Video Game, Board Game, Comic Book & Movie Reviews – and more!
The first time I properly sat and read an issue of 2000AD was in the early 80s. I was with my Dad, visiting one of his mates; his son was older than me and had a copy of the latest prog (that’s ‘issue’ in 2000AD lingo) on the coffee table. I was bored as the adults chatted and started to […]
Based on the early 90s Japanese manga strip Ganmu – translated into English as Battle Angel Alita – and the 1993 animé (also known in English as Battle Angel Alita), this James Cameron-produced, Robert Rodriguez-directed film was originally announced way back in 2003, with Cameron set to direct. However, with James Cameron now seemingly invested in directing nothing but the […]
It was a very different time for superhero movies in the late 90s/early 00s. As is often the case with Hollywood, the failure of one specific movie was seen as the death knell for the entire genre – in this case, Batman & Robin was the harbinger of the apocalypse for superhero movies. Rather than concentrate on the fact that […]
At first glance, Scoob! seems like it’s going to be an origin story for our favourite scaredy-dog and his mystery solving friends. Yet it soon becomes clear that it’s a shameless, awkward and somewhat cynical attempt to set up a shared universe featuring the classic Hanna-Barbera characters from the 60s and 70s. It all starts off nicely, with a young […]
The risk of making huge budget movies can sometimes be a gamble worthy of beloved Corellian chancer Han Solo himself. However, there were – until recently – not many franchises more set for success than Star Wars, so a prequel movie covering the early years of Han Solo was seen as the closest thing there is in Hollywood to a […]
I’ve long been a fan of the gorgeous animated movies from Studio Ghibli; often tales infused with a sort of magical realism, their tales are most often set in real world environments, with supernatural or fantastical elements that put it the story just one step away from reality. Whisper of the Heart is a little different; though it does feature […]
After the critical and commercial failure of the William Shatner-directed Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, there was concern that the series – at least from the point of view of the movies starring the original cast – had run its course. On TV, the Star Trek series was thriving of course, with The Next Generation approximately halfway through its […]
Following the ‘Spock Trilogy’ of movies (beginning with Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, continuing with Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and ending with Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home), the status quo of Star Trek had been reset somewhat, story-wise. With Kirk demoted to Captain, back in charge of the Enterprise with his regular crew, it’s […]
The fourth film in the Star Trek movie series concluded a tightly knit trilogy of stories, continuity-wise. Though The Voyage Home does diverge in tone and content to the previous two films, it nonetheless picks up right after the climax of The Search for Spock – with our crew still on Vulcan, manning a Klingon Bird of Prey rather than […]
It was the early 90s when I saw my first animé – thanks to the BBC. Akira was broadcast on BBC2 and absolutely blew my mind. Animation in the West […]
Back in April 2019, the first Sonic the Hedgehog trailer was released. It’s fair to say that it was poorly received; it looked visually flat, had Gangsta’s Paradise as aural […]
Though the Star Trek movies got off to a shaky start with the first film – The Motion Picture, which I reviewed here – the second film was an absolutely spectacular romp, full of high stakes action, superb writing and excellent character development. It ended on a pseudo-cliffhanger too, with the death of Spock. Despite Leonard Nimoy’s apparent desire for […]
I’m a bit weird when it comes to music. I struggle with most songs that have lyrics, mostly because I find them so hard to ‘hear’ unless I know what’s […]
Note: My review of the first film in the Star Trek series (Star Trek: The Motion Picture) can be found here. There’s an absolutely fascinating history behind the second Star Trek movie (it’s far too long to recount at length here, but I’d urge you to check out the film’s Wikipedia page even if you’re not a Trek fan – […]
Since I started writing again last year, I’ve made a few attempts at going back to the beginning of a game or film series and reviewing each entry in turn; for whatever reason – usually issues with having a lack of time and/or interest – these attempts have always stalled. Reviewing an entire series felt a bit unattainable to me; […]
I was a huge fan of sci-fi as a kid, to the point where I’d watch just about anything featuring spaceships, aliens and lasers. Star Wars is to blame; coming out the same year that I was born, it was always just there – I seemed to be around and at my most impressionable when hype was building for the […]
