Reviews

"Cure World Hunger" was their tag. Sounds like a noble ideal. Sadly, it was downhill from there.

To be honest, after the first ten minutes as they had set out how they were going to transport fish from the coast 200 miles to the hungry, starving people I fast forwarded. Stopping several times in between. But it was what we'd already seen the trio doing so many times before.

In the end they were trying to sell rotten fish before flying out in a helicopter. Isn't that just crass?

This is the season where GT should have excelled after finding their feet with the first one. Alas, there was so few good articles. Is the problem they've abused so many press-cars that no manufacturer will let them have access any more? Surely with the Amazon budget they could just buy the cars they're about to trash instead?

Not worth keeping your Amazon Prime membership for.

Firstly, the only way to watch Grand Tour is to skip Conversation Street and the celebrity part, which I do.

Finally, the Ford GT gets a UK review. It's an impressive car.

But this program was firmly centred on the Jaguar D-Type and Aston Martin DB4 GT continuations. £ 1 million and £ 1.5 million respectively.

These are truly stunning cars. No, they're not as refined as the modern Honda that May drove, but neither are they trying to be. You can't love cars and not love these two! Or even the Honda.

So why the low score?

They took the cars to a banked circuit in Spain, after Clarkson had repeatedly crashed the gearbox in the Aston on the drive there. Then on this banked circuit it's bouncing and grounding as it goes around.

This is an automotive horror movie as a £ 1.5 million car is repeatedly bashed and bruised by Clarkson around a derelict remnant of a former circuit; one they only ever used once and probably for that reason! Hammond sensibly decided he had enough of big car accidents and withdrew from the "competition", but Clarkson repeatedly slammed the bottom of the Aston on the bumpy banked circuit.

I'd have more respect of him if he just said he wasn't going to trash something of such beauty and left it at that.

Firstly, the best way to watch Grand Tour is to skip Conversation Street and the celebrity bit. It's half the program, but not the better half.

Lamborghini was fun, but Hammond is doing the typical British reviewer who can't just appreciate a car and has to have some type of snarly gripe. Yes, it may have been what it should have been when it was launched, but it's still £ 50, 000 more!

Skipped the refuelling segment when I seen them blowing up cars...

Clarkson's piece on the world rallying battle between Lancia and Audi was him re-finding his documentary skills. If you've never watched his WWII programs do! His car history programs for how the UK lost it's industry should be shown in schools and colleges!

In this segment he documents the history of how Audi got the rules changed to allow four wheel drive, and the lengths that Lancia went to ensure two wheel drive had a last Hurray! Interviewing some of the key persons behind their success.

Clarkson is smarter than the fool he plays, and here he's giving you a glimpse.

So, half the program skipped because, well, it's totally missable. 8/10 for the remaining parts. Half that if you put those bits back in! Half hour of quality programming squeezed in to an hour.

Banger racing from the worst of Top Gear.

With the three of them getting a reputation of destroying any press car they've given a loan of it's hardly surprising they simply can't fill a show with quality segments. Instead, they have to resort to filling it with bangers.

So what this time?

Jaguar have a problem in the US that they've got a reputation of being unreliable. In truth, they are reliable, often more than their German rivals (especially the Bavarian one). What does Grand Tour do? Pick very old and tired Jaguars to showcase on their "car show".

Watched the introduction and them going through the faults their bangers have and switched off. Seriously, I want to see excellence in automotive, not what everybody know - 20 or 50 year old cars that haven't been looked after will have faults!

Don't waste your time.

Best bit was Hammond in Dubai driving various off-roaders.

Worst... Well you have a selection. Is it Conversation Street? The two unknowns they interview? Or Clarkson trying to pretend he can drive a Subaru?

If you own or have have owned a Subaru don't watch as he kills off an STi. And pretends that he's not using the highly talented Mark Higgins to actually do the stunts.

We all love Bond where he does something seemingly impossible to save the world, or even just the girl. Just as he pulls off another impossible stunt, and the Bond fanfare blasts through the air, you're up punching the air as Bond does it like nobody else!

