Catwoman Hunted: A New Voice For Catwoman?

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Catwoman, voiced by Elizabeth Gilles, becomes the subject of a manhunt after her attempt to steal a precious jewel lands her on the wrong side of a powerful crime organisation.

I would say as far as DC animated fare goes this was slightly above average. I thought Gillies did a very strong job as Catwoman and nearly perfectly fit the role, bringing just the right amount of charm and capability. Moreover, I liked the way the film handled her character and that it gave her some nice quips as well as strong character motivation.

In terms of the art style, I think of all the recent DC animated films this is the one that is the most obviously anime inspired, barring something like Batman Ninja for obvious reasons. I do like the animation here and think that it has its own distinctive feel which is important in making the film memorable.

My issues with the film would be two fold, firstly that the film has a rather generic story that far out stays its welcome and that gives us nothing that we haven’t seen before. Secondly Stephanie Beatriz is deeply miscast as Batwoman. I don’t quite know why but every time I heard Beatriz’s voice coming out of the character I couldn’t help but be pulled out of the film and think to myself ‘oh my she was miscast’. This is a shame as Encanto proved Beatriz is a talented voice actor.

Overall, in terms of what they did with the character and the wider style of the film it is good, however with regard to the lacklustre story and some of the weaker casting choices the film is let down.

Pros.

Gilles

The character of Catwoman

The style

Cons.

The story

Beatriz

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The Book Of Boba Fett: From The Desert Comes A Stranger

4/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

The Mandalorian season 3 continues on with a silent cameo from Boba Fett, played by Temuera Morrison.

I think this may have been the best episode of the series yet. Admittedly much like with last week’s episode it is concerning that the episode without Fett in them pretty much at all are the best ones, considering this is Boba Fett’s show. In my mind this has now just become The Mandalorian but under a different name.

I think this episode does a lot right, I enjoyed that it brought back Timothy Olyphant’s Cobb Vanth, Olyphant can do no wrong and he was on fire in this episode. Likewise I thought they nailed the emotional reunion between Din, played by Pedro Pascal, and Grogu: though not much of a reunion took place. I thought the episode’s cliff-hanger cruelly played with our emotions in the best way, though I have a fairly good feeling I know where it is all heading.

The things I don’t enjoy about this episode all come back to the same thing, the effects. Ashoka, played by Rosario Dawson makes a return to the show and continues to look like a cosplayer, there is something deeply uncanny about the way her character looks as she moves, especially when there is a focus on her talking. It is quite jarring. Moreover, the bad effects continue with the return of a de-aged Luke Skywalker, played by Mark Hamill, and the less said about this the better. What I will say is that every time the character talked or we got a close up of his face it looked like a video game cut scene from over ten years ago, there were major issues with the dubbing. The de-aging tech clearly isn’t there yet and I really don’t think they should be showing this much Luke Skywalker if it is going to look this bad. In a final example of horrendous special effects this episode marks Cade Bane’s, played by Dorian Kingi and voiced by Corey Burton, first appearance in live action and my word does he look terrible.

Overall, in terms of emotions and action this episode is ahead of the pack sadly the tech and the effects really stop the episode from being perfect.

Pros.

More Mando

The emotion

Bringing back Olyphant

The ending

Cons.

The effects and the look of some of the characters

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Peacemaker: Monkey Dory

3/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Peacemaker, played by John Cena, and co hit a bufferfly processing plant and Murn, played by Chukwudi Iwuji, has his secret further exposed.

I thought this was a decent episode yet probably the weakest yet. Mainly this comes down to the betrayal at the end of the episode that just doesn’t land. Adebayo, played by Danielle Brooks, was tasked with betraying the team from the start of the series and finally does here, however it doesn’t stick the emotional impact and instead just feels done for plot reasons. This episode goes out of its way to suggest that Adebayo is getting sick of Peacemaker and so is ready to betray him, yet this just doesn’t track at all based on the other episodes.

I also don’t really find the investigation into Peacemaker all that interesting. I thought there were so many better things they could have done with the Robert Patrick White Dragon character other than have him be a rat against his own son. Also we all know that the investigation into our leads will go nowhere as they are working for the government so the detectives will just be shut down and it makes no ends who they ask for help.

The ending leaves the series in an interesting place and I am keen to see where the next episode goes, hopefully it will pay off more of the set up here.

Overall, a weaker episode that doesn’t quite nail the humour or the emotion.

Pros.

Cena

The gore

A few sweet moments

Cons.

The betrayal feels hollow

The police investigation side plot

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The Book Of Boba Fett: Return Of The Mandalorian

3.5/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Mando, played by Pedro Pascal, returns in search of a new ship and a new purpose.

