“Brightburn” is a horror film that seems to have started off with the idea of distorting the backstory of Superman or something.  Mark and Brian Gunn are the writers who may have been on acid when they conceived this idea.  David Yarovesky is the director who can at least make this somewhat watchable.

A couple trying to have a baby find that something has dropped onto their farm from the sky.  Lo and behold, it’s a baby in a space pod or something.  They end up raising the child until his twelfth year and then the little kid starts to exhibit some strange behaviors and abilities.

Elizabeth Banks and David Denman play the devoted parents who have a pretty unrealistic ability to overlook the obvious.  Of course, they hide the pod from their son and keep it buried under the barn.  Jackson A. Dunn is the actor portraying the unearthly child whose entering into puberty is considerably more destructive than most.  He does the best he can with the script.

This just really seems to be a “what if Superman went bad” idea.  The kid has exactly the same abilities from being able to fly to heat vision.  Bullets apparently bounce of him.  Probably the only new thing in the kid’s bag of tricks is psychokinesis.

The parents display some really senseless reactions to some of their child’s antics.  He crushes the hand of a female classmate and is only suspended for two days.  The parents just take way too long to get extremely alarmed here.

The visual effects were good but not good enough to make me more forgiving of the weaknesses in the plot and dialogue.  The similarities to Superman’s origin were just too distracting.

Brightburn ended up being the name of the Kansas town where all of this chaos takes place.  The distortion of the Superman background is likely intentional and probably sounded like a good idea at the beginning, however I think casual movie viewers who  are merely going to find it obnoxious.

I suppose it’s an interesting idea to pitch to the studio, but there were too many plot holes and moments when the parents just looked too dense for me to buy into it when it is all said and done.

 

 

“Old Black Magic” is the latest novel from Ace Atkins who has been continuing the popular Spenser series created by the late Robert B. Parker.

A friend of Spenser’s is dying and his major regret is his failure to recover some paintings that were taken in a heist twenty years before.  Spenser is hired to look into the matter when the museum that was robbed starts receiving letters from someone claiming to know the whereabouts of the purloined art pieces.  Spenser always knows which members of the criminal elite in Boston to start with.  Of course, murder is right around the corner.

Although Hawk is away in this one, former enforcer Vinnie Morris is on hand to help with the negotiation and with the muscle.

I found this one to be a little more interesting because high dollar art is not usually a realm in which Spenser operates.  He is on familiar territory when facing old mob bosses who could point him in the right direction.  Also, he has to contend with police officials who resent his participation in the investigation.  Some things have changed for Spenser in recent years, but he still has long-time girlfriend, Susan Silverman, at his side as well as the love of their pooch, Pearl.

I was a little surprised that this novel seemed a little short on fisticuffs here.  Also, no one burst into Spenser’s office to threaten him.  I was even more astounded when some drunken floozie didn’t make some clumsy pass at him so he could take the noble road of monogamy to Susan.

Spenser still has the dry wit, although Atkins seems to have tried to come up with new ways to present it.  There is a certain repetition of encounters in most of the novels, however Atkins seems to have taken a little different path in this one without really compromising the integrity of Parker’s creation.

I am not sure that I have the expertise to claim that Atkins’ efforts to emulate Parker’s style of prose is flawless, but I feel confident to proclaim this to be one of the better installments in the series.  I did miss Hawk though, but I expect he will be back at Spenser’s side in the next novel.

I guess this is the season for me to read continuations of series created by now deceased authors.  Stieg Larsson’s Swedish hacker and crusader, Lisbeth Salander, is back in “The Girl Who Takes an Eye For an Eye” by David Lagercrantz.

“The Kamelion Empire” is a Doctor Who audio play from Big Finish Productions and was written by Jonathan Morris.  Peter Davison, Janet Fielding, Mark Strickson, and Jon Culshaw reunite for this final story in the recent trilogy in the Monthly Range featuring the shape-changing android,  Kamelion.  They are joined by merely one other guest actor, Christopher Naylor.

The Doctor and his companions are drawn by a summons to the planet Mekalion which is where Kamelion would call home.  It is seemingly abandoned until a powerful device called the Locus is discovered.  Naylor plays the Alternate Kamelion and something called Chaos.  Kamelion is susceptible to the influence emitted by strong personalities or psychic manipulation.

