Recreation | the m0vie blog

Batman – Full Circle (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on July 29, 2014 by Darren

23rd July is Batman Day, celebrating the character’s 75th anniversary. To celebrate, this July we’re taking a look at some new and classic Batman (and Batman related) stories. Check back daily for the latest review.

In a way, Mike W. Barr and Alan Davies’ Full Circle feels a bit like Steve Englehart and Marshall Roger’s Dark Detective. It’s a cap to a run on the character, something of a forerunner to DC’s recent “Retroactive” initiative, reteaming classic creators on a particular character in an attempt to recapture past glories. Like Dark Detective, Full Circle doesn’t quite work. It’s a direct sequel to Barr’s Year Two – albeit with recurring gags and characters thrown in from the rest of his Detective Comics run – and it seems to exist solely to make sure the reader understood what Barr was doing with Year Two.

Given that Year Two was hardly the most subtle of comics, Full Circle occasionally runs the risk of bludgeoning the reader into submission.

It’s a Boy Wonder he doesn’t get killed…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Alan Davies, batman, Bruce, business, Costume, dark knight returns, Deathtrap, dick grayson, Joe Chill, Lego, Martha Wayne, Mike W. Barr, Recreation, stan lee, zack snyder | Leave a comment »

Doctor Who: Gridlock (Review)

Posted on November 27, 2013 by Darren

To celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the longest-running science-fiction show in the world, I’ll be taking weekly looks at some of my own personal favourite stories and arcs, from the old and new series, with a view to encapsulating the sublime, the clever and the fiendishly odd of the BBC’s Doctor Who.

Gridlock originally aired in 2007.

The sky’s a burnt orange, with the Citadel enclosed in a mighty glass dome, shining under the twin suns. Beyond that, the mountains go on forever. Slopes of deep red grass, capped with snow.

– the Doctor takes us to Gallifrey, for the first time in ages

Gridlock is the final (and best) of Davies’ “New Earth” trilogy, encompassing The End of the World and New Earth. The decision to focus the opening futuristic stories of the first three seasons around the same strand of “future history” is a very clever move, and perhaps an indication of how acutely aware Davies is of the way the modern television differs from television when the classic show aired. In short, it creates a pleasing sense of continuity between episodes that are very disconnected from the show’s main continuity.

This is far from the Powell Estate as you can get, and yet – three years in – it also feels strangely familiar.

The skyline’s the limit…

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Dalek, david tennant, Davies, doctor, Doctor's Daughter, DoctorWho, end of the world, Face of Boe, Gallifrey, Gridlock, john hurt, Long Game, Macra, Martha, Martha Jones, New Earth, Recreation, tardis, Tom Baker, Travelogues | 4 Comments »

The X-Files – Darkness Falls (Review)

Posted on October 28, 2013 by Darren

Darkness Falls is the best script Chris Carter has written so far. It it is far superior to Fire or Space or Young at Heart or The Jersey Devil or even The Pilot. It’s quite possibly the strongest normal “monster-of-the-week” episode that Carter ever wrote, discounting his work on “special” episodes (like Post-Modern Prometheus or Triangle) or even some mythology stories (I’m quite fond of Redux).

Darkness Falls is – at its most basic – just a very strong monster-of-the-week installment, hitting all the right buttons to provide an atmospheric horror thriller.

If a tree falls in the woods…

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Filed under: The X-Files | Tagged: Barack Obama, Canada, chris carter, Dana Scully, Darkness Falls, Martin Luther King, mulder, mulder and scully, National Security Agency, National Security Archive, National Wilderness Preservation System, Oregon Territory, Outdoors, Post-Modern Prometheus, Recreation, scully, Standing Bear, Steve Humphreys, United States, vietnam, Vietnam War, Washington, Wilderness Act, x-files | 6 Comments »

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Tribunal (Review)

Posted on October 14, 2013 by Darren

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is twenty years old this year. To celebrate, I’m taking a look at the first and second seasons. Check back daily for the latest review or retrospective.

