(episode review) - Alien: Earth- Episode 8

 

 

Aside from the fact that this has always been one of my favourite franchises, this episode was spectacular! The inmates are running the asylum. The second-to-last scene (for me) was telegraphed from the previous episode as I knew this person had to be used for the Ocellus, and we were shown in the first episode that Atom was a Synth, but as usual, humans and their hubris are the hand to their own demise, and I absolutely love it. What is that phrase I love so much, oh yes, death by misadventure. This episode is the final episode of the first season, and although there are a lot of threads left hanging, they managed to tie up some things, but left enough to have you wanting more, because there are so many unanswered questions. What happens now, next, in the future (the future we all know), or do we?

First of all, this episode picks up with most of the people together, but slowly, people start to go in their different directions to track down these different people. I am trying to remain spoiler-free and as vague as possible. The fight between those two in the elevator scene was really good, although it could have done with being longer. The monologue was so unnecessary, but that is what people do when they feel they have the upper hand. In the end, I was surprised that they were both still alive, as I thought one would kill the other. I hadn't realised that the communication between the Xenomorph and Wendy is like an echo-location or something, that she could be in one place on the island and make a noise and communicate with the xenomorph, which can hear it from a completely different location on the island, so that was cool. I mean, we had seen it before, but not with a distance so vast. Any scene with the Ocellus is a thing of nightmares, and I always feel uneasy when we are in a scene with it, but the setup was sinister, and the scene was great. There is a moment where Wendy shows up and does something...if you had seen my face, my jaw had dropped open and was open for that entire scene thereafter. Yes, we have seen some things, but this one was elevated and was a truly amazing moment in the scene, AMAZING. It was just something, I guess I did not expect she could do, but it also made sense when explained. Some really great moments had me clapping and cheering, such as the moment where Marcy clicks her fingers, because just when I thought, 'could she not...?' moments later, 'yes, she could'. It was a pre-hit wind-up which teased us to get ready for the moment. And when that ball, hit, I was thinking, "Badass!" This season of Alien: Earth has been great, and I can totally understand that not all questions are answered, and there is a lot of "stupidity" from the characters on the show, and that it has been a slow burn of a show. I cannot think of a reason why they will not do a season 2, but when that does happen (because I am sure it will), it will be interesting as to how this will all go down next season.

(episode review) - Alien: Earth - Episode 7

 

 

This is the penultimate episode, I believe, and in true alien fashion, everything goes to shit and quickly. If you are not up to speed with the show, this might be a spoiler, while I bring you up to speed, so please be warned. I will try to limit the details as much as possible. As we have seen in previous episodes, Morrow is after the specimen for Weyland-Yutani due to the corporation giving him purpose, so he is simply doing his job by any means necessary to stay alive and is using Slightly to achieve his goals. Slightly scared for his family is pressured to carry out a task he does not want to do, which leaves Arthur incapacitated. Arthur was fired because he and his wife want to do what is morally right for the children, but Dame (the wife) goes against her morals just to keep her job, although one of the children flipped out on her a few episodes ago. That same child thought she was pregnant, but Wendy told her what had happened, making Wendy realise she is, in fact, property of The Boy Kavalier and he can do whatever he likes. The Boy Kavalier makes a deal with the Weyland-Yutani Corporation because he thinks he can use the quarantine time to somehow communicate and or use the Xenomorph for his own gains, but Wendy is the only person who can and her brother is trying to get her off the island because he does not think they are safe and this is further proven when Isaac goes into the lab and an accident occurs.

