The Secret Life Of Chuck: A Surprising Amount Of Dancing

A man, Tom Hiddleston, learns to seize the day.

This may be one of the best releases of this summer. Not only is it an effective story in the sense that it is both emotionally uplifting but it also manages to disconcert and have just enough under the skin to give you a chill on the way out.

I was not prepared for the number of dance sequences that were going to be in this film, surprisingly there were several long sequences, however, don’t let that put you off the science fiction mystery of what is going on and what is real and what isn’t is more than enough to give film life. In a sense this film reminded me a lot of The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty, and I do mean that to be a positive comparison.

Overall this is a weird and strange film, it is not a comedy, nor is it a horror film, it has science fiction elements but also long dance sequences it is an eclectic film and one that will no doubt have a Marmite like appeal, for our US friends that means you’ll either love it or you’ll hate it.

4/5

Pros.

The mystery

It is fun

You care about the characters

The world is fantastic and dense

Cons.

It makes things too blunt a little more ambiguity would have been better

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Jurassic World Rebirth: Anti-Capitalistic Dinosaurs

Summary

Universal just can’t let any of their franchises end.

So we are back with another group of people going to an island to see Dinosaurs but guess what things get out of hand. You haven’t seen anything like that before right?

Honestly it is just a little sad now that things have gotten so bad for the Jurassic franchise that they can’t even make real dinosaurs like the T-Rex interesting anymore and have to use mutants. This started under Pratt but continues here and is arguably played up even more.

The plot idea of needing samples for a cure for heart disease which the gang then decide to sell without a patent because capitalism is bad, is not just nonsensical and dumb but it is the sort of thing in the future that scientists will look back on and go this was why the kids were so dumb. It is probably literal brain rot.

Overall, it is not just slop, it is depressing slop.

1.5/5

Pros.

It has some good kills

You cheer when the humans get eaten

Cons.

It is brain rot

It shows that people don’t love dinosaurs anymore just big kaiju esque monsters

It is depressing

Scarlett Johansson is clearly there for the money

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Lilo And Stitch: Disney Hates Families

Summary

The story of an alien that comes to earth and befriends a girl that needs a friend, that you have all seen before.

I had never seen the original animated version of this film until recently, I rented it to give back to the animators before seeing this version which I feel hurts animation broadly and which if I wasn’t reviewing I would not see.

So I have to say that this film much like How To Train Your Dragons made changes to the original animated version that I did not like. Namely the fact that the sister leaves at the end, and yes this is done with the little girl’s blessing, but it goes against the whole point of the film which is that families stay together. Of course this is a Disney film in the current year so that idea could not be allowed to stick around, the film even directly address the no one left behind line in order to justify her leaving, and this just feels like they are drawing more attention to the problem.

I have to say the little girl herself is very heart warming and sweet, and she alone is why this film doesn’t get a lower score, even if it doesn’t justify it’s existence. Much like with How To Train Your Dragons what these live action remakes come to be is just poorer versions of the animated originals, with modern changes to make them worse.

The trend of live action remakes really need to end.

Overall, a live action remake that doesn’t need to exist.

2/5

Pros.

A charming child

It has some good emotional beats, which hit almost as well as the film

Cons.

It doesn’t justify its existence

The changes regarding the ending

Missing characters

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Elio: The Death Of Pixar

Summary

Pixar’s latest is yet another effort in emotionally manipulative story telling.

Gone are the days wherein Pixar had charm and wit, in are the days of therapy speak and finding the idea of a mother-son bond ‘just a bit too much’. For reference the creatives behind this film found the idea of Elio, Yonas Kibreab, being the child of a single mother to be too much and instead needed to have it be an aunt-child dynamic. Why is that? Why is so much of modern Hollywood afraid to show good parent child dynamics, or even nuclear families, it is starting to reach a distractable peak now.

Great science fiction often plays on the cool ideas of meeting aliens, the new technology, the things we might learn about ourselves etc, but not this film instead we have an incredibly boring film about intergalactic politics told in a way so dumbed down that a paper bag could understand it.

Good family films can be made in such a way wherein every member of the family can find something to enjoy in it, but this film is just low effort garbage, that treats audiences young and old alike as fools.

1/5

Pros.

It is short

Cons.

The aunt-son thing feels forced

None of the characters are likable

The therapy speak

It is not fun.

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Andor Second Season Overview: Rape In Space, ICE, and Unfortunate Comments from Diego Luna

Summary

Andor returns for an incredibly slow second season.

In many ways this entire second season was a step back from the first, there was less action, less character development and even more things left open-ended.

