Tag Archives: Action

Movie Review – Atomic Blonde

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11

TL;DR – Atomic Blonde is a technically brilliant film, but unfortunately the story does not quite live up to the rest of it

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

Atomic Blonde. Image Credit: Universal.

Review –

So I have a pitch for you: we have an MI6 agent who romps through Berlin in the closing days before the Wall falls, they take down Soviet goons, drink vodka, seduce foreign intelligence agents, whilst acting condescendingly toward their superiors. Oh and no this is not a missed Bond entry during its Dalton-Brosnan hiatus, oh and the MI6 agent is played by Charlize Theron, it’s an interesting pitch, you have to at least give it that. However, while this pitch is interesting, Atomic Blonde is a very peculiar film, because it has a lot of things that really work for it, but it also has some other issues that really hold it back. So let’s jump in and discover the underworld of Berlin in the late 1980s, but beware there is at least one David Hasselhoff reference in your near future.

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TV Review – Cleverman: Skin

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TL;DR – Today we find out that there are consequences for actions and what happens when you push things too far.

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

Cleverman

Review –

So we have reached the penultimate episode of Cleverman’s sophomore season and we are starting to get a glimpse of the end game and how it presumes things are about to get significantly worse. So at the end of last week’s Muya (review), things reached a head and finally Koen (Hunter Page-Lochard) stood up to take the mantle of cleverman and you can tell he’s serious because he unlocked his superhero costume, and you only earn the superhero costume when things are about to get real. However, at the end of last week we find many of our characters are in precarious places, Nerida (Jada Alberts) has lost the two girls under her protection, Charlotte (Frances O’Connor) has been kidnapped by Jarli (Clarence Ryan) and her future is still far from being safe, and Alinta (Tamala Shelton) is now trapped in her father Waruu’s (Rob Collins) house, which should be the safest place in the world for her, yet somehow we can’t feel like it is. Now we will be discussing the episode in depth so there may be some [SPOILERS] moving forward.
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TV Review – Cleverman: Muya

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TL;DR – Relationships and repaired and torn, and for some blackmail is the least of their worries

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

Cleverman Muya

Review –

So at the end of last week’s episode Dark Clouds (review) we find that Aunty Linda (Deborah Mailman) didn’t just cause Koen’s (Hunter Page-Lochard) parents deaths through negligence, but she was actively trying to kill them, and then Waruu (Rob Collins) just slit Koen’s throat and slapped on some red kryptonite sap from a Melaleuca to stop him from regenerating. Oh boy, was that a lot to take in, and we have had a week to learn what everyone’s fate will be, and tonight’s episode Muya packs all the same punches and more, as we continue our drive to the end of the season. Just a warning, there will be some [SPOILERS] going forward so be careful.
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Movie Review – Dunkirk

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TL;DR – Beautiful and haunting, spectacular yet emotional, a must see film.

Score – 5 out of 5 stars

Dunkirk. Image Credit: Warner Bros.

Review –

Wow, just wow, I had high expectations walking in to see Dunkirk because I have always enjoyed Christopher Nolan’s films, to this day I think Inception would fit squarely in my Top 10 films of all time. Indeed, even when I don’t like a particular Nolan film like Interstellar, they are still technically brilliant. But nothing prepared me for Dunkirk, and now I know I am writing this after just seeing it, and that in time things might change, but as I sit here, I can’t help but feel that this is Nolan’s best film to date.

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TV Review – Game of Thrones: Dragonstone

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TL;DR – Dragonstone moves everyone into place and sets the scene for what is to come, whilst really trying to get you to give up your lunch in the process

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

Game of Thrones - Dragonstone Banner

Review –

We’re in the penultimate season of Game of Thrones and goodness what a ride it’s been so far we’ve had the highs of the Battle of the Bastards, and the lows of Dorne, and everything in between. But now after six seasons, things are starting to fall into place, pieces that have been moving for seasons are now ready to collide, and boy are we looking forward to it.

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Movie Review – Baby Driver

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TL;DR – If you love the art of filmmaking, or cars pulling off impossible yet possible stunts, or well make films, then this is one for you

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

Baby Driver. Image Credit: Sony.

Review –

Today I’m doing something I have not had the chance to do before, see an Edgar Wright film up on the big screen. I have been a fan of his work for a while now, I would put Hot Fuzz on my top ten films of all-time list. However, I have never been able to see one of his films up on the big screen, well depending on how you classify Ant-Man (review). So as I walked into the screening there was a giddiness that I have not experienced before, but also some hesitation. Could I have built this film up so much that it would never live up to the hype?  Well to make sure I was an impartial viewer, and not wearing rose-tinted glasses, I brought a friend along with me to keep me grounded. So what did I think? Well, let’s get started, but come on you already saw the score.

