Doctor Who - A Town Called Mercy - review.

Karen Gillan, Matt Smith and Arthur Darvill in A Town Called Mercy.

I have never been a huge fan of Toby Whithouse, 'School Reunion' was funny but lacked a proper alien threat whilst 'The Vampires of Venice' was good fun but yet still no threat. Last year's 'The God Complex' was a tricky one, I found when first watching it, it was disappointing but upon second viewing I uncovered it to be a smart and sophisticated episode that had a deep moral. 'A Town Called Mercy' has made me rethink whatever I thought previously about Whithouse. Its a smart Western that incorporates everything you'd expect from it. The Doctor riding a horse (new companion, Susan), gun fights and a proper Western set. The TARDIS crew arrive after yet another misfire from the Doctor in the town of Mercy, a town under siege from the weirdest threat possible for them. Andrew Brooke is absolutely brilliant as The Gunslinger, a cyborg dead set to kill Kahler-Jex. Jex is played by British actor, Adrian Scarborough who performs brilliantly as usual, the character Jex is an intriguing one and you start of liking him but the story takes numerous twists. Stargate actor, Ben Browder plays Isaac, the Marshall of Mercy and the Doctor's best friend in this episode. Toby Whithouse delivers a terrific script and believable characters without giving us a proper villain slightly similar to the Minotaur from 'The God Complex'. It has the seriousness of 'Asylum of the Daleks' and completely destroys the hilarious romp of last week, Dinosaurs On A Spaceship. As episode three it stands in the same spot as last year's 'The Doctor's Wife' - my favorite episode of series six, now the best episode so far of series seven would have be this.


NEXT TIME:
"The year of the slow invasion", Mark Williams is back as Rory's dad, Rory in his pants... its the Ponds sitcom plus the return of UNIT.

Doctor Who - Dinosaurs On A Spaceship - review.

Rupert Graves, Karen Gillan, Arthur Darvill, Matt Smith, Mark Williams and Riann Steele in Dinosaurs On A Spaceship.

An episode that completely revolves around its title, you have to think back to the shambles that was "Let's Kill Hitler", it was a cheery romp with a great script from Steven Moffat but sadly it failed to make any impact. Dinosaurs On A Spaceship is the same except its enjoyable and it isn't written by Moffat. Returning writer Chris Chibnall gives us his first episode of this series and it is pretty chaotic. Before the title sequence we get the Doctor told by the India Space Agency that a spaceship with a prehistoric cargo is set to crash into the Earth. He recruits Queen Nefertiti from Egypt, John Riddell from the African Plains, the good old Ponds and Rory's confused father, Brian. All the above mentioned characters were played brilliantly by their actors, Rupert Graves who played Riddell and Mark Williams as Rory's dad were two exceptions. Soon the TARDIS and its new found crew are on the spaceship with a large amount of... dinosaurs. The Doctor has six hours to save the ship, its cargo, himself and his friends so it looks like its going to be a tricky one. 
The villain of the story is Soloman, played rather menacingly by David Bradley, best known for his role as Filch in the Harry Potter series. Soloman is a space pirate who stumbles upon this wealthy cargo and sets to claim it for his own. Unfortunately he has no idea how to pilot the ship and is therefore stuck. The Doctor jumps in and helps Soloman, physically before doing a very uncharacteristic act towards the end. Soloman's two henchmen are a couple of bumbling robots that sound rather camp and are voiced by British comedy duo, Mitchell and Webb. They have several good lines and their childish attitude doesn't quite reach the annoying stage. 

It won't stay in the memory for long but while your watching it, you are captivated by it and it is genuinely enjoyable.

NEXT TIME:
Doctor Who goes Western with a cyborg, an alien doctor, Amy waving a gun around and the Doctor becoming town sheriff, sounds like my cup of tea!

Anna Karenina - review.

Anna: The Musical... Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Keira Knightley as Count Vronsky and Anna Karenina.

