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The Avengers  (1998)   The 1990s witnessed a slew of attempts at rebooting old properties, from comic book fare to movies to big screen versions of much-loved television shows. With generally mixed-negative results. The likes of The Saint (1997), The Phantom (1996), The Shadow (1994) and Doctor Who (as a 1996 TV movie) predominated over rare successes like Mission: Impossible (1996), Blade (1998), Pierce Brosnan’s Bond and Batman (okay, the first was 1989). In most cases, the problems stemmed from an intention to refashion those characters or premises in the image of another existing hit, in the process capturing little of what made the material so compelling/popular in the first place. It’s possible that the bare

The Avengers 6.17: They Keep Killing Steed   Great title. If only Brian Clemens’ teleplay was up to the same standard. Which isn’t to say the episode is terrible, just that it’s another doppelganger Avengers. Only this time, instead of one Steed there’s a selection. Ray McAnally (5.23: The Positive Negative Man) returns, overplaying again with a silly accent. He’s better value here, but still far from one of the series’ most iconic guest stars. Baron Von Curt: It was a privilege being married to you. Indeed, young Ian Ogilvy nearly takes such honours, rocking a shock of blonde hair as Baron Von

Us (2019)   Jordan Peele evidently loves his conspiracy lore, so he’ll probably appreciate inevitable theories that his sophomore movie, even with movie and literature antecedents and influences such as The Skeleton Key, C.H.U.D. and Wells’ Morlocks, is an exposé of celebrity cloning antics in underground bases and/or Vrill body snatching, right through to the facilities being shut down. I mean, he only offers the most ungainly of expository monologues in the latter stages of Us to that essential effect, during which we’re told these subterranean locales have been used in the past for producing soulless clones. It’s very on-the-nose material in that regard;

Doctor Who The Androids of Tara   Pastiche is often applied to The Androids of Tara as if it’s a dirty word. It’s only a pastiche, wafer thin, of The Prisoner of Zenda. A few names changed, a few science-fiction tropes added, but otherwise, little more than a pastiche. The pastiche of the Hinchcliffe era tends to be heralded, but Tara’s guilty of self-conscious limitation, to a set text and a limited scale; it is, at best, considered slight but amiable. There’s a seeming predisposition towards regarding it as minor because it isn’t dealing with death and destruction. The Robots of Death pastiched Agatha Christie but also slotted

The X-Files 11.3: Plus One   Chris Carter inadvisably picks up the pen again, but fortunately has slightly more of a grip than in the opener, aided by director Kevin Hooks showing a surer hand than is probably deserved. Plus One is a solid, uber-traditional episode, thankfully devoid of the risible histrionics of My Struggle III, but lacking a sufficiently arresting central mystery to hold the attention. Scully: I’ve never heard of suicidal mass hysteria. It might have been more interesting if some diabolical scientist had been testing a super drug, as intimated by the nightclub opening – a classic X-Files teaser in which Arkie Seavers (Jared Ager-Forster)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I (2010)   What’s good in the first part of the dubiously split (of course it was done for the art) final instalment in the Harry Potter saga is very good, let down somewhat by decisions to include material that would otherwise have been rightly excised and the sometimes-meandering travelogue. Even there, aspects of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I can be quite rewarding, taking on the tone of an apocalyptic ’70s aftermath movie or episode of Survivors (the original version), as our teenage heroes (some now twentysomethings) sleep rough, squabble, and try to salvage a plan. The

Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)   The most interesting aspect of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, particularly given the iron fist Lucasfilm has wielded over the spinoffs, is how long a leash Rian Johnson has been granted to tear apart the phonier, Original Trilogy-lite aspects of The Force Awakens. The resulting problem is that the areas where he’s evidently inspired are very good (almost anything Force related, basically), but there are consequently substantial subplots that simply don’t work, required as they are to pay lip service to characters or elements he feels have nowhere to go. The positives tip the balance in The Last