Since we are now up to speed, it was telegraphed in a few episodes prior to the capabilities of Wendy, a tech manipulator, and now she can communicate with the xenomorph, so a team-up was bound to happen, but how the episode ended, wow. Kirsh has been playing 4D Chess, which makes more sense now as the episodes play out episode by episode. It has been somewhat slow-ish, but we have been watching the slow domino effect of one action leading to another and the hubris of humans thinking they are smarter than other creatures. The Ocellus has shown intelligence from the beginning, so now Boy Kavalier is on a quest to find a host for it in hopes of communicating with it, and Wendy wants to save all the children by taking them away from Boy Kavalier with her brother, and Slightly is struggling to fulfil his mission for Morrow. I have no idea what the final episode will be, as I am assuming the island is no longer safe for anyone at present, but the Boy Kavalier is going to try and communicate with the Ocelus, and I assume it will kill him, telling him he is inferior to it. With that said, anything can happen, but I feel like I can guarantee a few survivors like Kirsh, Morrow, Wendy, Hermit and that Ocellus. I mean, what will season 2 look like? It is so hard to say, but maybe nobody will die but a few minor characters, maybe, and season two is when things really get interesting. Great episode of this show...great!

(episode review) - Alien: Earth- Episode 6

 

This show just seems to get better and better, and honestly, this is peak sci-fi. Aliens, Robots, Cyborgs, Hybrids, Alien: Earth has it all. And it is not all just action-based, there is actual science involved, the watching and testing of specimens, whether it be Aliens, Robots, Cyborgs or Hybrids. And like I said before, it could be my personal bias talking here, but this show is just that good, because whilst Alien was great and Aliens was different but better (in a different way), this show manages to juggle the two (with a bit more of Alien), so that this episode has turned the villain on its head. What I mean by that is that there is an argument to be had that the main villain of the Alien franchise is the Alien organism, the Xenomorph, but if you have watched any of the movies in the franchise, it has ALWAYS been Weyland-Yutani. Moreover, Weyland-Yutani is human, so this episode shows us how it is not just one corporation or two (or all for that matter), but humanity is the problem, humans have always been the problem, and Wendy explicitly states this.

Last week, we got the flashback that humanised Morrow; this week, we further understand his motives that make him a multilayered person. We also get Kirsh, who seems to be up to something because some of the children want to remain as children but are being forced to grow up, and some seem to want to prove themselves to a point where an "accident" occurs due to a timely knock on the wall. The Boy Kavalier simply does not care and is onto the next best thing, the Alien that Weyland-Yutani are after, even setting up a deal with the Weyland-Yutani corporation, but this is likely to go badly for him, not to mention Slightly, who is under so much stress with Morrow being on his back about the specimen. Wendy sees firsthand what Boy Kavalier is capable of, and her brother Hermitt is going to do whatever he can to save his sister and get off the island. Nibs is not in a good place right now, and Arthur, the only person who seems to be a good person, just got fired.

(episode review) - Alien: Earth- Episode 5

 

Considering how the last episode ended, things have got a little crazy. Kirsh seems to be "plotting" something, Morrow is sinister as hell, the octopus eye alien is WILD! The whole sheep situation could not be any more disturbing, but most of all, the snake charming at the end is where we ask, "What is happening?" It is one thing for the hybrids to believe they are human, or at least some of them, one of the hybrids to think, "well it happened to Mary, it could happen to me, and in fact, it has", another thing for Morrow to be IN THE HEAD of little boy Slightly, but to have Boy Kavalier try to come between the Hermit and Wendy and the sister being able to charm the snake, this show has stepped up the levels and although there isn't always a lot of action, what we do get is beyond great, especially the use of orifices. The Alien franchise never disappoints when it comes to an alien getting into a human.


And just when you thought we would pick up from the last episode, this episode throws us into the ship we saw in the first episode, where we get to spend more time with these characters and what happened, leaving Morrow to seal himself inside the control room. For how Morrow has been acting throughout these past episodes, this episode gives us some of his backstory, in which I feel humanises him. He had a child, and he was only on the ship as chief security officer, and he just wanted to do his job, but when you are surrounded by imbeciles and a person who decided to take the ship into their own hands under a promise that may not even happen, Morrow is pushed to make challenging decisions. However, with all the engineers, biologists and others on the ship who wind up getting picked off, one-by-one, by making human mistakes off the back of dumb ones anyway, it is not just the Xenomorph loose running rampant on the ship when the testing of these aliens go wrong, it's a combination of a lot of things, but having a Xenomorph loose defintely does not help.

