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David McK (3425 KP) rated The Old Guard (2020) in Movies

Jul 14, 2020 (Updated Apr 11, 2021)  
The Old Guard (2020)
The Old Guard (2020)
2020 | Action, Fantasy
7
7.3 (33 Ratings)
Movie Rating Watch
Netflix's newest (at the time of writing) action-adventure, starring Charlize Theron as the leader of a group of immortals (whose immortality can come and go at any point) that have been alive for centuries, if not (in her case) for millennia. Think a less Scottish Highlander, and with the immortals working together rather than trying to chop each others heads off.

Apparently based on a relatively-new comic series, you can also tell that this is a straight-to-TV affair, with it not *quite* having the budget or flair of a Hollywood film. It's also unclear just what happens if any of these immortals lose a limb - does it grow back?

Anyway, the driving force behind this is the discovery of a new immortal, just after the other's last mission goes sideways, with Big Pharma - in a plot development that will surprise no one - now out to see if they can extract the secret of their immortality from the group (who don't know it themselves).

Also definitely set up for a sequel: if it is half as good as this one, I'll be watching.
  
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David McK (3425 KP) rated Star Trek Beyond (2016) in Movies

Mar 6, 2021  
Star Trek Beyond (2016)
Star Trek Beyond (2016)
2016 | Action, Drama, Sci-Fi
7
7.4 (66 Ratings)
Movie Rating Watch
Space ... the Final frontier ...
The latest (at the time of reviewing) Star Trek film - from 5 years ago, so 2016 - this is the third film to be set in the so-called Kelvin Universe (after 'Star Trek' and 'Star Trek: Into Darkness'), still starring Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg, John Cho and (the late) Anton Yelchin as Kirk, Spock, 'Bones' McCoy, Lt Uhura, Scotty, Sulu and Chekov respectively.

This time around, Idris Elba plays the baddie role as a character who later proves to have a surprising link with The Federation, with the film also apparently including 50 new alien species as it was released in the year of the 50th anniversary of the TV series.

And therein lies part of the problem: that was hardly broadcast at all - indeed, I feel that they missed a major trick in not broadcasting that fact at all!

While the loose outline of the plot deals with ageing, and with a farewell given to Ambassador Spock, this is perfectly serviceable but not as good as the original film in the Kelvin trilogy (IMO).
  
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Joe Goodhart (27 KP) rated Faction Paradox: Of the City of the Saved... (Faction Paradox, #2) in Books

Nov 30, 2020  
Faction Paradox: Of the City of the Saved... (Faction Paradox, #2)
Faction Paradox: Of the City of the Saved... (Faction Paradox, #2)
Philip Purser-Hallard | 2004 | Science Fiction/Fantasy
2
2.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
I didn't finish the book, but as you can only either list your books as "Want-To Read", "Currently Reading" or "Read", I went with the latter choice, as it was the only that seemed to fit even remotely. So, my review..

I try to keep an open mind for most things - meeting new people, going to see a movie or checking out a new TV series, or even when starting a new book. This book came highly recommended, the highest recommendation coming from Faction Paradox creator, Lawrence Miles. So, without even cracking the book open, it already had high expectations thrust upon it.

After five attempts at reading it, I gave up tonight! The book bored me unbelievably! Things got to be so bad that I used to help me to get to sleep the last 2 re-reading attempts.

I felt there was just too much going on, with a difficult to really get a feel for *any* of the characters in the first quarter I trudged through. After devouring Miles' FP debut novel, 'This Town Will Not Let Us Go', I thought this would be just as good; sadly, not so much.
  
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David McK (3425 KP) rated Truckers (Bromeliad Trilogy, #1) in Books

Dec 13, 2020  
Truckers (Bromeliad Trilogy, #1)
Truckers (Bromeliad Trilogy, #1)
Terry Pratchett | 2004 | Science Fiction/Fantasy
7
7.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
First book of Terry Pratchett's so-called Bromeliad trilogy (consisting of this, Diggers and Wings) which, I believe, was turned into a stop motion kids TV series in the early 90s.

This follows a race of tiny people known as 'Nomes' from another planet, who have crash landed on planet Earth thousands of years ago and have now all but forgotten their own past, with some living in the fields where they are preyed upon by wildlife and others in a large department store and refusing to believe there is such a thing as 'outside' ('did not Arnold Bros., est 1905, say "everything under one roof" ...')

This belief is put to the test when Masklin - one of the outside Nomes - arrives in the store leading a ragtag group of (mostly older) Nomes, just before said store is about to be demolished, and having to hatch a plan to rescue as many Nomes as he can and get back home safely, aided by 'The Thing' (what we would term a black box computer) that has been dormant for many centuries in (again, what we would term) power-saving mode.