For quite a while, it is just the main cast exploring their surroundings and getting in trouble.  Their chemistry is spot on as expected.

I thought this was a pretty good episode.  Kamelion was not really a character that I found all that fascinating, but this was a pretty compelling adventure.  Morris is one of the prolific Big Finish writers and is usually quite good.  This episode is a fine example as to why he keeps getting work with them.

Tegan at times can be written a little too brash, however she was toned down a bit here without compromising her nature.  She actually manages to display some compassion to Kamelion’s plight.

Strickson is also great as Turlough.  He doesn’t do much acting these days outside of this, but he still has the chops when he returns to contribute to Big Finish audios.

I think this episode wrapped up this part of the Davison era quite effectively.  Culshaw is a very talented voice impressionist and performer in the United Kingdom and was an excellent choice to take on the role of Kamelion, who was original played by the late Gerald Flood, in the two television adventures, “The King’s Demons” and “Planet of Fire”.

Not only was this the best out of the three Monthly Range releases with Kamelion, it is one of the stronger episodes to come out this year.

“Winter Ridge” is a British thriller directed by Dom Lenoir.  The screenplay was written by Ross Owen Williams.  A young detective’s life is rocked when his wife is struck by a drink driver and placed into a coma.  After several months of emotional turmoil at her bedside, he is drawn into the investigation of some suspicious deaths of several elderly residents of the small community.  The film stars Matt Hookings, Michael McKell, and Alan Ford.

It’s a pretty interesting premise with a few unexpected twists, but the film does feel a bit longer than the nearly ninety minute running time.  I really didn’t recognize any of the actors, however the performances were pretty convincing.  The lead character faces a certain moral dilemma when the driver who injured his wife gets a pretty light sentence is lurking around.  Obviously that doesn’t make for a harmonious situation.

It’s a pretty good mystery, but it has a typically slower pace common in British entertainment.

“John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum” is the latest action film in the… well….John Wick series of films.  Seriously, I have to work on my eloquence.  Anyway, Keanu Reeves returns to the role of the master assassin who just wanted to retire until his wife dies, and his dog gets killed by Russian hitmen.  Laurence Fishburne and Ian McShane return as Halle Berry and Anjelica Huston join the mayhem.

Parabellum is apparently Latin for “prepare for war” or something along those lines. John Wick certainly is capable of doing that.

The choreography of the fight sequences is quite creative, at least in my amateur opinion. The fights and stunts are ridiculously implausible, but they are creatively ridiculous.  Kudos to director Chad Stahelski for finding the right pros to do that. Unfortunately, some of the dialogue written by the four writers can sometimes fall on shaky ground.  Yeah, it took four writers to do this.  Derek Kolstad, Shay Hatten, Chris Collins, and Marc Abrams all had to put their heads together.

This is one of those films with a secret society of assassins with complex rules and honor codes.  Something called the High Table lurks in the shadows and has loads of expert killers at their beck and call.  I kind of like the name of this group even if I don’t understand the origin of it.

This is also just a bloodbath with plenty of mutilations, dismemberments, and droll humor for anyone without any sense of queasiness or delicacy.

Berry plays some assassin who is accompanied by gorgeous dogs who are quite agile and vicious in a firefight.  She becomes a reluctant ally of Wick, who has been excommunicated by the High Table due to killing some guy in a consecrated hotel in the last film.  Berry looks great and does fine with the material she was given.  This film is mostly about stunts and visual effects and not so much on character development.  She also got to show off her own physical prowess with staged fighting.  Actually, she seems to have trained quite well for her participation in this project.

One of the problems with this is that Wick just isn’t all that compelling as a character.  Reeves’ portrayal comes off as a bit flat, which may be more of a result of the writing than limited acting ability, although I never considered Reeves to be any master thespian.  He’s not terrible for the most part, but I think Wick could have been given some more engaging characteristics.

Anyway, the film is what it is.  It’s mindless entertainment with a lot of plot holes and absurd coincidences and impossibilities.  It’s just good enough to keep me interested in seeing what could happen in the next chapter.  It does end in a way where another installment is possible, if not improbable.

“Available Light” by Dayton Ward is the latest novel in the Star Trek: The Next Generation range.  Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the crew of the Starship Enterprise find a seemingly abandoned spacecraft that has also drawn the attention of marauders. In case the word “seemingly” wasn’t enough of a clue, it turns out this hulking vessel isn’t all that abandoned.  Big surprise, isn’t it?

