When I was 12 years old, getting up at 8 am to go to school, the only thing worth watching on TV at the time was a show on CBBC called Scoop. It followed Shaun Williamson with his puppet sidekick Hacker T Dog as journalists trying to get a story. It was God awful but there was nothing else on so I continued to watch. Over time, like a drug I’d have to take every day, I started to like it.
I have fond memories of Scoop, hence I was rather heartbroken when I learnt that Netflix’s latest feature was not a big-screen adaptation of my favourite childhood show but a docudrama about a paedophile.
Scoop, the film, is at its best when it shows the orchestration of the Prince Andrew Newsnight interview, the state of the BBC at the time, the interview itself and its aftermath. The insights into Sam McAlister’s personal life and Andrew’s relationship with his secretary Amanda Thirsk are unneeded. If those scenes were cut however, Scoop’s runtime would be quartered, which brings up the question of whether this story should’ve been told.
Based on inside accounts, Scoop dramatizes the efforts of news editor Sam McAlister (Billie Piper) to secure a televised interview with the Duke of York Prince Andrew (Rufus Sewell). McAlister convinces Emily Maitlis (Gillian Anderson) to conduct the interview, presenting several damning allegations concerning Andrew’s friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. When everything is finalised and the Duke and Emily finally sit before the cameras, they make British history.
Despite how well written, acted and made Scoop is I don’t want to break it down and assess its key components. Most people aren’t informed enough to assess the historical accuracy of Oppenheimerbut almost everyone’s seen that Newsnight interview. The historical inaccuracies in Scoop will be recognised by many because it happened less than half a decade ago.
The big issue with Scoop, for me anyway, is that it tells the story as we know it today, which for all we know is still going. The film ends with a sense of closure and victory, which is a bad choice because we know the affair ended with anything but.
[Credit: Netflix]
The interview destroyed any plausible deniability Andrew had as well as his public image and made him the elephant in the room that is the royal family. Beyond that, Andrew didn’t face any direct consequences for doing what we all know he did. The stories told by his victims were invalidated by the case of Virginia Giuffre, the most vocal of Andrew’s alleged victims, as it was settled out of court.
That’s the story so far. No one can say where it’ll go from there but if it progresses, Scoop will be at risk of becoming outdated.
All its scenes showing Andrew by himself, behind closed doors, as great as they are, can be totally negated by new information. Siimilar to The Secret Life: Jeffrey Dahmer, a biopic released only a year before the Milwaukee cannibal was killed in prison.
My point is I think this story was told far too soon. Scoop may have the look and layout of a comprehensive biopic but it has the integrity of a tabloid TV Movie.
This should’ve been the first act of a 4-hour film chronicling Andrew’s life or the first episode of a multi-season show.
I can’t fault it as a piece of filmmaking; Gillian Anderson and Rufus Sewell knock it out of the park with their performances, the build-up to the interview is great and the interview itself plays like a scene in a war room.
In terms of technical competence, I must give it 9 out of 10 but as a narrative, I give it 5. It just doesn’t need to exist.
A month from now, if I hear about Scoop again, this is what I’ll think of…
Spaceman is partly deserving of its bad press. For a good amount of its runtime, it can be described as generic, boring and pretentious. It is another entry in the recent and bizarre subgenre of sci-fi that I like to call ‘mopey astronauts.’ Like Gravity, Interstellar, The Cloverfield Paradox and Stowaway before it, Spaceman is about a mopey astronaut. However, its execution of what has become a common and cliched premise is distinct and effective in some areas.
Czech astronaut Jakub Procházka (Adam Sandler) is investigating a mysterious cloud of dust above Jupiter. He is alone in space, the transmissions he gets from his superiors being his only social interaction. That is until a spider-like alien (voiced by Paul Dano) appears in his ship and connects with him telepathically. Jakub names the creature Hanuš and as its cerebral bond with him strengthens, the astronaut relives his memories and is forced to reevaluate the decisions he’s made in his life. Particularly those that concern his pregnant wife, Lenka (Carey Mulligan).
The Characters
In almost all of the mopey astronaut films I’ve seen, the mopey astronaut will be in space because they’re trying to flee some trauma or failing relationship and it’s only until they’re cut off or faced with death that they realise the value of their life and try to get back to it.
