In early 2009, Paul Blart: Mall Cop was Kevin James’ family-friendly answer to Die Hard, set in a mall in New Jersey. Released in US cinemas during a drought of kid-friendly fare, it stuck around in the box office charts for 12 weeks after it was released, eventually hoovering up $146m domestically. Just as quick off the mark as the titular character, it’s taken six years for the inevitable Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 to arrive....
1.2 Seance If the first episode was merely a taster of the kind of nightmares that John Logan was willing to unleash with Penny Dreadful, then Séance is a hearty main course full of sex, intrigue and lots of death. There still haven’t been any major progressions in terms of plot, but what is teased is enough, particularly where Vanessa is concerned. Logan is far more interested in seeing these characters operate within this world, or rather on the fringes of it....
Of the many things Poldark has to recommend it—the escapist beauty of its cast, landscape and baked goods—accessibility is near the top of the list. You could be watching from inside a wheelie bin with the lid down and you’d still be able to grasp what was going on (though admittedly, you’d miss the beauty of the baked goods). There’s no murky ambiguity or doubt as to why the characters act as they do....
5.1 EscApe From New York It’s the problem Lost faced when it wrapped up a few years back, and the reaction to its answers (or lack thereof) will taint the legacy of that show forever. But Lost arguably didn’t feel like it was betraying fans until its sixth and final season, and Pretty Little Liars has been shedding credibility for almost two years already. A sixth and seventh season are set to follow this fifth, and it’s a worryingly long timeline for a show like this to be working with....
The evolution has been slow but efficient. The tweaking of the cast, getting rid of deadwood characters (sorry Jenny and Cutter) and replacing them with the much more interesting Sarah and Danny, and the expansion of the whole investigation of the anomalies has, for me, been a vast improvement. And here, at the end of the series, we get a well deserved finale to round of what has quite frankly been a great (if silly) bit of action adventure television....
However, the peace is soon shattered as an anomaly opens, and things kick up a gear both for the team and the viewer as within five minutes of the episode starting, we are treated to an hour long mini-telly-blockbuster filled with fast cars, tonnes of action and monster mash-up fight scenes. Things, it would seem, are quite bad, and turn a lot worse when Abby’s brother Jack’s continued inquisition of our peroxide elfin heroin’s job goes a stage further, as he decides to ‘borrow’ her sat-nav/anomaly detector from her handbag, thinking that her ‘secret’ job is a lot more than just feeding penguins at the local zoo....
Yes, they set up a new prison to be broken out of, but it’s subtler than that. The premiere episode starts the show where it was in season four. The characters are all trying to move on from their pasts, but the world just won’t let up. Lincoln has fallen back into his old habits and Sara is trying to move on from Michael. Lincoln, on the other hand, can’t move on from his old life and in that way he brings back the element of the show that was missing in its last two seasons: dramatic stakes deeply rooted in the characters....
In the titular Kampala slum, selfless youth ministry coach Robert Katende (David Oyelowo) introduces chess to the local kids by offering free food at his classes. One pupil in particular, Phiona Mutesi (Madina Nalwanga), proves to be a natural and Robert encourages her to pursue her passion to an international level over a number of years, despite the objections of her protective mother Harriet (Lupita Nyong’o). The best sports movies raise the character stakes above the outcome of a game and so it goes here, as Phiona looks for solutions and tries to anticipate what will happen next in her own unstable living situation while trying to qualify for an all-important financial stipend for competing....
It is a more than fitting visual metaphor for a show that has finally lowered itself from its ethereal plane, with all its transcendental spiritual ambitions, into the world of men. As the same aging Southern misfit – a mephistophelean figure known as “Lezlie with a Z” – had insisted only minutes before: to find enlightenment, “You’ve got to get in the world, you’ve got to get dirty.” Or better yet, “Who gives a shit!...
Yet episode five began to suggest a new, tenuous equilibrium in the Holden-Talbot household. Ted Jr. made his sheepish but sincere effort to patch things up with Tawny, who for several episodes had played the spurned wife, increasingly confused and isolated from the world around her. Amantha picked herself up by the bootstraps, so to speak, and began to undertake a personal quest for balance after a downward spiral of anger and resentment that had been playing out over several episodes....
