Pete Messum Reviews...

After such a great first season and a brilliant second, I have been feeling very underwhelmed by Arrow: Season 3 so far. The first half started off well but between episodes 5 and 7 it really felt like the quality was steadily declining. Thankfully we had a great two-part crossover with The Flash and then...the mid-season finale! The Climb is one of the best build-up episodes Arrow has done yet, with various questions answered and stakes raised to build up to Oliver fighting Ra's al Ghul, determined to stop the man who will kill his sister (special thanks to Malcolm using Thea under the influence of a drug to kill Sara). The build-up is, as usual, well executed and the fight itself is fantastic. The choreography is great and the location used for the mountain worked brilliantly to not only look great but also create an atmosphere. Just as Oliver was about to win the day though...Arrow surprised me! Instead of Oliver killing Ra's al Ghul (I thought the cliffhanger would be Ra

With the second half of the second season of Marvel's Agents of SHIELD starting next month, and after the season finale of Marvel's Agent Carter in the US, a new trailer for the next twelve SHIELD episodes has been released, teasing Skye's true nature - that she's an Inhuman. Given special powers as being a descendant of special humans by the Kree (see Guardians of the Galaxy for them), the Inhumans possess different abilities and powers. Skye, whose real name was revealed to be Daisy Johnson, is Quake, and it seems her abilities are a bit too strong... I love this premise for the next twelve episodes (and more if the series gets recommissioned) of Skye being given these powers that she can't control and after all she's been through, its just getting worse for her. While I don't think this was exactly the plan from Season 1, the writers have made it work with what was set up before (I doubt they even knew where they were going with Skye at first), and

***CONTAINS SPOILERS*** I made you a promise...that I would review the second season of 'Arrow'. It took a while. Arrow: Season 2 (2013/14). Starring: Stephen Amell, Katie Cassidy, Colin Donnell, David Ramsey, Willa Hollan, Susanna Thompson, Paul Blackthorne, Emily Bett Rickards, Colton Haynes, Manu Bennett and Caity Lotz. Creators: Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim and Andrew Kreisberg. Plot: Oliver Queen returns to Starling City after six months mourning Tommy on Lian Yu, where he finds that old friend Slade Wilson has returned to wreak havoc, now as Deathstroke. Can Oliver stop Slade without killing him, and become the hero The Arrow? Arrow: Season Two belongs to the CW / Warner Bros / DC Entertainment. 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.

Joss Whedon over the years has become a bit of an icon in geek culture, made even bigger by his contribution to the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Avengers Assemble and the upcoming Avengers: Age of Ultron . His work on Firefly / Serenity is stellar and his version of Much Ado About Nothing will always be the superior of the lot. So, it only made sense to start watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer - his original, and some say best creation to date. Is Buffy really the best Whedon production, or has its popularity been more down to rose-tinted glasses? Well, having finished Season 2 now (and started 3) I have to admit that Buffy  - in its first season at least - has a long way to go to be the best Whedon has ever done. Its certainly not bad, and has a great start with a fantastic two-part opening pilot, that is soon squandered potential in 9 filler episodes building up to a good, but ultimately disappointing finale. There are some good ideas here and there, but the standalone monst

Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015). Starring: Colin Firth, Taron Egerton, Samuel L Jackson, Mark Strong and Michael Caine. Director: Matthew Vaughn. Plot: Kingsman agent Harry Hart recruits the son of his former partner to help him stop billionaire Richmond Valentine in a plot to kill millions... Kingsman: The Secret Service belongs to Twentieth Century Fox and MARV. 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.

Last time I was writing my first thoughts on ' The Flash ' series, I explained how much the show was picking up its pace and potentially going in a better direction, taking its previously established elements to produce a better series that would go from strength to strength after some rather mediocre episodes. The Man in the Yellow Suit follows Barry as he tracks down the man who killed his mother, who is revealed to be the mysterious Reverse Flash, far faster than Barry, and seeming to be Harrison Wells in secret, an element the show has been continuously teasing. How was he able to do this? Why has he done this? Our answers should hopefully come relatively soon, although its clear the writers enjoy teasing us with hints and teases here and there. The Reverse Flash is certainly a good, threatening villain, being the Flash's opposite, but more powerful. The tension built up throughout The Man in the Yellow Suit was fantastic, although I worried where the tension would g

After such a fantastic first season, I was left wondering where Arrow would go in its second, and the series surprised me in which direction it decided to go. Not only are the events of season one unforgotten, but they become an integral part of season two. Arrow: season two builds on what was learnt and the events of the first season to continue the story. Season Two follows Oliver’s return to Starling City after six months back on Lian Yu mourning Tommy, when he finds that the whole city is in a worse state than when he left it after the Undertaking. Queen Consolidated is about to be taken over by the suspicious Isabel Rochev, Moira Queen is locked up in jail leaving Thea on her own, and crime is worse than ever. When Thea is kidnapped by a gang on thugs pretending to be the vigilante, Oliver decides to don the hood again, now calling himself the Arrow, and wish a fancy new bow takes to the streets to bring justice to his city. The first thing I greatly admire about season t

With all this fuss about Sherlock, its easy to forget that there is in fact another modern day adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famous Sherlock Holmes stories, Elementary. Is this deserving of its less popular status, or is it a gem underrated because of its BBC counterpart? Elementary follows Sherlock Holmes, played by the brilliant Jonny Lee Miller, living in New York after having broken out of his rehab facility the day he was set to be released. Joan Watson (Lucy Lui) becomes his sober companion after learning of Sherlock's history with drugs and the two become partners in crime, solving various cases for the NYPD with Captain Gregson and (from episode 2 onward) Detective Bell. Sherlock's past with the mysterious Irene Adler and M linger on through Holmes and Watson's cases though... Jonny Lee Miller is excellent as Holmes, balancing the quirkiness, intelligence, arrogance and obssession with his work brilliantly. The writers clearly have a lot of fun w

Wow. That was awesome. Kingsman: The Secret Service follows the secret spy organisation Kingsman as they try to stop megalomaniac villain Richmond Valentine in an entertaining, hilarious and all-round fun film from Matthew Vaughn of X-Men: First Class fame. Kingsman pays homage to classic spy films with many characters filling particular roles - with Michael Caine's Arthur being Kingsman's M and Mark Strong's Merlin being the Q of the film - as well as serving as an introductory first film to a potential new franchise bringing back the OTT villains and cheesy gadgets of the classic Bond films (which now seem to be absent from current Bond films), and with a great screenplay and director at hand, Kingsman: The Secret Service proves to be a truly great film. The cast are great, with Taron Egerton being surprisingly enduring as Eggsy and Samuel L Jackson making an on-paper rather boring villain great and hilarious to watch. Colin Firth is also brilliant as Harry Hart, a