In this respect, I found Spaceman to be very refreshing because its mopey astronaut isn’t fleeing from anything. Jakub doesn’t see a problem with working in space and maintaining his relationship with Lenka on Earth. He has a passion for space exploration. He can call Lenka or any of his superiors whenever he likes on his ‘light phone.’ Despite being above Jupiter, Jakub can get plenty of social interaction, as long as someone picks up when he calls.
Jakub becomes worried when Lenka stops picking up. It’s only when he encounters Hanuš that he has to consider the potential reasons why Lenka would cut him off.
No asteroids. No solar winds or power outages, just a man considering the consequences of his decisions.
Jakub’s telepathic therapy sessions with Hanuš are the heart of Spaceman. For anyone who doesn’t have a serious arachnophobia, Hanuš is hard not to like. While he approaches Jakub with the intention of scientific study, Hanuš has a genuine desire to cure Jakub of his loneliness. The telepathic creature speaks to the mopey astronaut with a non-judgemental curiosity, which is expressed beautifully by Paul Dano’s soothing vocal performance.
Jakub’s introspective journey has a brilliant beginning and a brilliant middle but a terrible end. With Hanuš’s help, the astronaut achieves a sense of closure regarding his life choices and relationships. The problem is that he does this so quickly and suddenly it creates a sort of deus ex machina ending, which in a story about relationships can almost never work.
If Spaceman deserves to be panned for anything it’s the ending. It almost ruins the whole film.
The Worldbuilding
Despite its generic premise, and title, Spaceman makes a clear effort to be visually distinct.
The production design takes a lot of inspiration from Soviet sci-fi, Spaceman looks more like the original Solaris than 2001: A Space Odyssey. The interior of Jakub’s ship is covered with handles, wires and switches. It’s industrial aesthetic is nothing like the clean NASA-inspired vessels of Gravity or Stowaway.
The Soviet influence doesn’t stop at Jacub’s ship. On Earth, at the Eurospace Program, the offices and control rooms are straight out of HBO’s Chernobyl. Similar to the ship, the technology Jakub’s superiors use to communicate with him looks like the 70s’ idea of future technology.
Spaceman is undeniably a retrofuturism film and I believe it is a somewhat welcome addition to the sub-genre. If I had to rank it among the other mopey astronaut films, I’d put Spaceman in the number 2 spot with Interstellar at number 1.
It’s not for everyone as its critical response can attest but putting its general premise and rushed climax aside, Spaceman talks about mental health and relationships in a way that is touching and poignant as well as tasteful. I gladly recommend it, especially to those who have been put off bu its reviews. Trust me, there is more to it.
My expectations going into Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget were quite like the ones I had going into Avatar: The Way of Water, which is telling considering how much the two films have in common. Both are sequels to films that were self-contained with no loose ends and both were released over a decade after their predecessor.
Right off the bat, Dawn of the Nugget is a lot easier to watch than The Way of Water, it is two times shorter after all. Dawn of the Nugget is a little more inventive in creating a new story for its pre-established characters however, like The Way of Water, it borrows a lot of beats from its precursor. On a side note, fans of the original may struggle to invest in the characters who have been recast. I definitely did.
Rocky (Zachary Levi) and Ginger (Thandiwe Newton) are enjoying their ‘happy ending’ having escaped Mrs Tweedy’s farm and living with their fellow chickens in a harmonious bird sanctuary. They have a daughter, Molly (Bella Ramsay), who, now a teenager, is curious about what lies beyond the sanctuary. Rebelling against her parents, she flees the island and enters the world of humans, where she is suddenly captured and imprisoned in a massive, industrialised poultry farm. Ginger, Rocky and the other chickens band together and try to rescue Molly.
The Characters
Dawn of the Nugget picks up from where Chicken Run ends in a predictable fashion; we see a delightful montage of Ginger, Rocky and the other chickens enjoying their new life and freedom. During this, we witness the birth of Molly and her growth to adolescence. Immediately we see her adventurous nature emerge and her parents’ struggle to contain it.
Like in The Way of Water, human activity is noticed by our protagonists but unlike The Way of Water, the humans aren’t the only inciting incident. Molly’s boredom and dissatisfaction with the sanctuary her parents worked so hard to build puts her on a rebellious path. She begins to question the history of the sanctuary and why her parents forbid her from exploring the outside world.
This is the perfect way to continue the story of Chicken Run. The only way to resume a story that ends with the characters achieving harmony in the form of a promised land or a home is by introducing a new or younger perspective that disagrees with that harmony and wants something more. Dawn of the Nugget perfects this with Molly. A breach opens between her and Ginger as soon as she humours the notion of leaving the island. You understand both of their positions; Molly was fortunate enough to be born free hence she can’t appreciate the sanctuary like Ginger, who was born a slave.