The more fascinating element in this novel is the fallout from the exposure of Section 31, the most covert and ruthless branch of the Federation.  Captain Picard was part of a forced removal of a previous Federation president who ended up getting murdered.  Section 31 is no longer a secret, and the revealing of its misdeeds has shocked and unsettled the denizens of the United Federation of Planets.

Ward is a competent writer, but unfortunately the main plot just didn’t intrigue me all that much.  I think it felt too familiar although the Enterprise was apparently exploring new territory which has been dubbed the Odyssean Pass.  The Enterprise has encountered countless seemingly derelict vessels and greedy space pirates.  Picard as usual tries his best to have everyone get along and play nice.  It just doesn’t offer all that much that felt new.

Anyway, it looks like Picard is going to deal with the consequences of his alliance with Section 31 in the next novel, so hopefully that offers a more engaging literary diversion.

Next up is a quick return to Boston, figuratively, to check up on venerable private eye, Spenser.  Ace Atkins has continued the series started by the late, great Robert B. Parker as Spenser gets another chance of resolve an old art heist using some “Old Black Magic”. Spenser doesn’t become a wizard or anything, but the book is called “Old Black Magic”. Anyway, I will discover the reason for such an appellation and report back.

“The Crash of the UK-201” is a Doctor Who audio drama from Big Finish Productions Early Adventures range and is written by Jonathan Morris.  Peter Purves and Maureen O’Brien share narration duties while reprising their respective roles as Steven and Vicki. Purves also does continues his impression of the late William Hartnell as the First Doctor, although the Doctor really doesn’t appear properly all that much in this adventure.

Michael Lumsden. Carol Starks, and Stephen Fewell are included in the guest cast for this story.

This turned out to be a pretty fascinating story in spite of it being a pretty common subject in time travel stories.  Vicki is transported back in time to the spaceship that crashed on the planet Dido where she was discovered and then rescued by the Doctor and his two previous companions, Ian and Barbara.  Vicki has a chance to save her father and the other passengers, so to hell with established history basically. She lives a very different life than that aboard the TARDIS.  She marries, has children, and faces tragedy of a different sort.  She finds that she is able to move at will along this time stream and make corrections designed for a happier life, however as expected by us sci-fi enthusiasts, her situation gets worse.  Steven is somehow tethered to her as he appears at various moments of her life.  Also, strange creatures are stalking her, attracted to the paradox of this existence.

The constant shifts in Vicki’s time stream does get a little exhausting at times, however the overall story if very compelling.  I think what I find attractive about this episode is that I don’t think it fits in with the style of the series at that time.  Even the absence of the Doctor did not irritate me as much as it often does when some other stories kind of sideline him.  O’Brien puts on a compelling performance.  We get to hear Vicki at all kinds of stages of her life.  Purves also doesn’t slack off much either.

The concept of the story isn’t that original, but this particular episode was written well enough where that doesn’t matter.  It was pretty bold to provide a background to Vicki that was not really explored in the television series.

This turned out to be one of the strongest releases from Big Finish this year.

“Tolkien” is a film exploring the early years of a literary legend. Nicholas Hoult takes on the role of “Lord of the Rings” creator, J.R.R. Tolkien in this film directed by Dome Karukoski.  David Gleeson and Stephen Beresford are the scriptwriters.

Hoult is joined in the cast by Lily Collins, Colm Meaney, and Derek Jacobi.  I wasn’t too familiar with most of the other cast member, but the performances were engaging enough from everyone.  I am not sure that Hoult really resembles Tolkien all that much, but he had some pretty fascinating scenes.  He seemed to have some great moments with Lily Collins, who plays Tolkien’s eventual wife, Edith Bratt.  Tolkien and Bratt apparently met in a boarding home as orphans.  It was great to see Meaney in a pretty important role as Tolkien’s priest and legal guardian.

The movie isn’t without some difficulties though.  Tolkien is known to have been a very devout Catholic, which is mostly overlooked by this.  It’s a shame that the producers didn’t feel the need to explore this more, but it’s also unsurprising considering most of Hollywood’s derision when it comes to Christianity.  It gets a bit slow at times, however the set design and cinematography kind of makes up for this.