The Avengers 4.11: Two’s A Crowd   Oh, look. Another Steed doppelganger episode. Or is it? One might be similarly less than complimentary about Warren Mitchell dusting off his bungling Russian agent/ambassador routine (it obviously went down a storm with the producers; he previously played Keller in The Charmers and Brodny would return in The See-Through Man). Two’s A Crowd coasts on the charm of its leads and supporting performances (including Julian Glover), but it’s middling fare at best. Steed: Oh, come now, Mrs Peel. If I had a twin, I’m sure mother would have mentioned it. If I had a double you’d know in thirty

Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991)   The game of how few sequels are actually better than the original is so well worn, it was old when Scream 2 made a major meta thing out of it (and it wasn’t). Bill & Ted Go to Hell, as Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey was originally called, is one such. Not that Excellent Adventure is anything to be sneezed at, but this one’s more confident, even more playful, more assured and more smartly stupid. And, in Peter Hewitt, it has a director with a much more overt and fittingly cartoonish style than the amiably pedestrian Stephen Herrick. Evil Bill: First,

Lost Highway (1997)   ’90s David Lynch might have been “purer” in its distillation of weirdness, but generally speaking I found it less satisfying than his ’80s experimentations with studios and pre-existing source material. There was Twin Peaks, of course, several of the episodes he directed ranking among the best things he has ever done. But his features lacked something, revealing themselves as either a hip, pop version of his sensibility (Wild at Heart) that would predict much of the “colourful” pulp revelry of Tarantino and his imitators, or a distended, half-masterfully dark, half-distractingly ungainly bookend to his cancelled TV show

Alien: Covenant (2017)   In tandem with the release of increasingly generic-looking promotional material for Alien: Covenant, a curious, almost-rehabilitation of its predecessor’s rocky legacy seemed to occur, as some of its many naysayers were given to observe, “Well, at least Prometheus was trying something different”. It seems Sir Ridders can’t win: damned if he breaks new ground, damned if he charts a familiar course. The result is a compromise, and boy, does Covenant feel burdened by that at times. Still, those worried it would renege on Prometheus can relax in at least one important regard: Covenant is easily as stupid in terms of character motivation. And, for this

Doctor Who The Enemy of the World   It might have the whiff of sacrilege, particularly since it’s the one complete offering to result from all that frothing anticipation over untold legions of potentially returned missing episodes, but I almost think The Enemy of the World works better on audio. Of course, being a Bazza Letts’ directorial effort, that shouldn’t have been altogether surprising. And, it might just be that the more you entertain the story, what was initially surprising, different and engaging by comparison with its peer (or season) group becomes less so. Namely, its monster-free, relatively character-led script, courtesy of

Krull (1983)   Krull is the embodiment of what happens when a studio has a vision of money to be made but lacks a visionary to make it. It wasn’t just that it came late to the sci-fi-fantasy party, released the same year as the finale of Star Wars, the trilogy that spawned a thousand imitators. More damagingly, it was armed a paucity of inspiration and no grasp of the alchemy required to turn a huge budget into a blockbuster, or mould the tried-and-tested principles of the hero’s journey into something that would resonate with audiences. What Peter Yates’ film actually is

Last Action Hero (1993)   Make no mistake, Last Action Hero is a mess. But even as a mess, it might be more interesting than any other movie Arnie made during that decade, perhaps even in his entire career. Hellzapoppin’ (after the 1941 picture, itself based on a Broadway revue) has virtually become an adjective to describe films that comment upon their own artifice, break the fourth wall, and generally disrespect the convention of suspending disbelief in the fictions we see parading across the screen. It was fairly audacious, some would say foolish, of Arnie to attempt something of that nature at this point

Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003)   Looney Tunes: Back in Action proved a far from joyful experience for director Joe Dante, who referred to the production as the longest year-and-a-half of his life. He had to deal with a studio that – insanely – didn’t know their most beloved characters and didn’t know what they wanted, except that they didn’t like what they saw. Nevertheless, despite Dante’s personal dissatisfaction with the finished picture, there’s much to enjoy in his “anti-Space Jam”. Undoubtedly, at times his criticism that it’s “the kind of movie that I don’t like” is valid, moving as

