Star Wars: Rogue One

Posted by cat2002116 on January 11, 2017
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star-wars-rogue-one

(This review may contain spoilers).

At the time of writing this review, I have now seen this movie twice. The first time was at the midnight showing and the second time was two days ago with my niece.

Considering I’ve been a long-time fan of Star Wars, I was immediately interested in seeing this movie and the trailer just sparked that desire even further.

Personally, I actually really liked this movie. While there wasn’t a lot about the Jedi, I liked that the movie seemed to reach much further than just a small part of the galaxy. And it was really good to see the link-ins with A New Hope.

I liked the elements of humour in this movie, especially when it came to K-2SO. I enjoyed seeing his interactions with Cassian and it was nice to see the personality in him, since C-3PO and R2-D2 had their own personalities in the original trilogy.

I did like Jyn’s personality, but I would have liked to see more of how it developed over the movie. I didn’t really feel like her goals aligned with that of the Rebel Alliance’s; there didn’t seem to be a real ‘I’m on their side’ moment. But I did like her interactions with the other characters and I did care about what happened to her. And it was nice to see little snippets of her relationship with her father.

I especially liked Chirrut and his interactions with Baze. I would have liked a bit more detail of their history together, but I felt like that with a lot of the characters. I did like the sense that the Rebel Alliance wasn’t just about the ‘good guys’ versus the ‘bad guys’; it was nice to see them making the tough choices and doing things that weren’t necessarily seen as good at the time.

This was a movie I enjoyed watching and my niece did as well. It was a good link-in to the Star Wars franchise and this is a movie I would watch again in the future and probably buy on DVD.

 

The Diabolic

Posted by cat2002116 on January 11, 2017
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the-diabolic

(This review may contain spoilers).
When I originally read the blurb of this book, I thought it sounded like a really interesting idea. I found Nemesis to be really engaging, even though a lot of how she acted at first was very savage and wild. It was interesting to see how she viewed her relationship to Sidonia… but more than that, I liked seeing how Sidonia viewed Nemesis.
It was really intriguing to see how things went with Nemesis trying to learn how to act like Sidonia; at least as close to doing so as she could. I almost forgot that she was a more wild breed of human, until she acted with single-minded purpose to protect Sidonia.
I liked the fact that, although there was some romance towards the end of the book, I didn’t feel like it defined Nemesis. She didn’t seem to change outside of what felt like a natural evolution of her character and although she had to act the part, I liked seeing her able to take care of herself, even if she did have to hide what she was and just how capable she was.
There was a lot of action in this book, but I liked that there was a lot of intrigue, too. I really didn’t like the Emperor or his mother, even though I was able to understand her a bit better by the end of the book. And while I did see some of the things in this book coming, there were enough surprises that the plot didn’t seem boring.
I did think there were a lot of contradictions in the society and I found the Emperor’s attitude towards technology to be quite hard to understand. It was interesting to get glimpses of the other families, but I would have liked to see a bit more depth to some of the secondary characters. I felt like Nemesis should have been trying harder to make allies, at least, even though I knew she would struggle at making friends. But it was nice to see her start to form connections to characters other than Sidonia.
I found this book entertaining and easy to read. Nemesis was easy to relate to and I liked the way she evolved as a character. I probably would read the next book/s in this series in the future.

Pay The Ghost

Posted by cat2002116 on January 11, 2017
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pay-the-ghost

(This review may contain spoilers).

As horror films go, I actually found this one to be quite entertaining to watch. It was easy to empathise with Mike and Kristen losing their child, especially since that’s a scary experience for parents, even when said child’s just wandered off and is quickly found again.

The very first scene was quite an effective one, as it was disturbing to watch, but did a really good job of setting the scene. While I did feel it was deliberate emotional manipulation to show the children in a dangerous situation, there’s no question it did work.

