Rick and Morty: Bethic Twinstinct

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Beth, voiced by Sarah Chalke, begins an affair with her clone and the rest of the family try and process it.

I think that for a while now Rick and Morty has become more and more mean spirited and depressing, I know there has always been an element of it in the show, but now it is getting hard to watch. The way non-space Beth treats her husband her is really quite unpleasant and makes the whole thing hard to watch.

I enjoyed the Summer, voiced by Spencer Grammar, and Morty, voiced by Justin Roiland, b plot slightly more. I thought the idea of hyper realistic videogames was cool and I enjoyed how the episode showed them reacting to their mum’s affair. I thought they became great stand-ins for the audience here.

Overall, mostly just a depressing episode.

Pros.

The videogame stuff was interesting

Summer and Morty had some good moments

There were a few funny jokes

Cons.

It feels mean spirited

It is quite uncomfortable viewing

It isn’t enjoyable

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Andor: The First 3 Episodes

4.5/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Cassian Andor, played by Diego Luna, searches for answers in the early days of the Empire.

This review will be a little different from my standard pattern, rather than review the first batch of episodes individually this will instead review them all together.

I think if you compare the first episodes of this show to Obi-Wan Kenobi or God forbid The Book Of Boba Fett then it is night and day. Where they felt cheap and low rent, with a seeming fear of anything approaching moral ambiguity, this show feels cinematic and asks some hard questions making us reflect on whether Cassian is a hero or not. In truth he is what modern Lucasfilm seems terrified of, an anti-hero.

I heard on a Youtube review on these opening episodes that some people are annoyed that within them there is no mention of the Force or of the Jedi/Sith. However, I for one think that is a great thing, I want to see what the wider Star Wars universe looks like, I am bored of the same old same old and would like to see other aspects of the Rebellion.

I also really appreciated the moody tone of these episodes with their being an almost Peaky Blinders esque feel to it at times. I think that Luna is already doing a terrific job and I can’t wait to see more from him as the series progresses.

Overall, the best thing Lucasfilm has done since The Mandalorian

Pros.

The moral ambiguity

The tone

Luna

The wider Star Wars universe

It feels fresh

Cons.

A bit slow in places

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Rick And Morty: Rick, A Mort Well Lived

3/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Morty, voiced by Justin Roiland, gets stuck inside a videogame and Rick, also voiced by Roiland, has to go in and save him. Meanwhile Summer, voiced by Spencer Grammar, has to do a Die Hard.

I thought this was better than the first episode of the series, but was still fairly flawed in a number of ways. During the video game sequence when the various different parts of Morty decided whether they wanted to leave the game and return to the real world with Rick things got far too philosophical. I thought the idea of the using this moment to force Rick to confront how he felt about his grandson and show some warmth was a nice touch and did manage to save this side of the episode from being a total mess.

Summer doing a Die Hard was definitely the highlight of the episode for me as it was fun. Far too much recently Rick And Morty as a show has delved into deep emotional waters whilst ignoring the fun that made the show so watchable in the early days. If you just have a bunch of heavy storylines then it quickly becomes a bummer to watch. In this respect I enjoyed the dumb fun of seeing Summer mow down a group of alien terrorists and thought that it made for a nice break from the heavier elements within the episode.

Overall, a lot better than the first episode, but still not great.

Pros.

Summer doing a Die Hard

Rick saying how he feels about Morty

The ending

Cons.

It gets a bit too philosophical at times

The pacing

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Rick And Morty: Solaricks

1/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Rick And Morty return with such a low effort whimper that it makes you question why they even returned at all.

Honestly this episode was crap. I was looking forward to the new season starting and was hoping for a return to more breezy one off episodes rather than the heavy cannon focus we got towards the end of last season and boy was I let down.

This episode basically just goes over everything that happened in the season finale again just in case you had forgotten. That is all it does, no new adventure, some lame portal gun shenanigans is stuffed in as a b plot but even that doesn’t go far enough to be interesting. We get the tease of the evil Rick clone that killed our Rick’s wife and kid being out in the open, and the episode suggests that maybe our Rick will kill him but this just peters out into nothing.

