Doctor Who Series 11 The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos Review

Well that was technically the season finale and er… 

It took up 50 minutes. The effects were decent. The direction was solid, nothing too spectacular but not too pedestrian either. Bradley Walsh’s Graham was a star, deadly serious but funny with what I’m convinced have to be ad-libs done on the fly. Tosin Cole’s Ryan talked sense for a change and did a good job of grounding Graham, showing how much he’s grown since we met him.

Yaz was… there I guess. I’m sure she had a point A good one, and not entirely useless as she’s been from most of the series. I just need someone to try and prove it.

And I can’t put it off any longer. He did it again. Chris Chibnall read the wiki entry on a Classic Adventure, thought it sounded interesting and made a complete mess of it. This time he cribbed (Chris Crib-nall? Is that too obscure a joke to make) stole from Douglas Adams’s The Pirate Planet. Telepaths with near unlimited power, stolen planets crushed into the size of a small basketball and the Doctor having to fix it all. All done so much better in the Classic Tom Baker Story.

Throughout Jodie’s Doctor’s confrontation with the main bad guy I just wanted her to break out in a Tom Baker like response. Mocking the “surprise” villain. Sarcastically praising their “incredible ingenuity” and admitting:-“Very rarely have I come across a plan so ambitious, so incredible in scope. Tell me, are you challenging for the throne of the kingdom of morons, or have the other contenders simply given up in awe of your brain melting stupidity?”

Doctor Who Series 11 They Take You Away Review

I’ve tried to be fair about Who in these reviews. Sometimes I’ve been a bit too critical and others I’ve been willing to over look things I really shouldn’t have. There are reviewers out there that have just been praising the show and I’ve been left wondering just what they saw I haven’t. There are other reviewers that lay into the show and have nothing good to say about it. I think all three groups, the overly critical, the soft touch and the middle ground can agree on something:-

Bradley Walsh is a fantastic actor.

In every episode both his character and his performance have been a highlight. This time he really proved it. Considering he did this while also filming a nightly general knowledge quiz show and from all reports being the joker of the cast I’m in awe.

It’s worth noting this isn’t his first time in Who, well not technically. Walsh played a villain in the Sarah Jane Adventures, The Pied Piper. An evil alien that disguised itself as a clown and kidnapped children to feed off the fear doing so generated. Look it up if you have a chance because it too is a really good performance.

I say all this knowing my previous prediction. Now that Ryan has called him Granddad I fear the characters days are numbered. Still that’s the future, right now I’m looking at the ninth, and penultimate, episode of the season.

And I don’t know what to say.

Honestly this episode has left me stumped. It’s not entirely unique in Doctor Who. The Planet of Evil, for example, is a 70’s adventure where the Doctor visited an anti-matter universe. Same happened more recently in Hide and the Doctor’s Wife. Both involved micro universes just outside our own.

However, in many ways it’s not Doctor Who. At least not standard Doctor Who. There was no villain to conquer, or really a threat if I’m honest. It was an adventure and had a high concept science fiction plot at heart. Without a major villain the antagonist is an sentient aspect of creation that was banished somehow in order for the universe as we know it to exist.

Doctor Who Series 11 The Witchfinders Review

“Pendle Hill is a prison for intergalactic criminals!”

It was at that point I lost it, totally, and collapsed on the floor in hysterics.

Going into this one I had a very bad feeling it was going to turn out like Rosa. You see the Pendle Witch Trials were a nightmare. If anyone was even thought of being a “Witch” they were tried and quickly executed with very little defence. Superstition and fear ruled. People carved symbols to ward off the evil they were sure stalked the good folk of the villages.

The truth was a little more complicated. Put very simply Pendle was home to a number of small villages all of which had local healers. Often women, but not always, who knew how to cook certain herbs and other plants to fight infection and other such things. However, a good number of people didn’t understand diseases at the time, attributing them to demons in the blood rather than bacteria. The result was these healers were seen to be commanding the demons out of people.

