Tag Archives: Jonathan Pryce

Slow Horses: Season 1 – TV Review

Posted on by
Reply

TL;DR – This was a weird and wonderful delight, where you never know if a character will get a bullet to the head or fart themselves awake.  

Rating: 4 out of 5.

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

Hodded man holding up the day's newspaper.

Slow Horses Review –

When I dived back into the catalogue of AppleTV+, there was one show that more people had recommended to me than any other. “You have to watch Slow Horses” was the call, and well, I am always one to take a recommendation when it comes as strong as that, and well, I am glad that I did because I am not sure I have ever watched something quite like this.

So, to set the scene, we open in on an airport in England as River Cartwright (Jack Lowden) is on-site leading the hunt for a terrorist. But when a bad call means that information got mixed up and the terrorist got away, River can only watch as the bomb is set off in the middle of peak hour traffic. It was only a training exercise, but it is a stuff up so bad that Cartwright was jettisoned to the worst job in MI5: Slough House. Led by the ever-flatulent Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman), there is one word to sum it up: dull. But while Cartwright is looking to find a way out of this purgatory, they may have slipped onto something bigger than anyone that could get them all disappeared. Now, from here, we will be looking at the season as a whole, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.

Continue reading →

3 Body Problem: Countdown – TV Review

Posted on by
Reply

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.     

Continue reading →

All the Old Knives – Movie Review

Posted on by
Reply

TL;DR –  While it might not stick the landing, it did engage me right up to that point

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

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

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

All the Old Knives. Image Credit: Amazon Studios.

All the Old Knives Review –

Some films spark your interest from the cast list alone. One of those combinations is Chris Pine, Thandiwe Newton, Laurence Fishburne, and Jonathan Pryce, all working together in a film. Add a layer of spies, subterfuge, regrets, and loves lost, and you have the groundwork for something interesting or at least something that speaks to me.  

So to set the scene, we opened in Vienna, where terrorists hijacked a Turkish Airlines plane, Flight 127. At the CIA-Vienna outpost, all the team look in horror as the carnage unfolds. 8-years later, one of the terrorists involved was captured in Afghanistan, who let it be known that the terrorists had help from inside the CIA-Vienna station. Vick Wallinger (Laurence Fishburne) tasks Henry Pelham (Chris Pine) to investigate his former team, the second in command Bill Compton (Jonathan Pryce), his old love Celia Harrison (Thandiwe Newton), and the whole team. They need to find out if there was a mole in the department and if it caused the deaths of all those people.

Continue reading →