Knuckles: Life In The Fast Lane

Summary

Knuckles, voiced by Idris Elba, is back and this time he is patching up father son relationships, or trying to at least.

I was really, really looking forward to this and possibly I went in expecting a bit too much. I thought this was going to be the next chapter in the Sonic universe, I was expecting much more in the way of cameos and maybe even some more games characters being introduced that were more Knuckles centric. Alas we didn’t get that, and maybe I expected too much, this was an incredibly self-contained show and without the opening credits, the villains being vaguely tied to Robotnik, and a brief first episode cameo, you could watch this and not even realise it was related to the wider Sonic universe.

Another odd choice was that the main character of this series isn’t Knuckles, but rather Wade Whipple, Adam Pally. Now there is nothing wrong with Wade he is quite a funny character and you can easily relate to and root for him, but he isn’t the show’s namesake. I expected far more time to learn who Knuckles as a character was, learn more of his back story, maybe through flashbacks to before the Owls attacked, but again no. We don’t learn much more about Knuckles from this show other than he likes grapes. That said I did like Wade’s quest to become a warrior and to defeat his dad, Cary Elwes, who was comically evil.

I also thought the bond between Wade and Knuckles was quite endearing, they genuinely seemed to care about each other, in a sort of human pet way, or maybe even a father and son way.

The humour of the show was good and it was mostly funny, there were a couple of times were they let a joke drag on for too long or repeated an unfunny joke but for the most part it was funny.

A final word I would like to say that no doubt will get me hate, but hey I am not going to stop, is that I liked that this show gave an upfront portrayal of the Jewish Shabat dinner and had a lot of good Jewish representation without reducing the characters to stereotypes or having it be all they are. I think in these politically divided times, I am writing this in May 2024, where antisemitism is on the rise and more and more people seemingly hate Jews, for something that is not their fault, they are not responsible for state policy, it is nice to see positive representation, it shouldn’t be needed to combat all the hate as the hate shouldn’t exist but that is the world we live in.

Overall, a nice, fun self-contained series but one that left me a little disappointed

3.5/5

It is funny

Wade and Knuckles

It provides much needed representation

It sets up new adventures

Cons.

It is not as big in scope as I would have liked it to be

It repeats a few unfunny jokes

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Swede Caroline: Growing Wild and Free

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A mockumentary film about the world of competitive vegetable growing.

This may be one of the best surprises of the year so far, it seemingly came out of nowhere and had little to no fanfare but it was easily the funniest film of the year by a wide margin. Whilst I often say of comedy films that they had some good laughs but it was not a laugh a minute, I would argue this was. For the most part I was laughing consistently throughout.

I thought the characters were all very likeable and distinctive and that is a hard feat considering that for some of them we only meet them for about 5 minutes or so, yet still they manage to leave an impression. I think why the characters worked so well is because they are believable, as in perhaps it is a British thing, but I for one could see parallels between the characters in this film and to people I know in the real world.

I think the only area where it lost me somewhat was when it tried to hit into darker subject matter. I understand the parody was of true crime docuseries so it needed to have those darker themes but I thought that it would have been better served by maintaining a consistent tone throughout.

Overall, a hidden comedy gem.

4/5

Pros. It is funny

It is relatable

It is original

It uses its runtime and cast well, there isn’t any waste

Cons.

The darker moments and the inconsistent tone

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Back To Black: A Life Cut Short

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A biopic about Amy Winehouse

These musical biopics are all the same at this point, if things have gone as intended then this will be coming out the day after my Bob Marley review and as such I can really hammer home that point.

Much like the Bob Marley review said again this follows the same formula as all the rest, the rise, the reign and then the fall. I find that it is not until the end of the film that I begin to see any real difference beyond, nationality and music style. The difference being that with Marley the film ended on a notion of hope, he was a unifier, despite his pending death it is still a nice ending. Whereas with Winehouse the film ends on a rather black note, in a sense it becomes a tragedy and I think it is this respect that the film ends out on top of Bob Marley for the sheer fact it was able to make me feel something.