In addition to all of those issues the episode is also majorly depressing and not particularly fun to watch in any way. The episode’s dialogue is basically just the characters saying how bad things are now and how they are sorry for letting things get this way which feels more aptly like the writers acknowledging their fault.

Overall, a terrible start to the season.

Pros.

Space Beth returns

Cons.

It is depressing

It just rehashes the last episode’s plot

It feels tired

It starts the season off on a bad note

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Nope: You Will Never Look At Clouds The Same Way Again

4/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A family of horse trainers come under threat from a massive otherworldly entity.

This could potentially be Jordan Peele’s best film. Now that might be a controversial claim but stay with me, I think by being far more obvious and straightforward in its plotting rather than abstract and heavily reliant on subtext this becomes the director’s most accessible and dare I say enjoyable film. It is nice to be able to just watch this film and enjoy the character’s journeys and to understand the film once it ends rather than having to wade through a lake of fairly on the nose racial subtext to be able to draw some sort of a conclusion.

All of the performers here are on good form, Kiki Palmer, Steven Yeun, Daniel Kaluuya all give strong performances and Brandon Perea becomes a standout as soon as he arrives, definitely a scene stealer. I would have preferred for Yeun’s character to have a bit more development, as he feels a bit thin outside of his one defining childhood trauma incident.

My main complaint of this film is that the pacing is quite noticeably off. When you reach the final ten minutes of the film you find yourself questioning how much longer it can go on for, as the two previous spots in which you thought an ending was near turned out to be very wrong.

Overall, possibly Peele’s best, however, the pace could use some work.

Pros.

The narrative

Subverting traditional alien abduction narratives

The performances

It is quite funny in parts

Cons.

The pacing

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Prey: A War Party Rides Out

4.5/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A young Comanche woman, played by Amber Midthunder, who dreams of becoming a warrior get to seize that opportunity after running into a Predator.

This film was rad, my only complaint is that it has a slow start, but other than that this film was just what the Predator franchise had been needing, a fresh start and new blood. A lot of incels are upset online because this time around it’s a girl who is fighting Predator and she wins mostly on her own merit, with a little help. However, this whole argument is stupid as she outsmarts the beast and is able to beat it that way which is what Dutch did all the way back in the original, these people who have a constant chip on their shoulder thinking that any strong female lead is inherently bad need to leave their parent’s basement.

Midthunder plays the part perfectly here and you really believe her quest to take down this apex predator. I like how she trains and sets up a killing field for the Predator at the end of the film, it leads to a lot of neat visuals and a really tense showdown where both seem pretty evenly matched.

I also thought the gore here was really on point, a Predator film should be gory after all and in this department this film delivers in droves. I thought the sequence where the Predator goes to down on a bunch of French fur trappers was really well done in this regard and show cased a lot of nice gore without it ever getting to a gross out point.

Overall, a really strong entry into the Predator franchise.

Pros.

Midthunder

The ending

The character journey

The gore

The Comanche dub really adds a sense of authenticity

Cons.

It has a slow start

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Star Trek Strange New Worlds: A Quality Of Mercy

3/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Captain Pike, played by Anson Mount, must come to terms with his future or risk the lives of his crew as he partakes in a journey into the future.

I am not denying that this season finale had some great moments, it did. Nor am I saying that the reintroduction of the Romulans was unwelcome, it really wasn’t. However, what I found to be the central issue with this episode was that it was trying to do too much. It was expanding the Pike future plot line from the first episode, it introduced a new version of Captain Kirk, played by Paul Wesley, it reintroduces the Romulans and it advances the Una, played by Rebecca Romijn, genetic modification storyline from earlier in the season. All that happens in one hour long episode, to say it is overstuffed would be an understatement.

Though these plot elements do give us a lot to be excited about with the show going forward, here and now they just feel forced in as they are not really fleshed out and instead seem to only serve to set up the second season.

Another thing that bothered me about this episode is that it mainly focused on Pike. Now I think Mount is doing a terrific job as the character of Captain Pike ,however, I think the character is at his best when he is bouncing off of the other characters on the Enterprise, whereas here he gets a lot of focus with barely any of the supporting characters stealing attention away from him but this just leads to the flaws with his character’s writing and personality becoming ever more apparent.

Overall, the first season ends on a mixed bag but teases an interesting tomorrow for the show.