This is a good episode, perhaps even the best of the series so far, sadly it doesn’t even feature Boba Fett, played by Temuera Morrison, thereby side-lining him in his own show. Really this episode reminds us all of how much we have missed Mando and how poor of a replacement Boba is for him. The scene in which Mando despatches a large group of enemies in a brutal fight, woefully contrasts with the moments in prior episodes when the weaker Fett gets beat up and has to use his minions to fight on his behalf.

Though I liked seeing Mando again, and found it heart warming to see him set off on a new quest to give Grogu some beskar armour, it did all feel a bit like filler. The latter half of the episode when Mando is just looking for a new ship drags on and on and eats up runtime. Moreover, the Mando storyline is only used to kill the remaining episodes until we get to the final as clearly they have realised people don’t want any more boring flashbacks from Boba.

Overall, I enjoyed this episode more than a lot of the others, but after I finished it I was sad as this really shows the failure of the series as the best episode didn’t feature the protagonist at all.

Pros.

Mando is always great

The edge and the violence is back

It actually feels like Star Wars

The new Grogu quest

Cons.

It feels like filler

It highlights how The Book Of Boba Fett has failed

It doesn’t feature Fett

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Peacemaker: The Choad Less Traveled

4.5/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Peacemaker’s dad, played by Robert Patrick, turns rat so Vigilante, played by Freddie Stroma must get himself sent to prison in order to take care of the problem.

I thought this was probably the best episode of Peacemaker yet, it was certainly the most emotionally raw and I appreciated the show for going there. Though the show might seem crass and silly on the surface underneath there is a lot of depth. I think Vigilante’s breakdown when he realises he’s made the situation worse for his friend, and Peacemaker’s, played by John Cena, dance at the end of the episode where he relives his childhood trauma were both moving and depressing in equal measures.

I thought the prison fight scene wherein Vigilante tries to get the racist gang members to each say something that they are thankful for that a black person has contributed to America before proceeding to beat them up when they don’t was so in keeping with the show. This scene really proves to be a great encapsulation of the show, if you like the sound of it and think it would be funny then you will like it, if it sounds annoying then you won’t. Personally I thought it was great.

My two little issues with this episode, and the things that stop it from getting top marks, are the final twist reveal which shows that Murn, played by Chukwudi Iwuji, has been a butterfly along and the continued waste of Judomaster, played by Nhut Le. In the case of the Murn reveal I found it to just come out of nowhere, there was little to no set up for it and it just feels like a twist for the sake of it, and with Judomaster the character continues to be underused to a point of annoyance.

Overall, an incredibly strong episode only let down by a few strange choices

Pros.

The emotion

The prison fight scene

Vigilante

Cena

The jokes

Cons.

Judomaster

The twist ending

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Peacemaker: Better Goff Dead

3.5/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Peacemaker, played by John Cena, and company must assassinate their first butterfly.

I enjoyed what this episode did with Vigilante, played by Freddie Stroma, it took the friendship set up between him and Peacemaker in the previous episode and really developed it and added in quite a lot of dimensions. I thought the torture scene between the two was not only funny, but also quite illuminating.

I like the continued romance between Peacemaker and Harcourt, played by Jennifer Holland, I think the two make a good pairing and have strong chemistry. However, I would like to see Harcourt get more focus and have her character expanded out beyond just being a badass and a love interest for Peacemaker. As I have said in previous reviews we know very little about the supporting cast and need more.

Judomaster, played by Nhut Le, is fairly bland as far as minor baddies go. Clearly he won’t be the big bad of the show and is just being used as an obstacle our heroes can chase for a few episodes, that’s fine. However, what isn’t fine is that I didn’t buy Le’s performance at all, I understand the show is supposed to be a comedy but I didn’t find his character in any way threatening, even when he was torturing Peacemaker.

Overall, another good episode

Pros.

Peacemaker and Vigilante

The sweet scene between Peacemaker and Harcourt

The torture scene, for the most part

The comedy

Cons.

Judomaster

The side characters need more development

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The Book Of Boba Fett: The Gathering Storm

3.5/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

An almost entirely flashback set episode, that explains how Boba Fett, played by Temuera Morrison, and Fennec Shand, played by Ming-Na-Wen, came to be associates.

For the most part this was an enjoyable episode, I liked most of the flashback stuff and it was nice to see that journey come to an end. I would have liked to see Boba do more during the reclaiming of his armour and ship action wise, but the show seems to only allow Fennec to do the action set pieces. She is cool, but this is supposed to be a Boba Fett show. That said I thought seeing Boba gun down the bikers who killed his Tusken tribe was a nice moment, and showed the character’s harder side better.

