Reviews

There are few people who as individuals make an indelible mark on history, for good or evil here is one of them. Perhaps good and evil are labels we apply after events, and while they are in train they just are what they are. Oppenheimer changed the world forever, the all-in world we live in today.

The film is a dense and intimate character study of a towering historical figure, one that is part saviour and part devil. Critically Nolan lets the viewer decide which is which.

There are moments where you feel Oppenheimer is going to descend into the pit of madness - in fact he spends a decent part of the film skirting its edges and peering into the abyss while somehow managing not to fall in. Nolan conveys this inner chaos with the masterful use of camera work, vision, sound, and pacing.

It's not a perfect film. Some of Oppenheimer's more egregious failings such as his womanising are given a very gentle brush and some of his enemies are a little too one dimensional. Also, I would like to have seen Emily Blunt's character given more air, her performance is amazing, but I suspect a little too much of it was left on the cutting room floor.

Towards the end we witness Oppenheimer's redemption after a sustained and malicious character destruction by Lewis Strauss play brilliantly by Robert Downey Jr who almost steals the show with his shamelessly corrupt and self-serving ambition.

Oppenheimer made a lot of choices on behalf of humanity, the film asks were they the right ones, the moral ones, the only ones that could be made given the circumstances? Even with the benefit of hindsight there is no clear answer, those choices are still controversial and will probably remain so forever.

Nolan reminds us that we all live in the moment and choices have consequences - some bigger than others.

You could lose a train in these.

Right off the bat I loved the movie. I loved the balance of action with nuanced interaction, I loved the stunts - more so because most of them were practical and not CGI.

But (and it's a big but) a couple of plot holes were so insultingly stupid and unnecessary it was like finding a rat's tail in an otherwise gourmet meal.

Insulting plot hole 1: Steam trains are inherently more interesting than diesel or electric right? They have smoke and steam and whistles all going on at once, carting that big coal hopper right behind the engine to intensify the grime factor - all good for movie making. So, the bad guy invades the engine carriage and kills the two guys frenetically shoveling coal into the firebox, maxes out the speed then breaks off the throttle control and brake handle, and the train just keeps going at full speed for a really long time despite the lack of shoveling? Magic coal is much worse than infinite bullets.

Insulting plot hole 2: The bad guy maxed out the train speed before a curve where the train was supposed to slow down and give our hero the chance to get on board. Naturally it didn't slow down but hey no derailment (or even an edge of your seat moment when you thought it might) so why was the train supposed to slow down in the first place?

Insulting plot hole 3: This whole movie was about finding a key, which was in two parts, both of which were needed to open the lock. The evil AI's objective was to get the key first so no one could locate and destroy it. The evil AI gets the first half and keeps looking for the second half. Why doesn't it destroy the first half immediately, if it did the second half becomes worthless and the evil AI is safe.

Now there is no way the movie makers didn't know this; they just didn't care which is why they are so insulting. Every movie has plot holes granted but the shameless disregard here is at another level.

What could have been a 9 or 10 is therefore reduced to an 8.

Still going to watch part 2 though.

There used to be a name for flicks like these, potboilers. Movies that are cranked out to fill the release schedule and pad content. Kate is more of a pot simmerer (oh its a word bro, it's a word).

The eponymous character is your usual Super Assassin, trained from childhood, frosty, able to take out 18 black ops types before breakfast yada yada. Of course Super Assassin Rule No. 1 - no kids goes without saying.

BTW I've always wondered what the cut-off age is - 16,17, getting the braces off, or when they just look old enough to snuff...but I digress.

Kate suffers from uneven performances by Mary and Woody (Toy story? NO! FOCUS!) and an abundance of randomly connected scenes, leading to the most predictable, tension free ending possible. Just ONE twist would have been appreciated.

But we have to talk about the car chase - only the car Kate drives is CGI, bad CGI. Oh my. Its so bizarre I burst out laughing halfway through what was supposed to be a intense chase by a Yakuza goon squad. She may as well have hitched a ride with Dumbo or Peter Pan. It compromises the integrity of the movie beyond redemption and it never gets the mojo back.

There were moments during Kate when the actors put their humanity on display, and these are the best ones for me. They are overshadowed by lumpy editing and a sense that the director wasn't quite sure what movie he was making. Next time get enough budget for a real car chase, that's the thing that saved 6 Underground after all.

This one should disappear into the Realm of Forgotten Movies (Oh it's a place bro, it's a place). If we still had DVD's it would be straight in the $2 bin.

The first 9 episodes of this show were amazing. The 10th was an unmitigated disaster.

For 9 episodes the world building, story telling, cast, and acting were superb. We knew who all the characters were, we were treated to some first class cinematography and an intriguing set of plot lines anticipating an amazing payoff.