[Credit: Netflix]
Making Dawn of the Nugget a heist film is a genius idea, it’s the perfect inverse of the first film’s prison break plot. However, Dawn of the Nugget doesn’t play like a typical heist film. Molly’s escape from the island occurs quite early, as does Ginger’s plan to free her. You’d assume that Ginger and the gang’s effort to rescue Molly would be the climax but it’s not, Ginger and her team break into the farm not long after Molly’s been put there.
The bulk of the film is essentially a goose chase (no pun intended) where all the characters are constantly trying to find each other in the labyrinth that is the poultry farm, resulting in a climax that copies a lot from the first one.
If you’ve seen the trailers, this isn’t really a spoiler but seeing Mrs Tweedy, voiced again by the great Miranda Richardson, is an absolute joy. The moment when she and Ginger first see each other is easily one of the best in the film, a big treat for anyone who grew up with Chicken Run. As much as I enjoyed watching her, by the end I couldn’t help but think that her inclusion wasn’t really necessary. The confrontations she has with Ginger and Rocky are pretty brief and not as epic or tense as the film likes to think they are. A new antagonist should’ve been created for this story but then we wouldn’t have gotten to see Mrs Tweedy, who, while sort of wasted here, is still fun to watch.
The Voices
I only consider the technical aspects of a film when it either seriously hinders or seriously strengthens the viewing experience. For example, I could’ve just talked about the awful writing to deter people from watching Jeepers Creepers: Reborn but that would be ignoring the abominable CGI and green screen effects, which make the film even more difficult to watch than the writing.
For some people, the fact that the characters in Dawn of the Nugget look exactly like they did back in 2000 will be enough for them. I can’t say I’m one of them and I believe my reasons are good.
With a little rewrite, Dawn of the Nugget could’ve easily been a soft reboot. Like The Force Awakens, someone could’ve watched it having not watched the first Chicken Run and have no problem understanding what’s going on, but Dawn of the Nugget is not The Force Awakens. It’s The Empire Strikes Back and no one can follow The Empire Strikes Back without watching A New Hope.
Snippets from the first film are scattered throughout. Few characters get introductions, you’re expected to know them already. If you haven’t seen Chicken Run, nothing’s stopping you from watching Dawn of the Nugget first but you will miss a lot.
Some members of the cast in the original Chicken Run are either dead, too old (according to Aardman) or Mel Gibson. Regardless of why, recasting some of the characters is not a bad move in and of itself but if it hinders the film, especially its continuity with the first one, then I think it’s a decision worth challenging.
Thandiwe Newton is a fine actress but she is seriously miscast as Ginger I believe. I’m not saying that bringing back Julia Sawalha would’ve automatically been the best choice but if the intention is to be a direct sequel to Chicken Run then surely a voice that resembles Sawalha’s in the first film should’ve been the goal. Newton couldn’t sound any less like Ginger. Her voice has a depth that can’t help but counter the height and softness of Sawalha’s Ginger. I could only accept her as a mere alternative take on Ginger, at no point during Dawn of the Nugget did I believe I was watching the same character I had last seen at the end of Chicken Run.
There are split-seconds where Zachery Levi’s voice resembles Gibson’s in the first film, which is more than I can say for Newton, but alas for most of Dawn of the Nugget, I could not convince myself that I was in the presence of the Lone Free Ranger.
The only recast voices that sound anything like their originators are David Bradley as Fowler and Romesh Ranganathan as Nick. They sound like they’ve made an actual effort to sound like the characters, instead of offering their own interpretations, which I’d think would be the bare minimum.
As I said before, the fact that the puppets are identical to those in the first film will be enough to convince some that they’re watching the same characters. I can’t say that I’m in that crowd. On the plus side however, the chemistry between Molly and her parents is charming, most of the jokes land and Mrs Tweedy is always fun. It may be cashing in on Zoomer nostalgia but the film’s creativity in its attempt to follow on from the first one seems genuine and worthy of appreciation.
I recommend it to everyone as I’m quite curious about how people feel about the recast voices. I may be alone in my opinion or one of many, I’m eager to see.
I give Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget a crispy 8 out of 10.
When it comes to reviewing TV series, I don’t cover single episodes. I don’t cover entire shows. On the few occasions I have reviewed TV, I’ve found it preferable to review a single season. In this era of overarching storylines, reviewing a season isn’t that different from reviewing a film.