Twin Peaks 2.22: Beyond Life and Death   So this is it. Until 2017. Well, let’s see them start filming before counting on it. The Season Two finale, until the new arrivals, has earned its place as one of TV’s iconic cliffhanger endings. Those are few and far between, of course: Blake’s 7, Angel, Sapphire and Steel. Notably, these are all in the fantasy genre. At the time, or thereabouts, the most annoying thing about where we were left was not the ending itself but that Lynch went and made a prequel that actively rubbed anyone wanting some form of continuation or closure’s

Enemy (2013)   If Enemy is anything to go by, Denis Villeneuve is an ideal choice to direct Blade Runner 2 in the place of Ridley Scott. Not because he has the auterish visual sense of Scott at his zenith, because he has an equally incontinent grasp of narrative. The excuse of Enemy, which its defenders would likely summon, is that, as an exploration of its protagonist(s)’s subconscious, a formally coherent plot can be thrown out the window. Unfortunately, that leaves the film open to anything and everything and leaves the viewer with a shrug of “Well, I guess it really doesn’t matter”. Enemy does have a lot

The Double (2013)   I didn’t quite feel the unreserved raves Richard Ayoade’s directorial debut Submarine received, but I liked it well enough and could see it carried across his idiosyncratic sense of humour – albeit in more overtly dark and twisted form – from his funny man persona. Most impressively, also was a fully formed technical confidence and filmmaking craft. His follow-up, based on Dostoyevsky’s novella, reinforces those opinions but its decidedly the lesser beast. It is at once a keenly stylised piece of world building and underwhelming in terms of personality. We’ve seen this story before, many, many times. And

The Man Who Haunted Himself (1970)   Roger Moore playing dual roles? It sounds like an unintentionally amusing prospect for audiences accustomed to the actor’s “Raise an eyebrow” method of acting. Consequently, this post-Saint pre-Bond role (in which he does offer some notable eyebrow acting) is more of a curiosity for the quality of Sir Rog’s performance than the out-there premise that can’t quite sustain the picture’s running time. It is telling that the same story was adapted for an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents fifteen years earlier, since the uncanny idea at its core feels like a much better fit for a trim fifty-minute anthology

The Prisoner 6. The Schizoid Man   We want information. Number Six is helping Number 24 with her mind-reading skills, using a pack of Zener cards. Later, Six is drugged and subjected to an aversion therapy treatment (as a result of which he becomes left-handed). His appearance is also altered. He is ushered to see Number Two who refers to him as Number 12, an old friend, and requests his aid in a plan to discover why the “real” Number Six resigned (the real 12 is now masquerading as our hero). “12” has a makeover; now he looks like Six

Passion (2012)   Compared to a number of his contemporaries (John Carpenter, Joe Dante, John Landis, David Lynch), Brian De Palma’s post-millennium CV looks relatively robust; five films, where some of those names are lucky to be able to claim two. Sure, it’s half the tally of Spielberg, but you can count the filmmakers as prolific as he is on one the fingers of one hand (Woody, Clint). De Palma’s almost on a par with Robert Zemeckis. The difference being that Zemeckis’ name holds cachet. De Palma’s harbours cult-appeal, but in a slightly past-it, still-playing-in-the-same-sandbox kind of way. It’s not

The World’s End (2013)   It’s perhaps inevitable that The World’s End should be the Pegg/Wright/Frost film where the hype finally catches up with them. They’ve been in the vanguard of can-do nerds for a long while based purely on past glories; the third part in their Cornetto trilogy has assumed a status of legendary anticipation. And, for many, they can do no wrong (hey, as a collective they had a three-for-three success so I was buying into it). The problem with that assumed weight is that they’ve decided they’re not just funny guys but artists too, so they need to make

Doctor Who The Faceless Ones: Episode One   Fifteen years before that era-defining ‘80s story set at another London airport, The Faceless Ones brings full-circle the adventures of Ben and Polly. Unlike Ian and Barbara, they are returned to their time in the same year and (roughly) on the same day. Which may go some way to making up for the shockingly dismissive treatment the characters receive in their final story. Except that we’re used to that by now. The last new companion also received shockingly dismissive treatment in her final story. The 1966 setting actually makes the story a historical so,