STAR TREK DISCOVERY SEASON 2 (full review at Screen Realm)

Star Trek Discovery returns for its second season, streaming internationally on Netflix, with fourteen episodes comprising the second season. Unlike season one, there is no mid-season break so it allows a single consistent arc to run throughout, avoiding the sectional feel of the debut series. With Discovery being a co-production with CBS in the US, new episodes drop weekly, which might seem old fashioned in these days of binge watch TV, but it seems wholly appropriate for Discovery as it echoes the weekly episodic format of the iconic originals.

Before starting in on season two it is worth noting there are four short films that sit in between the two series. They work as nice stand-alone mini episodes, but also become relevant to the series overall.

The first episode, Runaway, features Ensign Tilly (Mary Wiseman) and an alien stowaway and serves as some significant backstory for the later episodes of the season.

The second episode, Calypso is of note because it is written by the brilliant Michael Chabon, author of such wonderful novels as The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Clay, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union and Wonder Boys. He is a writer on the upcoming Picard series and this short film serves as a nice testing ground for his immersion in the Star Trek Universe.

The third short, The Brightest Star, involves Saru’s backstory on his homeworld of Kaminar and ties in to the episode The Sound of Thunder. Finally, the best of the short films is Escape Artist and sees the return of Rainn Wilson in the role he was born to play, as Harcourt Fenton (Harry) Mudd. Wilson also directs the episode and at 15 minutes long, it is a short, light hearted Star Trek episode that is played to absolute perfection.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:
https://screenrealm.com/star-trek-discovery-season-2-review/

IMDB: Star Trek Discovery

TRIPLE THREAT (full review at Screen Realm)

For action movie fans, Jesse V Johnson’s Triple Threat must be one of the most anticipated movies of the year. It assembles a dream cast of the best movie fighters and action flick tough guys currently working - Iko Uwais (The Raid, The Night Comes For Us), Tony Jaa (Ong Bak, Warrior King), Tiger Hu Chen (Kung Fu Man, Man Of Tai Chi), Michael Jai White (Spawn, Undisputed 2, Dragged Across Concrete) and prolific action movie dynamo Scott Adkins (the Undisputed franchise, The Debt Collector, Doctor Strange). It divides them into good guys and bad guys and pits them against each other. Simples. Triple Threat is basically Ocean’s Eleven for fight movie connoisseurs and direct-to-video action fiends.
   
Triple Threat kicks off with a mercenary team on a jungle incursion, attacking a heavily guarded compound. The film gives a solid tip of the hat to the opening of Predator as the team uses its bloody, unsubtle M.O. to extract mysterious prisoner, Collins (Scott Adkins). Meanwhile, left for dead in the jungle, Jaka (Iko Uwais) vows revenge on the mercenaries who destroyed his life in the process. Back in the city, the mercenary team is revealed to be a criminal gang, hired to assassinate Xiao Xian (Celina Jade) a rich philanthropist dedicated to using her considerable inheritance to wiping out crime and corruption. Jaka teams up with ex-gang members Payu (Tony Jaa) and Long Fei (Tiger Hu Chen) to stop them. Cue several double crosses, some kinetic fisticuffs, and a lot of guns blazing.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:
https://screenrealm.com/triple-threat-movie-review-adkins-uwais-jaa-jai-white/

IMDB: Triple Threat

HELLBOY (full review at Screen Realm)

Neil Marshall’s fifth movie, Hellboy, is not so much a reboot of the franchise popularised by Guillermo Del Toro’s two movies, as it is a more faithful adaptation of Mike Mignola’s popular comic series.

Hellboy (David Harbour), reluctant steward of Armageddon, plies his trade working for his father Professor Trevor Bruttenholm (Ian McShane) at the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defence (B.P.R.D.), protecting the world from monstrous and ancient threats. While out on a routine mission to hunt some giants, the B.P.R.D. learns that ancient witch Nimue a.k.a. The Blood Queen (Milla Jovovitch) has risen from the grave, intent on bringing about a deadly plague to wipe out humanity and bring forth the apocalypse. After which the ancient monsters of the Earth will rise to reclaim it under her rule. Hellboy must team up with telekinetic Alice Monaghan (Saha Lane) and the secretive, Captain Daimio (Daniel Dae Kim) to stop her.