Pros.

The return of the Romulans

A few great moments

The tease of what’s to come

Cons.

It feels overstuffed

The second season set up feels a little heavy handed

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Stranger Thing Season 4 Part 2: More Hand Raising And Nose Bleeds

3/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

The second part of the season sees the gang truly face off against Vecna, played by Jamie Campbell Bower.

The two episodes that this part is made up of are on for over 3 and a half hours combined, that right there is a red flag. I am glad to see that the Duffer Brothers are saying that the episodes for the final season will be shorter as the over two hour finale is honestly quite hard to get through in one sitting. I think because of their length and the fact that Netflix clearly gave the Brothers free reign to stuff as much in as they wanted this leads to awful pacing issues that really plague this season.

Moreover, though I do admire the slow motion ‘epicness’ of the finale to a degree, as who doesn’t like slow motion right? I ask only partially seriously, I think that for me this was let down by a lack of stakes. Much like Captain America Civil War this finale is build over the course of the season to be a big event with massive stakes yet really no one of any importance dies, a new character and that is about it.

I do like where the series ends on however, with everyone back together again and the upside now fully spilling out into reality, I think this sets up a lot of very interest directions for where things could go next time around.

Overall, not as strong as it has been in the past but there is still some promise there.

Pros.

The final shot

The slow motion

The Russia set subplot

Cons.

The pace

The lack of real danger or stakes

The incoherent logic

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Star Trek Strange New Worlds: All Those Who Wander

2.5/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Star Trek crosses over with Alien, not really but you could easily believe so.

I think this episode, much like the one before it, was a step back. I think widely that this show has promise and is clearly the best of the modern Star Trek show line-up, however, it is far from strong a lot of the time and has a lot of issues that hopefully it will work out in later seasons.

I think the major issue here was just how uninspired the Gorn were, this is of could compounded by the fact that we have been hearing about them all season, as when we do come to meet them they are a xenomorph knock-off. The writers of this episode couldn’t even be bothered to cover up their copying, with the Gorn also laying eggs in people and having their offspring burst out resulting in death to the host, truly it was a case of the plagiarist holding up their copied work to the teachers face self-assuredly thinking they can’t be caught out. How wrong they were.

The only reason I don’t give this episode lower is because I really like what they did with La’an, played by Christina Chong, here. I thought the focus on her throughout the episode gave us a good look into her character and nicely fleshed out her relationship with the Gorn. The ending wherein she decides to leave the crew for a while to help tend to the refugees felt very fitting and in-keeping with the character we have come to know.

Overall, bar the good character work with La’an this is copied and pasted from better material.

Pros.

La’an

A few tense moments

It is watchable

Cons.

It feels copied and pasted

A lot of the twists and turns are fairly obvious

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Star Trek Strange New Worlds: The Elysian Kingdom

2/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

The crew of the Enterprise find themselves turned into characters from a children’s book after a cosmic entity befriends the Chief Medical Officer’s dying daughter.

What the hell happened here? There is so much wrong with this episode I hesitate to know where to begin. Firstly, fantasy episodes of Star Trek or episodes where they embrace more whacky and out there premises rarely work in my opinion. I didn’t mind the body swap episode earlier in the season, but this for me was just too silly. However, the once thing I will give this episode’s premise is that it drastically changed the personality of almost all the Enterprise’s crew and gave us wildly different versions of the characters then those we have come to expect, I thought Pike, played by Anson Mount, and La’an, played by Christina Chong, were stand outs in this regard. For the most part I found these alt versions of the characters to be somewhat entertaining.

Moreover, the ending of the episode feels like an almost insulting pay off to the M’Benga storyline. Not only does his daughter get a miracle Deus ex machina cure, she also leaves with the cosmic entity seemingly for the rest of her life yet M’Benga just carries on as normal. Yes, an argument can be made that her leaving was for the greater good and he knew that, and that as her father he would just want to see her safe and well, but I don’t buy for a minute that he wouldn’t even be a little bit upset that he is unlikely to see her again.

Overall, this episode felt out of place and like a clear example of filler.

Pros.

The alt versions of the characters being over the top gave some amusement

It is watchable

Cons.

The ending

It is too silly

The fantasy elements really don’t work

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