(episode review) - Alien: Earth- Episode 1

If I am allowed to be really honest with you, when I initially heard about Alien: Earth, I thought it was a stupid idea. The Alien franchise has always been great in space, where nobody can hear you scream, and it is claustrophobic as hell. There are a few people, there is one alien or many, and there is no outside help. With that said, I also thought, was it not the plan to keep the alien species, the Xenomorph, away from Earth, so...why Alien Earth? One more thing, if you are new here and have not read any of my reviews on the Alien franchise, like Alien Romulus, for example, I have stated before that the Alien franchise is one of my favourite franchises out there. Not all films are great, but it definitely was a return to form with the last film. So, trying not to come across bias at all, and I am sure I am going to fail, but this first episode was incredible.

The show starts off telling us about the different companies that are controlling Earth, and that they are all in a race to essentially control/run the universe. Humans interested in living forever, there are 3 types of additional "species" on the planet, Cyborgs, Sythetics and Hybrids. The first episode starts almost like-for-like as the original Alien movie. When I saw the dark skinned guy, I immediately thought of Yaphet Kotto as Dennis the technician. I felt like I could see the archetypes of specific characters (maybe not) from the original movie, but there was a spin here I did not expect. You get to meet a little girl named Marcy, and through the episode, you follow her and Morrow, whilst there are flashbacks of an attack by an alien or aliens. If I am honest, I was a little confused as to what was going on as I did think there were some flashbacks, but for the most part, the story seemed linear and it is to be believed (at lease for now anyway), that the Weyland Corp are vying for power from the other leading companies and sabotage seems to be the name of the game. The flashbacks are, maybe, what we do not see happen in the natural way the story is being told here.


The music, the sound design, the visuals and the special effects are all top-notch. Money has gone into this, and it stands out and looks stunning. I do not think I can stress enough that this episode felt like an Alien film but as a sidestep and continuation, meaning, it is not a film, it is a TV show, and this is the TV show branch of the franchise that has not dipped in quality nor storytelling OR any of the other things I previously mentioned. I am intrigued about the aliens and where the story is going to go, going forward, but I would be lying if I did not say I was more than intrigued and, in fact, looking forward to the following episodes. Also, I am not sure where we are with Cyborgs and Synthetics within the Alien franchise but I think Wynona Ryder's character in Alien: Resurrection is indeed a synthetic, so it does make me wonder if we saw any Hybrids or Cyborgs and if not, were they made extinct or are they "hiding" somewhere in the universe or still on Earth? So far, though, a cracking episode to get your sci-fi and Alien-loving taste buds watering for more.

(film review) - Deadpool And Wolverine

So, I decided to watch the teaser trailer and the first trailer and leave it at that. Why? Well, with all the rumours going around, I did not want to spoil the experience for myself because sometimes, trailers give away too much, and I just wanted to watch this movie with fresh eyes and thoughts. Not thinking at the back of my mind, "Oh, this is when so and so turns up". I did see a small clip of an actor in a suit and I wished I never, but that was due to someone talking about the film and showing clips of the latest trailer (something I had not seen and was trying to avoid), but if I am honest, I think I did pretty well. The spoiler did not hold much weight in comparison to what was to come in the movie at all. But what was to come, I hear you ask?! Cameo after cameo after cheeky cameo, and while all these cameos served a purpose in the movie, I could not help but applaud the team behind this movie and what they managed to do. In 2024, smartphones combined with the internet reign terror on movie sets, letting people know about specific actors and characters in movies, but Deadpool and Wolverine managed to avoid that and deliver a movie that is not only about cameos but about heart, history, decisions and other. I believe that, by this point, you have successfully guessed that I loved this movie.

Wade Winston Wilson, aka Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds), is head-hunted and specifically tasked to help assist an entity with a problem they have. Deadpool decides that the only person who will be able to help him with this task is Wolverine (Hugh Jackman). The two go on an adventure to fulfil that task and save the world/universe at the same time, kinda... especially when these two are essentially oil and milk and do not get on.

