Tag Archives: Alien Invasion

Alien: Romulus – Movie Review

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TL;DR – Beware of Weyland-Yutani Corp representatives bearing gifts.  

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

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

Disclosure – I paid to see this film

Jackob's Star Planet.

Alien: Romulus Review –

I have always had an interesting relationship with the Alien films. When I was a kid, a snippet of people crawling through an air vent and a life sign catching up with them scared the life out of me. It goes without saying that Aliens have the legacy it has for a reason. However, recent entries have always pulled me in different directions. For example, Alien: Covenant was a stunningly beautiful film filled with people acting like they had no sense. However, there is a core of these films that can work, and that was what I was looking for today.

So, to set the scene, life is hard in Jackson’s Star Mining Colony, 60-odd light years from Earth. While the mines are rich, the storms constantly rain, the clouds block out the sun, and the mine continually kills people through collapse or disease. Rain Carradine (Cailee Spaeny) has worked hard to get her quota done so she and her brother Andy (David Jonsson) can get off and go live in an independent farming colony when they discover that The Company has doubled their quota. They must stay for six more years. Rain is distraught, but her old friend Tyler (Archie Renaux) may have found an out. He and his crew, Kay (Isabela Merced), Bjorn (Spike Fearn), and Navarro (Aileen Wu), have discovered an old ship left in orbit that has an intact hypersleep chamber. If they can steal it, they could get off-planet. The only problem is why the ship is abandoned.

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A Quiet Place: Day One – Movie Review

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TL;DR – A gripping work that holds onto you from those first minutes and never lets up as the world collapses around it.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

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

Disclosure – I paid to watch this movie.

The Aliens arrive in the sky.

A Quiet Place: Day One Review –

It is time to step back into this universe that oscillates between complete quiet and a riot of explosions. I fundamentally enjoyed both A Quiet Place and its follow-up, A Quiet Place Part II. However, both of those films looked at how this apocalypse would affect a small town. It is now time to take this roadshow to a large city, which is, in fact, one of the largest cities in the world, and see just what would happen.

Sam (Lupita Nyong’o) lives in a hospice counting down her days on earth through the prism of forced poetry when one of the nurses, Reuben (Alex Wolff), convinces her and her support cat Frodo (Schnitzel & Nico) to come into New York City to see a play. While there, the puppet show had to be finished early because something was going down in New York, and the Hospice wanted them all home, which was when the first explosion hit.

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3 Body Problem: Countdown – TV Review

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TL;DR – This first episode has left me cautiously optimistic, but I am not sure if it can sustain the momentum it has set for itself, and I am concerned about some of the sharper edges getting sanded back.  

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Netflix service that viewed this show.

Warning – This episode contains scenes that may cause distress.

The sun breaks over the horrizon on day one.

3 Body Problem Review –

There was a certain amount of nervousness as I sat down to watch the first episode of 3 Body Problem: Countdown. It would be a lie to say that Season 8 of Game of Thrones was not part of that, even though I think I am a bit kinder on that than many. But more than that, how is an American team going to go adapting a work that is deeply entrenched in Chinese history and culture into an international product? That is the question I am looking at today.  

So to set the scene, we opened at Tsinghua University, Beijing, in 1966, at the height of the Cultural Revolution. Where students are bringing their professors out in front of the mob for the charge of being counterrevolutionaries. It is here where a young Ye Wenjie (Zine Tseng) watches as the crowd and members of her own family turn against her father, Ye Zhetai (Perry Yung), for teaching the Big Bang Theory. The crowd roars as the older man is beaten to death in front of them. In 2024, in London, Da Shi (Benedict Wong) arrives at the site of a scientist who committed suicide, a countdown written in blood on the walls. One of many reasons is that physics has stopped working as particle accelerators across the world have decided to put out nonsense. Now from here, we will be looking at the episode as a whole, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.     

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Halo: Reach – TV Review

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TL;DR – The Halo series has done something I never thought it would or even could do. It made me care.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

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

Warning – This episode contains scenes that may cause distress.

The fall of Reach.

Halo Review –

When I think back to the first season, sure, there were the significant changes everyone talked about, Master Chief (Pablo Schreiber) taking off his mask and all that. But that never bothered me because adaptation to a new medium necessitates making changes. After all, it is a new context. My biggest problem was that the story, while satisfactory, did not make me care all that much about the characters in the show. Well, if nothing else, Season Two has fixed that problem.  

So to set the scene, in last week’s Visegrad, we discovered that not only does The Covenant know where Reach is, and that the authorities know that The Covenant knows where Reach is, but they are already on the planet and their main invasion is imminent. Queue the explosions. Now from here, we will be looking at the episode, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.

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Halo: Sword – TV Review

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TL;DR – A more contained story that was slightly frustrating until you understood its context.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

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

The green mountains of Reach.

Halo Review –

We are making a splash with the second of the two-episode opening for Halo’s second season. The first episode showed a bit more focus than we saw in Season One, and that intrigued me. More than anything, I want to see if this was a blip or if this is a new direction for the series.  

