jgmcquarrie

Tenet

What if Doctor Who but James Bond?

What’s The Movie? Tenet

What’s It All About, JG? It’s Doctor Who for people who don’t watch Doctor Who but who nevertheless quite like the idea of a two hour Doctor Who story but also James Bond. Basically – very basically – there’s a temporal Cold War going on, with the future attacking the past for comparatively nebulous but plot-necessary reasons. Our hero is The Protagonist, played with glowering intensity by John David Washington, who’s out to… erm, save the present I guess? Probably. Anyway, he finds out about Tenet, an organisation who are trying to stop the future and save humanity as it is now. He is aided in this quest by Neil (Robert Pattinson, continuing a long and surprising run of not sucking), someone who The Protagonist doesn’t know but who seems to know him. There’s also some Bond-type shenanigans with an Indian arms dealer who sometimes-helps-sometimes-not, and a Russian oligarch (a fruitily entertaining Kenneth Branagh as Andrei Sator) who can contact the future, and his wife, a standard-issue wife-kept-prisoner-in-a-gilded-cage routine that should be familiar to anyone who’s seen Thunderball. Sator is behind all of this and suffering from terminal cancer so, um, has decided to take the world down with him at a time of his choosing. Like you do. It all culminates in lots of running about the place, some fairly obscure temporal physics and a big rush to the end in order to prevent the movie’s McGuffin causing a loosely defined catastrophe.

The K2

Spy shenanigans meets.. well just about every genre under the sun in this excellent Korean drama

What’s The Show? The K2

What’s It All About, JG? It’s a one-season long Korean drama which posits the question “What if 24, but Dynasty?” Which is not, frankly, a question that gets asked often enough. Our hero is Kim Je-ja – played with slightly boyish enthusiasm by Choi Seung-hun – who is framed for the murder of a civilian in Iraq. Returning to Korea as a fugitive he accidentally catches Jang Se-joon, a predistential candidate, in flagrante with a mistress which through a series of what can only be called shenanigans, leads to him to work for Choi Yoo-jin, his wife. She’s hiding his illegitimate daughter, Go An-na, from the public eye as a means to control Jang- Se-joon and ensure her own elevation to First Lady. Kim agrees to work with her (under the codename K2) to take revenge on another presidential candidate, Park Kwan-soo, the real perpetrator of the Iraq murder for which he has been framed, while he slowly – sometimes very slowly – falls for An-na. Meanwhile Choi Yoo-jin’s younger brother, Choi Sung-won, is manoeuvring to take over the family business and treats the life and death situations as little more than a game for his own amusement. It’s a strange mix of espionage, family drama (the whole Dallas-esque sub-plot involving the protracted fight for the family business), conspiracy theories, techno-thriller, adventure serial, high-kicking action and romance all wrapped up in one show. Whatever else you can say about The K2 it certainly doesn’t lack for content.

Snowpiercer

Round and round and round they go, where they stop nobody… cares

What’s The Show? Snowpiercer

What’s It All About, JG? Based on the movie, based on the graphic novel, Snowpiercer tells the story of the last human survivors of an environmentally-devastated Earth who circle the globe in the titular Snowpiercer, a train of a thousand carriages. The train contains everything people need to survive but is riven with tensions, alliances, bigotry and shifting loyalties. It’s all a huge analogy for the class system, capitalism, systemic oppression and the way that human beings react when forced to come to terms with who they are. Sounds great, right? What a shame, then, that instead of that we get a bog-standard detective show where someone gets killed, someone has to investigate, turns out its some rich bitch who had a crush on her bodyguard or something and…. oh who cares.

Doctor Who Series 12

An episode-by-episode review of the 12th series of the venerable sci-fi classic

So I’m going to do something I haven’t done before and review Season 12 of Doctor Who episode-by-episode as the are released. As usual, I shall be dispensing with the twin straightjackets of objectivity and fan consensus, and will add each new episode as they come.

Knives Out

Can the Agatha Christie formula be reworked into something successful in the 21st century?

Today’s Recipe Knives Out

Ingredients Well, it’s a dish prepared as a twisty-turny whodunnit, perhaps less directly indebted to the style of those late 19th- and early 20th-century mystery suppliers like Agatha Christie, but reflecting more contemporary approaches, specifically of films like Clue. Of course second-hand influence is still influence, and the familiar ingredients are all here – the outrageously silly name (and accent!) of Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc recalls the many, many idiotic accents of Poirot across the years and gives a flavour of the original without the need for direct references. He’s been called in by a mysterious figure to investigate the death of author Harlan Thrombey (a suitably ripe Christopher Plummer), who apparently died by his own hand. As his family gather for the reading of the will there is suspicion of foul play, and of course everyone in the family ends up wanting their fingers in the pie – Harlan’s vast fortune – and of course everyone has a reason and motive to get it. Could it be the good-looking rake of a grandson played by cast-against-type Chris Evans, Hugh? (America’s Asshole!)