It was good to see the joint effects losing Charlie had on his parents and how they had to deal with his loss. I thought it was good to see the links with the ‘Pay The Ghost’, though by the end of the movie, I was somewhat confused by how the rules worked. I felt it went from a movie with a faint supernatural slant to a completely otherworldly film. It was good to learn about the ghost and get some answers by the end of the movie, rather than everything left to the imagination, but the ghost seemed to be more powerful than I was expecting.

I felt the movie was entertaining to watch, but I wouldn’t really be bothered about watching it again. There were a few good scenes, but although it did explain most of what was going on with the ghost, I felt that the feel of the movie changed a lot towards the end, despite the fact I thought the actors portrayed the characters they were playing really well. I did, however, feel that the police officer involved in the case wasn’t as competent as he could have been. Obviously, while it was understandable he wouldn’t believe in the supernatural, I felt he fell into the trap of assuming the main character was involved in something without looking deeper. In the words of Sherlock: ‘Once you take out the impossible, whatever remains, however implausible, must be the truth’. Or something like that.

 

The Shadow of a King

Posted by cat2002116 on December 21, 2016
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the-shadow-of-a-king

(I received a free copy of this book in exchange for a review).
(This review may contain spoilers).
I was really intrigued by the plot of this book, since I’ve long been interested in mythology and Arthurian legends in particular for as long as I can remember.
It was good to see that this book centred on Uther and I did like the fact that the book showed his past with Morgana, who I did feel sympathy for, even though she wasn’t a very nice person for a lot of the book. I would have liked to see a bit more of Uther’s relationship with Arthur. I felt a lot of this book was information dumping. I didn’t get a chance to see Uther’s relationship with Arthur; all I really saw was a couple of interactions.
I liked being able to see something of the culture of the Druids, though for a lot of the book, I didn’t feel their motivations and goals were very clear. I could understand why Uther was so frustrated with them. And while I did think Merlyn was an interesting character, I found it hard to take him seriously through most of the book.
I was a bit confused as to why Uther was more or less abandoned in the monastery. By the end of the book, I was very lost about what was the past and what was the present. I would have liked to see more of the confusion earlier in the book, where it was more appropriate, rather than at the end, when Uther’s mind was more clear. And I was completely confused about why he’d been left in the monastery and pretty much abandoned by Merlyn and his knights.
I really did like the link-ins with the legends of King Arthur, such as with the Stranger. While some of the tension was lost in the fact the events weren’t taking place in real-time, I did feel like the characters were in real danger; and it was easy to see how deep the tension ran each night the Stranger put in his appearance.
I think the book would have been easier to read if it hadn’t been constantly switching between past and present. It was hard to get too involved in one storyline when the book switched to the other. This isn’t a book I intend to read again in the future.

Thunderheart

Posted by cat2002116 on December 20, 2016
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thunderheart

(This review may contain spoilers).

I only found out about this movie due to reading something another person wrote about it.

While this movie was an older one, I did find it engaging with some really good moments of humour. Crow Horse made me smile more than once in his interactions with Ray and the others.

I did like Ray’s character in this movie, but although the actor was a good one; and, I felt, brought a lot of emotion to the role, I didn’t feel he was the right choice from an ethnic standpoint, given Ray’s Sioux heritage.

I thought it was really good to see the conflicts that existed between the different people who lived on the reservation, but I did think there were a few too many characters and it was hard to differentiate between the people Ray and Cooch worked with. I also found it hard to understand why there were so many roadblocks at that time.

I did find Maggie an interesting character and it was good to learn bits and pieces about her past, though by the end of the movie, I was left with some questions; partly about her and partly about the children she had living with her.

I liked being able to see bits and pieces of the culture, mixed in with the way the people were forced to conform to ways that weren’t their own. I did feel a lot of sympathy for Crow Horse when I learned about the way he’d been brought up and I could understand why ARM seemed like such a breath of fresh air.

I did like that this movie was a bit of a mix of genres, but I liked the journey Ray went on and I really enjoyed his interactions and friendship with Crow Horse. There was a lot of action and I liked the symbolism/use of the culture in the movie.

