planet in space, Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton) is digging up her other bangle. This fractures space-time, and as Captain Marvel and Captain Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) investigate just what happened, they all get zapped by the energy. This would be bad enough on any day, even less because now, whenever one uses their powers, they switch with each other.

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Orphan Black: Echoes – Season 1 – TV Review

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TL;DR – This is an interesting spin on the original, that works well within the framework that was set, even if it does not quite get the tone right in places.  

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Stan service that viewed this series.

Warning – Contains scenes that may cause distress.

A hand appears out of red fluiid.

Orphan Black: Echoes Review –

Back in the day, I was fascinated by this small show out of Canada that took a science fiction concept, in this case, cloning, and took it to the extreme with some of the best acting and weird worlds of subterfuge, rebellion, and secret organisations. During Orphan Black’s five-season run, I was transfixed with each new clone and turn in this world, so you better believe I was excited to find out we were coming back to this universe.

So to set the scene, a woman, Lucy (Krysten Ritter), wakes up with no memory of her past life, with only a therapist (Keeley Hawes) to tell her that she has had a procedure and some of the subtlety of her long-term member might not have worked. After being sedated, the woman is not just going to sit around and breaks out when she finds the house is a fake hidden in a warehouse. But worse still is the room full of body parts, a suspension chamber full of red liquid, and an unfinished artefact of a human. Can they print humans now? And who was the woman they scanned to make this body? Am I the only one who has been printed? We will be looking at the series as a whole from here, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead. 

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The Expanse: A Telltale Series – ARCHANGEL – Video Game Review

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TL;DR – We take a look at the bonus episode from The Expanse: A Telltale Series featuring Chrisjen Avasarala  

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for this game.

New York skyline.

The Expanse Review –

Earlier this year, we looked at a new Telltale-style game from Deck Nine that brought us back into the world of The Expanse. The Expanse: A Telltale Series explored the world of Camina Drummer (Cara Gee) before she joined the story that we know. It was a fun blast, bar that time, I accidentally got a crew member killed. You can read our full review of the game HERE. I knew there would be a bonus episode dropping at some point, but I didn’t know who it was going to focus on, and now it is here. I could not wait to give it a whirl.

So to set the scene, Undersecretary of Peace Operations Chrisjen Avasarala (Shohreh Aghdashloo) has been sequestered away from the United Nations to the Secretary General’s bunker. The rest of the politicians are up on Luna, and this is a sort of safety net, or prison, depending on who you ask. But if you are alive, you can work to find a way forward, even if there are phone calls from Calisto to distract you. Because Mendez (Rogelio Ramos) is out there trying to take your job, and you will not let that snivelling excuse of pustule get his way.

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Loki: Science/Fiction– T.V. Review

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TL;DR – A solid interlude preparing us for the chaos that will be the season/series finale.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Disney+ subscription that viewed this show.

Post-Credit Scene – There is an audio cue at the End of the Credits.

This start to turn to spaghetti.

Loki Review –

Now Loki likes big ‘what the heck moments’ that dramatically shift everything we know. It didn’t hit as well as it could have in Season One, but I am not sure anyone particularly saw last week coming, where death came from every side. The question is: can they build upon that moment and propel everything forward or languish in possibilities?

So to set the scene, after fighting off the threat from Miss Minutes (Tara Strong), it looked like for a moment that they were actually going to stabilise the Temporal Loom and save the Multiverse. That was until Victor Timely (Jonathan Majors) ran out to fix the problem and was immediately spaghetti-fied. Quite gruesomely, I should add. All Loki (Tom Hiddleston), Morbius (Owen Wilson), Sylvie (Sophia di Martino), Casey (Eugene Cordero), and O.B. (Ke Huy Quan) could do is sit and watch as the Time Loom collapsed under all the different timelines and the TVA was destroyed from within. Which makes it all the more peculiar when Loki opens his eyes to find himself still in the now empty TVA and time slipping all over the place. We will be looking at the episode as a whole from here, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead. 

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Star Trek: Lower Decks: Old Friends, New Planets and Season Four- TV Review

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TL;DR – A solid end to a fascinating series.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Paramount+ streaming service that viewed this episode. 

Walking across the bridge at the Starfleet Academy.

Star Trek: Lower Decks Review –

We have reached the end of the season for Star Trek: Lower Decks of what has been a solid season for the series. However, when you have summoned the great ‘To Be Continued …’, you must ensure you live up to that hype. In today’s review, we will first tackle the season finale and then look at the season as a whole.

