Tag Archives: review

Movie Review – Jack Reacher: Never Go Back

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TL;DR – The action is there, the characters are there, but something is just missing from this sequel that stops the film from excelling.

Score – 3 out of 5 stars

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back. Image Credit: Paramount.

Review –

So full disclosure I didn’t watch the first Jack Reacher, nor have I read the books in the series by Lee Childs, and I was kind of tired of the film before I even went to see it because you could not open a Twitch stream, nor YouTube video without having to suffer through the trailer (yep that one right above you here). So I may not have come into the film with the best mindset but then honestly I don’t think you needed to see the last film or read the book to get the narrative because the writers use the opening sequence to pretty much set up the character of Jack Reacher (Tom Cruise) and his motivations, and thankfully it is that one scene in rural America with the sheriff and a phone call that you have probably already seen over and over again and they get it out of the way right at the start. So as far as American PG-13 action films go, Jack Reacher is not bad, however, it did feel like something was missing and because of that, it fell short of being a great film.

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Movie Review – Keeping Up with the Joneses

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TL;DR – On the one hand this film does nothing new, and follows the same patterns and tropes of the genre, on the other hand, everybody commits to their roles, so it actually turns out quite good.

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

Keeping Up with the Joneses. Image Credit: 20th Century Fox.

Review –

When you go to a Hollywood movie that describes itself as an ‘action-comedy’ especially an American PG-13 ‘action comedy’, it tends to follow a very predictable route, characters are put into a zany situation, there will be some risqué subject material, but not too risqué, and they will drop their one F-Bomb at some point in the film and Keeping Up with the Joneses does not deviate from this at all. Indeed The Joneses fits very comfortably within the buddy-cop, or fish out of water genre, by taking two very different couples and then playing them off each other, and in that interplay hopefully some humour can be found. So the question then becomes can The Joneses solid enough film to sustain its premise for the whole film whilst still being entertaining, and well for me, I think they pulled it off.

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Movie Review – Inferno

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TL;DR – A competently produced National Treasure like film, that really hopes you don’t start thinking through the plot points too deeply.

Score – 2.5 out of 5 stars

Inferno. Image Credit: Sony.

Review –
I should start this review with a quick clarification, I have not seen any of the films in this series (The Da Vinci Code, Angels & Demons, and Inferno) nor have I read the source books, this is not because I have any dislike for books in general, indeed I have too many shelves full of them, but just honestly The Da Vinci Code never seemed to be that good. So with the third one of these films coming out and the ability to still get Tom Hanks and Ron Howard involved in something that feels like a straight to DVD release it did have me intrigued, have I misjudged this series? is there actually something here? So with this in mind, I decided to give it a watch with the worst case scenario I get something to write a rant about it. However, what I saw was not a bad film, but it’s not a good one either.

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TV Review – Luke Cage ‘Ep. 1, 2, and 3′ review

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TL;DR –  Luke Cage starts the season with a slow build, but the tension it creates is amazing, and more importantly it hooks you in for the long run.

Score – 4 out of 5 Stars

Luke Cage. Image Credit: Netflix/Marvel.

Review –

Well off the back of both a movie series that keeps going from strength to strength (Team Cap all the way) and some groundbreaking TV adaptions (like who knew that Daredevil could be likeable) Marvel is simply killing it at the moment. Indeed the Netflix experiment itself is still growing exponentially, it’s a service that can show everything from Chef’s Table to Stranger Things and all in between. Within all this, we get the next in the Marvel/Netflix joint project Luke Cage (after Daredevil and Jessica Jones), and like its predecessors, Luke Cage is provocative, but also brilliantly made. For this review we are going to look at the first three episodes ‘Moment of Truth’, ‘Code of the Streets’ & ‘Who’s Gonna Take the Weight’ because they clearly set the scene and the tone for the rest of the season. Now we are going to be talking about these episodes in detail, so to be clear spoilers are now in effect.

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Movie Review – Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

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TL;DR – A solid film with intrigue and a unique premise, it is well filmed and acted, but also surprisingly reserved by the director

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. Image Credit: 20th Century Fox.

Review –

So I should start my review with the proviso that I have never read the book (though this is something I am going to fix) so I can’t tell you if Miss Peregrine’s is a good adaptation of the source material, but what I can tell you is that it is a fascinating film in its own right. I should also point out, this is probably not a film for young children, as there are a number of horror elements to it.

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Movie Review – The Magnificent Seven (2016)

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TL;DR – A truly amazing film, one of the best westerns I have seen in a very long time, great acting, great filming, and top notch action, this is one to see.

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

The Magnificent Seven. Image Credit: Sony.

Review –

Once again another remake, it seems that 2016 should be subtitled the Year of Remakes, from the ‘surprisingly ok’ Ghostbusters to the ‘why bother’ Ben-Hur, to the ‘joy that was’ Pete’s Dragon. So this week not only do we have a remake, but we have a remake of a remake with The Magnificent Seven, and how did it fair, well really quite good if you ask me.

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Movie Review – Snowden

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TL;DR – It’s not a bad film, but it is more boring that it should be given the exciting subject material.

Score – 2.5 out of 5 stars

Snowden. Image Credit: Open Road Films.

Review –

Edward Snowden is one of those people that invokes a very polarising response from the general public, he’s either a hero or a villain, a patriot or a traitor with very little grey room floating around. Now when I first heard they were doing a movie about Snowden, I was really quite interested because as part of my day job I have actually taught about these issues like intelligence gathering, Five Eyes, Media etc. Also, the original documentary Citizenfour by Laura Poitras is an amazingly well-constructed documentary, informative while being thoroughly engaging, and truly worthy of the Oscar it received last year. So I was able to go see Snowden and how was the final product? … well um … unfortunately, it’s just a bit boring.

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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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