By now it’s unlikely you will not be aware of the critical lambasting Hellboy has taken over the past week or so since its release. It has copped flack from all sides and while some of the criticisms are valid (particularly in regard to the quality of the CGI), the fact of the matter is that it’s just not that bad. Mike Mignola’s stories have always been dark, and Neil Marshall’s movies have always violent. Basing the film on a story that involves a nasty medieval plague and a lot of swordplay suits Marshall’s sensibilities down to the ground. So what we get is a dark, violent, very weird take on a dark, violent and very weird character. Yes it has flaws, but not enough to mark it as the disaster it’s been heralded as.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:

www.screenrealm.com/hellboy-movie-review-2019/

IMDB: Hellboy

THE CURSE OF THE WEEPING WOMAN aka THE CURSE OF LA LLORONA (full review at Screen Realm)

The Curse of the Weeping Woman (a.k.a. The Curse of La Llorona in the US) is the first feature from director Michael Chaves, and is the sixth entry in the Conjuring Universe.

James Wan’s The Conjuring was a surprisingly decent horror movie that cropped up back in 2013 to deliver some solid scares and genuine creeps, before descending into a bit of a stock monster runaround. It had some nicely effective sequences early on, and if not quite up to the hype it received, was nevertheless pretty good value for a mainstream MA15 horror flick. And lo, it spawned the inevitable sequel and several spinoffs (the Annabelle movies and The Nun, for those of you keeping track).

Which brings us to The Curse of the Weeping Woman. Set in 1970s Los Angeles, recently widowed Anna (Linda Cardellini) is trying to balance the pressures of raising her two children with the responsibilities of her job as a social worker. When a case she is working on ends in tragedy, Anna encounters the legend of La Llorona, a weeping ghost of Mexican folklore who kills children. La Llorona is a spectral apparition capable of interacting with the living world in a number of rather nasty ways. Naturally, the spook becomes attached to the kids and Anna must enlist the help of rogue ex-priest Rafael (Raymond Cruz) to stop the ghostly weeping woman.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:
https://screenrealm.com/the-curse-of-the-weeping-woman-la-llorona-movie-review/

IMDB: The Curse Of La Llorona

BURNING (BEONING) (full review at Screen Realm)

Burning is the sixth movie from Korean director Lee Chang-dong. It’s based on the short story Barn Burning by renowned Japanese author Haruki Murakami and taken from his short fiction collection, The Elephant Vanishes.

While out in the city one afternoon, Lee Jong-su (Ahi-in Yoo) bumps into childhood friend Hae-mi (Jeon Jong-seo) and the two quickly re-connect. When Hae-mi announces she is off travelling to Africa for several weeks, she asks him to look after her cat, Boil. When Hae-mi arrives home Lee Jong-su goes to pick her up from the airport, only to find she has met someone while travelling - the rich and sophisticated Ben (Steven Yeun). The exact nature of their relationship is not immediately clear to Lee Jong-su and so the three hang out together and gradually become friendly in what initially seems to be a strange love / friendship triangle.

Burning is one of those movies where if you know too much going in, your enjoyment will be sorely diminished. So it’s advisable to avoid the trailers because there is lot to unpack in terms of this plot and these characters that will no doubt generate much post-movie discussion.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:
https://screenrealm.com/burning-movie-review-south-korea/

IMDB: Burning

LOVE, DEATH AND ROBOTS (full review at Screen Realm)

Love, Death and Robots is an eighteen part (mostly) animated series streaming on Netflix, brought to us by executive producers David Fincher and Deadpool director Tim Miller. With their long gestating collaboration on Heavy Metal seemingly having run aground, Love, Death and Robots is the logical extension of ideas that would undoubtedly feel right at home on the pages of the legendary science fiction and fantasy magazine.

Love, Death and Robots is an anthology series with each self-contained episode showcasing both a brand new story and animation style. Although comparisons will be drawn, inevitably, to recent Netflix hit, Black Mirror, and obvious anthology heavyweights The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits, it’s really only the surface level where Love, Death and Robots has anything in common. It does not feel obliged, as so many other genre anthologies are, to provide us with a twist. The shorts have, simply, a beginning, a middle and an end so if anything, Love, Death and Robots feels like it has more in common with literary anthologies than anything visual. Each episode is so distinct in its own right, as to liken it to a book of short stories. Which makes further sense when we realise sixteen of the episodes are indeed adapted from short fiction, with episodes based on tales from science fiction authors Alastair Reynolds, Peter F. Hamilton and Bubba Ho-Tep author Joe Lansdale.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:
https://screenrealm.com/love-death-and-robots-review-netflix/

IMDB: Love, Death And Robots