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Showing posts from November, 2015

Doctor Who: Face the Raven (2015) - Written Review

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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

Doctor Who: Sleep No More (2015) - Written Review

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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,

Captain America: Civil War (2016) - TRAILER REACTION

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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

Doctor Who: The Zygon Invasion / The Zygon Inversion (2015) - Written Review

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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

SPECTRE (2015) - Video Review

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

SPECTRE (2015) - Movie Review

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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

Doctor Who: The Girl Who Died / The Woman Who Lived (2015) - Written Review

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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