If they could command them out, who’s to say they couldn’t command them in? As a result superstitious people began to fear the knowledge these people had. Blaming them for whatever bad luck befell a person or area. Naturally when someone fears something they don’t understand it’s easier to attack it that to try and learn.

Hence the hanging of witches.

This is a summary and leaves a lot of important detail out, which makes it a difficult topic to go into and explain in the confines of a 50-odd minute show. With no clear solution. In the case of Rosa they messed up historical accuracy in favour of delivering a heavy handed message. Given I actually live in Rawtenstall, a town not 15 minutes from Pendle, I feared that, once again, historical accuracy would be thrown by the wayside in favour of some sort of ham fisted lesson. Fortunately this didn’t happen and the Pendle Witches became a backdrop to a far more traditional Doctor Who story rather than the entire focus.

Doctor Who Series 11 Kerblam Review

Really, was that the whole point of the silly name? That gag at the end? Was it worth it?

Yes, yes it was.

I can say this is the the first truly good, not great but good, episode of the season. Somebody behind the scenes seems to have woken up and realised Doctor Who can be good and doesn’t have to be mediocre. 

Which is ironic because any other time this far into the season it would be a filler episode, the one that doesn’t really mean anything. It’s far enough along to have established everything, but not close enough to the end to need to ramp up the tension. So freed from Chibnall’s greasy grip, just told to try and be a fun and entertaining episode we got just that. They even were able to throw in a rather surprising, if only at first viewing, twist I don’t really want to spoil.

Unfortunately mentioning that there is a twist is sort of a spoiler, but you can’t review the episode around it. So if you’ve not seen the episode yet just take it on faith, it is worth watching.

Doctor Who Demons of the Punjab Review

As much as I don’t want I’m going to split this review in two. Set up a boarder between the sections and then look at them apart before fitting them back together. 

It’s a metaphor, go with it.

In part A I’m going to look at the plight of Yaz’s grandmother and her family. It’s a terrible time that in many ways appears to mirror the troubles of Northern Ireland. A boarder is being enacted dividing India and Pakistan, this devision is religious as much as political. Separating Hindu and Muslim as much as the two peoples. Unfortunately Yaz’s grandmother is marring a hindu from across this new boarder and her soon to be brother-in-law has been radicalised by extremist propaganda…

The result is a tragedy. Just one more in a time where they are all too common. What was politically expedient at the time proves to be a terrible burden for decades and generations to come.

It’s a moving, powerful, tale that really pulls on the heartstrings. Strong performances and instantly relatable characters. Some likeable, others not so much, but all together well written and enjoyable. A solid drama I can’t really fault, made all the more poignant knowing that this was all together too possible. This not only could have happened you’re left with the heartbreaking certainty that it probably did, and more than just with this single family.

The story highlights one of those sad parts in human history the is often skipped over or out right missed in most summaries of our long past, not least because it happened so far away and there were other things going on. 1947 was the first moves in what we know now as the cold war. With Europe still reeling from the deviation of the second World War and the slowly descending Iron curtain about to cut the continent in two. The history books at this time are kinda full and there’s no room for anything more in schools.

So this period of India / Pakistan really does deserve something out there to raise more awareness of it. What makes this stronger than Rosa is we’re not following this one iconic figure. It’s so much smaller, dealing with just one family, but has such a greater impact for that. So I give this part of the story a solid score of 10 out of 13. Easily the strongest I’ve seen this season.

In Part B we’re actually going to look at the part of the story that is Doctor Who, because it has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the story. 

The time travel with Yaz crossing her own time line was utterly wasted. It even missed the otherwise pointless revelation at the end that the Grandmother should have recognised Yaz or the Doctor. It could have been anyone in that aspect and while I appreciate the rebellion in not going with the typical cliche, leaving Chekov’s gun unfired as it were, it isn’t exactly fulfilling.

The aliens were your typical fare. The basic idea of assassins and warriors that have given up their killing way was hardly original, but once again no threat what so ever. In this case though they weren’t supposed to be, so I won’t complain. What I will complain about is the psychic whatever flashes that gave the Doctor a headache a grand total of twice. Done just to build some tension, but that’s about it. 

