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Reviews
Masters of the Air (2024)
Not quite it
When you hear about another sequel series to the epic Band of Brothers you can't help but get excited. Masters of the air follows a similar structure, but sadly misses the mark in almost every element.
I'm not sure if it's because it misses the real life testimonies from the real people we see on screen, but this feels a lot less believable than Band of Brothers. The battle scenes in the air are beautiful, visceral and believable, but it's few and far between and often over far too quickly. Most of the series is about the characters, but this is where it struggles. Unlike Band of Brothers where everyone, regardless of nationality, felt human and as a result more emotional, Masters of the Air seems to revert to stereotypes - Americans are heros and larger than life, British are arrogant and useless, Germans are all evil, etc. As a result no one is likeable and the events all feel like made up Hollywood storylines.
Masters of the Air is entertaining and great to look at but could have been so much more.
Echo (2023)
Watch the entire series before judging
A good solid Marvel series, not as good as Daredevil but better than most of the others. It's definitely a step in the right direction for Disney.
Because it's only 5 (short) episodes the first episode is crammed with lots of backstory, and they do this by jumping through Maya's history and cutting in a lot of scenes from Hawkeye. They're very heavily relying on the viewer having watched that series to pick up where it left off. Echo only really starts from episode 2.
After the first episode it jumps from gritty NY crime syndicate to Oklahoma countryside and Choctaw nation heritage, but the action still comes thick and fast. Maya's character develops nicely and many of her family are likeable.
Given Maya is deaf the show makes a brave decision to often put us in her shoes. Be prepared to read a lot of subtitles. It's not a series you can just chuck on without paying attention. This will probably put some people off, but I appreciated it.
My only dislike is how Maya's powers manifest at the end, it fell a bit flat, but that's personal taste. I totally understand why they would deviate from the comics, I just wish they kept it a little more grounded like he rest of the show.
Lioness (2023)
Enjoyable espionage thriller
3 episodes in and I'm really enjoying it. The first two episodes I watched back to back because it got me hooked, though the 3rd is a little slower. This is now the scene setting stage though, so I'd expect it.
It's up there with other US based espionage thrillers, such as Jack Ryan, The Night Agent, etc.. in fact it's probably better than those as it's a little more believable. It's not door to door action, but the scenes are visceral and intense. It has a similar presentation to Taylor Sheridan's other recent work and you can see some elements from Sicario too.
I struggle to understand all of the negative reviews. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions on what they enjoy, but given the number of strongly negative ones I suspect there's something else at work here, so take them with a pinch of salt. If in doubt I'd recommend watching the first episode and making your own mind up (unless you're offended by the idea of a strong woman).
8.5/10 but rounding up to 9 to counter the negativity.
The Witcher: Blood Origin (2022)
Too many bias reviews
Honestly, I really wanted to hate this. I'm a big fan of the books and the games, as well as being extremely disappointed by the news about Henry Cavil. But it's really not as bad as everyone else is making it out to be! A lot worse is rated higher.
The acting and special effects are decent. Not GoT level, but still on par with Witcher series 1&2.
I don't mind the story squeezed into 4 episodes. It has about as much world and character building as your average movie. Though the final episode did seem to rush a number of elements to a climax.
Being a fan of the lore, my biggest issue is with the complete miss with the origin story for Eredin. I get why this is setting up the future Witcher series story, but what we know of Eredin and the Aen Elle it's a much more fascinating story, with enough blanks to give writers some freedom, it would have made a much better limited series. Instead it feels like they're just cashing in on a familiar name.
But dropping some stars for that minor gripe, the original story and production is worth 7 stars.
Willow (2022)
Missed opportunity
I was born in the beginning of the 80's and there were two films that were very close to my heart when I was a child: The Dark Crystal and Willow. I was thrilled when I heard both were having new series based upon them.
But while The Dark Crystal prequel last year was excellently made, captured the original magic, rekindled my nostalgia and carefully attracted both new/young and old viewers, Willow somehow managed to completely miss all of that.
I don't know whether it's the writing, directing or acting, but the show just feels a bit stiff. It's more like something you'd expect to see on after-school children's TV for young teens. That's fine, I'm perhaps not the target audience (which would be strange to not tap the nostalgia), except it also expects you to know about the original film. Here's a problem, because if that is the target audience they wouldn't have seen the original film and probably won't want to watch it now because it's pretty dated!
That said, I'm only 3 episodes in and intend to watch the rest of the series. It's not at all unwatchable, just a bit disappointing, and I more often than not find myself checking my phone mid-episode rather than being glued to the screen.
Maybe I'm just guilty of having too high expectations. But why shouldn't I have? The original Willow was a hidden gem and massively underrated.
Wednesday (2022)
Absolutely brilliant
I'm a 40 year old man, but I still found this extremely entertaining, I can't wait for another series. Addams Family does Harry Potter, but funnier! The family finally get the Tim Burton treatment and it doesn't miss a beat. Danny Elfman also contributes the perfect soundtrack, not that I expected any less. This brought back childhood memories, whilst feeling totally appropriate for the time. And extra special shout-out for Jenna Ortega - although Wednesday has never been this old, she was absolutely spot on.
I don't want to include any spoilers in this review, but I really hope some of the characters that didn't make it to the end somehow return, this is my only complaint.
Samaritan (2022)
Solid movie and enjoyable watch
Sylvester Stallone has done some dubious movies in the past, but he's also done some classics able to deliver some truly good acting. This is one of those and he shines, though most of the other cast let the side down a bit. I don't necessarily think it's their fault, I feel the script has been written for one character and the rest are just there to fill the blanks.
The twist is so blatantly obvious, I immediately guessed it the first time we meet Joe. But if I was wrong about the twist I would have been extremely disappointed because I think it gave much more depth to the character. It's a shame I didn't get that Sixth Sense big twist reveal feeling, but I was cheering for it none the less. The only thing wrong was I felt they forgot to explain what he originally planned at the power plant - they kept hinting that it wasn't as it seemed, but then missed a trick by explaining it rather than showing the slightly bad CGI flashback that left more questions than it was intended to answer.
Overall the movie was a solid and enjoyable watch, one to put on when you want to switch off for a night in front of the TV.
Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2021)
Not the worst zombie movie
To start with, full disclosure - I'm not a big fan of the games. I know the game settings, characters and some of the story arcs, but I never really enjoyed the gameplay style and characters were unrelatable.
So I approach this movie with a less fanboy approach and I quite enjoyed it. Even to me the locations were instantly recognisable, some scenes were familiar and the characters were a bit more relatable. I totally get why some of them were different to their gaming counterparts - the heroes of this story were Claire and Chris Redfield, it would have way too much to make Jill and Leon as equally big butt-kicking personalities (though they did do some butt-kicking). It wouldn't have made any sense to have Leon as skilled as Chris or Claire. But unfortunately when they get so close to the source material these changes are obviously going to upset people.
Regarding the story, I thought it was clever to cover both first and second games and it felt more authentic than the previous RE movies. As a generic zombie flick it had some good horror moments and jump scares (mainly in the first half).
My only real complaint is that the last 20 minutes felt massively rushed, it got a bit silly and felt cheap.
Overall, it's a decent zombie movie to watch at home, unless you're an Resident Evil super fan who will pick up on every difference and hate it.