I would say that the acting was also a lot stronger here, across the board. Marisa Abela was terrific in the lead, she was both warm and likeable but could also reflect the tragic nature of Winehouse, the damaged side of her soul. I also think Jack O’Connell was very strong in his supporting role of a lad about town who ultimately proved toxic for Winehouse in the end.

This film certainly aims to be more than Marley and tries to have deeper themes and emotions, which is fine but in doing that it loses the crowd pleasing charm of Marley and makes it more of a selective experience.

Overall, an interesting biopic but one that makes for grim viewing

3/5

Pros.

The tragic nature of it

The cast

The songs

Cons.

It is depressing

The pace is off

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Bob Marley One Love: Music Conquers All

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A biopic about Bob Marley.

These musical biopics are all the same at this point, sure they are based on real life so they can’t do much to jazz it up, but it is always the same the rise, the stardom and then the fall. There is nothing to mix it up and the only difference is the songs that litter the films sound track, honestly I think we need to have a period of time without any more musical biopics to make this repetition sit better, but hey we are getting a Michael Jackson biopic next year that hopefully will address why he slept in bed with children. Hollywood doesn’t listen to its customers any more and that is why box office returns are only getting worse.

Kingsley Ben-Adir does a good job in the lead role and you buy the character. I would say he was the best actor in the piece by quite a wide margin. Lashana Lynch was fine, but mostly forgettable, one could argue that was not her fault as they didn’t give her much of anything to do.

Perhaps if I was a bigger Marley fan I would have gotten more out of it, I don’t know I just think that at this point we have seen similar narratives so many times over that it loses anything special it ever had.

The songs were good but you would expect them to be.

Overall, fine but easily forgettable.

2.5/5

Pros.

It is watchable

The songs are good

It is reasonably well paced

Cons.

It is the same the story you have heard before

Nothing is beyond average about it

They waste most of the cast

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The Coming Drought That Is The Summer 2024 Box Office

Written by Luke Barnes

This piece will talk about the dire issue facing Hollywood this year, the incredibly thin on the ground summer slate.

Now as any good movie fan worth their salt will tell you the summer is the key time to be making money in the film business, the kids are off school, people want somewhere cool to go to get away from the scorching temperatures, depending on where you live, it is the most important time of the year for Hollywood. This normally means that some of the biggest movies of the year are coming out during the summer months sometimes multiple a week, whereas this year there is a drought.

This drought is the result of a few things covid, the strikes, diminishing box office receipts that are making studios far more careful about greenlighting projects. However, it is plain to see, this year we have only a few true blockbusters coming out, with Kingdom Of The Planet of The Apes, Furiosa, Deadpool and Wolverine and really that is it. Add to that a few kids movies in Despicable Me 4, Garfield and Inside Out 2, and a few smaller titles like the new Alien film and Borderlands and you have a very thin slate. There are some weeks in summer where there are no major releases at all and it seems almost nonsensical for studios to be doing this.

Moreover, the films mentioned above, with no doubt a few others I have forgotten, are not all ones people are looking forward to, and that speaks to the problem. Hollywood is worried as they keep putting out films they think are hits, that aren’t, the idea of safe hits is becoming a thing of the past, now as those of you who have read my other Cinema Issues pieces will know this is in no small part due to consumers becoming more choosey as it costs more that ever to go to the cinema these days. Although in addition to that it is also because increasingly Hollywood is becoming isolated, out of touch, with the disconnect between what studios think people want and what they actually do growing by the day.

Why would people want a sequel from over 30 years ago, or a spin off from a film that came out 9 years ago and didn’t set the world on fire. Have studios not learnt that people are sick of prequels, sequels and reboots by now. It is not a huge surprise that a lot of the films that have done well in recent years Super Mario, Barbie, Oppenheimer have been original.