A lot of the more science fiction elements just feel bolted on to the main plot and it doesn’t fit. In many ways they weren’t needed and should have just been removed. Focusing more on the main story.

That said there were a couple of nice moments. Yaz finally getting some much needed character development in a talk with Graham being one of them. but this side of the story rings hollow. Especially with the shear weight of what I’m calling part A.

Taken as a whole, which you have to do, this is still one of the strongest episodes so far. Even with the plot holes and dull aliens there’s enough here to enjoy and a serious message is in there as well. I wish the Doctor Who elements were better integrated. In another season this would have been incredibly out of place and have felt wrong. This season it’s some of the best we’re going to get.

8 out of 13

Doctor Who Season 11 Mid-season overview

Half way through this truncated season and I feel it’s necessary to take a metaphorical step back and look at the big picture.

I was looking forward to this season. I really was actually. Look, lets be honest here Steven Moffat had run out of steam by the end. Season 10 was an improvement over the previous two, but nowhere near as great as season 5. I blame Sherlock, it’s difficult enough to run one epic series, let alone two that become that amazingly popular and that ingrained into popular culture.

Both shows suffered because Moffat was torn between them. Still, I’m not here to go into that right now. We’re looking at Who. Now Chibnall cleared house behind the scenes as well as in front. This was going to be a fresh start for them. And Doctor Who needs to do that every so often. The show's been around for fifty five years, to keep up with the times it needs to change.

If it didn’t it would become stagnant. It would die off, much like Star Trek did in the early 2000’s. If you don’t innovate you lose viewers to those that do. Without viewers you fail and your show is gone. Especially in Science Fiction TV where they can cost more than smaller programs and the audience often demand more.

So with a new, fresh, show runner and a new Doctor things were looking up for the program. I was actually quite excited when I saw we were getting our first female Doctor. Of course there were people who didn’t like the idea, there’s always people objecting when the Doctor regenerates. I thought it was worth a chance.

There were also people at the time that called Chris Chibnall a hack writer, I didn’t particularly agree with them. I was never that impressed with Chibnall’s previous work on Doctor Who and Torchwood, true, but he was brought on as staff. Shackled by the guidelines imposed on him from the screenwriter. Now he was captaining the ship he could set the course. 

So we’re half way through the first journey on this captaincy. Where do we stand? Well the important thing to remember is it’s never too late to improve. You just have to know what the problem is. That said I announced in my last review that the gloves were off. I’m not going to be polite here. Chibnall has proven to be an incompetent, mediocre and stagnant writer.

Doctor Who The Tsuranga Conundrum Review

Wha…

I don’t know how to begin this review, because I truly am in two minds about this episode. On the one hand it was an utterly pointless waste of my time that I want to bill the BBC for to get my money back. On the other it was a whimsical piece of dada-ism in film making that deserves some kind of award.

I want to love Doctor Who. It’s important you know this. I want to be screaming from the rooftops about how brilliant it is. I want to argue with people that they are truly missing something of real importance by not watching it. Then I’m confronted with an episode like this. An episode where, after watching it, all you can do is ask questions that you know there isn’t going to be an answer to.

What was the Doctor and team Tardis looking for in the scrap pile? Why the hell was there a mine hidden in a pile of otherwise useless junk? Who called the medical transport?

But no time for that… Suddenly the ship is attacked by a space gremlin! and OH NO! It eats metal and feeds off energy! We’ve never seen that before… Oh wait I’ve lost count of how many times that nonsense has been tried! For the sake of, the Transformers Cartoon did this in the 1984 and it was a long long way from original. It’s right up there with the “What if it’s the MAN that becomes pregnant?” cliche. And will you look at that. Whats more he’s not ready to be a single parent, oh the tragedy! Will he keep the child, or give it up for adoption?