The final arc of the second season wherein we were seeing more of the Partisans on the earlier rebellion should have been the main focus of this season, but instead we got wild weddings, an ICE allegory and far too many scenes of Syril’s mother. The first two arcs were boring filler that really added very little to the overall season. How was seeing Mon Mothma dancing for well over 5 minutes in any way necessary to understand the early rebellion. Gilroy has gone on to say that Kathleen Kennedy fought for him to have his vision but maybe just maybe this is one of those times she should have intervened.

Showing the Ghorman Massacre was interesting and probably the high point of the season but again this was far too drawn out with about 5 episodes leading up to the actual massacre. The pacing of this show is really what kills it for me in many ways. Likewise I thought the finale arc mainly revolving around Luthen’s assistant was a weird move as it prevented us getting closure with seemingly much more important characters in the narrative.

Overall, it is watchable but the pace is so bad it will send you to sleep.

2/5

Pro.

The Ghorman Massacre

Some of the earlier Rebellion stuff

Cons.

The pacing

The unanswered questions

Too many side characters

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Doctor Who Robot Revolution: The Stunning and Brave Adventures of Doctor Babes and Space Karen

Summary

Russell T. Davies is so horribly insecure that he needed to make the second season of his new Who run open with an episode aimed at owning his critics.

I have said many times I don’t want to cover the show and generally I don’t but after seeing some unexpected sources calling it preachy I couldn’t resist seeing it. Don’t worry for my mental health folks I won’t make a habit of watching the show and this will be the only episode covered. I might write a Cinema Issues post if the series gets cancelled and with ratings like these and RTD talking about the show going away for years or being paused it sure seems like I’ll get to write that.

What is there to say about the new episode, well Doctor Babes cries, shocker I know. It was the same old same old crying, dancing, lacking any form of masculinity, but now he has a new companion that I have affectionately called Space Karen. She of course is a girl boss woman of colour who won’t let the already passive and submissive Doctor get away with anything and already thinks she knows better than him, because she is a woman. As you can imagine she is insufferable from the get-go and this only gets worse as it goes on.

Space Karen gets the episode’s worst and possibly best line about them being on a planet of incels. It is funny that even with all the private education in the Doctor Who writers room they don’t actually know what the term means and just use it as a way to say men they don’t like. Of course this is also a double whammy as it is RTD getting to try and own his critics and call them names through his show, as he hasn’t realised yet that unless they have to for some reason, like writing reviews, don’t watch it anymore.

They try and push some cutesy robot stuff that might entertain you if you’re 5 or have the mind of a 5 year old as most of the fans of the current run do, but it is meaningless.

Overall, more of Doctor Babes being fabulous but now with a new friend Space Karen to scream at him for being born male this regeneration, geez I wonder why folks aren’t watching BBC. At this point the show died a long time ago and what is happening now is RTD in his sick and perverted way is doing a Weekend at Bernies style situation with the corpse in order to cash his check from Disney

0/5

Pros.

None.

Cons

What even is this anymore, this is a sick defilement of a once beloved franchise, there is so much wrong with it that I am going to break from conventions and not write a cons list, the whole thing is a con.

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The Electric State: Milly Bobby Brown Enters Her Trying To Look Older Than Her Years Phase

Summary

Netflix decides to burn 300 + million dollars.

I am beginning to question what voodoo magic Millie Bobby Brown or her parents have performed on the Netflix executives. She is given chance after chance, and simply repays them with mediocrity, how many times will they try and make her a star despite the public rejection.

However, this graphic novel adaptation fails not just because of Brown’s poor acting ability, but also because the Russo Brothers, of Marvel fame, do not seem able to direct anything that is not set in that world. What is delivered is an incredibly bland bloated mess, with two charmless leads that have no chemistry between them, and a story that aimlessly meanders to the end.

Overall, this is just a tedious waste of your time.

1/5

Pros.

It is not offensively bad it is just dull

Cons.

Brown cannot act

It is bloated

There is nothing really to be excited about and there is no stakes

Brown and Pratt have no chemistry

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Skeleton Crew Season 1 Overview: The Duffer Brothers Need To Sue

Summary

Star Wars steals from Stranger Things.

Honestly, as far as recent Star Wars shows go this wasn’t bad. That’s not to say it was perfect, I would place it in the watchable category.

For the most part this is a fairly self-contained adventure, we don’t really interact with iconography or characters from the Star Wars universe we would expect to see, we see some X-Wings, a lightsaber and a few things are mentioned in passing but that is really all. There is distinct Goonies and Flight Of The Navigator vibes to this, but I would say the biggest influence is Stranger Things. To see Star Wars lift so many themes and ideas from Stranger Things is depressing on a number of levels, to see one of the kings of the science fiction genre have to borrow from the new upstart shows just how bad of a situation Star Wars is in.

