TV Review – Westworld: Season Two

TL;DR – When it works it is some of the best TV on the planet at the moment, when it doesn’t well at least it is still well shot and acted.

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

 

Season Two. Image Credit: HBO

 

Review

With The Passenger (see review) coming to a close we have reached the end of Westworld’s Season Two. It was a season of competing timelines, the coming of a war, a mother searching for her child, and a lone warrior standing up when everyone needed him too. Today we are going to look at the highs and lows of Westworld’s sophomore season as we return to the holiday destination now turned into a massacre. So say goodbye The Maze and hello to The Door.

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TV Review – Westworld: Phase Space

TL;DR – It is the second half of the season and finally the timelines are starting to crash into each other in interesting yet not completely clear ways

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

 

Phase Space banner

 

Review

One of the things Westworld is known for is its many intersecting storylines and timelines, and Season Two has been no exception up until now. We have the story of Dolores’ (Evan Rachel Wood) rebellion as she builds an army to possibly take over the world, also Maeve (Thandie Newton) and her hunt to find her missing daughter as she puts together a ratbag team to help her, we have the Man in Black (Ed Harris) trying to get to the heart of the final narrative Robert (Anthony Hopkins) planned for him, and then we also have Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) whose history database got messed up by the head shot and so we see him jumping across different timelines. Well in today’s episode we not only get all of these stories we get them just as timelines come crashing together … maybe.

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TV Review – Westworld: Akane No Mai

TL;DR – In a return to form we finally get to visit Shogun World though it is a bit more familiar than we thought.

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

 

Akane No Mai

 

Review
One of the things that have changed in the way I look at media since I have been making this site is that over the years I have become more and more adamant about not watching trailers until after seeing a movie or TV show. There is something that has happened in recent years, which we talked about in our end of year awards, where big reveal that could have worked better as surprises get revealed in trailers. Well avoiding the trailers or not, there was no way to get around the fact that at some point in Season Two of Westworld we were going to take a detour into Shogun World after that Easter Egg in the season finale last year. Well at our halfway point today we finally get that moment and it is perfectly fine.

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Movie Review – Pacific Rim Uprising

TL;DR – Bombastic as always, but it doesn’t set itself apart from what came before, and the story struggles to find its voice.

Score – 3 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – There is a post title scene at the start of the credits

Pacific Rim Uprising banner

Review

As we talked about in our look back at the first Pacific Rim (see review), I was a real big fan of the original. Guillermo del Toro’s film about giant monsters called Kaijus attacking the cities around the Pacific Ocean being stopped by giant mechas called Jaegers. There was something easy and yet compelling with the setup and the world they created. With Pacific Rim Uprising we get more of the same as the first film yet somehow it feels like something got lost along the way, and that, unfortunately, it just does not work as well as the first film. So with that in mind, we are going to dive into Pacific Rim Uprising to look at what worked and what didn’t.

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Exploring the Past – Pacific Rim (2013)

TL;DR – “At one point a giant mech picks up a cargo ship to use as a cricket bat to take down a giant monster stomping its way through Hong Kong” you will probably know if this film is for you from that snippet alone.

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – There is a mid-credit scene

Pacific Rim

Review

Back in the relatively calm year of 2013, how five years can change the world, there was this little gem of a film. It was a homage to the mecha and giant monster films of Japan and at the heart was the simple message that we should all work together. Well, it has been years since I have watched Guillermo del Toro’s monster epic, well at least his giant monster epic, and with the sequel coming out later this week, now is as good as time as ever to dive back into the world of Jaegers* and Kaijus*.

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