Tribunal is probably the weakest episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in quite some time, hampered by the fact that it never seems too ambitious and the fact that the episode ends because we’re three minutes away from the closing credits rather than because it feels like the story has been told. Tribunal is hardly the deepest or most sophisticated episode of the show’s second season, spending most of its time riffing on Kafka and Orwell, but it’s still solidly entertaining – a rare example of black comedy on Star Trek that works surprisingly well.

I suspect the biggest problem with Tribunal is where it’s placed. The second season of Deep Space Nine has been hitting it out of the park since around Blood Oath, giving us the strongest run of episodes we’d see until the start of the fourth season. Indeed, had the show found its groove a little bit earlier, the second season of Deep Space Nine could have been on par with the third season of Star Trek: The Next Generation as “that season the show found its groove.”

However, it remains an impressive run of episodes, a rallying of the show in the last third of the season, showing just what Deep Space Nine was capable of. Most of the episodes in that run felt very different from anything done on The Next Generation and most offered some major insight into how the world of Deep Space Nine works as distinct from the rest of the franchise.

A broad cast of characters…

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Filed under: Deep Space Nine | Tagged: Armageddon Game, Bajoran, Benjamin Sisko, Cardassia, Cardassian, crime, deep space nine, Kira Nerys, Miles O'Brien, O'BRIEN, Recreation, star trek iv the voyage home, Star Trek Next Generation, Star Trek Original Series, star trek vi: the undiscovered country, star trek: deep space nine, Star Trek:Deep Space Nine, StarTrek | 2 Comments »

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – The Alternate (Review)

Posted on October 1, 2013 by Darren

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is twenty years old this year. To celebrate, I’m taking a look at the first and second seasons. Check back daily for the latest review or retrospective.

Well, at least the second season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is experimental. It might not always pay-off, but there’s a clear sense that the show is trying new things, bending various genres to make them fit within the broad outline of a Star Trek show. Necessary Evil was a fascinating attempt to construct a noir episode, while Rivals was a less-than-successful sit-com in space. The Alternate is very much doing “Star Trek as monster movie”, which is surprisingly fun.

To be fair, it’s not a subgenre new to the franchise. Indeed, the first episode of the original show to air, The Man Trap, was essentially a monster horror in space. Still, The Alternate feels a bit more sinister and dark than anything that Star Trek: The Next Generation might attempt. (Schisms probably comes closest, but – even then – there’s no sense that the monsters are stalking the starship. They have to abduct their victims to experiment on them.)

More than that, though, The Alternate is also a fascinating exploration of Odo as a character, looking at the relationship that Odo has with his co-workers and how that is rooted in his relationship with the man who claims to be his “father.”

Melting! Melting! Oh what a world!

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Filed under: Deep Space Nine | Tagged: Alternate, Bajoran, Benjamin Sisko, Cardassian, deep space nine, Ferengi, Ira Steven Behr, Jake Sisko, Kira Nerys, Man Trap, MORA, Odo, Quark, Recreation, Sisko, spock, star trek, Star Trek Next Generation, star trek: deep space nine, StarTrek | 1 Comment »

Wanted! Contestants for Irish Quiz Show!

Posted on August 23, 2013 by Darren

RTÉ is launching a new quiz show that will be recorded on September 4th as part of the network’s “format farm” season. The producers over at Vision Independent Productions got in touch with me and let me know that they are looking for contestants for Division. I’m always glad to help Irish film and television, so the full text and details are below. If you’d like to enter for a chance to win a €5,000 holiday, drop them a line at the contact details below. Or visit the website.

If you do decide to enter, best of luck!

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: division, Game show, games, Handheld TV game, Operation Transformation, Recreation, Television, trivia, Video game, Vision Independent Productions | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Star Trek V – The Final Frontier

Posted on August 15, 2013 by Darren

This August, to celebrate the upcoming release of Star Trek: Into Darkness on DVD and blu ray, we’re taking a look at the Star Trek movies featuring the original cast. Movie reviews are every Tuesday and Thursday.

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier is not a good movie. There’s really nothing that can be excavated from the film that might redeem it. It isn’t a misunderstood masterpiece. It isn’t an insightful diamond in the rough. It’s just a bad film, the one which forms the cornerstone of the “odd-numbered Star Trek films” curse. It’s indulgent, pretentious and narrow-minded. It tries to blend a world-weary cynicism with an ill-judged and mean-spirited sense of humour.