Except with Spectre.

Every time it builds up to what should be a crescendo of excitement, it steps back. Where you should be shouting "YES!", it lets you down and you simply go "ah...".

Craig brought in a harder edged Bond, just perfect for the current times, but with Spectre they seem determined to go back to the Moore comedies. No shame in the Moore years; they were a product of their time. But now, we want Bond to be the cold ruthless killer that he can be, when he has to be. And in keeping with the books, always looking for that girl...

A prime example is the car chase, and how excited you were with anticipation of the unique DB10 and Jaguar cars? It should have been a ground breaking car chase, and they used up enough Aston Martins that there should be no excuses! Yet, they played this as a comedy and tempered the excitement of the chase by having Bond phoning Moneypenny. And, at the same time removed the "would they / wouldn't they" flirtation of Bond and Moneypenny that we've always wondered over. What should have been edge of your seats excitement was flat.

That's Spectre in one word: Flat. Nothing is ever allowed to excite or entertain you the way Bond should. It was as if Sam Mendes had taken his foot off the gas because he already had a superb Bond film in the bag with Skyfall (which had the best villain of any Bond film - effectively Bond vs Bond). That harder edge we have all enjoyed with Craig was replaced by light entertainment.

The criminal mastermind behind Spectre failed to convince you. Nor his henchmen. Or the various pastiches to other Bond films which came across as a random jumble rather than carefully thought out plot devices. I fear I may be overly generous with my rating for Spectre, but I still love Bond films; just not so much this one.

What's best about Spectre? It makes you realise that Quantum of Solace wasn't that bad.

Firstly, he's not too arrogant when presenting this informative but sometimes quirky documentary. Perhaps the best part is the steam engines and the Sir Walter Scott on Loch Katrine. So impressed by that I visited Loch Katrine, took a ride on the Sir Walter Scott and even got in to the engine room for a closer look. For the engineer in me it was fantastic.

And here's the arrogant part. I'd heard of Robbie Coltrane's reputation for being arrogant and ignorant towards his many fans, especially since the Harry Potter films. At an automotive event I tried to say to him how much I enjoyed this program, for it's a subject he's obviously passionate about, but alas his reputation preceded him.

Great program but the man himself should consider how his many fans have helped him gain his fortune to spend on such automotive and engineering delights. As such I've deducted two stars from the rating for this program.

For the first half of the film they set up the circumstances of how Alex Murphy became Robocop, and it's rather well done too. With the assistance of Samuel L. Jackson's character it's described how, in the world in which Robocop is set, robots are banned within the USA's borders, and therefore the idea of Robocop is born. A human inside a robot. It's done fairly well, although perhaps more emotion form Kinnaman and Cornish would have helped.

There's then the amount of "badies". There's three main foes which Robocop faces, but so little links the three of them. In fact, there's only a link between two of them and the third only becomes a foe in the closing of the film. You have the feeling that the writers lacked the imagination to create a strong foe, or even a plot connecting those foes.

Comparisons of the original are easy to make, but dangerous too; it's a different film. For example, this Robocop is more athletic. The original had stronger foes, this film they're almost sidelined; an inconvenience to the plot of Robocop's creation. There was a sharpness with the ED-209s but in this film again they're like an after thought. In this film the ED-209 battle was rushed to the point where it's just machines fighting machines in a blur of special effects. That fight is rushed so that finally Robocop could face his final foe in what really was an anticlimax against Michael Keaton, who's character has absolutely no menace to him at all.

Gary Oldman plays Dr Dennott Norton and when you look back it could almost be described as a film about his character. How he created Robocop, and his regrets when his boss changes direction of the Robocop program. Certainly himself and Jackson are the stars in this film.

Ultimately the third part of Robocop feels rushed and weak. Overall it lacks the wit, sharpness and intelligence of the original, but Oldman's character added a more human element. Ignoring the original film, it's really a lack of a strong intelligent plot and rushed end which takes from what could have been an 8* film to 6*.