I am going to try not to spoil this movie as it will be extremely difficult to talk about it due to there being so much going on, and the trailers do absolutely nothing to give the movie away. With that said, I am going to keep this fairly simple and start with the acting. Born to play Iron Man, we can see no other person than Robert Downey Jr. This is almost the same with Chris Evans as Captain America. This also rings true for Ryan and Hugh as Deadpool and Wolverine, respectively. These two guys ARE their comic book characters, AND whilst one has been at it for around 24 years, there is no denying that these two actors as these two characters are so well loved and revered at this point, it feels like home when both actors play these characters. Hugh has stated before that he would not play Wolverine again after Logan, and here he is, playing Wolverine again, after Logan and again, pretty much delivering such a performance, many may feel he stole the show. This could well be due to familiarity bias because, at this point, we know Hugh as being excellent as Wolverine. To the purists out there who ranted and raved about Wolverine needing to be comic book accurate in height, which is 5'3, and Hugh standing in at 6'2, it was because he was so good, nobody cared, the acting, the story and the delivery were that good. The story is good, but a little messy. It could have been worse, but it was serviceable, and everything else in the movie helps to elevate the movie, allowing you to disregard the messiness of the story. There is also a slight weightiness to Wolverine's story, and this also rings true for Deadpool himself. I won't go into the other actors involved, but Paradox and Cassandra were ok, but they did not have many layers or substance to them. The film is more about Deadpool with Wolverine than what the villain is doing, so yes, villainess or sinister things, but nothing close to that of Killmonger or Thanos. No real heavy lifting here, a little more for Cassandra due to her proximity to certain characters in the X-Men universe, but the film is definitely carried by Hugh and his portrayal of Wolverine.

The visuals. Straight from the beginning, this movie gives you the slo-mos we have been used to from the first movie, as well as the "choppy" storytelling. Moreover, whilst there were no beautiful shots that made you think, "wow, what a visual", there were some excellent fight scenes with great choreography. Not quite a Chad Stahelski, but still great to watch. There were plenty of times I said "orfff" or "ouch" because whether these guys can regenerate or not, some of these shots should hurt a great deal, and I felt it!

The music and the jokes were just line after line of funny lines with track after track of brilliant music. The intro, great music (among other things), and the visuals were excellent. Near the middle of the movie, great music and near the end of the movie, great music. The music accompanying the fights was spot on as well, but if you are aware of music cues, you do need to listen out for them in this movie. The jokes were so funny, and there were times I was laughing so hard that I missed another joke. This movie is witty, smart, and quick, and the fourth wall breaking was superb. There are jabs flying left and right, making it hard to keep up with b cause I'd be laughing as another jab is landing. It reminded me of Kenshiro from Fist of the North Star. The jabs were speaking directly to the audience about the current state of affairs and your thoughts about the last few years at the establishment, basically....what do they call that, meta-commentary? But I will say, the jokes, jabs, and comedy did not feel forced for me.

Finally, the story, well, back to it. Whilst not amazing, the delivery and execution were great, unlike a few Marvel movies in the past few years. There is quality here. Everything worked and made sense, but the delivery, direction and demand from the director of these actors is what has made this film work for me, even if the story is a bit messy. A combination of everything coming together in perfect harmony to bring you something to watch, have to encapsulate you, laugh (and at some moments) and cry at others. I am not sure if it is due to the familiarity bias with some of these characters, but I have to be honest and say, I did get emotional...even if it was a little bit.

I do believe this is a movie that will be loved by many, liked by loads and disliked by some. With that said and in comparison to what he has had of late, this is a really, really fun movie that is quality and gives us promise of what to come. Maybe, just maybe, Marvel is back "on form". We just need more quality like this in Captain America: Brave New World and The Thunderbolts. Maybe, just maybe, Marvel can get back to where they were, on top.

