Pete Messum Reviews...

Today we received our first look at the latest installment in what has been dubbed J.K. Rowling's Wizarding World, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald , and I have to say that I'm very intrigued by this upcoming sequel to Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them . Now, a criticism (come on, I'm a fan, you knew there'd be at least one) I have with this announcement is the title: why isn't it Fantastic Beasts and the Crimes of Grindelwald ? Why separate the two titles? Seeing it written down in Tweet form seemed a bit odd to me, although when I loaded up the film's official logo, I noticed something. The Fantastic Beasts part of the title is very much a heading to the film, whereas The Crimes of Grindelwald is the actual title of the film. This is obviously what J.K. Rowling would have called it, but because Fantastic Beasts is now a multi-million dollar franchise, the franchise name needs to be maintained. It's a sad but true fact when it comes ...

First of all...we're up to Arrow season 6? That's...terrifying. I've now watched more than five seasons, well over one hundred episodes of this show. It's a scary prospect given the huge dip the series took in its third and fourth runs, but thankfully season 5 was the welcome return to form the show needed, establishing new story-lines and characters in a "back to basics" story. Season 6 endeavours to continue directly on with these elements, albeit exploring some questionably controversial ideas: Oliver now becoming a father and no longer Green Arrow, and the whole "Olicity" romance making a return to prominence. That being said, the "Olicity" romance doesn't feel quite as forced in this season so far. There hasn't been much focus on it, and despite setting it up at the end of last season, we don't get a proper "Olicity" episode until episode 4 - practically a record by season 3 and 4 standards. There's no con...

Okay, after poor start to this season, Supergirl suddenly took off in its second episode 'Triggers'. While 'Girl of Steel' had been repeating story beats from The Flash , 'Triggers' was very much a Supergirl episode, in which Kara had to face both a physical and mental threat in the form of villain-of-the-week Psi. Gone was the general doom-laden melancholy of Episode 1, and while subsequent episodes have proven that the show is striving towards character drama, the sense of fun isn't being pushed to the side. Supergirl has never been gold-standard television, but it doesn't need to be. If it aspired towards that...well, look at Man of Steel - is that the kind of Supergirl show you want? 'Triggers' is possibly the best episode of Supergirl for a very long time though, with an interesting story exploring a Kara who's trying to be Supergirl, but is threatened by herself, suffering from panic attacks that heighten the powers of Psi, weakenin...

I was surprised to find that after having left Star Trek: Discovery for a little while that I only had two episodes to catch-up on, given how long I'd felt that I'd not watched this series for. Perhaps I was missing it, or perhaps I've just been too caught up with life - and the new seasons of the DC shows (which all bar Arrow have been off to a mediocre start). Sitting down to watch 'Choose Your Pain' though, I found myself not quite as gripped by the episode as I had been previously. Perhaps the bright sunshine outside didn't help with the atmosphere of it all, but otherwise I just couldn't place my finger on why I wasn't quite as invested. Perhaps its because the series has been consistently good so far. I've enjoyed the previous episodes, I expect good things from the next, and thus the episode delivers on that. There's no real disappointment, but there's no overwhelming sense of excellence to the episode. It's as-expected, and pe...

I wasn't originally planning to write another piece on The Flash's fourth season so soon, but after watching 'Mixed Signals', I have several thoughts I'd like to put down. Firstly, this week's episode of The Flash for some reason became a soppy relationship drama: Barry and Iris go to couples' therapy, and Cisco and Gypsy have their own relationship troubles - both brokered by Caitlin telling stories about her and Ronnie. Yeah...these are the two main through-lines of this week's episode, and I can't help but wonder if the writers have completely misjudged their audience here. Arrow very much had this problem in its own third and fourth seasons, and Legends of Tomorrow with the last episode (although to a much smaller degree), but here in The Flash, I'm just a bit bored of it all. The Flash has always put some focus into the romantic relationships between characters, but this episode just focused far too much on it for no apparent reason. Th...

For those looking for a spoiler-free review of the series premiere, you can check out my review of the IMAX 'movie' version of Inhumans from September, but otherwise...here's my spoilery review of the first episode of the series. There's a few notable differences from the IMAX version here. The title sequence is shortened from a Netflix-style minute long sequence to a much shorter, credit-less version, while we're actually given the opening few minutes as a pre-credits sting, or prologue. There's also a whole plot-line in which Maximus murders the leader of the Inhumans genetics council, which from memory was absent from the 'movie'. I also believe that there were some additional scenes with the Earth-based scientists, although a plot-line from that has not yet emerged. That being said, getting to watch both versions has been very interesting for me. I've had a certain amount of distance to make re-watching Inhumans somewhat worthwhile, and t...

Sitting down to watch Thor: Ragnarok , I can imagine many people are expecting different things. Some want the third Thor installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, others a soft-reboot of the character, and those left just after a good Marvel flick featuring the God of Thunder and the Hulk. Thor: Ragnarok manages to fit in all three particular expectations, but does so in such a way that only those specifically after a Guardians of the Galaxy -esque Thor film will be completely satisfied. Two years after departing Earth in Avengers: Age of Ultron , Thor Odinson has been travelling the galaxy in search of the Infinity Stones. Returning to Asgard, Thor finds that all is not well, and that Hela - the Goddess of Death - has arrived to wreak havoc. Allying himself with his adopted brother Loki, Thor endeavours to find his father Odin and prevent the perils of Ragnarok - the end of Asgardian civilisation... How does the film fair? Well, after a fun opening prologue along to Led Zepp...