Film Review – Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

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‘The IMF is shut down when it’s implicated in the bombing of the Kremlin, causing Ethan Hunt and his new team to go rogue to clear their organization’s name.‘

Going by the example of the Mission: Impossible series, it would seem that a secret agent can only succeed when they go rogue from their agency. This is a tried and true trope of the genre, but it would be nice to see at least one of the four movies in the franchise move away from this setup. In Ethan Hunt’s latest outing, it would seem that the whole agency has been disavowed by the government after a particularly bad screw up at the Kremlin. It is up to Ethan, along with his prerequisite team of Tech Nerd (Simon Pegg), Hot Girl (Paula Patton) and Mysterious Guy (Jeremy Renner) to save the world once again from the bad guys through a series of thrilling chases, death-defying stunts and last-minute luck. Continue reading →

TV Review – Community – Digital Exploration of Interior Design

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‘Troy and Abed decide to build a pillow fort to rival their old blanket fort, while Jeff finds out he has a locker and Pierce and Shirley send Britta undercover to get dirt on Greendale’s new Subway.‘

Dean Pelton

Three episodes back into the second half of Community’s run, and it still feels so good to have it back. Continue reading →

Film Review – The Hunger Games

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‘Set in a future where the Capitol selects a boy and girl from the twelve districts to fight to the death on live television, Katniss Everdeen volunteers to take her younger sister’s place for the latest match.‘

Given the enormous success of the Harry Potter franchise and the fact that the Twilight films are about to wrap up, it was inevitable that Hollywood would find another young adult novel franchise to mine in the hopes of continuing the gravy train. While Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy doesn’t have the high-profile of its predecessors, there is still a massive inbuilt audience for any film adaptation and the studio has banked on that with a reported $100 million+ budget. Unfortunately, the filmmakers have relied far too much on the source material; leaving the film a confusingly mediocre experience that feels like it should have been so much more. Continue reading →

Film Review – Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance

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‘As Johnny Blaze hides out in Eastern Europe, he is called upon to stop the devil, who is trying to take human form.‘

Year: 2012

Directors: Mark Neveldine, Brian Taylor, Nic Cage’s Crazy Eyes

Writers: Scott M. Gimple, Seth Hoffman, David S. Goyer

Starring: Nicolas Cage, Nicolas Cage’s Crazy Eyes, Ciarán Hinds, Idris Elba, Violante Placido, Johnny Whitworth

How the hell did this movie get made? Did anyone involved see the first Ghost Rider? Continue reading →

Book Review – Ready Player One (Guest Review)

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‘At once wildly original and stuffed with irresistible nostalgia, Ready Player One is a spectacularly genre-busting, ambitious, and charming debut—part quest novel, part love story, and part virtual space opera set in a universe where spell-slinging mages battle giant Japanese robots, entire planets are inspired by Blade Runner, and flying DeLoreans achieve light speed.‘

What are you doing right now? Whatever game you are playing; whatever comic you are reading; whatever T.V. show you are watching… drop it! Continue reading →

TV Review – Comic Book Men – Con Gone Wrong / Ink

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‘AMC’s new unscripted one hour series, Comic Book Men, dives deep into fanboy culture by following the antics in and around master fanboy Kevin Smith’s New Jersey comic shop, Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash.‘

Year: 2012

Starring: Kevin Smith, Walt Flanagan, Bryan Johnson, Ming Chen, Mike Zapcic

Network: AMC

Well, there we go.

There’s not a great deal left to say now that we’ve reached the end of AMC’s niche show Comic Book Men. Comics & collectibles were bought and sold; people talked about superheroes; geeks made fun of each other. If there had been a splash of pornography it would be like someone filming the internet. Continue reading →

Wing Commander Saga: The Darkest Dawn Released

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After nearly 10 years, the fan developed project Wing Commander Saga: The Darkest Dawn has been released to eager Wing Commander fans around the world. The Darkest Dawn is a fully standalone game that uses an enhanced version of the Freespace 2 engine to give players a chance to step back into the Confed universe with two campaigns, 55 missions, a full cast of voice actors, cut-scenes, varied ship and mission types and much, much more. Continue reading →

Film Review – John Carter

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‘Transplanted to Mars, a Civil War vet discovers a lush planet inhabited by 12-foot tall barbarians. Finding himself a prisoner of these creatures, he escapes, only to encounter a princess who is in desperate need of a savior.‘

John Carter

Given the ridiculous number of Tarzan adaptations to grace the big screen over the last century, it’s amazing that there hasn’t been a big screen adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ other epic series until now (apparently there was a direct to DVD movie in 2009). There have been many attempts over the years to bring this project to life by various studios, but the story always remained the same: ‘the technology isn’t advanced enough to do it justice.’ It’s curious that an animated version never made it off the ground, but now we have the next best thing, a CGI filled blockbuster directed by Pixar’s Andrew Stanton. Continue reading →

Game Review – Mass Effect 3

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‘Mass Effect 3 plunges you into an all-out galactic war to take Earth back from a nearly unstoppable foe – and how you fight that war is entirely up to you.‘

Mass Effect 3

Around 7 years ago I remember talking to a friend in the industry about the possibility of a Knights of the Old Republic 3 from Bioware; continuing the fantastic franchise and making up for the terrible ending of KotOR 2. ‘Not going to happen,’ he said. ‘They’re working on their own sci-fi IP instead.‘ We talked for a while about what a stupid idea this was. Why start something completely new when you have such a fantastic established universe to play with? In 2007, we learned why. Continue reading →

Film Review – Wing Commander

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‘In the mid-27th century, the Terran Confederation is at war with the felinoid Kilrathi Empire. After destroying a Terran base, the Kilrathi have seized a NAVCOM unit with the hyperspace jump coordinates to Earth. With Terran reinforcements scheduled to arrive two hours after the Kilrathi hit Earth, it falls upon the starfighter carrier TCS Tiger Claw to keep the Kilrathi busy.‘

Wing Commander

Year: 1999

Writer/Director: Chris Roberts

Writer: Kevin Dromey

Starring: Freddie Michelle Gellar…oh, sorry, Freddy Prinze Jr., Saffron Burrows, Matthew Lillard…were they serious?

When a sci-fi movie made in 1999 clearly intended for a broad youth market (given the casting of the two guys who would go into the dizzying heights of…the Scooby Doo movies) is measured against a PC game made in 1994 and comes off as wanting in the story, characters, costumes and visual effects department it’s time for Hollywood to think hard about their standards. Oh, wait… Continue reading →