So to set the scene, at the end of The Inner Fight, we discovered that the person behind all of the ship mutinies was former Starfleet Academy bad boy Nick Locarno (Robert Duncan McNeill). What is worse, he has just kidnapped Mariner (Tawny Newsome) and warped her away to his lair, where his fleet is kept. He is trying to start a revolution across space with a Genesis device to back it up. Starfleet is holding back so it does not accidentally cause a war, but Carol Freeman (Dawnn Lewis) does not have the time to wait. We will be looking at the episode and series as a whole from here, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead. 

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Killers of the Flower Moon – Movie Review

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TL;DR – A stunning work of art that captivated me for its entire runtime.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no end-credit scene.

Disclosure – I paid to see this film.

The sisters take a photo.

Killers of the Flower Moon Review –

There are some films where you know where you will land when the credits roll, but others still sit with you and reverberate through your brain over the coming days. Today, we look at just such a film that powered through my soul, with performances that were almost once in a generation.

So to set the scene, The Osage Nation had been forced from their homelands by the United States, but as luck or fate would have it, they found oil and became wealthy in this new land. Like any mineral found in human history, there was a rush to the county for those looking for work and making it rich. One such person was Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio), who moved to the area to work with his uncle, William King Hale (Robert De Niro). Here, his uncle subtlety suggests that he marries a local Osage lady because there is a chance that oil headrights could end up with them, which he does with Mollie Kyle (Lily Gladstone). But what if you could help those progressions of headrights towards you with some targeted deaths?

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Werewolf by Night in Color – Movie Review

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TL;DR – A delightful romp through times past, made with the techniques of today, Now in Color.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I paid for the Disney+ service that viewed this film.

Marvel Studios logo in color.

Werewolf by Night in Color Review –

Last year, we reviewed Werewolf by Night, an experiment and, honestly, one of the best things that the MCU put out on Disney+ … and much to my despair, no one watched it. Well, they are taking a second crack at the project by presenting it “In Color”, so on this final day of the spooky season, it feels like the perfect time to jump back in and see if the colour has changed anything. To save you searching, we will begin with the review we wrote for it the first time out and then look to see if the “In Color” changed anything.     

So to set the scene, we open on a dark night in a mansion deep in the woods where Ulysses Bloodstone’s (Richard Dixon) funeral is about to take place. All across the globe, the hunters gathered because this was both a funeral and a hunt. Whoever of the death dealers wins the ceremonial hunt gets the coveted Bloodstone, a relic of immeasurable power. But one of the hunters may actually be the hunted? 

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TV Review – Rick and Morty: Air Force Wong

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TL;DR – For the first time in a while, I think we actually saw some character progression for Rick

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Netflix subscription that viewed this episode.

Post-Credit Scene – There is a post-credit scene.

Unity's ship lands in San Francisco.

Rick and Morty Review –

This season has been interesting in how safe they have felt. I am unsure if this safety was embedded before one of the creators left, and things got shifted up. Whatever the timeline might be, the outcome has been honestly quite forgettable. I had hoped that this season might pick up, and this episode is the first look that it might just be doing that.

So to set the scene, much to everyone’s surprise, Rick (Ian Cardoni) has been going to therapy with Dr Wong (Susan Sarandon) all by himself. He is even ignoring the calls of The President (Keith David) while there, which the President takes … well, not good. But when Virgina turns to love, and it appears that a Hive Mind (Christina Hendricks) has landed on Earth, it is time to get a crash course in couple’s therapy. We will be looking at the episode as a whole from here, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead. 

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Bring Him to Me – Movie Review

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TL;DR – An oddly tense film about bringing a man to his coming fate.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I paid to see this film.

A masked man with a gun.

Bring Him to Me Review –

One of the perks of being a film reviewer in Australia is watching Aussie films make it to the big screen. Even more so when they have filmed the movie around where you live, and you get to play the game ‘Wait, I know that bridge’. Well, today we get to review that hits both these marks as it galivants pair towards danger.

So to set the scene, we open in on a robbery in progress, where a money cleaner (Sam Neill) is very put out by having his night ruined. Even more so when they threaten his son (Zac Garred). The next day, the Driver (Barry Pepper) is called by his Boss (Rachel Griffiths) because everything went wrong the night before. Something has to have caused it, so the Driver needs to pick up one of the other members of the robbery, The Kid (Jamie Costa), who stuffed it up and, as the title implies, bring him to her.  

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