What have you been watching? Including The Man From UNCLE and Sicario

14 February 2016 Rob Buckley 6 Comments

It’s “What have you been watching?”, my chance to tell you what movies and TV I’ve been watching recently that I haven’t already reviewed and your chance to recommend things to everyone else (and me) in case I’ve missed them.

The usual “TMINE recommends” page features links to reviews of all the shows I’ve ever recommended, and there’s also the Reviews A-Z, for when you want to check more or less anything I’ve reviewed ever. And if you want to know when any of these shows are on in your area, there’s Locate TV – they’ll even email you a weekly schedule.

It’s been if not a bumper week for TV, one that’s certainly full. Elsewhere, I’ve passed verdicts on:

After the jump, the regulars: American Crime, Angie Tribeca, Arrow, Billions, The Flash, Limitless, The Magicians, Man Seeking Woman, Marvel’s Agent Carter, Okkupert (Occupied), Second Chance, The Shannara Chronicles, Supergirl and The X-Files, as well as the return of The Doctor Blake Mysteries. At least one of those is for the chop, one of them earned a last minute reprieve and another could be departing soon.

I’ve a few new shows from Thursday night onwards that I haven’t had a chance to watch yet, but which hopefully I’ll be able to let you all know about this week: Wanted (Australia: Seven) and Those Who Can’t (US: TruTV). Otherwise, I’m bang up to date.

In fact, I’ve had a go at a few movies, too.

Sicario (2015) (iTunes)
Emily Blunt is an FBI agent drawn into the moral greys of the drugs war, as she joins an inter-agency taskforce with Mexican drug dealers in their sights. Despite some lovely cinematography, and a good cast that includes Josh Brolin, Benicio del Toro and Jeffrey Donovan, it’s something of a yawn fest that thinks it’s saying something clever about the lengths good men must go to to fight evil. Except it’s all been done before. There are two excellent, tense sequences, but otherwise it’s a yawnfest, and Blunt’s neophyte is practically superfluous requirements – had it simply about our ‘grey areas’ friends, it would have been a much leaner and more interesting movie.

Fantastic 4 (2015) (iTunes)
Yet another origin story for the Fantastic Four, in which plucky scientists and their friends and relatives get given special powers through a cosmic accident. This version is probably the worst so far, however, despite taking more than a few liberties with the original story, swapping out cosmic rays in favour of some inter-dimensional travel experiments. The lovely wife and I tried to watch this a few months ago, but quickly gave up through sheer boredom. This rewatch revealed it was a full hour and 20 minutes before anything that could be quantified as ‘mildly exciting’ happened in the movie – that being the 10 minute final battle between the Four and evil hacker/scientist Victor Von Doom. An excruciatingly painful bit of movie-making that proves that everything Marvel is not gold and that superheroes need to have both personalities and fun to be worth watching.

The Man From UNCLE (2015) (iTunes)
Guy Ritchie’s reboot of the 60s TV series attempts to do what Sherlock Holmes did for Sherlock Holmes. Here, we get an origin story of sorts – how CIA agent Napoleon Solo (Henry Cavill) and KGB agent Ilya Kuryakin (Armie Hammer) end up working together to defeat a greater enemy, with the help of Mr Waverley (Hugh Grant). The first 15 minutes isn’t half bad, as we learn a lot more about Solo than we did in the TV series (he’s a former war profiteer who agreed to join the CIA to avoid prison) and get a decent version of post-war Berlin to enjoy. Unfortunately, the intellectual, cool Kuryakin of the TV series here is yet another stereotypical Russian, ex-Spetsnaz soldier, and there’s almost zero cameraderie between the two of them.

At least for the first half, after which I turned off because it was just so astonishingly boring.

Fast and Furious 6 (2013) (Channel 4)
Seeing as both Gina Carano (would have been good as Wonder Woman) and Gal Gadot (fingers crossed, will be good as Wonder Woman) were in this, I thought I’d tune in for this, having studiously avoided all the previous installments of this ‘fast cars, fast criminals’ movie franchise. Unfortunately, it was just as awful as I thought it would be, with no trace of acting skill displayed by anyone, characterisation that’s beyond insulting and almost zero grasp on reality. I didn’t even make as far as any of the stunts. Oh well.

Continue reading “What have you been watching? Including The Man From UNCLE and Sicario”

News: Neil Gaiman’s Likely Stores; BBC4 acquires Modus; Master of None renewed; + more

12 February 2016 Rob Buckley 5 Comments

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The BarrometerA Barrometer rating of 2

Third-episode verdict: Stan Lee’s Lucky Man (UK: Sky1)

11 February 2016 Rob Buckley 6 Comments

In the UK: Fridays, 9pm, Sky1

Stan Lee’s Lucky Man‘s biggest asset is also its biggest problem – Stan Lee. He came up with the idea for the show, it’s his name that probably got the show made and it’s that name that will get most viewers tuning in.

Trouble is, as soon as you stick the name Stan Lee in the title, there’s a certain expectation there’ll be superheroics and super-fun. Unfortunately, in the hands of series writer Neil Biswas (The Take), there’s neither.

The show sees James Nesbitt play a cop with a gambling problem who suddenly gets a mystical lucky bracelet that helps him both to win big at the casino and to solve crimes, but at a price to others. There’s the occasional bit of supernaturalness thanks to said bracelet, but we’re largely talking about things falling on the floor at opportune moments so that Nesbitt can spot there’s something under a table, rather than Final Destination-style domino effects resulting in bags of money to fall into Nesbitt’s lap. Not at all the time – there’s a speedboat chase in episode one and an impressive sprint across a busy motorway in episode two, for example, but that’s as superheroic as the show has managed to get.

