Pete Messum Reviews...

After the big success of Daredevil , Marvel and Netflix released the first season of Jessica Jones back in November, which was met without as much hype, but certainly got a lot of people talking. There's been quite a bit of debate as to whether after 12 movies, Marvel are really losing their touch. It ultimately comes down to very familiar stories done in entertaining ways with great and well-developed characters, and in some ways, Daredevil followed this - just adding greater depth to the characters and having a much darker and more adult tone. Jessica Jones, however, isn't instantly recognisable as  a Marvel series. Yes, three of the main characters have super powers, but tonally and stylistically, this show is drastically different to, say, Ant-Man or Agent Carter . Jessica Jones is a Private Investigator, who, after an accident when she was younger, has gained super powers. Despite once trying to be a super hero, Jessica is now working on private cases for anyone wh

To be honest, Arrow: season 3 really hasn't held up very well in retrospect. I became very negative in my thoughts on the season as it went on, and got a bit fed up with the show in the end. Alas though, the makers seemed to realize this, and thus sold Season 4 as...fan service, comic book-styled, closer-to-The Flash and much better...apparently. Yeah, there is a ton of fan service in these first 9 episodes. Oliver Queen is now Green Arrow, Thea is Speedy, Starling City is now Star City, not to mention the inclusion of Black Canary, Malcolm as Ra's al Ghul, Kurtis Holt (who?), Damien Darhk, HIVE, John Constantine, Anarchy, Diggle's brother, Felicity's mum, Diggle in costume and that "Olicity" internet trend that the CW seem to adore. Who needs good stories when you can have all this fan service, am I right? The over-arching narrative of the season is...there, but so little of it has been explored that I have nothing to say about the flashbacks and very li

"Me-sa Jar Jar Binks. Me-sa hated by all!" Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999). Starring: Liam Neeson, Ewan McGreggor and Natalie Portman. Director: George Lucas. Plot: Obi-Wan Kenobi is a young apprentice Jedi knight under the tutelage of Qui-Gon Jinn; Anakin Skywalker, who will later father Luke Skywalker and become known as Darth Vader, is just a 9-year-old boy. When the Trade Federation cuts off all routes to the planet Naboo, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan are assigned to settle the matter. Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace belongs to Lucasfilm Ltd., Twentieth Century Fox and Walt Disney Pictures. Music is by Kevin Macleod and is royalty free. This video is for critical and entertainment purposes only. All copyright belongs to the rightful owners. No profit is made from the production of this video or any others.

Heaven Sent is a brilliant episode of Doctor Who . Just putting Peter Capaldi in a constantly re-setting and isolated castle with a silent monster slowly chasing after him is a fascinating and original concept, and believe it or not, is pulled off to almost perfection. Sure, with the big time travel twist in the episode there are a few plot holes - such as The Doctor mentioning how he has only travelled in space and not time, the fact that he couldn't have seen the bird message if he hadn't been there before, and the fact that the diamond-like wall didn't re-set with the rest of the rooms. These are all minor plot holes that I don't mind, and I think that if the episode tried to answer some of these questions it would take away from the overall episode and possibly make it not quite as entertaining. This is Steven Moffat's best script in ages, although I think that Rachel Talalay's direction and Peter Capaldi's performance bring it to life. It seems li

Over the years, The Phantom Menace has gained a reputation of being the movie mistake you don't want to make with your franchise. Despite being a Prequel to the original Star Wars trilogy and containing all of the characters you'd want to see in a Star Wars prequel, The Phantom Menace was hated by many fans, and has since been mocked, parodied and referred to as "when Star Wars went horribly wrong". Is it really that bad though? Is it worth all of this negativity? Well, looking at it objectively, many years after I last saw this movie, I can safely answer those questions "no". No, The Phantom Menace really isn't that bad. Heck, I don't think it's even a bad movie. It's...actually, alright. But, let's first address the main criticism: Jar Jar Binks. People don't like Jar Jar Binks. Some people absolutely despise the character. The thing is though, his reputation is worse than the actual character. Yes, he's kinda annoy

Instead of a written reaction, here's my live reaction to the 'X-Men: Apocalypse' trailer, complete with a very bizarre thumbnail courtesy of Harry P Green.

The BFG I should probably say here and now that I was a big fan of Roald Dahl when I was younger. Matilda, The BFG and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory are just some of my favourite Roald Dahl books and some of my favourite books of all time. I love the animated version of The BFG but have always been intrigued to see what can be done in live action. Now, not only are we getting a live action adaptation of Dahl's brilliant book, but its being directed by Steven Spielberg, written by the screenwriter of E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial and produced by Disney. Where can you possibly go wrong? This teaser looks really, really good. I love the visuals of the movie and the mood it creates perfectly brings to life Roald Dahl's words and Quentin Blake's drawings in a way that only master filmmakers can achieve. Let's hope they can pull this off, because I am really looking forward to this movie now. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows Now, I didn't see the fir

