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PACIFIC RIM: UPRISING - REVIEW

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Guillermo Del Toro's Pacific Rim was something of a breath of fresh air back in 2013. The increasingly tedious Transformers franchise was still going strong so finally seeing a genuinely fun and well made movie about giant robots fighting was hugely satisfying. For all its flaws, Pacific Rim was exactly what it sought out to be: a modern yet proudly cheesy version of Robot Jox crossed with a deadpan Japanese Kaiju movie. This was a thoroughly entertaining visual treat with some memorable city-set fight scenes and one delightfully over-the-top Idris Elba speech. Pacific Rim: Uprising takes place some years later as we meet Elba's character's son Jake Pentecost (John Boyega), a former Jaeger pilot turned thief who sells Jaeger parts on the black market. When he encounters Amara (Cailee Spaeny), a street-smart young orphan who has managed to make her own Jaeger, they are both caught by the Defense Corps and put to work as new recruits. As China's Shao Corporation g

LOST IN SPACE - VIDEO REVIEW

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The Lost In Space movie finally gets its own review.

TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY - REVIEW

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As Terminator 2: Judgment Day enjoys a 3D re-release in theatres this Summer, there's no better time to revisit James Cameron's blockbuster masterpiece. The film was originally released back in 1991 and it was a huge hit, surpassing the original Terminator commercially and critically. Arnold Schwarzenegger is back as the Austrian killing machine who terrified us all years prior except, this time, his mission is not to murder Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) but protect her son John Connor, played by a young Edward Furlong. The main threat being another Terminator, Robert Patrick's T-1000, a liquid metal shapeshifter who is even more unstoppable than the T-800. Terminator 2 keeps a lot of what we loved about the original film but presents a brand new character dynamic, big action set-pieces, more groundbreaking special effects and an altogether more epic experience. The Terminator was essentially a slick yet gritty robot slasher flick with a sci-fi edge, this sequel

AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D. (S.3 & 4) - VLOG REVIEW

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I finally talk about seasons 3 and 4 of Marvel's Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. .

THE STEPFORD WIVES - REVIEW

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A remake of the 1975 satirical sci-fi thriller, Frank Oz's The Stepford Wives was released in 2004 and it was a more light-hearted, comedic take on the story. Nicole Kidman is Joanna Eberhart, a reality TV producer we first meet as she announces the exploitative new shows she's currently working on. She soon gets fired, however, after one of the people whose life was ruined by one of her shows comes back and threatens her life in front of everybody. Looking for a fresh start following a nervous breakdown, she, her husband Walter (Matthew Broderick) and their kids move to a suburb in Connecticut. They are greeted by an overly friendly and smiley Glenn Close who introduces them to the Stepford community that seems to function not unlike 1950's suburbia with the husbands doing whatever they want and the wives catering to their husbands' needs with bright-coloured dresses and a big smile on their face. Joanna tries to fit in at first but, soon enough, she starts to no

WALL-E - REVIEW

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Following  Ratatouille , Pixar tackled the science-fiction genre with WALL-E , the story of a big-eyed little robot stuck all by himself in the middle of a post-apocalyptic Earth until he meets an unexpected visitor. This was Pixar's boldest concept since Toy Story as a good portion of the film is basically silent save for music and sound effects. The human characters don't show up until much later and when they do, they never steal the focus from WALL-E or his modern robot love interest EVE who is sent to Earth, we soon find out, to look for any source of vegetation. The world the film depicts is one overcome by garbage due to the environment having crumbled under the weight of industry and commercialism. Incidentally, the weakest aspect of WALL-E is probably its environmental message, which isn't exactly subtle, but it is admittedly done quite well in that it gives the characters something to fight for and presents a uniquely comfortable yet lazy and ultimately grim

WESTWORLD - REVIEW

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As the first season of the new Westworld series on HBO finally wraps up, it's time to look back at the film that started it all. Penned by Michael Crichton and released in 1973, the movie was a descent into hell as the world's most ingenious theme park slowly but surely meets its end. Guests pay a lot of money to visit Westworld, a recreation of the Old West with realistic-looking robots populating the town. You can interact with them however you please, you can even shoot them but they can't hurt you. There's also an equally convincing Roman World and Medieval World not too far away. We follow two guests, Peter and John, played by Richard Benjamin and James Brolin respectively, as they enter the park and try out some of its key features like duelling with enemies, drinking, fighting, breaking out of jail and, of course, visiting the brothel. When the scientists running the show discover some discrepancies with the robots, whose sensors have become temperamental,