To close this out, things are only going to get worse for Hollywood and the box office. I think that there they may be no billion dollar films this year, for the first time in a long time, I think that Deadpool and Wolverine and Despicable Me 4 will do well and I think the rest will struggle or flop. If I am being really blunt about this, I think Hollywood’s time is done they have run out of good will and good ideas and I think that we need new studios, that operate outside of the California format. We need cinema to become more international and less American so that we can have something that is truly fresh and new.

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Invincible Season 2 Overview

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Mark picks up the pieces of his life after his dad rearranged this teeth.

I am mixed on this season. On the whole I lean to it being good but it was such a half measure.

I liked that they are finally starting to set up the Mark and Eve stuff, I liked that we got more time with Alen, and I liked seeing the return to Mars and the decimating of the remaining heroes by the Serpent Society. However, outside of that I think that this season missed the mark. It spends far too long try to be deep and emotional and work through its trauma, and whilst the Radiohead and Nick Cave solemn moments in the first few episodes were good I found it got a little self-indulgent by the end. I understand that Mark breaking his no kill rule is a big deal but there is a lot of time in the last episode dedicated to him dealing with it, it feels too much its like cool can we get back to it. They waste time. Nowhere is that truth more self-evident than with Mark and Amber, they spent a lot of time this season with them realising they can’t work out, too much time. Think about all the Spider-Man films you have ever watched how much time has been dedicated to his relationship with MJ or Gwen maybe 5-10 minutes total per film, maybe more in Spider-Man 3, because though it is important to the character it is not what people are here to see. Here we get multiple scenes that go on for far too long and then a drawn out scene of them both having heart to hearts with other people at the same time to make it stretch even more. My point is that it is good to develop your characters emotionally but when it is taking up the same amount of time as them being heroes then you have a problem .

The animation and world building was good, but again it feels like filler. We got the tease of the wider galactic war but didn’t see any of it, you’ll have to wait another 3 years for that. Honestly I was a little disappointed that we didn’t even get Nolan and Alen busting out of prison as a final sting on the last episode. I don’t know what happened if they wanted to stretch the story out more, if they didn’t have time to write further or if it was a rush job, but I left this season disappointed looking forward to the next, and that’s not right it should be I left this season thinking it was epic looking forward to the next.

Overall, a disappointment.

2.5/5

Pros.

Mark and Eve

Alen’s return

Setting things up that will be cool

Cons.

It doesn’t actually progress the story much

It is too emotional and into itself

It wastes time

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Monkey Man: Killing The Guru

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

This was a massive surprise, both in terms of the quality of the film but also that Dev Patel has really strong action chops both behind and in front of the camera.

Going into this film I was expecting more of a thriller than what this was which was a straight up action film. The action here is brutal and you feel every punch, I wouldn’t quite say it was on the same level as John Wick at the prime of that series but I would say that it was very gnarly at times and in ways you wouldn’t expect.

The story is the weaker part, so you care about Patel’s character and want to see him do well and get revenge for his mother, but the film gets far too bogged down in trying to have deeper themes. It tries to have things to say about India’s marginalised groups and systems of governance, a noble goal, but it comes off as shallow and without any punch. I think the film should either have tried to dedicate more time to the plight of these groups and set up Patel more clearly as their hero, or just ignored that part of the story all together and just focused on being an action film.

The acting across the board is strong, Patel is a likeable lead, but for me at least the star is Sharlto Copley. It is always a treat to see Sharlto act, he is one of my favourite actors if you couldn’t tell, he steals the show as a boxing promoter.

Overall, a very solid action film that tries for deeper meaning but comes up shallow.

4/5

Pros.

The action

You care about the characters

Patel and Copley

It has good stakes

Cons.