Here’s a hint, whichever one is the most cliched, and the most cowardly from a writers perspective. (I don’t want to belittle real life single parents that feel they can’t take care of their child and forced to give them up to adoption, but this pat solution is pointless) Speaking off we also have the pilot that’s suffering from a degenerative condition and their brother that they lie to because they want to maintain their perfect image. Whoopee bloody doo! 

These are all ideas that have been done by Red Dwarf, back in the 90’s. And back then they were a bad joke! The Dwarf boys were laughing that it was old hat two decades ago! Now what is meant to be the premier Sci-Fi show of the era, the trend setter that has redefined Science Fiction for more than fifty years, does this? You can’t make it up. Is this supposed to be so retro that it’s new or something? Is it supposed to be a new take on the old ideas? Because believe me its really neither.

Doctor Who Arachnids in the UK Review

Think I’d better mention that I don’t like spiders. 

They have the effect of creeping me out. Too many legs, eyes and fangs. Don’t forget the fangs. Then there’s the webs wrapping you up, covering you, suffocating you. Being mummified alive. Trapped in tomb no bigger than yourself, screaming silently as you slowly die… 

Anyway Arachnids in the UK was meant to be a horror story. Back in the day Doctor Who was legendary for scaring people, the joke being the viewers often hid behind the sofa to het away from the terrifying things they had to see. Horror has been a staple of Doctor Who since it’s inception and it’s always been that The Doctor taught children it was alright to be scared. That fear was good and bravery wasn’t the absence of fear, but doing what had to be done despite it.

It was one of the best lines in the Curse of the Fatal Death (a comic relief skit on Doctor Who from the 90’s) when the Doctor was thought dead that summed it up wonderfully:- “…It will never be safe to be scared again.”

This is why we needed a horror story, specially around halloween. We needed to be scared. To be terrified. To be brave. So, were we?

Kind of, yes.

I would actually describe Arachnids in the UK as a tribute to shlock horror movies. There’s a whole sub-genre of horror films that feature some aspect of nature grow wildly out of control. Films like Night of the Lepus. Usually these films feature morally questionable experiments going awry or Nature fighting back against mankind’s often selfish actions.

In this episode we got a morality tale about (wo)man’s science messing with nature and things it shouldn’t trifle with. How the quick solution isn’t always, or ever, the best one. We also got to see the real monster, as always, is the worse excesses of humanity. Which all worked in a way and all straight from classic monster horror movies.

Doctor Who Rosa Review

Well that was… Horrific. On many different levels.

Trying to review this episode is difficult because its a difficult topic. They try to address it in a ridiculously short amount of time. 50 minutes is not long enough to go into any real detail. Add in the pointless time criminal sub plot (seriously what was the point of that guy?) and we have even less.

The problem is I don’t feel like I’m qualified to comment on it. Being English, from the hills of Lancashire and born long after the events in question, it’s not something I have the context to address. Certainly not in a short written review of the Episode in question

Yes I know who Rosa Parks was and yes I know why she was famous. I have the morals to say the very concept of segregation appals me. It’s a vile practice from a time I hope has long since past, but unfortunately still effects people to this day. It is something I would hope to have the courage to have fought against, were I there at the time, and would stand up against today should I be in a position to do so. I didn’t need the episode to tell me this. I most importantly didn’t need this episode to make me feel guilty about it! 

But I wasn’t the audience for this episode of Doctor Who. The audience was the people who are only just learning about this stuff and that’s alright. There are people in this world that don’t know about Rosa Parks just yet that could have watched it. That needs to learn that one woman’s bravery, and her anger, was important.

The problem there is that, again, it was and remains a complex issue that 50 minutes can’t do justice.

Doctor Who The Ghost Monument Review

Can I talk about Enlightenment. I want to talk about Enlightenment. No, I’m not taking a sudden right turn into philosophy and using the tile as clickbait. Enlightenment is a Classic Doctor Who adventure from the Peter Davidson (5th) Doctor’s run and in all honesty is one of my favourites of his time in the TARDIS. 

