Pete Messum Reviews...

Well, for those who (probably) don't remember my trailer reaction/thoughts article on Supergirl that I posted way back when...some time ago, I can't remember - I wasn't particularly enthusiastic for the series. However, Sky 1 were showing the Pilot episode on Thursday night and I thought I'd give it a shot. Thankfully, I was rather pleasantly surprised. Supergirl, for those who don't know, follows Kara Zor-El, cousin of Kal-El (AKA Superman), as she was sent to Earth to protect the baby Kal before Krypton's destruction. However, the shockwave caused by the explosion of the planet knocked her pod off course into the Phantom Zone - a part of space where time is non-existant - before escaping to Earth 24 years later. The younger Kara was helped by the much older Kal-El and taken to grow up with the Danvers family. Several years later, Kara is working at a News company trying to lead a normal life, but her lust for embracing who she is and following in the footst

The release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens has really upped my interest in the franchise. Back in 2010, when I really lost interest in Star Wars, I figured it was a dead franchise and Episode VII wasn't going to happen (despite it being the dream of 5 year old me). I still loved all the films, but I'd watched them so many times I just didn't really need to re-watch them anymore (that, and Doctor Who returned in 2010 - and was pretty awesome until that Christmas episode). That, and the fact that The Clone Wars animated series seemed to be getting gradually worse and worse didn't help. I'll be honest, I haven't properly sat down to watch a Star Wars film since then. Sure, I've seen bits and pieces on Television or YouTube, and I did end up sort-of watching Return of the Jedi whilst babysitting once, but I haven't sat down to really watch it properly. I have decided to go back and take a look at the first six movies this year though, in build up to The

  Maybe I'm losing interest in Doctor Who. Maybe it's just that, in its current form, the show doesn't appeal to me as much as it used to. I really enjoyed most of last year's episodes - with 3 or 4 notable exceptions - but this year, we're two stories and four episodes in and I still feel really underwhelmed by Doctor Who. I don't want to feel like this, given that it is my favourite television series, but I just feel very disappointed in the programme. Under the Lake was a great use of the base-under-siege formula, with a chilling threat, a great supporting cast and a really interesting structural idea set up: with Part 1 being set in the future on an underwater base, and Part 2 being set in the same area, but in 1980. It's an idea that I'm sure Doctor Who must have done before, but obviously not using it in such a specific time travel format as in this story. It's a really clever idea from Toby Whithouse, and it made for a much more interesting

Okay, so I saw Bill a couple of weeks ago, and completely forgot to write a review on it. My bad. The thing is though, Bill is a very difficult film to review. Comedy is all subjective after all, so I have to put a disclaimer here that these are my personal thoughts on Bill. Made from the people who brought us the wonderful Horrible Histories television series on CBBC, Bill chronicles the early days of William Shakespeare's career - from being part of a band called Mortal Coil to becoming a popular playwright. Of course, it plays fast and loose with historical accuracy and it's very much a Horrible Histories version of a Monty Python film, but this is no bad thing. Bill has so many clever in-jokes about Shakespeare and the time period that you really don't care about accuracy in this case. It's a very, very funny film, very quotable and is a fantastic family film to watch again and again on DVD. If you have nothing better to do, go and see Bill with your fa

Wow. I honestly can't seeing remember a movie as solid and almost perfect as The Martian recently. Directed by Ridley Scott of Gladiator and Alien fame and written by Drew Goddard, who created and co-wrote Marvel's Daredevil, The Martian follows the story of Mark Watney, a NASA astronaut who becomes stranded on Mars when a mission goes horribly wrong. With four years until the next manned mission to Mars, Watney has to try and stay alive with limited supplies in an incredibly harsh and inhospitable environment. Back on Earth, NASA must try and find a way to rescue Watney while also dealing with the implications of the situation. The film features an all-star cast with Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Michael Peña, Kate Mara, Jeff Daniels, Kristen Wiig, Sebastian Stan, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Sean Bean to name a few. All of them are excellent in their respective roles, with the real standouts for me being Ejiofor and Damon himself, whose performance is so consistently naturalistic a

Try and explain the plot to this story... Doctor Who: The Magician's Apprentice / The Witch's Familiar (2015). By Steven Moffat. Starring Peter Capaldi, Jenna Coleman and Michelle Gomez. Plot: Davros is dying, but wants to speak to The Doctor one last time... NOTE:  This review is an audio-only one from me this week, partly because time constraints stopped me from being able to film segments, and partly because this review was entirely scripted, unlike my previous work. Doctor Who is owned by the BBC, including the promotional clips used in this video used under FAIR USE, for critical, analytical and educational purposes only. No copyright infringement intended.