Pete Messum Reviews...

***SPOILER-FREE*** Oh boy...where do I start? I think it's best to list pros and cons here, because believe me when I say that I loved The Defenders, but its a noticeably imperfect show. The problems don't cause the series to be bad per say, but I can't help but feel a little disappointed that we don't have a show to rival the brilliant storytelling of the first season of Daredevil or the genre-bending intensity of Jessica Jones. With all that being said... Every single member of the cast is fantastic. Krysten Ritter is undoubtedly a highlight, with Charlie Cox and Mike Colter, as always delivering pitch-perfect performances. Finn Jones manages to cope well with the character of Danny, but one can't help but feel that Jessica Henwick as Colleen Wing is the MVP of Iron Fist - a shame really, because all they needed to do was give her a glowy fist and we have a much better fourth member to the Defenders team. Damn, I'm almost going into the cons here. Rosari...

After two years and five shows of build-up, Marvel and Netflix finally present Marvel's The Defenders, the big cross-over show between Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist, pitting them against the big threat of the Hand. It's worth noting that, for me at least, this is probably the most fun of the series' so far. All of the characters are fully-formed, the actors have their banter and interactions nailed down to a T and the writing is sharper and more witty than ever. Finally getting to see all of these wildly different characters band together in the show is just great to watch: Jessica's drunken disinterest, Matt's brooding attitude, Luke's down-to-earth persona and Danny's, frankly, quite childish nature. Whatever flaws you may have had with the previous shows, these characters arrive in The Defenders all ready to kick all kinds of ass, and also to take the mick out of one another. But it's not all about the characters teaming up, as a...

In what feels like the most crowded Summer movie season ever, Atomic Blonde - from John Wick  co-director Leitch - enters the ring as a mid-budget, adult-oriented action movie. Some have described it as a spiritual sequel to John Wick , a female-led James Bond movie and pretty much everything in between. Is the film actually as good as the strangely positive hype leading up to it though? It's 1989, and as the Berlin Wall is about to come down, Lorraine Broughton (Charlize Theron) is sent by MI6 (including Toby Jones) to investigate the death of a former agent there, gain as much information as possible from David Percival and retrieve a list of various allied spy agents...hang on a second, this is sounding familiar. Yes, the whole "list of agents" shtick has been done to death in the spy genre, and its difficult to get invested in the stakes when you've seen them so many times before. I mean, Skyfall - the most successful spy film to date - even gets bored of t...

Despite having a wide release in the US a few weeks ago, Luc Besson's latest sci-fi epic Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets has reached UK screens, with the previous critical bashing seeming to ruin the film's financial chances - which is odd, because I feel like I watched a very different movie to these critics. Now, firstly, it's all about taste. Some people may have watched the trailer and thought nothing of it, and some (like myself) may have watched the trailer and really liked the look of it. The trailers are pretty good at showing the wide scope and the fun of the film. Sure, there isn't any real character depth there, and the plot is as formulaic as expected, but Valerian never aspires to achieve those aims. And, in a world in which blockbusters are regularly stripped bare in the editing room from whatever interesting character depth or plot they may have had before, I think it works well. Valerian is a summer blockbuster, and that's what it c...

So here we are the fourth season finale of Agents of SHIELD and...boy, there's a lot to unpack here. Firstly, Robbie Reyes returns to wreck some havoc as Ghost Rider, being the only person able to stop Aida/Ophelia with his fire chain - which can also open Doctor Strange-style portals now too. Sweet. Ghost Rider's return was a welcome one for the series, and while it may have been brief, it was pretty neat to see Coulson himself go full Ghost Rider and destroy Ophelia for good. While I'm not sure what will happen to the rest of the LMDs, it seemed a rather appropriate end for our season big bad, showing a culmination of all of season 4's various threads. Also weaved into the episode were the deaths of both Hope and Radcliffe, the former played perfectly by the actors on-screen that it was difficult not to feel some of Mack's pain in the moment, while the latter's death was appropriately poetic - even if a little too poetic perhaps. With Radcliffe gone from t...

So, Agents of SHIELD rockets towards its season finale by...continuously building additional plot-points into the over-arching narrative. With Aida now in human - or Inhuman - form as Ophelia, she tries to confess her newfound feelings for Fitz, who tries to use these sudden emotional outbursts to encourage her to save the team from the underwater base. It really is Mallory Jansen's show this week as Ophelia tries to adjust to human life, and she comes so very close to even potentially joining the SHIELD team before everything goes horribly wrong. Just as it looks as if all is settled (for the most part), Fitz makes his own feelings clear and Ophelia embarks on a murder rampage, ready to slaughter anyone who gets in her way, and preparing to create a new world suited to her. Jansen is quite possibly this season's MVP, able to flick between different, albeit similar characters on a dime, and her interactions with the other cast members are consistently fantastic. In a way, it...

"Farewell, Cruel World!" is appropriately enough the episode in which the SHIELD team finally escape the Framework with Radcliffe's help, and it's an...interesting one to say the least. The episode fills in a huge amount of much-needed plot points, but also decides to throw in some important elements such as the death of Fitz's father, and Madame Hydra's creation of a new human body. It's not over-stuffed, but seems a little too much for one episode. When the team finally make their way to the 'back door' of the Framework, one can't help but feel a little underwhelmed. Maybe part of this is because of Ward's absence - I mean, didn't he live through the last few episodes? Or have I forgotten something here? The fact that the series made Ward's appearance such a key part of the introduction to the Framework arc only to drop him so close to the end just seems a little odd. There's not much of an actual good-bye to this alternate...