However, if I review the first season of a show then you can be sure that it’s good because if it was bad, I wouldn’t have made it to the last episode but that’s not to say I won’t have any criticisms. Of the few first seasons I’ve reviewed on this blog, Skull Island is definitely one of the worst. By the time you reach the cliffhanger ending, you’ll be curious enough to want a season two but to get there you have to sit through a lot of dull moments and poor animation.
This anime series from Netflix takes place within Legendary’s MonsterVerse, specifically between Kong: Skull Islandand Godzilla Vs Kong. It centres on a crew of explorers who get shipwrecked on the coast of Skull Island. They encounter a group of mercenaries who immediately pursue them. The show chronicles the group’s struggle to evade not only the mercenaries but the swarms of abominable wildlife inhabiting the island.
The Characters
Our crew of explorers consist of two men and their teenage sons; one wants to follow their father’s footsteps and chase monsters, the other just wants to go to college and have a normal life. They rescue a woman adrift in the ocean. When she regains consciousness, she calls herself Annie and claims that she’s fleeing from mercenaries. At that moment the ship is attacked by an unseen creature. When the ship is destroyed, Annie, the men and their sons are swept up onto Skull Island.
The fathers want to find their sons and the sons want to find their fathers. All together they just want to get off the island. That’s the arc of four of our principle characters in a nutshell. They’re not totally boring, just mere vehicles for the monster-laden survival plot.
[Credit: Netflix & Legendary Pictures]
Annie is a lot more engaging. When we meet her we know nothing about her so we’re immediately curious. What’s better is that we don’t stop learning about her at the end of the first episode. Her backstory is shown in a series of flashbacks, which are cleverly scattered throughout the 8 episodes. She has a deep connection to the island and the mercenaries, she is the most active character as everything she does has a genuine consequence, some of them very personal. She’s probably the best thing the series has going for it.
If you’re expecting to see a lot of Kong then you will be disappointed. In the first half of the series, it’s clear that he’s the ruler of the island but not a concern for the mercenaries. Our characters only have a handful of encounters with him, initially he’s no more important than the other monsters.
In the last couple of episodes however, Kong takes centre stage and it’s great. The seventh episode is focused on Kong entirely, showing us what he was like between the events of Kong: Skull Island and Godzilla Vs Kong. He has some of the strength and tactics he displays in Godzilla Vs Kong but he also has the gentleness he expressed in 2017’s Skull Island. The last two episodes absolutely make the series worth watching.
The Animation
Despite Skull Island being the first anime I’ve ever reviewed on this blog, I should explain that while I wouldn’t call myself a fan, I believe I’m familiar enough with the anime medium to give an informed opinion.
[Credit: Netflix & Legendary Pictures]
Like any kid born in the late 90s’, I lived through many Anime-fueled fads whether it was Pokémon, Digimon, Beyblade or Yu-Gi-Oh. I wasn’t in love with those franchises but I got the gist of them. In my late teens I watched more anime features, varying from prestigious family films like Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle to more mature films like Akira and Barefoot Gen.
I’d seen enough to recognise what anime looked like on the big screen and what anime looked like on the small screen. Skull Island is blatantly television standard anime and for that, it looks ok. For the most part.
The animation is noticeably unconvincing whenever it’s mixed with 3D animation. This typically occurs when a character is sprinting through an environment. The environment will essentially be a three-dimensional map, which makes the 2D animated character look ever more crooked and lifeless.
Another weakness lies more in the design of the animation rather than in the animation itself. On a few occasions, Kong’s scale changes drastically, even more so than it did in 1933. In some scenes he’s around the size he is in his 2017 MonsterVerse debut but in others he’s as big as he is in Godzilla Vs Kong. I’m pretty sure this isn’t a homage to his fluctuating size in the original film and merely a lack of consistency.
Not the best debut the MonsterVerse could have in TV but for me it gets enough right to stay tuned for another season. Hopefully a few lessons have been learned in this season that can be applied to future ones.
I give Season One of Skull Island a chest-beating 7 out of 10.
Troll is like a lot of monster movies and knows it. If you love Kaiju films or anything with giant monsters, you’ll be treated to an abundance of easter eggs and references. However, the film isn’t just a greatest hits montage of monster cinema. The plot and characters are derivative but its Scandinavian setting and citations to Troll mythology makes the film a standout in the current Kaiju renaissance.