You know when Terminator Genisys revealed its major plot twist in the second trailer? Yeah, looks like Warner Bros have done that with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. I'm assuming that you've probably seen the trailer already if you're reading this, and I'm assuming you might be a bit annoyed by the trailer's big twist. Let's talk about that first: Doomsday was revealed at the end of the trailer, in all of his Cave Troll-like form, not to mention his origin and him fighting Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman. You know what? I'm fine for a tease. Keep the Lex Luthor "devil" line, keep the roar, and then perhaps show Batman and Superman staring at some unknown adversary. Cut out the full body shot of Doomsday and Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman herself feels shoehorned into this trailer as it is, so there's no need to keep her and Doomsday in here. And by the way, this is coming from someone who's only problem with Wonder Woman's 2017

Face the Raven is a story that will probably be mostly remembered for its ending. After all, this is possibly the most important episode in Doctor Who since probably Deep Breath last year. Everything since has been started and resolved, but this episode marks the conclusion to the arc of The Doctor and Clara's dynamic. Despite all this though, I actually really liked what was going on elsewhere in the episode. So many great ideas were in this episode - the trap street, the alien refugee camp, Rigsy's tattoo and Ashildr and the titular Raven. It's essentially The Doctor, Clara and Rigsy finding the alien version of Diagon Alley from Harry Potter, which is very interesting as a premise. Couple this with a counting-down tattoo building to Rigsy's death by killer Raven and you have a creative little Who episode. Also, Capaldi got a new costume - and it looks so much better. Firstly, it was surprisingly good to see Rigsy return. I did worry he might just be returni

Mark Gatiss is a writer whose work on Doctor Who I've always respected, even if it hasn't always been the best in terms of quality. The Unquiet Dead is brilliant, chilling and is the best Doctor Who Christmas special never made as a Christmas special, but then The Idiot's Lantern has some great ideas but the execution is poor and is one of the few episodes of Doctor Who where I genuinely find both main characters incredibly irritating. Then again, I don't like the pairing of Rose and The Tenth Doctor anyway, so I could put that problem down to Russell T Davies. Victory of the Daleks was good, if a little inconsequential now in retrospect, while Night Terrors was a really enjoyable episode despite some flaws. Then last year we had Robot of Sherwood, which was good, but really didn't quite work and is a watchable fluff episode of the series. Then we have Sleep No More - an episode with some really great ideas, but with absolutely no idea how to execute them. Now,

Divided we fall is the tagline for Marvel's Captain America: Civil War, and the first trailer itself is very much representative of that. It's a trailer fans have been begging for for ages, and now that it's finally here, it's easy to feel incredibly underwhelmed by it. Alas though, this is Marvel, and they know what fans want to see and what they should see to get them hyped enough, so its an awesome trailer of awesomeness showing you all the stuff you weren't that bothered about, but now are because it's in the trailer. Well done Marvel, you made another awesome teaser trailer. Please don't let too much slip out before the film comes out though. It's very interesting that the trailer is focused on the relationship between Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes. One of the main criticisms people had with Captain America: The Winter Soldier was that the titular villain/hero/Uncle Ben-type-character didn't feature too prominently within the actual story. H

Hey, remember that Zygon sub-plot from the 50th Anniversary special a couple of years ago? Well, Steven Moffat has finally decided to actually give some sort of conclusion to it with The Zygon Invasion and The Zygon Inversion, written by Peter Harness who wrote last year's universally panned Kill the Moon. It's not very reassuring that the series needs to conclude loose plot-threads from a supposedly standalone special two years prior, especially when the writer's only previous Who episode was hated by many . Surprisingly though, the story actually turns out to be pretty great. The Zygon Invasion certainly stands out from pretty much every other recent Doctor Who story in that it deals with some pretty deep political themes and ideas, which is probably why most people have been raving about it. The story follows a revolution from a splinter group of Zygons hiding on Earth, trying to overthrow U.N.I.T control and cause an uprising of the species to take over the pla

My review of 'SPECTRE' - the latest James Bond film, directed by Sam Mendes and starring Daniel Craig, Lea Seydoux and Ralph Fiennes.

Daniel Craig's era of Bond films have probably been one of the most inconsistent of the franchise's long history, kicking things off in 2006 with Casino Royale - reinventing Bond as a much grittier story, focused much more on an arc for the character. This with the return of Goldeneye 's Martin Campbell provided a very entertaining and well-put together film, despite leaving most of the plot open for the sequels. Quantum of Solace followed in 2008, continuing directly from Casino Royale but losing the style of Campbell, and resulted in a rather average action film that lacked much personality and crammed its overcomplicated plot into a 100 minute running time. Many critics and fans panned the film, and 2012's Skyfall ended up being a much more standalone instalment with the addition of Sam Mendes in the director's chair. Skyfall became the most successful British film ever made, and was met with an overwhelmingly positive critical reception. It was  a great

Series 9 of Doctor Who has promised to shake up the two-part story formula, and here with The Girl Who Died and The Woman Who Lived, we really get this traditional Who formula played around with. Each episode has a different plot and writer, but both are connected by Maisie William's Ashildr. Ultimately, The Girl Who Died suffers from being just good enough. It never seems to decide on what it wants to be. It can be a very bizarre Vikings vs. Aliens story one minute, and then turn into a deep character piece about The Doctor's effect on other people the next. The entire episode seems to throw around themes about storytelling around but nothing ever really sticks - the deus ex machima ending isn't really explained properly and Ashildr might as well be named "we'll come back to her later" as her role in the plot is ultimately to be the titular girl who died, and to save the day. By no means is The Girl Who Died bad - far, far from it - but it has no idea wh