Despite being shorter than Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, it feels remarkably longer. It feels like a rather halfhearted attempt to recapture the spirit of the television show – oblivious to the fact that the franchise has spent the past decade moving onwards. It confuses ponderous pretension for intelligent insight.

Feeling blue…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: cynicism, Cynthia Gouw, DeForest Kelley, games, james t. kirk, kirk, KLAA, Leonard McCoy, Leonard Nimoy, List of Star Trek characters, Paradise City, Recreation, Roleplaying, Scotty, spock, star trek, Star Trek Next Generation, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, star trek: the original series, StarTrek, Television and Movies, Timothy Leary, Trekkie, Uhura, vulcan, William Shatner | 6 Comments »

Craig Kyle & Christopher Yost’s Run on X-Force – X-Necrosha (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on July 17, 2013 by Darren

To celebrate the release of The Wolverine later in the month, we’re taking a look at some classic X-Men and Wolverine comics every Monday, Wednesday and Friday here. I’m also writing a series of reviews of the classic X-Men television show at comicbuzz every weekday, so feel free to check those out.

I have a bit of a soft-spot for Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost’s X-Force. It’s nowhere near as good as Rick Remender’s Uncanny X-Force, and I’m not even sure that it’s good comics. However, it does capture the mood of the X-Men comics between House of M and Second Coming remarkably well.

Being frank, I think that the editorial direction of the X-Men line between House of M and Second Coming was a disaster. In fact, the work of Kieron Gillen on Uncanny X-Men and Jason Aaron on Wolverine & The X-Men following Schism demonstrates that the franchise spent six long years running in a gigantic circle to get back to where Grant Morrison’s New X-Men and Joss Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men had left it.

However, Yost and Kyle’s X-Force captures the mood of the line a lot better than Ed Brubaker or Matt Fraction’s work on Uncanny X-Men, willing to embrace the cynically and nihilitistically nineties vibe of the entire line.

Country of the dead…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Bastion, business, Christopher Yost, Craig Kyle, joss whedon, magneto, marvel, Necrosha, new mutants, Recreation, retrospective, Rick Remender, Selene, spider man, uncanny x-men, United States, wolverine, x-force | 1 Comment »

Civil War: X-Men (Review)

Posted on July 12, 2013 by Darren

Ugh. There’s nothing like Civil War: X-Men to remind you just how unkind the middle part of the last decade was to Marvel’s merry mutants. It’s a soulless cash-in the worst sense of the word, a four-issue miniseries branded with the title of the gigantic universe-spanning crossover that was going on at the moment. One would imagine that the whole Civil War crossover would provide a multitude of compelling storytelling opportunities for the X-Men as a franchise.

After all, these are superheroes whose entire schtick is based around being hated and feared by the world they try to protect. You’d imagine that they’d have a few choice words for all the superheroes finding themselves suddenly confronted by the idea that the public isn’t too keen on people with superpowers just wandering around. Instead, we get a messy jumble of a plot that doesn’t make sense on its own terms, let alone as an attempt to contextualise the involvement of the X-Men in Marvel’s Civil War crossover.

Back in black…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: art, Autos, Avenger, avengers, brian michael bendis, captain america, Civil War, Cleveland, cyclops, emma frost, Leather, marvel, marvel comics, marvel universe, Recreation, Rick Remender, spider man, superman, United States, wolverine | 5 Comments »

Spider-Man vs. Wolverine (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on July 1, 2013 by Darren

Well, at least it’s honest. Spider-Man vs. Wolverine doesn’t promise a superhero team-up so much as a comic book bust-up. Many comic crossovers open with two characters throwing down, perhaps playing to the geekish fanboy fascination with the idea that “my hero can beat your hero.”

Such brawls are so common that Marvel’s recent span of blockbuster events has been based around the idea of heroes fighting one another. Civil War pitted Captain America against Iron Man. Secret Invasion saw heroes fighting aliens impersonating heroes. Siege was about heroes defeating supervillain imposters. Avengers vs. X-Men… well, exactly what it says on the tin.

So the title of Spider-Man vs. Wolverine is refreshing frank, opening acknowledging this tendency and going so far as to make it the centrepiece of the book.