An ancient troll awakens from a mountain and leaves a trail of destruction as it rampages through Norway. The Norwegian government assemble a team of specialists to formulate a plan to stop the creature before it reaches more populated areas.
The Characters
Troll’s cast consists of archetypes you may be familiar with if you’ve seen enough Hollywood actioners. We’ve got our intelligent scientist protagonist in the form of paleontologist Nora, our mentor in the form of her father Tobias, a troll expert, and the comic relief in Prime Minister’s advisor Andreas.
Nora and Tobias are very much like Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Bryan Cranston in 2014’s Godzilla. Both lost a mother and a wife and have become distant from each other since the loss. You’re familiar with these types of characters and can probably predict their fates but that doesn’t make them boring to watch. Tobias is constantly mocked and looked down upon for his belief in Trolls, which is painful for Nora and us to watch.
Nora also reminded me of Matthew Broderick’s character in 98’s Godzilla as she’s a specialist who’s whisked away suddenly onto a big government operation.
[Credit: Netflix]
Andreas is with us throughout. He’s Brian Tyree Henry in Godzilla Vs Kong or Chris O’Dowd in The Cloverfield Paradox. A character that could’ve easily been annoying but fortunately isn’t, he’s a comic relief who provides some genuine comic relief.
If the characters were all American and the story took place in San Francisco or New York I would not be speaking so favourably of the cast. The change of language and region is such a minor change yet the results are so significant. Hearing the Norwegian tongue as a Norwegian monster storms through a Norwegian valley and eventually a Norwegian city is a much more memorable experience than that you’d get from a Hollywood monster flick.
The References
All the nods Troll gives to kaiju and monster cinema are visual, there are shots and images that’ll jump out to any giant monster enthusiast. Of the films Troll pays homage to, Kong: Skull Island, Jurassic Park, Troll Hunter and I’d say 98’s Godzilla get the most tributes.
The Troll itself is reminiscent of many Hollywood giants, especially King Kong. He’s a force of nature that causes as much damage as a Godzilla or a T-Rex but he’s also sentient and like Kong is the last of his kind, making him quite sympathetic.
There’s sequel bait at the end (surprise surprise) and seeing this film’s rendition of the Troll legend, I’m all for seeing where they take this mythology. Bring on the sequels.
It may have the components of your average American Kaiju film but its Norwegianness makes it feel totally new. Troll’s another pleasant surprise of 2022, I highly recommend it.
When it comes to subjects for documentaries, you can always count on Netflix to choose something that’ll catch your eye and The Most Hated Man On The Internet is no exception. It is a tense saga with numerous twists and escalations that’ll keep you watching for the entirety of its three episode run. However it would be nice if it didn’t look like all the other true crime series Netflix have cranked out the past decade.
The Most Hated Man On The Internet concerns an individual known as Hunter Moore, who became known as the King of Revenge Porn when he founded Is Anyone Up, a website that displayed explicit photos stolen from private email accounts. For years Moore enjoyed a life of fame and fortune until one day, a mother whose daughter had her private photos posted on the site, fought back.
The Angle
The series explores an era not that long ago where people could literally post whatever they wanted online and face little to no consequences for it. The series rightfully presents Hunter Moore as the embodiment of this freedom.
The first episode does a good job of establishing the influence Hunter Moore had online in the early 2010s, the “wild west days of the internet” as one interviewee calls it. In countless screenshots of posts and messages, we see how Is Anyone Up was used and enjoyed by many. We then see in the testimonies of the victims, and their families, the emotional effects of the site.
By the second episode, we see that Moore’s actions are getting challenged more frequently in public but his supporters aren’t backing down. This episode reminds us of the cultural practices of “slut shaming” and “victim blaming” as the women campaigning against Is Anyone Up are told again and again “why did you post it online then?”
Charlotte Laws, mother of Kayla, a victim of Moore’s porn site [Credit: Netflix]
The end of the third episode is cathartic. If you already know of the saga of Is Anyone Up then you know what I’m describing. Telling this story in three episodes was a wise choice as it’s essentially a classic David and Goliath story. Like the original Star Wars trilogy; part one establishes the cast and the unstoppable tyrant they face, part two sees our cast achieve significant but costly victories against the tyrant and part three shows our cast completely and utterly destroy the tyrant.
The series is very well told from a storytelling perspective, from a visual perspective however there are some issues.