The Good Liar

Two of the great thesps of the age in a single movie. Yes please!

What’s The Movie? The Good Liar

What’s It All About, JG? Roy (Ian McKellen) is an ageing con-man, who alongside his business partner Vincent bilks gullible/vulnerable investors out of money for reasons which on Roy’s behalf appear to be little more than “because he enjoys it”. He comes into the orbit of Betty (Helen Mirren) via an on-line dating site and he prepares to run the sting once more having discovered that Betty is both widowed and really rather well off. He gradually inveigles his way into her life and eventually her house, despite the clear disapproval of Betty’s grandson, Steven (Russell Tovey, turning up to do That Thing Russell Tovey Does).

Terminator: Dark Fate

Can Linda Hamilton’s return inject something worthwhile into the ailing Terminator franchise? Yes, actually!

What’s The Movie? Terminator: Dark Fate

What’s It All About, JG? Trying to restore even the faintest scrap of credibility to the Terminator franchise, mostly. Ignoring – with some justification – everything after the iconic Terminator 2: Judgement Day, Dark Fate picks up the story some years later. John Connor is eventually – and speedily – taken out by a Terminator and Sarah goes into hiding. Meanwhile in Mexico we have a whole new Terminator, the Rev-9, who’s hot on the heels of The New Sarah Connor ™, Dani. She’s being protected by an augmented human from the future, the not-at-all-with-an-on-the-nose-name Grace, who was sent back in time to protect her (sound familiar?).

Joker

Origin Story: The Movie

What’s The Movie? Joker

What’s It All About, JG? Oh good, an origin story! We certainly don’t have enough of them littering the place! But rather than the usual heavy-handed here’s-how-character-X-became-a-superhero we instead have a heavy-handed here’s-how-character-X-became-a-supervillain. Yes, it’s the origin story of the Joker, Batman’s nemesis and a story which bears no resemblance to any other Joker origin story portrayed on screen (not that there’s anything wrong with that). This time we follow the life of Arthur Fleck, a sad-sack rent-a-clown with an obsession over a TV talk show and some pretty severe mental health issues, but with an unfulfilled desire to be a stand-up comic. After a series of humiliations at work lead to him getting fired (after taking a gun to a children’s ward) Arthur ends up killing three Wall Street-type bozos on a train, two in self-defence and one simply as an execution.

Wu Assassins

Can Netflix launch their own fantasy universe with this high-kicking, high-punching show? Er…

What’s The Show?Wu Assassins

What’s It All About, JG? The very best in televised martial arts meets the very worst in Netflix storytelling instincts. Kai Jin (Iko Uwais) just wants to be a chef in Chinatown, San Francisco but fate has (insert dramatic musical sting) other plans for him! After his food truck – the cutely-named Kung Foodie – is attacked by the Triad he finds a young lady in the street. Turns out she’s the first Wu Assassin, and finding Kai to be pure of heart (and slightly dull) she gives him the power to defeat five other Wu Warlords, one of whom he happens to be related to – Uncle Six (a winningly smarmy performance from the ever-excellent Byron Mann). Cue much cobbled-together mythology, one or two amazing fight sequences per episode, and some rote family drama revolving around Kai’s friend Jenny and her heroin-addicted brother Tommy. In the end, Kai must defeat The Scotsman, Alex McCullough, a criminal who runs Chinatown and has his own rote family drama to motivate him, and it all ends in a blizzard of special effects that show off the budgetary limitations, a few heartfelt scenes and a Season Two-baiting final scene that tell us the Wu Assassin’s job is not done yet. We’ll see…

Godzilla: King Of The Monsters

Lots and lots and lots of monsters, one of them is the king. Guess which one?

What’s The Movie? Godzilla: King Of The Monsters

What’s It All About, JG? Well, it’s a Godzilla movie in which Godzilla fights lots of other monsters that aren’t Godzilla but are roughly the same size and/or weight and/or power level as Godzilla so we get lots and lots of juicy monster action. Turns out there’s a whole bunch of kaiju/monsters (delete depending on pretentiousness level) buried under the Earth and the allegedly-mysterious Monarch organisation has been tracking them. An eco-terrorist group wants to free them so they can reclaim the Earth that humanity has destroyed, so that means lots of big slap-fights between various Toho properties as Charles Dance rushes about the place setting them all free (I mean, I’m sure his character has a name, but come on. It’s Charles Dance). Dr Emma Russell has built a device that can calm the beasts and has been working on it with her daughter Madison (Stranger Things‘s Millie Bobby Brown) while her estranged husband, Mark, firstly tries to kill ‘Zilla then eventually comes to realise that the world needs him to save them from the other kaiju. It all ends in a big punch-up that flattens Boston and ‘Zilla roaring his dominance over all monsters as they bend the knee.