In it the Doctor lands in the middle of the final stage of a vast intergalactic boat race. It’s goal? Enlightenment. Ultimate knowledge. It’s all part of the never ending conflict between two Guardians, the Guardian of Light and the Guardian of Dark. Paired forces of elemental creation so powerful they have developed their own wills and personality. 

Whoever wins the race would have the freedom to do what ever they chose. If they did “good” with it they would tilt the scales in favour of the Light Guardian. “Bad” well then the Darkness gains in power. That is how the Guardians work, though proxies. Choosing champions to represent them across time and space, sometimes without them even knowing they have been chosen. Other times…

Doctor Who The Woman Who Fell To Earth Review

Well that was... Not what I expected. I guess pretty much all of my predictions were wrong. I honestly don’t know what to make of that. Is it better than my idea… Not sure really.

Spoilers ahead.

The story goes as follows; an alien hunter arrives on Earth, looking for a randomly selected human to take as trophy back home. Proving themselves to be a capable hunter is the final act needed to become the leader of their people. The only rule, he’s not supposed to use technology. Meaning no advanced weapons, it’s supposed to be a test of skill. 

He breaks that rule, using an array of tech that is both illegal and highly unethical to track down this poor sod and kill anyone that happens to witness him. Only the Doctor happens to fall (quite literally) into the middle of it all and takes umbrage at the hunter, nicknamed Tim Shaw in a mispronunciation of his true name, and his people's right of passage.

Meeting up with an unusual group consisting of a warehouse worker, Ryan, a police officer he went to school with, Yas, as well as his Grandmother, Grace, and her second husband, Graham, the five of them race after Tim Shaw and try to stop him the hunts for good.

Situation normal, but The Doctor is still recovering from a particularly traumatic Regeneration. Can she pull herself together in time to face this casual evil or will she be too slow to stop more cruel, ultimately pointless, deaths? 

The Companions in “New” Doctor Who Part Two

The Companions in “New” Doctor Who

Part Two

Here, at long last, is the second half of my New Doctor Who Companions retrospective. With this one we enter the era of Moffat. It’s hard to remember today but when Moffat took over from Russell T. Davis the fandom was overwhelmingly positive. Moffat had a good track record behind him, with some of the best episodes of the new series so far being penned by him. Including Blink, which introduced us to the Weeping Angels, and the Girl in the Fireplace, as well as others. Lots of people were expecting good things. 

But before we jump into that just remember two things. The first is that a character is a Companion if I say they are and the other is that I’m addressing the Companion only. We’re not looking at the Actors and anything I say is about them, not the person performing them.

On with the review:-

The Ponds

11/10 (see what I did there, Eleventh Doctor… 11 out of 10…) 

No I’m not separating them. No I don’t care what you say. It’s Amy and Rory. It will always be Amy and Rory. Throughout time, space and however thousands of years either of them will have to wait for each other it is Amy and Rory. The idea of a young couple in the TARDIS has been done before, but not since the very early days of the classic seasons and never with this much passion. The two of them are inseparable and wonderfully individual at the same time.

I could take up this whole article with little moments between the two. From an otherwise pointless aside of playing darts in the TARDIS to the flashback where Amy points out Rory must be gay because all he ever does is hang around her all the time. The big moments though. The sacrifices, the way the pair were with each other, the way they grew and changed. It was a wonder to watch. Alone either one would be fantastic, together they are the best New Who has to offer. Amy’s fire was so welcome. As was Rory’s courage. The humour, the moments you cheered, those where you cried. Amy’s final goodbye and Rory’s constant deaths. It was the best of times. 

And it only gets better

River Song

10/10

This one won’t earn me many friends and you know what I don’t care! River Song was a creation of Steven Moffat and was both a warning of things to come and one of the best things he ever did with the show. A mysterious woman from the Doctor’s future, so not even he knows the full story until it’s too late. Jack Harkness was very much a dry run for some of the character traits here, but this time we got a whole lot more. The out of time relationship these two had really worked and while a lot of people felt there was too much of an emphasis put on her early on it was necessary in the long run. She was quick with a gun, flirtatious, just as quick witted and not even the Doctor knew where he stood with her. Even when you were certain you knew as the audience what was going on River was that wild card that changed the whole game.

