I published a new column at The Escapist yesterday. With the release of Spider-Man: No Way Home, it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look at the film.
No Way Home is technically Tom Holland’s sixth film the role of Peter Parker. So it’s interesting that No Way Home effectively puts his version of the character through the standard narrative beats of a Spider-Man origin story. In many ways, No Way Home feels like it’s a movie that is aiming for a clean start and fresh break. It also feels like something of a divorce movie between Sony and Marvel Studios. The movie opens with Aunt May dumping the director of Iron Man, and the film seems eager to announce that it is living its best life. The first thing that it does is to hit up some of its exes.
You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.
Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: comic books, continuity, escapist, marvel, sony, spider man, spider-man: no way home, the escapist | Leave a comment »
I’m thrilled to be launching movie reviews on The Escapist. Over the coming weeks and months, I will be joining a set of contributors in adding these reviews to the channel. For the moment, I’m honoured to contribute a three-minute film review of Spider-Man: No Way Home, which is in cinemas now.
Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: escapist, films, Movies, nostalgia, spider man, spider-man: no way home, the escapist | Leave a comment »
I published a new column at The Escapist today. This week, to mark the twentieth anniversary of the release of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings, we’re taking a look back at the trilogy as a whole. We’ll be publishing three articles looking at the films, one each day. This is the third and final of the pieces.
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is typically criticised for having too many endings. However, that is oddly appropriate. The entire trilogy is an extended ending. It’s a story about the end of a magical age, about how nothing lasts forever and how everything eventually fades into history. Frodo and his allies are fighting to save Middle-Earth from Sauron, but the films make it very clear that the world’s days are numbered.
You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.
Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: escapist, lord of the rings, return of the king, the escapist, the lord of the rings, the lord of the rings: the return of the king, the return of the king | Leave a comment »
I published a new column at The Escapist yesterday. The penultimate episode of Hawkeye featured a major reveal of a significant villain for the show. This is very typical of how the Disney+ streaming shows have operated, so it seemed like a good opportunity to talk about Marvel’s streaming villain problem.
Marvel Studios have long been criticised for their fairly generic villains. However, in the transition from blockbuster releases to streaming series, the company has created a new sort of problem. Instead of generic and forgettable antagonists, these shows tend to feature puzzle boxes and references, clues and riddles. The identity of villains are often hidden and concealed, treated as late-in-the-story revelations that reward long-term fans at the expense of pacing and characterisation.
You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.
Filed under: Television | Tagged: comic books, escapist, marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, reveals, streaming, the escapist, twists | Leave a comment »
I published a new column at The Escapist yesterday. This week, to mark the twentieth anniversary of the release of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings, we’re taking a look back at the trilogy as a whole. We’ll be publishing three articles looking at the films, one each day. This is the first.
Most films are minor miracles. It is remarkable that films get made at all, let alone that many of them turn out to be good. This is particularly true of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, which seemed like an impossible assignment. At the time, Peter Jackson seemed like the most unlikely of directors to successfully adapt J.R.R. Tolkien’s unfilmable epic. However, in hindsight, it seems impossible to imagine that anybody except Jackson could have brought the film to life.
You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.
Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: director, epic, escapist, fantasy, films, lord of the rings, movie-making, Movies, New Zealand, peter jackson, the escapist, the lord of the rings | Leave a comment »
I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the final season of The Expanse beginning this week, it seemed like an opportunity to take a look at the final six episodes of the season.
For most of its run, The Expanse has been impressive in terms of scale and scope, often splitting its cast across multiple story threads and vast geographical distances. This makes the sixth season feel a little jarring, as the production team attempt to condense the longest book into the shortest season. As a result, The Expanse feels strangely insular and claustrophobic in its final stretch, almost like a cliff notes version of the show that it once was.
You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.
Filed under: Movies | Tagged: escapist, in the frame, sci-fi, science fiction, the escapist, the expanse | Leave a comment »
I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With reports that Sony have plans for another trilogy of movies built around Tom Holland’s Peter Parker, it felt like a good time to reflect on what that might mean.
After all, most Marvel Cinematic Universe properties seem to be content with trilogies. Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans tapped out after three films. There is some suggestion that directors James Gunn and Peyton Reed may be done with their properties after completing their third films. So it’s interesting to imagine a world where Tom Holland has headlined six solo Spider-Man movies. What challenges might this pose for the Marvel Cinematic Universe? What opportunities?
You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.
Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: escapist, in the frame, sony, spider man, Tom Holland | Leave a comment »
I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the release of Wheel of Time this week, there’s been a lot of publicity describing the show as potentially “the next Game of Thrones.”
It’s interesting to ponder what people actually mean when they talk about “the next Game of Thrones.” After all, Game of Thrones existed in a category unto itself. If anything, it answered the question of what “the next Lost” or “the next Sopranos” might look like, with those perhaps answering the question of “what the next E.R.” or “the next Twin Peaks” might look like, and so on. Game of Thrones was a smashing success that nobody saw coming, and which looked utterly unlike anything on television. That means that “the next Game of Thrones” probably won’t look anything like Game of Thrones.
You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.
Filed under: Television | Tagged: dragons, escapist, Game of Thrones, in the frame, the escapist | Leave a comment »
I published a new review at The Escapist today. Wheel of Time is premiering on Amazon on Friday, and I was lucky enough to see the first six episodes.
Publicity around Wheel of Time has mostly focused on comparisons to Game of Thrones. This is reductive, and not just because Robert Jordan’s fantasy epic predates that of G.R.R. Martin. In reality, Wheel of Time often feels like a warm-up for Amazon’s upcoming adaptation of Lord of the Rings. As one might expect, given the source material, Wheel of Time offers a detailed and compelling fantasy world, but the series gets a little bit too preoccupied with setting all of its balls in motion rather than engaging with the story that it is telling.
You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.
Filed under: Television | Tagged: Amazon, escapist, fantasy, Television, the escapist, the wheel of time | Leave a comment »
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