The way, Joe Wright handles his adaption of Tolstoy's famous novel, is certainly unusual. The book, Anna Karenina is over eight hundred pages long with so much crammed in that it would be near impossible to cover everything. Wright uses a strange combination of the theatre and film, the opening ten minutes has theatrical set changes and sets the film up superbly. Keira Knightley is Anna, the wife of brisk government official, Alexei Karenin, played by Jude Law. Law constantly has the air of English vicar but his acting is brilliant. He soon goes onto to become the suffering husband of Karenina when she encounters the young and attractive Count Vronsky, played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson. Anna and the Count become lovers and a difficult love triangle ensues. The background and costumes, almost every scene is gorgeous. Its a feast for your eyes with bright colours and expensive scenery. There is a sub-plot though and it has Domhnall Gleeson as Levin, a good-natured and honest man, who falls badly when knocked back at a marriage proposal to Kitty (Alicia Vikander). He is the parallel to Anna Karenina, a lying and deceitful woman who is unfaithful to her husband. It is confusing but bold, it doesn't quite settle in a filmgoers eyes but manages to keep the audience contained for its length.



3/5

Total Recall - review.

Memory to keep...Colin Farrell in Total Recall.

Despite negative reviews for Total Recall, I found myself pleasantly surprised by this remake. With tickets booked I read reviews last night and felt pretty trapped into going to a bad movie, luckily it was great. Its set in a future Earth where everywhere but Australia and the UK (?) has been nuked, making it uninhabitable. Australia has been renamed The Colony and not ever referred to as Australia whereas the UK is the United Federation of Britain. Being a Brit, a friend and I were cheering at it in the cinema. Irish actor Colin Farrell plays Doug Quaid, a factory worker living in The Colony with his 'English lass' wife, Lori (played by a psychotic, gun-wielding Kate Beckinsale). Thinking his life's going nowhere, he goes to ReKall, a company that literally gives you memories, false ones albeit. Things don't go smoothly and Quaid is on the run, along with Melina (Jessica Biel), a member of the Resistance. The Resistance is an organisation that em... resists the government led by Chancellor Cohaagen (Bryan Cranston), a ruthless dictator that hopes to... do evil things that aren't explained properly. The first hour and a half is a runaround chase before they finally get to the final face-off. The films principle 'soldier' role is filmed in by Cohaagen's "synthetic police force", a cross between a Stormtrooper and a dancing iPod robot. 
Its fun stuff and gorgeous to look at, for people who haven't seen the Arnold Schwarzenegger version or read the book they'll enjoy it. From what reviews say it doesn't stick to the plot of the 1990 movie or the Philip K. Dick short story, so fans of either of they won't be fans of this...


3.5/5

Doctor Who - Asylum of the Daleks - review. SPOILERS.

Matt Smith, Arthur Darvill and Karen Gillan in Asylum of The Daleks.

After 8 months of anticipation and more of Moffat's teasing, we have finally been given 'Asylum of The Daleks.' Its special-effects mad and features all the Daleks, the main selling point for this episode. As usual all Doctor Who premieres (written by Moffat) have given us a twist, this twist is definitely something that hasn't been pointed out online. In an interview, Steven Moffat said he looks online and silently pokes fun at forums and blogs of people speculating about the episode. Nobody would have guessed the new companion, Jenna-Louise Coleman would be introduced in this episode! 
The episode starts off on war-torn Skaro where the Doctor is invited by the creepy ginge Darla Von Karlsen (Anamaria Marinca) to rescue her daughter. After been zapped along with  a divorced Amy and Rory (Gillan and Darvill) they are asked (yes, asked!) by the Daleks to "save them!" The rest is a runaround on the Dalek "dumping ground" or The Asylum, a planet dedicated to collecting doolally Daleks and keeping them away from civilisation. Smith is brilliant as usual except this time he brings a whole new level of matureness to The Doctor, but still with the funny jokes. Darvill is better in my opinion in this episode than Karen Gillan. Usually he is the klutz and she is the funny, flirty and self-supportive Amy who holds onto the Doctor's arm. In this case, as Rory and Amy have split up he is the independent one who is split from the Doctor and Amy throughout the episode. Karen Gillan is still great as usual but her character of Amy has become slightly more vicious than in previous series. 
The next addition to the cast is Oswin Oswald, played by Jenna-Louise Coleman. Coleman has been cast as the new companion. As I am a sucker for spoilers, I have been reading the rumors and her character, rumored name: Clara Oswin is due to appear in the Christmas special. Now she in the opening episode as the new companion maybe or a relative? Her character, anyway, in this episode is hilarious, funny and flirty just like Amy, with hilarious one-liners and a rather sexy way she deals with Matt Smith's chin. 
The Daleks in this episode aren't much of a threat, in fact the main Daleks you see in the episode are out of commission. 
I am very disappointed in fact about the noticeable absence of the Special Weapons Dalek from the 1988 story, Remembrance of The Daleks. 