Throw that card in with the Doctor and the Ponds you have one of the greatest sagas in the fifty plus years. 

The problem started here though when she started taking over. River was such an interesting, fascinating character that she started to eclipse the Doctor. A good number of fans couldn’t accept that, but we weren’t the only ones to notice. Moffat pulled things back form the brink. Showing time and again no matter how far you thought River was ahead The Doctor still had enough push at the end to regain his throne.

While controversial River was necessary. She was a risk, something new. For years Doctor Who has been too comfortable with the same format and this sort of risk needs to be taken.

The Companions in “New” Doctor Who:- Part One

Well we’re looking at a new season of Doctor Who on the horizon and I’m getting around to a project I’ve waned to do for a while. Look at the Companions in Doctor Who since it’s relaunch in 2005 and try and put them into some sort of perspective.

A lot of my opinions have actually evolved and changed over the 13 years since this restart began. Characters I saw as fairly inconsequential, or irritating, in retrospect either aren’t really, or are for a completely different reason. I want to look at those reasons. 

Before start there’s two things I have to address, first of all there’s going to be some vitriol. I’m not going to be nice on occasion here. The gloves are most defiantly off and because of that I need to make sure the blows are going to land in the right places. I’m only looking at the characters, not the actors themselves. I don’t know them. Do know the characters and I have to be fair to them and those that came before.

Now here’s the tricky one, what do I class as a companion? I could make up some arbitrary rules, but to be honest that would be me looking for excuses to include or not include certain characters. A companion is a Companion if I say so. It’s my list so that’s my reasoning!

Doctor Who Series 11:- Predictions

Well, with something of a trailer coming this weekend. Either a proper trailer, something shot special for it, or just footage from the first couple of episodes string together, we’re going to finally see something more than a brief snippet at the end of Twice upon a Time. So before we get to that I want to make a couple predictions

Now I know about the leaked footage and the behind the scenes photos and the rumours but I’ve kept clear of them. I’m trying not to have the show spoiled for me. At the same time I have so many ideas of what I want to see and what I think we’re going to see. So I’m putting this out there. This way I can crow if I’m right, or be surprised when I’m wrong and have some evidence one way or the other.

Prediction number One. At the beginning of the season the Doctor will have already been in the “present” (as it were) for a while. She will already have established herself and will be more or less stable (at least as stable as the Doctor gets…)

Prediction Two. She’s already going to have established her team, it will be through them that we are introduced to this version of the Doctor rather than the now traditional introduction to the characters through following the Doctor.

Now we get into specifics; Prediction Three. The Doctor will be practically homeless when we meet her. Without the TARDIS she will be living in the streets, or as close to it, as she is working on a way to summon her vessel. The difficulty being that she has not got access to any sort of technology to do it.

Prediction Four. It will be a failed attempt to bring the TARDIS to her that sparks off the adventure, with the Doctor being the only one that can stop whatever’s coming and the friends she has made during her time there helping out.

Prediction Five. The Doctor will have been seen as this relatively harmless mad woman… right up until whatever happens to kick start the plot. At which point the friends she has made will be in awe of just what she is capable of.

Prediction Six. The TARDIS will arrive in the last act, giving the Doctor everything she needs to defeat the enemy of the week.

FAQ about Time Travel (2009) Review

I’m going for a good film, bad film rhythm with these reviews. So we’re on the good film part of the cycle and I’m going to go somewhat obscure this time, with what I consider a quiet little gem.

FAQ About Time Travel (2009) is, unsurprisingly, a Science Fiction comedy, but unlike a lot of Science fiction comedies you’ll find out there it doesn’t make fun of science fiction. It makes fun with it. That’s an important difference. Taking the ideas and tropes built up around time travel over the years and having a laugh with them. Nerds, geeks and “Imagineers” are in on the joke not the butt of it.