Oliver Queen’s Dossier

Posted by cat2002116 on December 20, 2016
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oliver-queens-dossier

(This review may contain spoilers).
Being interested in Arrow, I was immediately intrigued by the idea of a dossier created by the main character about his allies, enemies, etc. in the show. I thought it was a really good idea.
I especially liked the way the dossier was laid out. While I missed some of the information, due to the ‘files’ overlapping, I did think it read very well. However, some of the files were especially hard to read, such as those with the black background and only slightly lighter writing. And I noticed at least two areas when articles in newspapers were repeated, which distracted me and caused me to lose my suspension of disbelief.
I was particularly engaged by the Post-It notes with Oliver’s little asides written on. While some of those were serious in nature, a few did make me smile. However, it wasn’t very clear how the dossier was organised, as there were questions raised that Oliver would have already known the answer to; such as querying if Slade Wilson survived in Deathstroke’s section.
I did like that there was a wide variety of documents, but I felt some of the writing could have been a bigger font. It did contain a lot of information I hadn’t caught up with, as I’m still a bit behind in the series, and it was something of a surprise to learn Detective Lance had changed his views on the vigilante so drastically again.
I really liked the more artistic rendering of the characters. While it was good to see so many pictures from the show, I did question how those would have been taken. And it was especially interesting to learn about the different types of arrows Oliver used; even though I felt some of them might not have been that practical in everyday use.
While I did enjoy reading the dossier and felt it would be a good fit for anyone interested in the show, there were parts of it physically hard to read and some errors I was surprised weren’t caught before publication.

Keepers

Posted by cat2002116 on December 20, 2016
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keepers

(I received a free copy of this book in exchange for a review).
(This review may contain spoilers).
Having read the previous books in this series, I was happy when the author approached me to read the final one. It didn’t take me long to be drawn into the world of the Mentalists and Gemma and Russ’ lives.
I liked being able to see something of the wider world of the mentalists and it was also good to see the Keepers. I liked seeing some of the characters from the previous books, though I didn’t have a chance to re-read those, so I wasn’t as familiar with the others as I was with Gemma and Russ.
I liked Jose quite a bit in this book. I couldn’t really say I liked Laura as much, though. I didn’t really know what to think of her for some of the book, as I couldn’t tell if she was just scatty or if she was deliberately hiding things. It was nice to see some greater depth to the characters like Alice and Erin, though.
I thought it was good that there were some things left to the imagination, such as some of the details of what Gemma saw. I thought that added really well to the tension and I was kept reading throughout, wanting to find out what would happen next.
I did think there was perhaps a little bit too much talking. While there was some action, it wasn’t until towards the end of the book I actually felt like the characters were in any real danger; and then everything seemed to happen at once. I was disappointed to see Laura had switched her affections so quickly, though.
It was interesting to see how the different factions viewed each other, though I was a bit confused about who believed what. I would have liked a bit more detail included about the background and how the Keepers related to Gemma. While there seemed to be a bit more detail about what exactly she could do, I felt she was getting somewhat overpowered by the end of the book.
While I don’t really tend to like multiple first person perspectives, I did feel it made sense in this instance, as it allowed me to view events from the POVs of two of the main characters. In the future, I would definitely be interested in reading more books by this author.

Arrow: Vengeance

Posted by cat2002116 on November 28, 2016
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vengeance