The journey itself was interesting there were certainly ups and downs, and some episodes hit harder than others but for the most part it was entertaining. I liked the mystery around Ad Attin and I thought the new droid, voiced by Nick Frost, was a welcome addition to the universe. The child actors were probably the weakest part of the show, I will not rag on the child actors too much as it seems like low hanging fruit, however, it must be stated that their emotions were all over the place and they were badly directed.

My biggest bugbear with the show was the fact it introduced yet another survivor of Order 66, at this point the Empire seems incredibly incompetent. This of course is Jude law’s character who the series teases with the will they won’t they question of is he a Jedi, at times you are lead to believe that it’s just parlour tricks or that maybe he is force sensitive, but no the final episode has him reveal that he is in fact a Jedi or was. Moreover his origins and how he survived order 66 a so incredibly vague you question why it was even brought up at all, clearly it was done to set him up for his own show where it would be explored in more detail.

Overall, not as bad as the Acolyte not as good as Andor.

3/5

Pros.

It is watchable

It has fun moments

It feels very disconnected

Cons.

The child actors aren’t very good

There is yet another survivor of Order 66

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Section 31: Michelle Yeoh Has Embarrassed Herself Post Oscar

Summary

An old woman embarrasses herself.

I won’t claim to be the biggest Star Trek fan, I don’t watch every show and I don’t know all the characters. However, I have tried to keep up with modern Star Trek and have covered it before, it is sad to see things get worse and worse in the way it has but here we are.

I have to ask you dear Reader what place does S and M have within Star Trek is it empowering to see Michelle Yeoh dominate men half her age? Not really it is embarrassing. The way this film/series extension, whatever it is, treats Yeon as a woman half her age, it expects you to believe her as this badass matriarch when she looks as though a gust of wind would have her collapsed on the floor. Honestly Yeon’s team seem to have a knack for scoring her roles in the worst fantasy and science fiction stuff they can.

I watched the last few episodes of Discovery to try and make sense of this, as I had long given up on the show, it was a painful experience. Even with that I was pretty confused as to what was going on, after I got situated I found the science fiction narrative to be convoluted and badly conveyed. A lot of things happen that don’t make sense with the character or their motivations and this screams to me of bad writing and why I stopped watching Kurtzman Trek in the first place.

Overall, embarrassing.

0.5/5

Pros.

It is good to laugh at

Cons.

It is embarrassing

It is a vandalization of the franchise

Michelle Yeon

It makes little sense

It is a waste of your time

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Sonic Three: The Quest For Meaningful Stakes

Summary

Sonic, voiced by Ben Schwartz, is back.

Going into the latter half of the year and looking at a pretty dire slate this was one of the few films that kept that small ember of optimism alive in me. However, after seeing it I have to say I was disappointed. I really don’t want to be writing that but it is the truth.

My issue with the film is pretty clear cut, whilst I liked Knuckles it did feel very much like a small story idea wrapped in goofiness and filler that was acceptable as it was a streaming show and not a mainline film. This film was far more Knuckles than the previous two films, rather than having some earnest heart, and having some epic moments or deeper worldbuilding, this film instead decided to have lots of goofy nonsense, such as a musical dance number, Eggman, Jim Carrey’s, obsession with telenovelas and a long drawn out race sequence in the films first act.

They have Krysten Ritter as the new director of GUN yet they give her one line and that is it, it is such a waste. I would have rather had more scenes that debated the ethical nature of GUN and made Sonic and co question whether they could trust them. As far as Shadow, voiced by Keanu Reeves, goes I was again disappointed. Shadow is my favourite character in Sonic lore yet they just give him a pretty bog standard revenge arc here before making him team up with Sonic at the end. I would have liked to see more of Shadow being an anti-hero, rather than him just getting the Knuckles in Sonic Two treatment where he is a villains henchman turned hero. It would have been better to have him and Sonic both trying to fix a problem say GUN did something bad in the past, but Shadow’s ways are too extreme and that puts him at odds with Sonic, rather than Sonic and Shadow both realise GUN did something bad so Shadow is going to destroy them for revenge, this seem over the top for Shadow who is an antihero, to kill lots of innocent people, and yes he isn’t fully aware of the weapons potential but still.

Overall, I would hope for the next film they could have less goofy silly stuff and a little more stakes and tension. It is never going to be super serious but some worldbuilding and some deeper character work would be nice. What I would like out of the next film is a for Amy-Rose to take team Sonic, including Shadow off world and for it to be a galaxy hopping adventure to stop a mass wave of Metal Sonics from destroying Earth to get to Sonic, this journey would explore Sonic’s origins and be large scale and epic. We wouldn’t have any goofy sing alongs dancing or anything else like that, we would have character growth and stakes.

Overall, good but a bit too silly and without the heart of the previous films.

3/5

Pros.

The end credits

It is cool to see Shadow even if they don’t do much with him

Jim Carrey is entertaining

Cons.

It is too goofy

It wastes new actors like Ritter

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