The Style
The only thing that sets the show a part from other Netflix docuseries, visually speaking, is its opening titles. For a series about such a morbid topic, the opening titles are quite colourful and have a lot of personality.
Apart from that, it has the same visual style as Tiger King, Don’t F**k With Cats, Night Stalker, Unabomber: In His Own Words and a bunch of other docuseries put out by the streaming service. They’ve all got their own directors but if you watch enough of them you start to think they’re all made by the same person.
The gritty-looking opening titles, the shadowy out-of-focus reconstructions, the two angle interviews; these techniques have been used so often in these shows they’re almost cliches at this point. This is a pity because all these series have good stories to tell. If Netflix abandoned these techniques completely for their next series, it would create a much more memorable viewing experience.
If you don’t care for how a show is shot or edited like I do then you’ll have no problem with The Most Hated Man On The Internet. Despite my annoyance with its visual storytelling, I laud the series’ structural storytelling. Like in any good piece of fiction you’re invested in the main characters, you feel their hatred for the antagonist and you celebrate their victories. It’s a good watch.
I give The Most Hated Man On The Internet a strong 8 out of 10.
Girl In The Picture feels like a great thriller penned by the likes of James Patterson or Andrew Kevin Walker. If you watch this documentary unaware of its subject matter then you have no idea what you’re in for. There’s a reason people are shocked and repulsed by Girl In The Picture, the story it tells is incredible. However, you then remember that Girl In The Picture is a documentary, the characters you meet are real people and the twists and turns they experienced are actual events they had to live with, which raises a few questions regarding the ethics of these ever so popular true crime documentaries.
This Netflix documentary introduces us to a mysterious case concerning a young woman’s death. The cause is unclear but as police investigate, they discover a bizarre and disturbing saga that spans decades.
The Angle
There’s nothing special about Girl In The Picture’s documentary style. Like other Netflix docuseries the film simply begins where the investigation does and tracks its progress, introducing us to the people involved on the way.
Seeing this story told as a feature film rather than a series is very refreshing. It allows for an absolutely perfect pace, there’s never any lulls or pauses, every minute there’s something to learn. If Girl In The Picture was stretched out to even a miniseries, the pace would be nowhere near as electric.
The fast pace and tense tone match the thriller-like nature of the story but once again we must remember that this story concerns real events with real people. So was this the best way to tell their story? And should it have been told at all?
Problematic?
Of all the critics and journalists who’ve reviewed Girl In The Picture, I found Jessie Thompson’s in The Independent the most enlightening. She suggests that this film and docuseries like it has turned us into voyeurs and despite how ethically the film appears to have been made (having the consent of the individuals and families involved), its overall purpose is simply to keep us watching.
I understand Thompson’s suspicions of the filmmakers’ intentions. As an amazing watch as it is, I had to remind myself that this was based on someone’s real tragedy. Presenting that tragedy like a crime thriller in the same vein as Se7en or Zodiac may be in bad taste.
Perhaps the film should have been a series, at least then there would be time to flesh out the characters and present them more like the real people they are. It may not have been as entertaining but it may have been more moral.
Girl In The Picture could be a turning point in the true crime phenomenon. If you think this film may go against any of your values having read my description of it then I can only urge you to avoid it. If you believe you can tolerate the film’s style as well as its gruesome content then I would recommend it. There’s no denying its addictive pace and its potential ramifications on the true crime genre.
I give Girl In The Picture a provocative 7 out of 10.
Stowaway is honestly one of the best space-set thrillers I’ve ever seen. I should state that the film doesn’t have much competition as only Gravity, Sunshine and Interstellar stand against it in my metaphorical arena. That’s not to say that Stowaway’s script and presentation doesn’t make it stand out in the hard science fiction subgenre.
A colonization mission to Mars is jeopardized when the crew discover that their ship, which can only support three passengers, is carrying a fourth member.
The Characters
A film like Stowaway is incredibly difficult to do well in this day and age. We’ve been exposed to so many films of its like. If it is to impress us, it has to depict space and space travel in a way that is believable, understandable and new.
Stowaway succeeds at this, introducing us to characters that are totally convincing as qualified astronauts and empathetic as people. There’s Marina the commander (Toni Collette), Zoe the medical researcher (Anna Kendrick), David the biologist (Daniel Dae Kim) and of course the stowaway, Michael (Shamier Anderson). Of the four, Zoe and Michael are the most relatable. They are both excited and terrified of the historic positions they’re in. While the film does a good job of explaining how the ship works before he appears, Michael does initially become our surrogate as he isn’t 100% acquainted with the vessel’s mechanics. We the audience learn with him as the crew educate him in the workings of the ship, which will all be important later on.