Rather than superheroics, what we’ve had in spades instead is Nesbitt moping around, getting upset by his good luck’s flipside effects on others, and investigating murders, all while leather-clad motorcylist Sienna Guillory drops by to provide the occasional hint about the bracelet’s powers and various members of the police grouch about Nesbitt’s supposed corrupt tendencies. An interesting character study mixed with a bit of fantasy and a police procedural? Yes. Something to rival Daredevil? Not in the slightest.

If you keep that in mind, chances are you might enjoy the show. There’s a decent enough supporting cast, even if Nesbitt is miscast; the story’s not bad and is even a bit edgy; and what supernatural qualities the show does have it does well. It’s even got Banshee‘s ‘Albino’ (Londoner Joseph Gatt) as the big bad who’s after Nesbitt’s jewellery. 

It’s just not the new superhero show you might have been looking for.

Barrometer rating: 2
Would the show be better with a female lead? Yes
TMINE’s prediction: Unlikely to get a second series unless it gets any overseas sales

The BarrometerA Barrometer rating of 3

Third-episode verdict: Lucifer (US: Fox; UK: Amazon Instant Video)

11 February 2016 Rob Buckley 6 Comments

In the US: Mondays, 9/8c, Fox
In the UK: Tuesdays, Amazon Instant Video

Since the 80s, there’s been a move on US TV away from shows about lone heroes towards more ensemble pieces with a core cast of characters. Whether it’s to provide variety, to support the number of plots of a long-running season, to give the main actor respite from arduous filming duties, or to hedge bets in case the lead isn’t that popular, the trend is clear. When you look at remakes, it becomes even more obvious with formerly hero-centric shows taking on the trappings of ensemble pieces, whether it’s Kolchak: The Night Stalker and Night Stalker, Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation or Hawaii Five-O and Hawaii Five-0.

Normally this is by design, so the trouble comes when you forget what kind of show you’re making – is it a lone hero show or an ensemble show? Try to make both at the same time and you end up with something that’s not good at either.

Lucifer is a case in point. As the name suggests, it’s a show about the Devil himself. Adapted from the DC/Vertigo comic, it sees Miranda’s Tom Ellis as the bored fallen angel Lucifer Morningstar taking a vacation from Hell in Los Angeles, where he has loads of fun running a night club, shagging and generally tempting mortals. One day, he runs into a police detective (Lauren German) when one of his protégés is murdered, and he starts trying to solve crimes with her so he can keep up his former day job of punishing evil-doers.

It’s a somewhat silly idea but as I pointed out in my review of the first episode, it all works largely because of Ellis who’s clearly having the time of his life as a decidedly English supporting character from the Old and New Testaments (“I’ll rip his bollocks off then stamp on them one at a time”). He alternates between luxuriating in raining down diabolical torture and pain upon anyone who crosses him and camping up to the point you think he’s impersonating Kenneth Williams. It’s a marvellously engaging performance.

The trouble is that although the show is really all about Lucifer, the comic is more of an ensemble piece. And Lucifer takes on trappings of Lucifer to become partly an ensemble show as well, spending time with German, her young daughter, her ex- (Southland/True Blood/Arrow‘s Kevin Alejandro), Lucifer’s fellow devil Maze (Lesley-Ann Brandt from Spartacus and The Librarians) and Lucifer’s therapist/shag partner Rachael Harris (The Hangover, Suits, Surviving Jack). Which would be fine if any of them were in any way interesting or at least having as much fun as Ellis.

Perhaps if the show could also decide not to throw all its moments of characterisation at Lucifer but give each a few scraps from the table, it might be possible to care about them or even like them a little. But it doesn’t. The result is you have Ellis, bright and shiny in centre-stage, surrounded by pale shadows who take away from his screen time with their tedious concerns, but don’t really add anything except when they’re acting as sounding boards and ways to expand on Lucifer’s character.

The plots are also a little timid and repetitive. Murder followed by investigation in which Lucifer charms people and gets them to confess their deepest desires, all while German somberly and without any trace of real animation uses various synonyms of ‘back off’ to stop Lucifer from muscling in on her investigations, which Lucifer then studiously ignores. Even when Lucifer gets up to potentially exciting acts of sin, it’s Fox at its tamest: a ‘devil’s threesome’ and a foursome, none of which is ever shown, just the monring after when everyone wakes up with their clothes and underwear still intact.

The show works best when Ellis gets to enjoy himself and the writers provide lines and situations for him to really chow down on the scenery. It also becomes 100% more interesting whenever it’s dealing with the supernatural. Interactions with fellow angel DB Woodside, sent by God to convince Lucifer to resume normal duties, give someone for Ellis to really bounce off, while Lucifer’s acts of devilish punishment give the show a welcome edge of iron.

But for Lucifer to really work, it needs to decide whether it’s an ensemble show or a lone hero show: either drop some of the additional characters to really focus on Lucifer or give them something to do that makes them more than mere stock characters. 

Barrometer rating: 3
Would it be better with a female lead? No. Different, but not better
TMINE’s prediction: Could get a second season but a bit touch and go at the moment and needs to strengthen itself up to avoid a trip to ratings Hell