It is not as deep as it thinks it is

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New Doctor Who: An Effort To Spread Sexual Themes On A Family Friendly Show

Written by Luke Barnes

This piece will talk about Doctor Who and how a show for children is in the process of being turned into a platform to push progressive propaganda to children, who don’t really have any sort of concepts about sexuality and gender roles and what not, when most families are just tuning in to watch a science fiction show about an alien going on adventures.

So before we get into this a disclaimer, as all of you who have read my reviews before will know I am a fairly centrist person politically, there are insane and bad people on both sides of the divide and I don’t think anyone should be hated regardless of their political affiliation, race, gender, sexuality or any of the rest of it. Though I am a harsh reviewer as is my custom I just want good shows that I can enjoy and that aren’t trying to be insidious, as is current year Doctor Who.

Personally, I think Who peaked with David Tennant and has been going down hill ever since, it is well known that the BBC almost cancelled it during the Whittaker tenure, and as many of you will know based on my reviews written then the overt progressive message which amounted to Whittaker turning and lecturing you ruined those seasons for me and drove me off the show. What these creatives don’t seem to understand is that people want escapism and not for their shows to get into hot button contemporary issues. Anyway, I returned to the show, against my better judgement, for the specials and my my the pronouns scene was every bit as bad as the Whittaker era rants, couple that with the Davros incident and how Russel T. Davies handled that and yes I knew things were only going to get worse.

When Davies came back I was hopeful he made some of the best seasons of Who after all, but then I started reading his interviews. In his Who absence Davies had made It’s A Sin a heavy LGBTQ+ show that was lauded, and it seems he has returned to Who to make season two of that show rather than a season of Doctor Who. The issue with this is that Who is a family science fiction show, It’s A Sin was a drama made for a different crowd, the two things are chalk and cheese. Yet Davies seemingly doesn’t understand that, he thinks that the current fans of Who are bigots and he wants to make all of the LGBTQ+ fans of the show feel heard and seen and so now will only appeal to them, if they exist. To call fans bigots when Captain Jack was a popular character is nothing short of nonsense.

Anyway, the new doctor has seconded this by not just calling fans bigots, he has also called them Gammons, UK slang for racist hicks, and told them to touch grass whilst giving a long speech about white mediocrity. I ask you who is this show for and why has the BBC allowed it to be made, it seemingly is going out of its way to alienate any possible viewers it can. It is the same tactic being deployed over and over again, they set up the narrative early on that the fandom are bigots so that when no one watches it or there is a backlash they can go see bigotry as though that will boost viewer counts, its to try and redirect blame from a disaster in the making.

In the same interview the new doctor also said that he wants to defeat a monster by twerking it to death or something like. This is symptomatic of the problem with new new Who this is trying to appeal to TikTok kids who don’t even know what Who is.

I’ll try and keep this brief as I know this will be the most controversial section of this piece. I think it is wrong for a family science fiction show to try and sexualise kids, now let me explain RTD has said in an interview that he wants to use these seasons to create a new religion and to make new generations of kids aware of the LGBTQ+ community, which is fine of the surface. There are also comments, from the new doctor saying that this is the ‘’gayest’’ season yet and it makes you think why does a kids show need to be straight or gay. Indeed the Rubicon was already crossed under Whittaker when the female doctor had romantic feelings towards her female companion. It feels like the show is trying to push sexual themes and what not onto kids either overtly or subliminally and I think that’s wrong. I think that there is no need for Doctor Who to be anything other than family friendly entertainment, it doesn’t need to be straight or gay, black or white, or any of these things it just needs to be fun and it seems like this go around that has been missed.

One has to wonder how far the BBC will let the boundary be pressed and what they will attempt to show in order to push boundaries and if it will even be suitable for families anymore.

If it is not yet clear, this new season of Who is not for you, who I assume is a fan, it is either for kids that don’t know it exists, or it is for marginalised people that have always been very welcomed in the Who community and who already feel seen, this is no longer Who, it is the adventures of the message and co.