(This review may contain spoilers).
I’d ideally give this book 3.5 stars out of 5. While it worked as a good tie-in novel (and I have a slight obsession with Slade, so it was nice to get an idea of what happened to him post-island), much of the second half of the book was just a rehash of the second half of season two of Arrow. While that would have been good for character studies, it didn’t allow me to feel much, if any, sympathy for Isabel’s character.
I felt the very first scene of the book, while a retelling of the scene in the episode, did a good job of showing Slade’s perspective. The fight scene between him and Oliver was quite intense to read, especially given how drastically their relationship had changed by that point.
I liked the fact that much of the first half of the book focused on Slade. It was interesting to see the effects of the Mirakuru lessened so as to be almost non-existent… though I maintain that, if he’d truly been free of the drug, Slade would have seen the events of the island differently. Considering his continuing obsession with Oliver, though, it seemed to make it clear that the Mirakuru hadn’t released its hold entirely.
I did have a lot of sympathy for Sebastian, even though I totally didn’t agree with many of the actions he took. I felt like his past in particular was glossed over and I wasn’t given much of a chance to see how much he was shaped after the death of his father. I did feel some sympathy for Isabel at first… but by the second half of the book, I’d lost most of that sympathy.
I didn’t really feel the second half of the book added a lot to the world of Arrow, or even to Slade’s character/personality/history. Virtually every scene was a complete rehash of the events of season two and even the emotions involved were ones fairly obvious from the episodes. I would have very much preferred getting more glimpses below the surface.
I would suggest reading the first half of this book, as it details the history of both Isabel and Sebastian and allowed me to learn about what happened to Slade after he escaped the island. But the rest of the book? Wasn’t as good as it could have been, I felt.

Allied

Posted by cat2002116 on November 28, 2016
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allied

(This review may contain spoilers).

While I don’t normally watch films set during wartime, I was intrigued by the trailer of this movie. And since I recognised the two main actors in this movie, I knew it would be a good plot.

This movie was almost divided into two halves. While those two halves were both intense in their own way, it was good they were also different enough to be engaging in their own way.

I did, however, feel like the first half was a bit rushed. While I had the impression quite a bit of time had passed by, I couldn’t quite believe in the feelings Max and Marianne had towards each other. In a way, it did feel like the second half of the movie made the reasons for that clear… but I found much of the second half difficult to suspend my disbelief for, especially during a scene with a jail. Of course, I don’t know very many details about this time period, so I couldn’t speak for how realistic it was. There were two women clearly romantically involved… but there was very little detail about either of them, even though one was Max’s sister. I would have liked some more exploration of their characters and how they interacted with Max and Marianne, rather than just being two rather generic women.

I did think that Max’s and Marianne’s interactions through the first half of the movie did a good job of establishing Max’s personality and it was good to see he had a goal for the end of the movie.

I found the second half of the movie more intense to watch and found myself leaning forward, on the edge of my seat, waiting to see what would happen. I would have preferred the ending to be different… but I honestly couldn’t have seen it ending another way.

While I did become engaged with this movie and cared about the characters and the plot, I don’t think this is a movie I would watch again, as it doesn’t feel I would gain much from re-watching it.

Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them

Posted by cat2002116 on November 27, 2016
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fantastic-beasts-and-where-to-find-them

(This review may contain spoilers).

Having enjoyed the Harry Potter movies… and seeing there was a midnight showing of this movie… I decided I wanted to go and see it.

I thought the movie was particularly good when it came to the visuals. The world inside Newt’s suitcase was particularly engaging and it was especially good to be able to see something of the differences in the wizarding cultures.

I did feel the movie was a bit lacking in plot development. I liked Newt, to an extent, and I really liked Kowalski. I even liked Tina and her sister, even though I thought Tina made quite a few mistakes. I was able to empathise more with her… and also more with Kowalski than Newt. Although I liked Newt, he was a little harder to get a read on.

I did think the movie spent more time on the visuals than on developing the storyline. While it was good to see that each of the ‘beasts’ had its own distinctive personality, I felt the plot involving the wizarding community seemed a bit tacked on.

I also felt there was a real lack of foreshadowing in this movie. There were quite a few things shown at the end that didn’t make a whole lot of sense.

I did enjoy Queenie and Kowalski’s interactions. I thought they were both sweet in their own way and even though Kowalski struggled at first, it was really good to see him start to take everything in stride.

I did feel a lot of sympathy for Credence, but considerably less so for his mother. I would have liked some more details about Modesty’s background, as I really didn’t know what to make of her.

The strongest element of this movie was definitely the visual aspect. I think the movie could have been made better by utilising more foreshadowing… but I did feel the ending let it down. While I am going to be watching the movie again with my niece, I don’t intend to buy it on DVD… even though I will probably watch the next movies in the franchise.