The last episode threw everything away. The world building and its rules...gone. The storylines...tossed out like so much garbage. Characters...changed up without any reason. Any semblance of a nod to physics...bah, begone!

What possessed the showrunner and others to do such a thing I cannot imagine, all I CAN say is that they destroyed any hope of me watching a second season and ruined my goodwill to any future Ridley Scott endeavor. What a waste of ideas and effort.

It gets a 9 for the first 9 episodes and a 1 for the 10th.

The writing in this episode is the most uneven thing i have ever seen in a TV series. The scheme to free the barmans daughter from the gangster's nephew was clever, unexpected, and well done.

The absolute opposite of this was to free the woman about to be executed. This was so full of rubbish it has nearly put me off the series. So ridiculously implausible at every point that you need a lobotomy before watching. Whoever wrote this should suffer the same fate, metaphorically, as she was meant to.

Overall, the writers better get their act together or this will be a one and done. Treating the audience like idiots is not a formula for a lasting series.

Edit: Season 2 has upped the storytelling and quality considerably. This series can now be considered Star Wars royalty. Nice pivot John F.

The first episode of The Mandalorian wasn't bad, but in my opinion does not deserve the stratospheric rating it has achieved. At least so far.

In the first episode we are treated to an overabundance of scenes with the eponymous character walking through sets that scream "decaying civilization in the aftermath of an empire's fall" rather too obviously. Fine but enough already we get it. The other dominating theme is the Mandalorian on other violence which will get old pretty quickly.

I worry a little that the helmet, which is a character on its own, is taking away from the character's ability to display emotions. After all most great performances in TV or cinema have been written on actors faces, and even those stoic anti/heroes had microexpressions that gave them substance. We will never get that chance with a helmet that never comes off. Or will we?

I'm willing to give this series time to find a more engaging vibe. Stars Wars devotees obviously love it, and I'm happy for them. For the rest of us this is a fair start but more will have to be done to make this one of the greats.

Edit: The second episode moves the quality needle a notch, and we get a more relatable Mandalorian in the process. What the Jawas do with the egg is something of an anticlimax though,

I like Ruby Rose and appreciate her talents as an actress, but Ruby should be taking vengeance on whoever talked her into this.

"Wise older mentor trains raw but talented future star" tropes are a cliche, but this show takes it to a level of sheer stupidity never seen before.

A pointless rambling script, painful social justice themes having zero relevance to the story, paint by numbers cinematography, and some of the laziest editing in television history complete this unmitigated disaster. Please let it be over quickly.

Batwoman is a stain on Bob Kane's memory and an insult to the Bat mythos.

After watching the first episode the production values are all that can recommend it. Otherwise highly disappointing for many reasons.

• Lack of a coherent narrative
• Contrived melodrama with overly intense music and painfully long camera holds
• Stiff characterisations and meandering dialog
• A one hour episode that should have been 25 minutes

A series of scenes with thin connective tissue, excruciating exposition, and little purpose, ending with a senseless confrontation.

Packed with recognisable faces, this effort will not go down as their finest hour. The emotional breakdown of Keely Hawes in the car ranks as one of the most awkward scenes of a tortured relationship seen outside a high school drama.

Perhaps the fact that I had just finished watching Chernobyl - likely the greatest miniseries ever made, caused it suffer by comparison, but by any standards Summer of Rockets first stage booster is a spectacular fizzle.

Doing new things in a cop show is pretty challenging, and The Rookie has nailed it without moronic gimmicks or wacky characters.

We spend enough time each episode with the minor characters to get to know them, while hanging out with the central ones long enough to give them depth - that's a hard balancing act in a 42 minute episode. So you actually care with the gruff TO has a junky wife, and Fillons rich college friend gets carjacked and mugged.

Each episode has fun with itself with just the right touch of gravitas for what is after all life and death situations. This speaks to the quality of the writing and the pitch perfect delivery of the excellent cast.

An interest blend of stories on the big scale and the small, this series delights in surprises while maintaining its credibility and refraining from overtly sappy set ups.

Can't wait for the second season.

Fallout is a welcome return to the elements that made the TV series and some of the movies icons of the twisty-plot-action-thriller genre. Fallout favours more dramatic tension and intimate action, ultimately with greater impact than some of the overblown stunts of the past. The exception is the end sequence which treats the protagonists' bodies as largely indestructible and gives us another cut-the-wire-with-1-second-left cliche.

There are still plenty of great action set-pieces but plot twists that are actually believable are deployed to good effect. Why, there is even some character development, without going overboard of course. And naturally there's LOTS of Tom Cruise running (and running and running...) Looks like the director read the study that linked the success of MI movies to the amount of time Tom runs.

Henry Cavil was OK as a bad guy, though a bit wooden. He needs a menacing smile to counterpoint his smouldering scowl.

My challenge to the next movie, save the world with 5 minutes to spare and still make it dramatic.