This is anti-Big Bang theory. It doesn’t play to the lowest common denominator. Instead it’s clever, intelligent humour that pays off the viewer’s attention and their interest. Rather than bombard you with gags at a dozen a minute, hoping one will make you laugh, it builds up and earns it’s payoffs. Maybe that was it’s biggest flaw. It asks you to think. Perhaps that’s why it wasn’t as successful as it could have been. Instead, much like Clue (1985), it’s slowly building a cult fanbase. A slow burn rather than a quick flash. 

What’s the film about? It’s difficult to explain without giving spoilers, and that’s something I don’t want to be doing. I want you to go and watch it. It’s easily available to download and if you like speculative fiction I can’t recommend this enough. That doesn't mean I won’t try.

Ghostbusters Answer the Call (2016) Review

Ghostbusters Answer the Call (2016)

Well, last week I reviewed Tomorrowland. A good film. Not a brilliant one, but still a good one. The point was not every film has to be Citizen Kane, or the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Some can just be good without being great or iconic. 

Not everything has to be a ten out of ten story. You don’t need to dine out at a fine restaurant every day, if you did it would soon become bland and tasteless. You can enjoy fish and chips from the chippy down the street too and often because of that you’ll enjoy the more elaborate stuff more.

So in this metaphor where does Ghostbusters Answer the Call (2016) come in? It’s the refried Chinese you got yesterday, at the discount counter, that leaves you vomiting into a bucket for the rest of the day. It’s bad, it leaves an unpleasant taste in your mouth and quite frankly I could have and should do without it.

The only reason I’m reviewing this mess is that there’s something that bugs me about it. Actually there’s quite a few things that bug me about it and it’s going to be a long list if I have to tick every one off. Fortunately there are other reviews out there that have done a far better job of eviscerating this film and laying its many flaws bare for all to see.

That said there are a couple off arguments against this film that I haven’t seen very often, if at all, and they outline what really went wrong with Ghostbusters. What the real problem, deep down at it’s very core, was. The only way to stop it from happing again is to rummage through the wreckage left in this film’s wake and drag the last dregs of it’s iniquity kicking and screaming into the light.

The light being an obscure blog review perhaps no-one is going to read, but still, it’s a light. Of sorts.

But before all that I have to preface this with something. Two quick points, the first is the cast. I’ve seen a few of the actors in this cast in other things. Most notably Hemsworth, but I’ve seen the main four as well. Some in films I like, others not so much. Casting for me is not really an issue and if you want an all girl team? Heh, why not? The cast and director didn’t appeal to me on paper, but I like to think I was open enough to have given it a chance. The other point is the remake issue. I like the original Ghostbusters, again I think it’s a good film. I don’t quote it, I don’t watch it every halloween as some people do. I don’t set up a shrine and worship at the alter of Harold Ramis. It’s a good film and if I want to watch it I will. It’s a solid eight out of ten for me. So I don’t violently object to a reboot, I would want it done well surely but I don’t object.

The Best Bond?

One of the reasons I restarted these reviews was that I forwarded a link to my ancient, fawning, opinion on Timothy Dalton’s acting when a friend of mine started posting something on Facebook. He said it was good and I should try writing this sort of thing again.

Well among other things it got me thinking about James Bond in general and I want to take this opportunity to do a deconstruction of Bond. What I think works and what I think, in retrospect, didn’t.

So, lets start at the beginning with the creator; Ian Fleming. Here’s the thing a lot of people gloss over, Fleming was the original super spy agent. This is not a joke, it’s completely true. He was part of the founding team of MI6 and was behind one of the most infamous spy operations of the second world war, Operation Mincemeat. If you don’t know the story behind Mincemeat you owe it to yourself to look it up, it is a hollywood drama. It just actually happened!

Anyway after basically inventing the real modern spy industry Fleming created Bond as the ultimate gentleman spy. Cultured, refined, ruthless, charming and ultimately without morals. He was written as an anti-hero, the anti-hero. Not someone to look up to but still respect. The idea was that the bad guys aren’t going to play fair and rather than being the good guy that wins despite this Bond was going to fight dirty first.