LO AND BEHOLD: REVERIES OF THE CONNECTED WORLD - REVIEW

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Director Werner Herzog takes a general yet focused look at the pros and cons of the internet in new documentary Lo And Behold: Reveries Of The Connected World . Told through a series of chapters, Lo And Behold is exactly what you'd expect from a Werner Herzog documentary as the soothing-voiced filmmaker learns about the internet's origins before exploring the impressive technological and scientific advances made possible by being connected to a worldwide network but also the people negatively affected by this seemingly boundless medium. Not one to really impose his own opinions on the audience, Herzog makes sure to show different sides of the equation and leaves the professionals to do the talking when it comes to the more technical stuff. We see how education can reach a greater number of people nowadays but we also see how insensitive anonymous people online can be, we touch upon robotics and space travel but we also meet young gamers dealing with addiction whose lives o

HEARTBEEPS - VIDEO REVIEW

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Here's the video version of my review of Heartbeeps .

HEARTBEEPS - REVIEW

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There's something kinda perfect about the fact that Andy Kaufman's only proper movie remains Heartbeeps , an off-beat romantic comedy about two robots who fall in love and leave their factory to go on a life-changing adventure. Much like with most of Kaufman's comedy, critics and audiences back in the day just didn't get this movie and it was quickly dismissed as a bomb and a failure. Watching the film now, it's obvious why Heartbeeps didn't exactly wow the public: initially aimed at a young audience, the humour is at times much too weird or adult-themed and both Kaufman and Bernadette Peters look positively freakish. There's a cute baby robot thrown in there but, otherwise, this is one that only fans of the lead's unique sense of humour could possibly enjoy. Anyone else should find themselves scratching their heads, wondering why this movie even exists. Not that Heartbeeps isn't funny, quite the opposite, it's just that the jokes are so biz

ULTRAMAN SAGA - REVIEW

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Released in 2012, Ultraman Saga was a Japanese superhero movie set in a post-apocalyptic world where cities are being invaded by Godzilla-style monsters as a team of big robot-controlling tough gals and the last remaining giant heroes try to defend what's left. Mixing CGI, colourful anime visuals and dudes in monster/Ultraman costumes, this is a modern precursor to Pacific Rim with a proudly retro look and feel. It is a sequel to Ultraman Zero: The Revenge Of Belial , released two years prior, and stars familiar faces from the series as well as members of the J-pop group AKB48 because pop stars make excellent actors, as we all know. The good thing about this one is you don't need to know anything that happened before because, fear not, the film is packed with flashbacks and exposition so it's all pretty self-explanatory. Hell, even without the subtitles I'm sure any non-Japanese speaker would easily figure out the plot: monsters bad, everyone else good. The afo

TERMINATOR GENISYS - REVIEW

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After Jurassic Park gave us the World last month,  The Terminator gave us Genisys, an oddly spelled sequel/prequel/reboot starring the franchise's very own Jason Voorhees, the unstoppable Arnold Schwarzenegger. The result was one messy Terminator film to say the least. The core premise of the film being to pull a Star Trek and deliver an alternate timeline thereby somehow creating a fresh and new storyline. This time, we go back to 1984 where the original Terminator film takes place only to find that a T-800 had already been around for 10 years training Sarah Connor to be a badass. Oh, also a T-1000 who doesn't look like Robert Patrick shows up. Everything is given a reason to be but it's all rather far-fetched, even for a series of films about time-travelling Austrian robots. Weirdly, the fact that Terminators can age ends up being the least distracting plot point. In what is easily one of the least respectful franchise moves I've seen, new Arnie literally an

GRENDIZER: FRENCH INTROS

Growing up in France, where I discovered anime, I was introduced to Grendizer under the name Goldorak and it was all kinds of badass. The show boasted not one, not two but FOUR different intros. The first one, sung by Enrique, was a direct adaptation of the original Japanese intro and, apparently, it ended up being censored because the word "race" was used in the lyrics even if it was referring to big-ass robots: The second intro, by Noam, was much more light-hearted and kid-friendly. Also much more boring: The third intro was another version of Enrique's first intro, this time sung by The Goldies and improved slightly: French anime theme go-to guy back in the day, Bernard Minet, then gave us this intro which, weirdly, ended up being my favourite of the bunch: Hope you enjoyed this little trip down memory lane, here's the original Grendizer theme which is, of course, just as epic as it always was:

