Reviews

After the brilliant season two opener, the writers have let themselves down again with lazy writing leaving us with a good if unspectacular episode. I'm quite capable of suspending disbelief, but the story has to be plausible.

Are you seriously telling me that Baby would fully know that assassins are coming for him then take zero precautions for him or his staff? He's not monitoring his security cameras, no alarms, no traps, no guards, no proper weapons, and a girlfriend who obviously shouldn't be sitting in his office when assassins are coming any day.

That could easily have been a very slick and well-written scene with the assassins infiltrating Baby's garage. Instead we get an amateur scene that drags down a show to amateur level.

On top of that a lot of the tension in this episode is pivoted around Maggie being really cold and menacing, yet she's supposedly on the "good" side. You don't gain trust in a sinister environment by behaving in a sinister way, so obviously no one in our group has left the camp.

Finally, just about every other character has made a reappearance, so the final "twist" was not especially surprising but reasonably amusing nevertheless.

Hope the writers keep things tight going forward; this could be something special.

This could have been a smash hit, but tonally it is all over the place. Why does it feel like something that BBC would broadcast at 6pm for teenagers, but with the addition of occasional gore from an 18 rated horror slasher?

Spoiler ahead: this is essentially a teen LGBT soap crossed with the movie Hostel and Squid Game. At least the cruise ship angle felt original.

The writing should have been closer to Killing Eve or Apple TV's superb Afterparty, but it just feels a bit silly half the time, essentially spelling out what's happening in each scene to inform their intended young viewers.

Don't get me wrong, it was watchable, just a shame to see so much missed potential. Then again, if you're 15 years old you are going to LOVE this.

Effortlessly creepy, claustrophobic, yet gently paced to ratch up the tension, Servant has always been a great show. Ultimately there are two types of Servant episode: those with huge twists, plot points and occasional new characters; and those episodes that just hold the mood for half an hour, as if pondering which direction the show should take next.

This season opener is one of the latter.

Continuing from the moment the finale ended, if you loved the first season of Sevant then you are probably salivating over any new footage. Just maybe wait for a few more episodes to become available to binge if you crave story exposition and anything more than an extended ending to season 1 episode 10.

Also, last time I checked a 2nd or 3rd degree burn wouldn't be something you would just casually slam a book with or use to hold your weight on a bed. Seems strange to emphasis how bad it was, then to virtually ignore it beneath a bandage at all other times without barely a winch.

There's a lot to like about this episode and maybe a few things to dislike too. It also seems to be misunderstood with some viewers believing that the dilemma about being stuck with time frozen around them was false because you could simply remove the bracket... except removing the bracelet places you into frozen time, not escaping it.

Although the story makes a good case for the beauty of a precious moment, which can only be temporary even when time truly is frozen... however it also makes the case for never lashing out at those who care about you. When May attacks Ethan SHE is the one who unravels that magical moment she hoped would last forever. Some people will always be their own worst enemy.

This episode was no more than a rumination on death and contained virtually zero narrative, instead only a small collection of situations that were no more inspiring than a calming screensaver.

I can cope with this series' slow pacing and find it beautiful when there is a story being driven forward - then it becomes poetry. Alas, with this type of non-sci fi short story drama writing you learn nothing new about the characters and you learn nothing new about humanity.

For some reason episodes of Weird City get shorter and shorter the further into the season you go, almost as if they pushed the least developed and least "meaty" episodes to the back. As such "Below" is less than 18 minutes long and feels like a long trailer for a far better episode that might exist out there. The Truman Show did this episode's concept over 20 years ago and did it far better.

I hope Weird City returns for a second season, but they really need to keep the quality of the first few episodes throughout.

Most purist Millennium fans probably won't like this episode. It feels more than a little like Jose Chung would appear at any moment, even if Darin Morgan didn't write this episode. A series of murders take place on a movie set (about a case Frank Black investigated 13 years ago), but will art imitate life or is life imitating art...

Netflix really took me by surprise with this one. A solid dystopian action thriller, with a standout lead(s) from Noomi Rapace and excellent support from Willem Dafoe. Definitely worth watching if you are a fan of action, especially when it comes with a tight sci-fi plot.

*SPOILERS*

In a future where genetically modified food has made nearly all pregnancies be of twins, triplets etc, overpopulation and impending starvation has led to a strict one-child policy. One family of seven identical sisters has carefully evaded detection by only leaving the building one day a week each, painstakingly crafting their appearance to the outer world as the one same person. But one day "Monday" doesn't come home from work...

Starting brilliantly as a simple mystery, then switching to complex thriller, the pace doesn't let up as it consistently ramps up the action. Brutal at times, this is not a movie to cut away from the action when many others would. Blunt comparison? Minority Report + Leon, with a touch of Children of Men, Total Recall, Blade Runner & Multiplicity.

Really an excellent thriller - more of this please Netflix. I'm only sad I couldn't see this at the cinema.

Despite coming across in the trailer as a movie about babies, for babies, The Boss Baby has more than enough wry humour to entertain adults too. A lively romp of a movie, this tale of a managerial baby sent undercover feels much like an extended Looney Tunes - which is not bad thing. Plus being fast-paced has the benefit of effectively distracting from the fact that the makers haven't been quite as effective as rivals Pixar in creating an emotional core to the story (see Up and Wall-E).

The Boss Baby is no animation classic, but it is surprisingly fun, not only for kids, but also adults and especially those who are parents. If you are a fan of lively animation, The Boss Baby is well worth catching; plus for once, the best bits aren't all in the trailer!

Here's the thing, this movie paints a very authentic portrayal as life as a teenager, and the dialogue is fantastically well written, being funny, cutting and emphatic. The problem is the main character quite literally creates almost all her own drama and problems through being aggressive to everyone around her, and then does it again, again and again.

It's not the teenage angst or the introverted awkwardness (both of which she has in spades and which are reasonable character traits for her to have), it's the fact that she consistently verbal attacks her friend & family, especially when they are trying to apologise or reason with her kindly; and this aggression is often the only thing driving the story. I guess that could be considered perfectly realistic, but it makes everything in the movie so predictable and hard to feel much sympathy for her.

(SPOILERS) Unsurprisingly life gets consistently worse and worse for her and if you stop the movie when she goes to bed five minutes before the end, the main character is exactly the same as at the beginning: selfish, aggressive and with no confidence (so zero character development there). Lo and behold she wakes up a completely different person: confident, polite and kind to all around her - an utterly unbelievable and unrealistic transformation, literally overnight.

So I'd have to say it's a mostly fun movie, with well written dialogue, but a repetitive story and a sloppy tacked-on ending.