Marina and David may not be as relatable but you never feel that they’re any less human than Zoe and Michael, especially when the story takes flight. Toni Collette portrays Marina as a leader who is polite and easy going but clearly anxious as someone with such a responsibility would be. David’s a bit like Spock in that he’s pretty calm and objective most of the time but occasionally shows little human quirks such as a taste in jazz music.
The plot is tense. Unbearably tense. I legitimately didn’t know how Stowaway was going to end, I could see it going so many ways. A long time is spent dwelling on the hopelessness of the crew’s situation, how they come to terms with the fact that all four of them won’t reach Mars. The script takes full advantage of the ethical questions the situation raises, forcing the characters to have difficult conversations. The situation however is not the plot’s only source of obstacles.
The Execution
If you’ve seen the trailers then you know at some point the crew exit the ship in space suits, why they do so I won’t spoil. From the few space-set, hard science fiction films I’ve seen, Stowaway has to be the best at depicting space and space travel. For starters, the only real science fiction element in the story is the fact that the ship has artificial gravity, apart from that it resembles most contemporary space crafts you can see online. It’s small, cramped, consisting of only a few rooms.
I think when we first learn about space our initial reaction is that of relief for our earthbound condition. Most people know how terrifying the concept of space is; the concept of an environment that can kill instantly if exposed to unprotected, the concept of an environment where you can be cast away, left to drift into an endless abyss where no one can reach you.
Stowaway realizes this concept perfectly. With numerous wide shots of their tiny vessel swaying forth, you’re constantly reminded of the dark ocean our characters are venturing through. You feel the inescapabilty of their situation. Things only get worse when our characters leave the ship. These sequences are where the film really shines. ‘Tense’ doesn’t do them justice. Your eyes scan every movement the characters make as you know it’ll only take them a single blunder to send them floating away.
In addition to what I believe to be the best and most accurate representation of space in recent memory, Stowaway has a smart and considerate script, presenting characters and a plot that we can both understand and accept in a realistic space travel context. It’s a solid sci-fi thriller that I’d recommend to everyone, sci-fi fans and non-fans alike.
If it’s well written and has a point, I can enjoy a comedy, even if it doesn’t make me laugh. Do I hate Thunder Force because I only laughed twice through the entirety of it’s one hour and forty-seven-minute runtime? No. I hate it because it has a decent premise, a decent foundation for drama but makes comedy such a priority that the premise and drama are cast aside. The result is pretty dull.
Childhood friends Lydia (Melissa McCarthy) and Emily (Octavia Spencer) reunite in adulthood to become a superhero duo thanks to a biochemical formula invented by Emily.
The Characters
From the very beginning Thunder Force clearly wants you to care for its two leads and the drama that separates them in their teen years. We learn that Emily wants to turn herself into a superhero so she can avenge her parents, who were killed by a breed of superpowered vigilantes known as the miscreants. Lydia on the other hand just wants to be by Emily’s side and have fun. These opening scenes aren’t bad, they actually get you invested.
So what happened?
We reach modern day and witness Lydia and Emily reuniting. Initially their interactions are a bit awkward but when their superhero training commences, their sisterly chemistry reinvigorates. Beyond that, their relationship doesn’t really endure any turbulence. They have arguments but nothing a short dramatic speech and some ad lib can’t resolve. Most of the time they’re just mouthpieces for witty banter. Any interest or empathy you had for them in the beginning will have totally evaporated by the half-way mark. You know they’re going to be fine. You know they’re going to learn something profound about being a hero but at that point you won’t care.
If you’re a fan of Melissa McCarthy and her style of comedy then that won’t be a problem, although you will realise that comedy is all that Thunder Force has to offer and to someone who isn’t a fan of Melissa McCarthy’s humour, that is a big problem. I honestly don’t mind that I only laughed twice during the film. It’s humour just isn’t my cup of tea but I can’t forgive the film for failing to make me care for the characters.
The World-building
As if the plot’s lack of intriguing conflict didn’t vaporise enough tension, Thunder Force’s world-building raises so many questions that it’s really hard not to just give up on the film being anything remotely interesting.