CASSHERN - REVIEW

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Based on the 70's anime series, Casshern was a 2004 live-action film which looked very promising yet it left me feeling somewhat conflicted leaving the cinema after watching it: parts of it pissed me right off but other parts were all kinds of awesome. So how does Casshern fare now, after a re-watch? Much better, actually. The flaws I'd picked up on the first time watching it are still there and they are still distracting but the stuff that works in the film does very much outweigh them. If you're not familiar with the film's plot, it involves a Dr Frankenstein-style scientist (Akira Terao) who finds a way to regenerate dead tissue through what he calls Neo-Cells. During a war, a lightning bolt mysteriously hits his lab and, as a result, a new race of people is born. At the same time, his son Tetsuya (Yusuke Iseya) is killed in the war and he brings him back as some kind of superhero who ends up calling himself Casshern. The new "monsters", Neo-Sap

HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH - REVIEW

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Not exactly the most popular Halloween sequel upon its release, Halloween III: Season Of The Witch pissed people off for several reasons: 1/ No Michael Myers, 2/ It was the start of an anthology series of films not involving anything from the first two Halloween movies, and 3/ No witch. In retrospect, this whole anthology idea was really not a bad one. Also, as a Twilight Zone -esque piece of random horror weirdness, Season Of The Witch worked very well and managed to not only be effective with its overall slow-building mystery but with its gory/creepy moments. Plus it was completely out of its mind, which is always good with that kind of movie. It's a shame the film didn't steer the series towards that direction seeing as all the other Halloween sequels were either underwhelming or just plain dire but it's easy to see why, at the time, it didn't take off. For one thing, we go from a relatively straight-forward slasher story to something pretty surreal and out-the

PACIFIC RIM - REVIEW

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You'd think something as simple as big robots and big monsters would be super easy to get right in a movie, but with the likes of the Transformers trilogy and 1998's Godzilla in its back catalogue, that kind of flick badly needed a makeover. Good thing Guillermo Del Toro knows roughly what he's doing! Yes, Pacific Rim is the Hellboy director's take on monster movies and big robot movies: the result? A decidedly fun, brainless mesh of anime-style melodrama, epic nonsense, cartoonish lols and  Robot Jox -type live-action 80's goofiness. It's very retro, very silly but very cool. It's one of those movies you can't take too seriously and demands that you sit down, suspend your disbelief quite a bit and enjoy yourself. Nitpicking Pacific Rim would really be missing the point. Now the reason that some pan the Transformers movies, me included, is that their flaws really are completely distracting and do affect the style the films themselves are going

PACIFIC RIM - VLOG 18/07/13

ATLANTIC RIM - REVIEW

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And you thought Pacific Rim was a crappy title... Yes, Atlantic Rim is the infamous B-movie-making machine that is The Asylum's own take on the new Robot Jox -style blockbuster. Taking the rough idea of big robots (with people in 'em) versus big reptilian monsters, we are once again given a healthy dose of godawful performances and cheap CGI. The one kinda known actor in this one is Graham Greene, who was most recently seen in The Twilight Saga . He plays an admiral in a movie which, sadly, isn't much of a step up from the teen vampire franchise. After an oil rig gets sunk by something no-one can explain, a group of pilots are sent down underwater inside giant robots to find the wreckage and stop whatever is causing such chaos. Why the army had Transformers in the first place and why they couldn't have just sent cameras down to the ocean floor instead of risking lives and billions of dollars is still beyond me. In any event, we focus on a pilot trio who are all

BEST OF CLASS OF 1999

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TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON - REVIEW

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It's hard to describe my anticipation for Michael Bay's new attempt at a Transformers live action film. On the one hand, seeing a good Transformers film would blow me away so there's always THAT hope, on the other hand... Transformers 2 ... The prospect of sitting through another 2 and a half hours of moronic, nonsensical, offensive cheese with robots thrown in was a painful one but I just had to know if Bay could sink any lower than Transformers 2 or, god forbid, make something half decent! But Mr Pearl Harbor did not disappoint with a follow-up every bit as childish, stupid and tasteless as its predecessor but minus the fun and 10 more minutes thrown in. Now that said, I should point out that this effort is probably better than the last one if only for some impressive effects, no Megan Fox and no racist robots. Yes the pain is diminished slightly but new pain is introduced through countless stereotypes, macho homophobic humour, rampant sexism, music video-style