Marking the first novel in a new series, Red Sister by Mark Lawrence blends action, mystery and spiritualism in a fantasy sure to gain fans from the first pages. Mark Lawrence has previously published two trilogies, Broken Empire and the Red Queen’s War, which both followed headstrong young men set in the same world. This time, he’s stepped into unfamiliar territory. Red Sister is set in a world nearing its end, capped by ice wastelands that have reduced the livable area on the planet to a narrow strip....
Anyway, we open at Sunnydale airport (or at least an airport, because I thought Sunnydale was supposed to be a really small town?) where Buffy, Dawn and Xander are waiting to welcome Willow off the plane. Xander’s made a Welcome Home Willow sign using yellow crayon, a reference to the way he convinced her not to destroy the world at the end of season 6, and Buffy and Dawn mock him because it’s not easy to read....
This episode opens with a title card, and a date: November 12th, 2002, 8:01pm. As far as I can remember, that’s the only time that’s ever happened, as if to flag up how special this episode is supposed to be. It is, at least, several hundred times better than last week’s mess of an episode, which is ironic, since Conversations with Dead People was written by four different people, each taking on a section of a really bizarrely structured episode....
4.20 Qpid But not too much! As the credits end, Picard has stopped serving her some T and started serving her some tea, when who should interrupt but Dr. Crusher, wearing the sweater of a much longer woman. She’s highly bemused to discover a woman in Picard’s bedroom who isn’t her and immediately sets off passing her around the senior crew, much to Picard’s social discomfort. Although let’s face it, it’s Riker who gets the most embarrassment when he tries to turn on the William T....
With Johnson, Disney has a unique opportunity to present a Star Wars film not tied to the conventions of the film saga or its timeline. The director seemingly enjoyed quite a bit more freedom while making his movie than some of his coworkers, which could indicate that the studio will give Johnson even more free rein to construct the story he wants to tell for the new trilogy. And as Marvel Studios has done with its more recent movies, Disney could lean even more on the uncanniness and humor featured in Episode VIII to bring something new to the film franchise....
Well, the hair’s different. Returning original series teams who never stopped battling robots in the interim have lost some of theirs, while the ‘dos of Dara O’Briain and Angela Scanlon replace those of the previous presenters. The presenters congratulate those who flip their fearsome opponents like pancakes and offer wry commiseration to those for whom the realisation is just beginning to dawn that they’ve junked a year’s salary on a minute and a half of humiliation by remote control....
What a lovely lot those Colliass kids were; gracious in both victory and defeat, and as bemused by Cherub’s success as we were. Up and up went their robot, floating to the final on a cloud of goodwill and favourable judges’ decisions. Disunity reigned elsewhere, particularly in the Behemoth team where the choice to try out a new weapon proved a controversial one and caused the captain to stalk off in a strop....
I’m actually surprised that tonight’s episode of Scandal wasn’t filled with flashbacks from Abby’s relationship with Chip. I appreciated Shonda Rhimes’ choice to stay in the present, because even in the brief moments Chip was on the screen, he was just as manipulative, creepy, and horrifying as I expected. No flashbacks are necessary to figure that one out. I got enough of a picture when he called himself nearly killing Abby multiple times during their marriage after beating her up, “losing his temper....
Fitz is awoken from his precious slumber and made to deal with his still intoxicated daughter, Karen. He nearly loses it before Olivia let’s her out of the room and calms Fitz down, since, of course, she’s the only one who can do it. He almost begs her to find who has the video and deal with the situation quietly. The next scene, we see Huck and Quinn walking through the White House meaning…Olivia is indeed taking this case....
3.3 His Last Vow Let’s divvy up the winnings then, who had ‘rogue Secret Service assassin living under an assumed identity’ in the Mary Morstan sweepstakes? Wrapping His Last Vow around the newly arrived Mrs Watson, taking her from ally to foe and back again, was a satisfying and thrilling end to Sherlock’s third series. Forget delaying gratification, this was revelation after twist after revelation after twist (with helicopters, shootings, and Bond villains to boot)....
