The Penguin: Season 1 Blu Ray Review

Colin Farrell's Oswald Cobb comes to the small screen in this spinoff series from the 2022 Matt Reeves movie The Batman.

Picking up directly after the end of the movie after Paul Dano's Riddler had unleashed a series of bombs which destroyed the seawalls and flooded Gotham, the eight-part run sees Oz try to scrabble to the top of the criminal underworld during a power vacuum.

But standing in his way is the Falcone family, who've been running the drugs operation in Gotham for years without contender. However, a new challenger to the throne arrives in the form of Cristin Milioti's Sofia, who's fresh out of Arkham hospital and on the push for revenge.

It's very easy to categorize The Penguin as a Sopranos-wannabe. (Even down to the opening titles graphics card of the show name).

From Cobblepot's Tony Soprano-esque gait through to his browbeaten relationship with his own mother, who's grappling dementia, there are plenty of parallels to the David Chase James Gandolfini-led show.

It's not a bad comparison to rub up against in many ways, and those expecting a more superhero-led show full of the quirks of the Burton Batman world may deservedly be disappointed. But what it does mean for The Penguin is solid drama or not, it never really ascends the similarities to any other mob drama you've seen and emerge as something solidly different.

Which is a shame, because it's watchable enough fare.

Farrell is all New York-swagger and threatening vibes, with flashes of insecurity bubbling over into violence. It makes for an intriguing protagonist, because even with the machinations and political manoeuvrings that Cobblepot's dabbling in, you're never quite sure what's going through his mind.

Thankfully, his relationship with young stammering street kid Victor Aguilar (Rhenzy Feliz) is stunning to watch. Whether it's mentoring him or remonstrating his failures, the frisson of uncertainty and would-be father vibes makes for solid viewing.

Equally impressive is Milioti's Sofia Falcone. Clearly traumatised by her time in Arkham and resentful at being held at arm's length by her own family, Milioti channels a kind of dead-eyed stare that is borderline psychotic and cold when the menace is needed.

Ultimately, The Penguin is a mix of politics and violence. Its more dialogue-led episodes very occasionally feel lumpen and leaden, but as a portrait of a character often ridiculed for his gait and props, thanks to Farrell's depth of work, this Penguin emerges as more of a duality character than a one-dimensional freak to Gotham.

The Penguin plays every Friday from 4pm on Neon

Wicked: Part One: Blu Ray Review

Cast: Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jonathan Bailey, Jeff Goldblum, Ethan Slater, Michelle Yeoh
Director: Jon M Chu

There's a scene early on in Jon M Chu's audacious staging of Wicked where his professor character Dr Dillamond, a talking goat, denounces one of the student's assignments as being little more than "form over content."

In some ways, that could be applied to the first part of the adaptation of Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman's musical, a film that's largely about setting up a payoff that won't come until November 2025.

A breathtakingly impressive Erivo stars as the green-skinned outcast Elphaba, who lives in the land of Oz and is destined to become the Wicked Witch of the West. Determined to meet the Wizard of Oz (Goldblum, in an eccentric and whimsical performance), she enrols at Shiz University. 

But appalled at her treatment by the powers that be, blonde-haired mean girl Glinda (Grande, a natural at the comedy airhead routine needed by the Good Witch) tries to ostracise her. However, when the pair actually form a friendship, they find they have more in common as a dark conspiracy swirls around Oz itself.

While the film is largely a great deal of style over substance, set in a derivative version of a Hogwarts-style university complete with talking animals and nods to the Wizard of Oz and what's to come, the incredible costumes and look and feel of the musical is actually astounding to behold.

Covering only the musical's first act, a colourful array of props and scenes litter proceedings, with various songs peppered throughout. It does fall to mention that unfortunately, unless you're a fan of the original musical, many of the numbers are lost to the memory the moment the lights go up.

The central narrative of how wickedness happens is a soft one in many ways, a chance to revamp a story that's previously been doused in evil and all the better for it. But with horrifying imagery such as how the flying monkeys got their wings and emotional betrayal at its heart, most of what transpires in Wicked: Part One is infinitely more enjoyable than you'd come to expect.

Both Erivo and Grande excel, and while the whole gimmick of singing live during filming is fairly tame given both have live music backgrounds, there's no doubting their chutzpah and delivery whatsoever. Taking the traits of a musical that panders to audience knowledge and laughs (from a few knowing cameos to Grande's continual Glinda hair toss routine), the film does much to ingratiate itself in those who aren't familiar with the source material.

Yet at its heart, the film belongs solely to those behind the camera. From visions of bursting colour and exquisitely choreographed and clear scenes of crowds, Chu's eye for what transpires as spectacle is hard to deny - and deserves plenty of praise.

