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Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015)
A true awakening and a new hope!
*Don't panic. There are NO spoilers in this review*
I will make a very black and white claim from the start: anyone who says they don't like this movie is either a huge cynic or someone who tries to sound cool by denigrating any new Star Wars film.
Now, in more positive terms: this has become my favourite Star Wars movie (in fact my favourite movie in general). It has everything: great new characters, great old characters, drama, soul, laughter, action, it addresses a lot of questions we had from the teasers/trailers and leaves us wondering even more at the end. It skilfully takes a franchise which everybody loves, and makes it current without annihilating any of the established canon. Its execution is flawless, the second you walk out of the theatre you just want to go back in again.
It never goes too fast or too slow, it never drowns you in unnecessary pyrotechnics or painfully shoed in dialogues. Finn is great, Rey is great, Kylo Ren is surprisingly great and Han and Chewie are amazing, Leia too, and even Luke, though we could've seen more of him. The movie keeps you guessing throughout, and you just want to see/know more.
It is a beautifully written, excellently acted and directed masterpiece and it deserves a place in the Hall of Fame of movies. I'll even go as far as to say that it is the best Star Wars movie ever (just ahead of Empire).
Thank you Mr Abrams, thank you, and keep'em coming!
PS: I know George Lucas went on record to criticise the movie before it came out, but the guy who gave us the prequels AND Indiana Jones 4 (may this franchise rest in peace) does not have a say in anything. Also let's not forget the "revisited" versions of the original trilogy..... why so many foreground useless CGI creatures? WHY???
Supernatural: Baby (2015)
Superb
In one word, phenomenal.
My favourite episodes are always the odd ones: "Weekend a Bobby's (6x04)", "The Man Who Would Be King (6x20)", "The French Mistake (6x15)", "Fan Fiction (10x05)", "Monster Movie (4x05)" or "Bitten (8x04)".
But this episode... this episode IS the very essence of "Supernatural", it IS the show. The call-back to "Swan Song (5x22)" is very cool and everything else about this episode is just perfect: it hits the perfect note in every scene, on every dialogue.
This kind of episodes are why people love TV shows, and why there are fandoms. The writers have done a beautiful job and I think this episode has just become my favourite 40mins on television.
Fans can love this episode and the writers and actors for it, and newcomers can watch an impressively well executed piece of drama that'll hook anyone for 11 seasons (and counting).
The Impala hadn't received a proper episode yet, now justice has been done.
Welcome home, Baby.
Supernatural: Out of the Darkness, Into the Fire (2015)
In one word: intriguing
OK so, first off: the ever increasing complexity of the Supernatural mythos is just fantastic! I mean the intricacies of God, gods, angels demons, Death and now the Darkness, simply magnificent. I just love complex and well-written backgrounds and universes and Supernatural delivers every season.
Now, the good points: the Darkness seems to be a legitimately very impressive Big Bad who may genuinely scare the crap out of everyone when she says things like "I don't know this Death.. and he doesn't know me", I mean this implies some serious crap! The actress and the lines she delivers throughout the episode: great writing, great execution, great direction. Simple as that, personally I'm sold for the season on that alone. Next we have the little surprise of Sam becoming infected by something that kills in a matter of hours, so HUGE question mark on how he's going to deal with that (obviously he survives eventually, duh, just curious how). Rowena is in the wind, Crowley back on top of his game (following last season's events), Metatron still out there (though not mentioned in this episode), and the Michael/Lucifer screaming from the cage to warn of the Darkness just gives you chills... can't wait to see if they'll free them to fight her O_O .....
My only negative point here (that prevents me from giving this episode a full 10) is the weird thing that Sam says to Dean in the hospital about "not repeating the same mistakes again" and trying out something different.... uh Dean's plan was good, and quite solid (shoot everything in their way, get out, save everyone), whereas Sam's plan is completely and utterly idiotic, founded on nothing, only to give an excuse to separate Sam from Dean and get him infected. I love the writers, and they've made some of the best television I've ever seen, but this is a very poor plot device, badly implemented and that they don't sell very well. And I'm not usually one for over-analysing shows/movies, I'm normally the guy who watches Pacific Rim and calls it a good movie), but this was too transparent and there was no valid rationale for Sam's plan. Especially hours after he just pushed Dean into doing exactly what they ALWAYS do, i.e. sacrifice the rest of the world in order to save each other (which I can roll with in general). But this is just mad inconsistent.
Overall the episode felt weirdly un-Supernatural-like, somewhat like something out of The Walking Dead especially the Sam/Dean part (which is fine), but still very interesting, and I love the little bread crumbs they give us throughout the episode. Honestly a very good and very interesting episode, but that small dialogue was just completely sub-par (in every way) compared to the rest of it.