(film review) - The New Mutants

20th Century Fox had purchased the X-Men off of Marvel when Marvel was heading into bankruptcy and in a desperate attempt, to gain some money to stay afloat, Marvel sold a lot of their characters.  It meant that everything to do with X-Men and Mutants belonged to Fox.  They sold Spider-Man and his universe, Ghost Rider, Blade, Hulk, Namor, Daredevil and only kept a handful of heroes.  Fox also purchased The Fantastic 4, so Fox had both the world of the X-Men and Fantastic 4 to do what they will with.  The only stipulation like the others, keep making films and if there is a period of possibly 5 years (I could be wrong, might be 10 years - as it's from memory) where there is no production on a movie, then the rights will go back to Marvel.  We have seen this play out twice between movie studios.  One with The Fantastic 4 and another with The Spider-Man movies (Hence why we are on our 3rd Spidey).  Where Fantastic 4, seems to have NOW gone back to Marvel (although there has been no talk on it) and will likely be an announcement of a upcoming film by Marvel in the next few years, the X-Men franchise and their weird success over the years stayed with Fox until Disney bought Fox whilst they were making this movie.

Disney's purchase of Fox Studios meant that not only would Disney automatically acquire The fantastic 4 (if they didn't already have it by then), they would also acquire all the rights to the X-Men and the word Mutants.  What it meant for the movie though, was that the film had finished initial production and then went into a limbo state.  No reshoots, no release date, just nothing.  The film was meant to come out 2 years ago and it kept getting pushed and pushed and pushed back.  The end product is this and personally, while I don't think the film is terrible, reshoots or a more in-depth storyline would have been more beneficial and would have went a long way.  I'll explain.

Five teenagers coming into Mutant-hood have been sent to a facility where a doctor named Dr. Reyes (Alice Braga) is assigned to help them harness and control their powers when they first discover them, however when newcomer Danielle Moonstar (Blu Hunt) arrives, everyones greatest fears come to life and an entity called the Demon Bear arrives to feast off of their fear and kill them.  The New Mutants, Wolfsbane (Maisie Williams), Magik (Anya Taylor-Joy), Cannonball (Charlie Heaton) and Sunspot (Henry Zaga) along with Dani Moonstar must band together, confront their fears and defeat the Demon Bear.

So, as I've previously stated, the film isn't terrible.  However, where I think they tripped up, was trying to do a horror movie for kids.  Josh Boone was not ideal or he didn't push the boat out far enough.  Drag Me to Hell by Sam Rami is a PG-13 and successfully bridges that gap between horror and child-friendly (PG-13), where this movie, although has some scary-ish imagery, I didn't find it creepy, atmospheric, spooky or frightening at all.  That could well be due to my fresh-hold and Drag Me to Hell is a completely different movie, but this movie tries, but not successfully.  You are not allowed enough time with the characters or to get inside their heads to understand their personal problems, journey or their powers.  When I think of this movie, I think of Leonardo DiCaprio's Shutter Island, mixed with some kind of home invasion movie like Home Alone, but with a bunch of kids, The Goonies, but this movie only scratches the surface.  The story was decent but could have been more compelling and gripping.  The film was fairly choppy at the beginning and felt slightly rushed.  The connection between the Demon Bear and Danielle, although obvious, could have played out better.  It would have been nice if the movie was slower paced and more character driven with insane things happening in spats only to become a big deal later.  The film does that, but it just wasn't long enough, you are simply not engaged with the characters or feel for them other than the fact that they are a bunch of kids.  Even the final fight could have been longer and mo cohesive.

Not to bash the film, but I loved the acting between the characters although the LGBTQ+ moment felt forced.  The special effects were great especially something as ridiculous as a Demon Bear, looked amazing with smokey red eyes.  Magik and Sunspot looked great.  I loved the effects on the eyes.  The Magik scenes were also great.  The Wolfsbane design was ok and I loved the Cannonball look as well as Sunspot, but I wish I got more from the.  Even those things which were meant to be scary looked ok, but could have been a touch scarier but I liked the design of them.  

Since the acquisition, I know a lot of people were wondering if there was any reshoots or anything that could tie into the MCU.  Could this be a standalone movie they can incorporate into the MCU?  The answer is no.  This is likely a one and done and although established connections to the X-Men universe of years that have passed, this movie doesn't carry near enough the same weight as those films.  Possibly without the merger or at least with the reshoots, we may have had something better, but this film is more or less on the same scale as Apocalypse and the Phoenix one... Average at best, but had a lot of potential.