Still, it was really good!

NEXT TIME:
An Egyptian queen and a game hunter, and Rory's dad and Amy in an awesome blue and white stripy jumper, I can't wait!

The Imposter.

Non-fiction thriller..... Frédéric Bourdin in The Imposter.

In some ways its hard to believe that The Imposter is non-fiction, it did happen, the events told in the movie are real and it is shocking. It was not all in part, filmed as a documentary with some sequences recreated with actors so you are left at the end thinking what bits were real and what was faked. It focuses on the case of Nicholas Barclay, a 13 year-old boy living in San Antonio, Texas who never returned home after playing basketball with friends. He is found over three years later, in Madrid, Spain. The 16 year-old they found was not Nicholas Barclay, and he was not sixteen. He was in fact, Frédéric Bourdin, a 23 year-old French con-man now dubbed "The Chameleon", for he has since 2005, adopted over 500 identities. The documentary goes on, with all interviews with Nicholas Barclay's family and Bourdin himself shown as talking heads. Other sequences are done using actual footage from the event or mocked up with actors. Bourdin returns with Nicholas's sister, Carey Gibson who says he is Nicholas and he meets the family. As to the surprise of the public and press, they accept him although he looks nothing like Nicholas. They have different color of eyes, different skin tone, rough outline of a dark beard and as one interviewee says, if Nicholas Barclay were to have a beard at 16, it wouldn't be black. Not everyone is convinced that this is Nicholas, the two main people unconvinced are Nancy Fisher, an FBI Special Agent and Texas private detective Charlie Parker. It's brilliant, gripping stuff and from the moment it opens you are drawn in. You want answers to so many questions throughout and some are answered. Others are not, as the public and Nicholas Barclay's family don't actually know the answers to them. So completely amazing, it feels like a thriller, not a non-fiction documentary.

5/5

Brave.

Sweet and sour.... Kelly Macdonald as Merida in Brave.

The annual cinematic tradition of the Pixar film is something movie goers look ahead to. I am joined with those people as I already look forward to Pixar's next treats such as Monsters University and am delighted at the possibility of a sequel to Finding Nemo. I won't defend Pixar all the time as they have given us some poor films, WALL-E had charm but wasn't great while I regret the Cars films existence. Brave is like WALL-E, full of charm and decent characters, the main thing letting the film down is the plot. It's that of a Disney movie, bland and predictable. The finale to the whole thing is so simple and reliant on magical mumbo-jumbo, something worthy of a Doctor Who story line. It has its moments and there is a touching montage between mother and daughter, I'll get onto that in a minute. Scottish actress Kelly Macdonald plays feisty princess Merida, a unsettled teenager that is shocked to discover she is to be married. The way of her betrothal is a Highland Games-style competition for the winner to take her hand in marriage. Quite obviously infuriated by this situation she storms off into the local forest to find a funny old witch (voiced by Julie Walters) who is in the wood-carving business. She gives Merida a spell to help change her strict mother, Queen Elinor's (Emma Thompson) mind about the forced marriage but as predicted it doesn't go right. The queen ends up as a charming bear and the princess is forced to hide her mother from the bear hating King Fergus (voiced by true Scots actor Billy Connolly). Things get tricky and Merida is forced to think of a way to help her transformed matriarch before the sun rises again.  The color is stunning and beautiful but the background is stereotypical Scotland, something you'd see in a Chinese advert or even a VisitScotland brochure. It's good fun stuff and obviously not aimed at young kids, like the Cars movies. So now you must be asking, is it aimed at adults. The answer is again, no, Brave isn't directed at lovers of Pixar's kookiness or younger lovers of anything that moves on a screen. I am at the time of writing, still wondering who it is aimed at.

4/5