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Movie Review – Spider-Man: Homecoming

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TL;DR – A brilliant relaunch of a much-loved character, which tells an origin story without telling an origin story

Score – 4.5 out of 5 stars

P.S. – There is a Mid and Post Credit scene.

Spider-Man Homecoming. Image Credit: Marvel/Disney/Sony.

Review –

So here we are with our first big standalone Spider-Man feature now that he is in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Before we go on, we should probably take a moment and talk about how amazing it is that we actually got Homecoming at all. Indeed a lot had to fall into place to make this work. I’ve not seen companies work like this, and as well as this since, well maybe since Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Props have to be given to both Sony and Marvel to being able to put aside their differences and making this work, because that would not have been an easy set of negotiations, but they have made the integration almost seamless. So let us begin as we swing into the world of high school proms, alien weapons, explosions, and award conversations about life changes when you become a teenager.

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TV Review – Cleverman: Revival

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TL;DR – Season 2 opens with a bang, leaves you wanting more, and fearing the worst.

Score – 4.5 out of 5 stars

Cleverman

Review –

Wow what an opener, I mean we loved Season One of Cleverman, but I don’t think anything prepared us for how this first episode of Season Two was going to play out. So to remind everyone of where we left off last season, Koen (Hunter Page-Lochard) had rallied all the remaining residents of The Zone to fight the coming Containment Authority. His brother Waruu (Rob Collins) rejected his family and his people to stand with Jarrod Slade (Iain Glen) who is trying to unlock Hairy DNA and the power it possesses and that creep probably did something to his wife Charlotte’s (Frances O’Connor) pregnancy. Finally, Araluen (Tasma Walton) was able to escape the brothel she had been imprisoned in after killing the minister in charge. All through the season we were building up to the conflict, Koen was understanding and accepting his role as the Cleverman, and then bang season two opens and Koen is dead in a body bag, and you know nothing is safe anymore. So in our review today we are going to be covering all the aspects of the first episode of Season Two, so there will be [SPOILERS] for those who have not seen it yet. If you have not seen Revival yet, you can watch it easily on ABC IView, or SundanceTV, and you should go do that right now.
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Movie Review – Transformers: The Last Knight

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TL;DR – There is a good movie in here somewhere, it’s just not the one we ended up with

Score – 2.5 out of 5 stars

Transformers The Last Knight. Image Credit: Paramount.

Review –

Well here we go again another Transformers film and another disappointment, though a slightly different disappointment this time round. What is interesting with Transformers is more so than say the Star Wars Prequels or other bad films, I can actually pinpoint where it was that this series fell apart for me. I was really enjoying the first two-thirds of the first film and then outside the Hoover Dam wanting to hide the AllSpark from the Decpticons the one person who had shown any military understanding up to that point goes ‘Let’s take it to Mission City to evacuate it’ and that was it in one moment my entire suspension of disbelief crashed down around me. It made no sense, sure it led to a visually spectacular action sequence, but given you were surrounded by desert the best option was to take it as far away from civilisation to protect people, and of course, a lot of people died because of that stupid decision. Since then I gave the second film a go because the first film was affected by the writer’s strike, so maybe they would learn from where they went wrong, well no, not at all. From there we had Dark of the Moon which was as bad as its title and Extinction was well more or less a bit meh. I tell you this because I came into this advanced screening with very low expectations but against my better judgement about half way through I found myself actually going along for the ride only to be let down once again.

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Movie Review – The Mummy (2017)

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TL;DR – This is a good start for the Dark Universe and I really enjoyed it, but there were just a couple of things that needed to be worked on that held it back a bit

Rating: 3 out of 5.

P.S. – There is NO end credit scene

The Mummy. Image Credit: Universal.

Review –

Now from the start, I have to say I do have a lot of love for the 1999 Brendan Fraser Mummy film, I mean I even like its only follow up The Mummy Returns because they were wonderful camp fun with a horror veneer. Indeed I will always remember the first time I saw The Mummy as a kid, it was at a friend’s place and there was a whole lot of people crowded around the TV and VCR and someone was passing around cups of tea when the mummy awoke and it scared them so much tea went everywhere. So whether I like it or not, I’m going to bring those memories and that nostalgic feeling with me when I go see The Mummy because it has to hold up to the ones that came before and for the most part I think that it does. So today we will breaking down how well The Mummy does as a standalone film, how well it does as the starting point for the Dark Universe, and also look at some areas where the film needed improvement.

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