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Doctor Who: An Unearthly Child (1963)
A Strong Start
When I first got into classic Doctor Who I decided to start right at the very beginning, and... I was a little disappointed. Emphasis on "was". Since then I watched the entirety of the classic series (well what survives anyway, but more on that in later reviews) and now revisiting the episode that started it all I must say that I enjoy it much more.
A brief spoiler free synopsis is that two Schoolteachers Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright investigate a student of theirs: a strange young girl who is very secretive. While some of the plot elements might seem a little overdone and cliché by modern standards it was less so in 63. The atmosphere is one of mystery and suspense. And the payoff in the end is excellent.
As for the cast the First Doctor is grumpy and crotchety but the actor playing him a certain sparkle in his eye that gives him a certain brash charm. The schoolteacher/companions Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright, played by William Russell and Jacqueline Hill respectively, are for the most part intelligent and interesting. They play the part of the everyday person shoved into a bizarre situation. The only cast member that I think did merely an okay job was Carole Ann Ford a Susan Foreman the doctor's granddaughter. It's not that she's awful it's just that can be a little annoying at times however her performance in this episode is nowhere near as annoying as her character can get.
Now to talk about the bad stuff. This is hard because this is a very tightknit episode and there isn't really all that much wrong with it. It'd be practically flawless if it weren't for two major reasons. The first is the motivations of schoolteachers Ian and Barbara they investigate one of their students Susan Foreman because she's a little odd and while this does kick start the plot I'd think they'd have greater concerns like maybe doing their jobs. The other has to do with how this episode is often promoted. That being the first of a four part serial. However, I think that doing that lessens this episode. This is because An Unearthly Child is significantly better than the next three episodes as well as very different different.
One thing that can be a little off-putting to fans of the new show is the fact that the Doctor isn't really the main character in this episode. The schoolteachers Ian and Barbara instead have that honor as most of the screen time is dedicated to them.
If you're a fan of the new series keep an open mind and give it a try, if you're a fan of the old series why haven't you seen it yet? And if you've never seen Doctor Who in your life there are worse places to start.
If you appreciated this review please check out any other reviews I've done.
The Saint (2017)
A Generic Take on a Classic Hero
Simon Templar, known by the moniker "The Saint", first appeared in the 1928 novel "Meet the Tiger". It wasn't a great book but it was an entertaining read featuring an intelligent and disheveled thief who liked to help out where he could. Starting with the next three novellas the author Leslie Charteris, who wrote The Saint, morphed him into a suave, well-dressed, flippant, and usually an on-top-of-things criminal who robbed the "ungodly" and gave away all but a fraction of what he stole to charity. To this character life was a game. He lived for excitement and loved nothing more then to befuddle the police (which is more where his charitable offerings stemmed from rather than a desire to do good). But the thing that stood out the most about him was that while he was a great fighter he preferred to use his intellect to bring down his opponents.
While none of the adaptions of "The Saint" come close to capturing the epic qualities of the character found in the novel series (and this is epic in the most literal sense), at least the Roger Moore adaptation and a couple of the others managed to reflect it well enough. This one is an entirely different story. This Saint is far too serious about everything. Where his novel counterpart would have made up a limerick to annoy his enemies this "Saint" stares them down and spits out a generic one-liner every now and then. Which leads us to the biggest problem of the entire movie. It is generic. There is not a plot twist or characterization that has not been seen a dozen or so times before. The hero is generic. The action is generic. The Villains are generic. And the love interest is especially generic.
The novels weren't perfect, and anyone who read them knew how they would all turn out, but they were fun. This wasn't. While the first book "Meet the Tiger" has been out-of-print since the 80s. All the other books can be found in nice new trade paperbacks or even on kindle. This reviewer recommends that one reads either "Enter the Saint" or "The Saint Closes the Case", or watch the 1960s TV series with Roger Moore, but forget about this adaptation which features a "Saint" less three-dimensional than his iconic stick-figure logo.