Mindy Kaling: The Modern Embodiment Of Hating Your Audience And Then Wanting Them To Watch Your Show

Written by Luke Barnes

This piece will talk about Velma and how the show optimises three key concepts, firstly the idea of the out of touch celebrity, secondly the disrespect of fans, and thirdly the idea of being edgy for the sake of it and then using your gender or race as a shield to hide behind when facing criticism.

Let me lay my cards down on the table for you, I watched the first season of this show I didn’t bother with season two as I knew what to expect and thought I would spare myself for once. I don’t like Mindy Kaling as she is problematic, with the alleged stories of her forcibly kissing someone and writing it off as a joke, as well as her repeated fetishisation of white guys in her various shows. She has also been accused of presenting Indian women as losers who despite being treated badly by white male characters keep going back to them. In many respects she is a bad person. Yet she thinks as a lot of Hollywood celebrities do that they are above you and I, she thinks that through her stupid adult Scooby Doo show watched by a grand total of 5 people that she can tell you how to live your life and that by her messages in the show she is doing something to make the world a better place. How out of touch and into yourself can you be? Moreover, another issue with Kaling and this show is that her Velma character is a self-insert, meaning when a writer doesn’t try and come up with a character of concept but rather puts themselves into the show or film instead. Kaling turns herself into Velma and then plays the character entirely alien to how we have ever seen her before in the franchise. In that frame Kaling’s Velma is a racist, sexist, bully who treats everyone around her like dirt and then uses manipulative tactics in order to force them not to leave her, she is a reciprocal for vitriol.

As with many modern shows they can’t be made without insulting the fans of the IP you are trying to win in order to watch it. Of course anyone that doesn’t like her bastardisation of a beloved franchise rather than be told oh well we’re sorry you don’t like it you can watch the older series or another series if there is another Scooby Doo series airing at the same time, I don’t know if there is, she attacks fans and calls them sexists or racists or bigots, as that is a great way to try and win people over. Anyway the first season was widely hated by the fans and it has only got a second season likely because of a contract agreement for it, it seems that with the fact there has been no publicity at all with this second season it has been sent out to die and rightfully so. Hopefully we get a cancellation notice before too long.

I think at the centre of this whole mess is Kaling, she thought she was important enough to take over a beloved franchise and try and self-insert and to change it fundamentally into something else. That speaks to a level of delusion as surely someone must have told her hey the fans aren’t going to like this, there will be a backlash. I think the issue I have with this is that rather than be like yes we are trying to do something different, yes not everyone will like it but maybe someone will and pressing on, she has to be adversarial from the start and then play the race and gender card to mask her from any criticism. It is perfectly okay for her Velma to be racist, sexist and to treat the rest of the gang like dirt but if you call her out for her own characterisation or writing then you are racist. There is nothing racist about calling someone out for doing a bad job and being a hypocrite. Obviously some people will be racist and take it too far and I condemn them, there is no need to behave like that all it does is give Kaling more ammunition to play the victim and scream bigotry.

God I hope this is the last time I had to talk about this show

Late Night With The Devil: And You Thought Dr Phil Was Bad

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A late night tv show plays host to the Devil.

This most likely is the best horror of the year, so far but I could see it being the best overall as well. It works on so many levels and each time you watch it there is more to appreciate and sink your teeth into. I watched this several times in cinema because the ending of the film recontextualises the whole thing so it demands a second watch to be able to see all the new little details in it.

The horror mixes over the course of the film with some off beat comedy elements but rather than cancel each other out and not work, hear they come together well to produce both a number of funny moments and also some genuinely chilling scares. The horror here is built through character and atmosphere which is always a treat as it creates more of an enveloping experience and the scares are more powerful as a result.

I think the best praise I can give this film is that it is well written and that makes it a damn sight better than a lot of the horror films releasing these days.

Overall, a must watch for any horror fan.

5/5

Pros

It is funny

It is scary

It is well written and clever

The acting is great

It levels you wanting more

Cons.

None

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