So to set the scene, we open with Dr. Catherine Elizabeth Halsey (Natascha McElhone) in a beautiful room, getting all her favourite things, which, of course, means that she is in prison somewhere. It is a nice prison, with pomegranate, but a prison nonetheless. Meanwhile, on Reach, John (Pablo Schreiber) is struggling to find himself now his team has been grounded by Ackerson (Joseph Morgan), and the lies continue to build. On Rubble, Kwan Ha (Yerin Ha) discovers that their precarious position might be even more perilous than they thought. Now from here, we will be looking at the episode, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.

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Halo: Sanctuary – TV Review

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TL;DR – It’s an intriguing start to the season, even if it flounders a bit in the middle.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

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

Master Chief gets Cortana removed from his head.

Halo Review –

Back in the first season of Halo, we got an interesting story that actively went in different directions from the Halo series it was adapting. Some of it worked, some of it was a mess. I was not all that attached to the original story, so I didn’t mind the story changes. However, since then, while I might not have a greater love of the story, I have found a great love of the Halo games itself, which made me wonder how they would take the story from there.

So to set the scene, on Sanctuary in the Branta System, a platoon of Spartans are helping with a particularly difficult civilian evacuation. This is made even more so when a Covenant cruiser is spotted on an intercept course. It should be a routine evacuation mission, bar the fact that maybe the Covenant are already on the planet, and maybe Master Chief (Pablo Schreiber) is all by himself outside of comms range. Well, it is a good thing he is a super soldier. Now from here, we will be looking at the episode, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.

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Secret Invasion: Promises – TV Review

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TL;DR – This episode felt like it was just moving things around to get them ready for the rest of the season

Rating: 3 out of 5.
Gravik stares down the Skrull Council

Secret Invasion Review –

Well, I was not sure how people would take the first episode of Secret Invasion, and wow, did the internet rip them apart. I think part of that was justifiable with those awful AI opening titles, and others less so, given I feel like a lot of it was just a significant tone shift than what people were used to. But after being much stronger on it last week, the follow-up was a bit more disappointing.  

So to set the scene, in 1997, in Brixton, London, two years after the events of Captain Marvel, the Skrulls are back on Earth after finding no home. Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) promises those who had made the trip that if they help him on Earth, he will find them a new home. Thirty years later, we see the aftermath of that broken promise, forgotten in the time of the Snap. As people, including Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders), lies dying in the square after the successful terrorist attack in Moscow and Fury is bundled into an FSB car as the Russians start arresting all those they think carried out the attack. Now from here, we will be looking at the episode as a whole, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead. 

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Secret Invasion: Resurrection – TV Review

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TL;DR – This first episode is a bit of a mood introduction for the series, preparing you for where things will go.  

Rating: 4 out of 5.

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

Fury arrives back on Earth.

Secret Invasion Review –

When people wondered where the MCU could go after Endgame, one of the most mentioned storylines had to be Secret Wars. So you can understand there was quite a reaction when it was finally announced. Even more so, you realise that they have been seeding this story since Captain Marvel and Spider-Man: Far From Home. Now it is here, and we get to see how well this franchise can jump back into the spy/espionage genre.

So to set the scene, we open in Moscow as Agent Ross (Martin Freeman) walks through a night as society starts to fray when he meets an agent Prescott (Richard Dormer), who thinks that Skrulls are trying to take over the Earth with targeted terrorist attacks. With a warning that an attack is coming that “will set the world on fire”, and then Prescott attacks Ross. Flying through the streets of Moscow, Agent Hill (Cobie Smulders) tries to get Ross an evacuation, only to discover all is not what it seems. Now from here, we will be looking at the episode as a whole, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead. 

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Planet of Lana – Video Game Review

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TL;DR – A stunningly beautiful game that pulls at the heartstrings as it reveals the world one puzzle at a time.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Game Pass service that viewed this game.

Alien mothership in the distance

Planet of Lana Review –

One of the things that you are always looking for when you boot up a new game is to experience something that pulls on your emotions. Does it build upon strong mechanics and art design to bring a world alive? Today we are looking at a game that does just that as it charms and uplifts you.

So to set the scene, on a planet off somewhere in the galaxy, we meet Lana (Bianca Zoe Mantelli), who lives in a small but friendly fishing village on the coast of a giant sea. Running through the town with her big sister Elo (Rossmary Petruzzelli), they climb up the nearby hillside to visit a place of sadness and to reflect on their bond. But when they get there, they see objects falling from the sky, and soon grand machines capture Elo and take her up into the sky. The village is in ruins by the time Lana can get back, everyone has been taken, but nothing will stop Lana from trying to save her family, where she meets a little animal friend who may be the hope of her salvation.

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Mapping the War of 1996 [Independence Day] – Map-It

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TL;DR – We map the carnage over four days of July in 1996 on Independence Day.

The Aliens arrive over New York.

Mapping Independence –

Well, I had been feeling off, and when that happens, one of the best remedies is to go back to one of your comfort films. While everyone has their own list of comfort films, mine include Ever After, 10 Things I Hate About You, and today’s focus Independence Day.     

As I was watching the film, I wondered what the global extent of the attack would be because the film’s focus is America, but it was an international event, given what we can see in snippets throughout the film. I went through the original movie with a fine-toothed comb and any references in Independence Day Resurgence to get the locations here. However, this only painted part of the picture, and the novel of the first film differs from the movie in places, so that is an issue.

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