I can’t quite move on from the flashback scenes until I talk about the return of the horrible cyberpunk elements. So during the episode Boba takes a near death Fennec to a modifier to try and save her life, whilst there he is surrounded once again by bad cyberpunk cosplayers that remind you of the budget for the show. To make matters worse they play some god awful techno during this scene which feels incredibly out of place in Star Wars.

The present day stuff is all a big tease, but an exciting one at that. We see the character preparing for war with the pikes and see a familiar face return. I enjoyed all this well enough and hope that the next episode is truly crazy in order to make up for the tameness and general lameness of the series so far in most aspects.

Overall, a nice episode though it would be better if Boba actually did something and didn’t just let Fennec do everything.

Pros.

Ending the flashbacks

Teasing the war to come

Seeing how Boba became the crime lord

Boba breaking bad slightly

Cons.

Boba does nothing during the action scenes and is further watered down

The cyberpunk elements

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Peacemaker: Best Friends, For Never

4/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Peacemaker, played by John Cena, tidies up after a wild night before and finds kinship in his old friend Vigilante, played by Freddie Stroma.

I think the show really finds its footing in this episode. I thought everything was firing on all cylinders the comedy was strong, the characters were strong, Cena carried on a great performance my only issue with it was that the side characters continue to go unexplored. Yes, there are little nuggets given to us here and there that give us a peak behind the curtain of the underdeveloped side characters, but I wish the show would commit more to this.

For example I thought the show did a good job introducing us to Vigilante, without actually telling us all that much about him. I thought the sequence of him and Peacemaker hanging out and bonding was funny as well as providing us with a nice amount of insight into their friendship. I also liked that this episode gave Harcourt, played by Jennifer Holland, more time to show off and her bar room brawl provided us with a well-executed action scene.

I also like the White Dragon set up with Robert Patrick and hope that it gets furthered in the coming episodes.

Overall, a strong second episode in what is proving to be a very good DC series.

Pros.

The comedy

Cena

Vigilante

The set up for White Dragon

Cons.

The team could do with more development

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Peacemaker: A Whole New Whirled

3.5/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Peacemaker, played by John Cena, has somehow survived his seeming death in The Suicide Squad and is now back again working for the government this time being brought in to wipe out butterflies.

I understand a lot of people don’t like James Gunn’s tone or sense of humour but I do. Though I didn’t find this episode as funny as the second, review coming soon, I still found that it had me laughing more than I thought it would.

Cena handles the comedy well and makes Peacemaker a layered character. Despite his grovelling to the Chinese Government Cena has such an affability to him that makes him hard to root against, as such you can’t help but like his Peacemaker and want him to succeed. The supporting cast is rounded out by some new faces and some returning, most of whom are fairly bland though Jennifer Holland’s Harcourt is a nice romantic foil for Peacemaker and the two have great banter together.

My issues with this first episode would be that it is still quite rough in places and is obviously finding its footing. Likewise I would prefer to not see Amanda Waller, played by Viola Davis, again as I feel she is in danger of being overexposed in the DCEU, however I suppose she was necessary for set up.

Overall, a solid start for the series made so by Cena, a funny script and a nice odd ball sensibility.

Pros.

The tone

The comedy

Cena

Eagly

Cons.

A bit rough in places

Bringing back Waller

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Ghost In The Shell: Is Scarlett Johansson A Believable Action Star?

3/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

The popular anime series of the same name is brought to life with Major, played by Scarlett Johansson, a part human part cyborg investigating her past.

I understand many people didn’t like this film because they perceived it as whitewashing the source material and I respect that, however for the purpose of this review I aim to look beyond that.

I actually enjoyed this film when I saw it in cinemas and then when I rewatched it again recently. I thought Johansson was good in the role and brought a lot to it, she was good in both the action set pieces as well as the more emotional and philosophical scenes. Her performance can’t be faulted.

Furthermore, I thought the world of the film was dripping with potential for interesting storytelling. Honestly, I think if this film had been better received we would have gotten numerous spin offs and sequels which would have given us a better look into the world which could have been really interesting, alas such a thing was not meant to be.

My main issue with the film was that it tried to do too much. It crammed a lot of story in a relatively short runtime and as such a lot came off as underdeveloped or even confusing. Even upon rewatching it there are still moments in the films narrative that don’t make any sense to me at all.

Furthermore, Michael Pitt as the film’s villain was deeply miscast.

Overall, a film that is better than a lot make it out to be, but one that still has some major issues.

Pros.

Johannsson

The world

The visual style and the composition

Cons.

Michael Pitt

It needed further expanding

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