Tolkien apparently had a friendship with three other fellow students at an elite private school that helped spark his more creative leanings.  The film takes the audience through his participation in the First World War, which actually sort of frames the whole thing.  Much of it is presented as a flashback.

I think there is a lot that could have been explored more when presenting Tolkien’s life, but I was pretty interested in what I saw.  I do understand the frustration that many viewers may have over the absence of examination of Tolkien’s faith and share it to an extent.  It’s still a movie that’s worth a look in spite of what I think are some misguided decisions in the depiction.

“The Clovehitch Killer” is a film written by Christopher Ford and directed by Duncan Skiles.  Dylan McDermott, Samantha Mathis, and Charlie Plummer star in this slow-paced thriller as well.

The setting is a small town in Kentucky that was once menaced by a serial killer known as the Clovehitch Killer.  The killer extinguished the lives of ten women before going underground himself a decade before.  Dylan McDermott plays the head of a devoutly Christian family who seems to have some darker impulses which are suspected by his teen-age son.

It’s an interesting movie but it moves pretty slow.  There were also soon loose threads in the plot that could have been resolved a little neater.  The performances were pretty good.  Charlie Plummer plays the young son who has a growing suspicion of his father’s previous depraved extracurricular activities.  He has an encounter with a young lady with her own reasons to be somewhat obsessed with Clovehitch.

McDermott was well cast in this one, however that is no real surprise.  He usually delivers a convincing performance.

There’s not much to make this uniquely memorable, but it was reasonably engaging.

“The Eleventh Doctor Chronicles” is a Doctor Who audio boxset with four adventures released by Big Finish Productions. Jacob Dudman, who did this for “The Tenth Doctor Chronicles”, returns with a pretty good impression of Matt Smith’s version of the Time Lord and also narrates the stories.  Each entry drops in at various points of the Eleventh Doctor’s timeline.  I also came to appreciate Dudman’s talent for concocting other voices when presenting other characters.  As with the last set, there is another actor performing alongside Dudman in each episode. AK Benedict starts off with his contribution entitled “The Calendar Man” which also features Eleanor Crooks as a character named Olivia.  The Doctor and Amy Pond arrive on a colony world in the far future where some of the population are disappearing, and only one woman seems to notice.  The Doctor finds out that a malevolent legend known to his own people seems to be at the root of the mystery.  It’s a pretty good start to the set. It was pretty well written but nothing I would call that extraordinary.

“The Top of the Tree” by Simon Guerrier has the Doctor accompanied by Kazron Sardick, played by Danny Horn.  Kazron was the character from the Doctor Who episode “A Christmas Carol” who basically went on annual trips in the TARDIS in his younger years which contributed to him not being the familiar miserly cuss known in stories with this title.  The Doctor and Kazron arrive entangled in a very large tree where they encounter the denizens of this natural habitat.  It’s an interesting setting and seems to follow the man vs. nature concept in many stories.

I think my favorite would have to be “The Light Keepers”  by Roy Gill where the Doctor is reunited with Dorium Maldovar, the alien bar owner with his hands in all kinds of schemes.  Simon Fisher-Becker returns to the role on this tale which takes place before his beheading in the television series.  Of course, a simple beheading didn’t really spell the end of Dorium.  Anyway, when the Doctor crashes his TARDIS into Dorium’s bar, he is convinced to investigate the mysterious lighthouse where the Beacon People are engaged in some kind of mining operation.  Of course, an ancient force is about to awaken.  This was one story where I almost thought there was a third actor.  Dudman does a great voice for the leader of the Beacon People where it kind of threw me.  Also, Dudman is a very young man in his early twenties which sort of makes the vocal feat a bit more impressive.  The banter between Dorium and the Doctor is very amusing.  They’re pretty reluctant allies, which never fails to make the story a little fresher.

Alice Cavender’s “False Coronets” is the concluding episode and features Nathalie Buscombe as Jane Austen.  This time Clara Oswald is the companion, and she and the Doctor find the celebrated authoress awaiting her execution.  Jane Austen gets to assist the TARDIS crew in correcting the flow of history.  I thought it was a pretty good story for the most part.

None of the stories in this collection hit a particularly sour note.  Dudman’s impression of Matt Smith was quite convincing.  He is also very talented as a narrator and plays the other characters quite effectively as well.  Although many may have their preferences for favorite episodes, nothing in the set felt like a disappointment.