In the opening, we learn that the miscreants gained their powers from a cosmic ray that hit the earth and caused a genetic mutation in certain people. Ok, makes sense. Those certain people however are sociopaths. The cosmic ray can only transform sociopaths. How? Why? It’s never explained. A ray that turns people into supervillains, while interesting, is an idea that needs a lot of time and research to write believably. Thunder Force didn’t do that.
Later in the film, when Lydia and Emily begin their training, more plot holes emerge. Emily’s power is invisibility. How she is able to achieve this at will is never explained. The fact that her clothes turn invisible with her is not even acknowledged.
After finishing their training, their first mission involves a direct confrontation with one of the miscreants. When they reach the scene of the crime (in a high-tech car they’ve never driven), they deploy their powers in ways never shown. In their training all they did was exercise their powers; turn invisible, throw things across the room, hit punch mitts. They never learn how to specifically take on a miscreant. You’re just supposed to assume that they did as they have no trouble fighting one.
Overall, Thunder Force is a film about people you don’t care about, enduring trials and tribulations you know they can survive, in a world with little logic and consistency. If you’re a Melissa McCarthy fan, then her ad libbed, pop culture-referencing brand of humour will get you through it. It didn’t get me through it, so if you’re not a fan, skip it.
I wasn’t expecting a lot from Concrete Cowboy. It looked like another inspirational ‘hood’ film. I thought that its exotic premise (inspired by the Fletcher Street Urban Riding Club based in Philadelphia) would be all it would have going for it. Having watched the film, I can now say that while I did get more than I expected, I was left wondering whether the narrative film was the best medium for this story.
This Netflix original film centres on a 15-year-old boy who is forced to stay with his father in Philadelphia. To his surprise, he discovers that his father is one of a bunch of urban cowboys who run a horse stable in the neighbourhood. The boy joins the group, learning to ride the horses. It gives him meaning but it is also difficult, making the fun but dangerous life of the local drug dealer incredibly tempting.
I need a haircut. I know.
The Characters
Cole, our 15-year-old protagonist, didn’t surprise me but perhaps he wasn’t supposed to. The script seems to understand this as it wastes no time in establishing him. Within the first five minutes we know who Cole is, what his problems are and where he’s going. He may not be memorable but for what he is, he’s quite well written.
He definitely fulfils his function as our surrogate as we are introduced to the cowboys. They enlighten him on the nature of the neighbourhood, the individuals and lifestyles to avoid all the while teaching him the mucky business of caring for horses. There are many poignant scenes of Cole and the cowboys bonding with their horses. In a way, we see that the horses symbolise the ideal life, a life of discipline and responsibility but also of safety and community.
The cowboy characters are memorable as each has their own story about how they got into horse riding. Of all of them, Paris I found to be the most likable. Wheelchair bound due to a shattered spine, Paris teaches Cole the basics. He’s strict with the teenager but also compassionate, Paris is the first of the group who really motivates the Detroit youth.
Beyond the premise and a few decent characters, Concrete Cowboy doesn’t go anywhere unexpected. If you’ve seen many hood films then you know what’s going to happen. Cole is tempted by an old childhood friend who’s now a drug dealer to assist him in his enterprise. He sees the consequences of the illegal trade, retreats to his communal life in the stable and tries his best to protect it from the authorities that want it torn down.
I was ready to call Concrete Cowboy a failure before the film was finished. However, when it did finish and the credits started to roll, I saw something extraordinary.
The True Story
This isn’t really a spoiler but as the credits roll, interviews with actual members of the Fletcher Street Urban Riding Club play. Many of them, to my surprise, are main parts of the cast. I had heard that some of the real riders were in the film but I assumed they only had bit parts, I never guessed that they had supporting roles. The character of Paris for example, I learned is played by a gentleman called Jamil Prattis.
In the interviews each rider describes their upbringing, their background, how they got into horse riding and how it helped them avoid crime. They’re fascinating and quite touching testimonies. I was so taken aback by these interviews that after a while I thought ‘why wasn’t this a documentary?’
The premise itself is unique so why not tackle it head on in a factual film? Don’t waste time crafting a whole narrative around the Fletcher Street Urban Riding Club. Interview the members, listen to what they have to say and go from there. The results would be a lot more interesting and impactful I believe.
All I can say about Concrete Cowboy is if the premise really intrigues you, maybe check it out. However if the idea of modern urban cowboys doesn’t enthral you then I’d say skip it. The film takes a good factual premise and wastes it.
I give Concrete Cowboy an underwhelming 5 out of 10.
Duffhood 