This was new at the time. If you look at the classic setup the hero is the so called white hat and always a good guy no matter what and the villain twirls his moustache as he does evil things, evilly. As soon as Bond comes into popularity the Anti-hero is more recognised and that moral black and white we’re all so comfortable with in action get thrown out the window. So the impact of Bond in popular fiction is very, very important and we’re still coming to terms with it in some cases. 

Bond was massively popular when it started as pulp novels, one coming out every year like the latest blockbuster movie. People flocked to the shops to buy the latest adventure to read on holiday, so naturally with such a willing market films were going to follow.

The first Bond film was Dr No (1962) and looking back on it today it is horribly dated. With a lot of visual gags and references going completely over people’s heads. For example there’s one shot, shortly after Bond meets with Dr No, where he sees a painting resting against a banister. It means nothing today, but at the time that was supposed to be a reference to a famous painting that had been stolen a year earlier and was still missing at the time (its since been recovered).

There’s quite a lot of these little facts, enough to keep IMDB trivia hunters occupied for days and that’s something you have to take into account when looking back at Bond over the years. What worked then doesn’t work now. For example Connery’s Bond would often slap and abuse women he thought were hiding something from him, or if they were hysterical. This casual sexism was risqué at the time, done to show he wasn’t a good man, but today it is utterly unacceptable. Moore’s version casually bedding anything with a skirt at the time showed he was virile and charming. Today? Not so much. With our rose-tinted nostalgia glasses firmly in place I’m going to try and review all the actors to play Bond and try and understand the impact they had on each other and the Character as a whole…

Film Review:- Tomorrowland A World Beyond

Well I'm back. I'm going to start trying to write reviews again and I'm got to start with what I think is a hidden gem, that I'm sure is going to become a cult classic in a few years.

Tomorrowland A World Beyond

Now I'm going to try and avoid spoilers, because while the twist is sort of obvious, especially in hindsight, its important you follow the journey with the characters. Having someone like me just blurt out whats going on does take something away from the film and I don't want to ruin it.

It didn't do very well in theatres, and has been a slow burn on DVD / Video / Download and there are a number of reasons for it. The trailers had no idea how to market this movie, trying to portray an action adventure film. Oh it's certainly an adventure film but the action isn't as important as the message. Lots of professional critics latched onto that message and didn't like it, accusing the film of being too preachy and pointing out that the solution was too simple for what is a very complicated problem. Ironically that was the argument from the film, it knew the answer sounded simple in principle, difficult in execution but worth it in the end.

But I'm getting ahead of myself, we need to get some context. First of all its based on a Disney theme park ride and that puts you on the defensive immediately. Sure Pirates of the Caribbean was good, at first. It all went down hill quite quickly as it became an overblown mess. Then you have other films with the same principle, like Eddie Murphy's Haunted Mansion, and the alarm bells start ringing. In fact it was because of this I avoided the film in the cinema and despite my curiosity I only picked it up a couple years after it came out. Which was a shame. In truth it takes a really good director, that has the complete faith of the studio, to take a tricky premise and make it work. The co-writer and director was Brad Bird. Skill and faith wasn't the problem, Brad Bird has films like The Iron Giant and The Incredibles under his belt and also did a fantastic job with his first live action film Mission Impossible - Ghost Protocol. He'd proven his mettle and the studio backed off just enough to give him the room he needed to tell the story he wanted. Now sure he wasn't alone in writing and Damon Lindelof, he of Lost fame, was also involved but he was just the co-driver. Bird had his hands on the wheel and it was his baby

Next up we have to look at the cast because aside of two big names, George Clooney and Hugh Laurie, the cast is full of relative new comers. Including Britt Robinson (who does have a long list behind her IMDB page but Tomorrowland is her first "big" role) and Raffey Cassidy. Both young girls are fantastic actors that had great chemistry with each other and the rest of the cast. I will be very surprised if the two of them don't go on to have legendary careers. All this together you have a recipe for a very good movie.