In hindsight, while Wicked: Part One does little in terms of strong narrative and character depth, what it achieves within its genre is completely impressive. It remains to be seen whether the second act is as good as the first's bum-numbing 2hr 40 minutes, but it'd be Wicked to dismiss this film's execution as anything but a triumph within its class.

Doctor Who: The Well: Review

The most secretive episode of the second run of Ncuti Gatwa's Doctor arrives - and with it, plenty of fan expectation.

When the Doctor and Belinda examine an abandoned facility on an alien world, they find themselves stuck and facing terror like they'd never have expected.

To say more about The Well is to spoil the speculation that proved to be correct online. But what is clear about The Well is how cleverly insidious and genuinely upsetting it is in parts after the Doctor and Belinda find themselves stuck on planet wiped out by radiation.

Building a sense of tension throughout, the story seeks to expand on the previous tale and while there's always an argument that explaining away the unexplainable robs it of the mystery, somehow this just manages to stay on the right side of the ledger. It's not as successful as the first admittedly, but thanks to the central performances of Rose Ayling-Ellis as the only survivor found on the planet, and Slow Horses' star Christopher Chung as a belligerent soldier, the story coalesces despite a rush of revelations around the halfway mark.

With further clues about the fate of the Planet Earth as Belinda tries to get home, and an ending that teases more for the future, The Well is a base under siege story that deals in terror and largely achieves it.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle: PS5 Review

Developed by MachineGames
Published by Bethesda
Platform: PS5

Porting across to the PlayStation just months after it impressed on XBox, the Indiana Jones game feels like a natural fit for the kind of escapades made famous by the Uncharted franchise - exploring, taking on bad guys and looting where necessary.

Set between Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade, the game drops Indy into 1937 as he tries to harness the power of the Great Circle, something a group of bad guy Nazis are also trying to do. Jumping around the world, the game gets the globetrotting story of Indy right and makes a compelling argument for good times in the franchise.

From stealth to fighting, the Great Circle's strength is an accurate depiction of what you'd want from an Indy title - and along with the elements of stealth and whip-cracking, this is the kind of port across that you'd want. With haptics and the PS tech being integrated into the game, the Indiana Jones experience is one that can't easily be denied.

And while the game feels eerily true to the film franchise and could be accused of doing little to stand out on its own, its adherence and performance from Troy Baker as Indy are all to be admired. It does exactly what you'd want from an Indy game and manages to seize on the nostalgia highs you'd expect.

Graphically the game soars on the PS (and one suspects the PS5 Pro would see it soar even higher) but while it's faithful to the Xbox version, its emulation within the PlayStation environment means it's still deeply enjoyable.

The Accountant 2: Movie Review

Cast: Ben Affleck, Jon Bernthal, Cynthia Addai-Robinson, Daniella Pinada
Director: Gavin O'Connor

Ben Affleck's autistic accountant returns nearly a decade after his first outing for another run that puts him in not one, but two odd couple situations and runs with it.

Yet rather than deal with the more character-led moments of the story, what emerges in The Accountant 2 is a stereotypical shoot-out set in Mexico that just about hits all the familiar plots of human trafficking, faceless bad guys and bloody ludicrous demises.

Affleck is Christian Wolff, who's called in to help Treasury deputy director Marybeth Medina (Addai-Robinson) when the department's former director is killed (an all too wasted JK Simmons). Tracking down those believed to be responsible throws up a curveball involving a missing Mexican family and a reunion with Wolff's brother Braxton (a livewire and charismatic Bernthal).

While The Accountant 2 is a solid film that goes for action over character, bullets over moral quandaries and ethical edges, its slow burn and aloof lead provide a mix that's hard to love and feels in part like it's simply about enduring the film's two hour run.

The chemistry between Bernthal and the severely restrained Affleck is great to watch, even if many of the moments comes from uneasy laughs over Wolff's unease at dealing with certain situations (something which the script mines a little too often and begins to feel like an unfair dramatic crutch). Equally, a university hub run by autistic kids to hack and track crimes feels a little borderline too - one moment where the edges are blurred and a character pushes back against it seems like an ill-advised roadblock than a dramatic necessity.

But a messy script with untidy edges holds things back when it should soar and a somewhat muddy narrative and central mystery leaves The Accountant 2 feeling undercooked when it should soar. And at times, it never entirely seems convinced whether it's a buddy movie from the 1980s or an overly grim drama that's clearly been inspired by Sicario.

Perhaps an expeditious trim would have helped here - because in the final wash, unfortunately, this Accountant doesn't quite add up.

Until Dawn: Movie Review

Cast: Ella Rubin, Michael Cimino, Peter Stormare, Ji-Young Yoo, Odessa A'Zion
Director: David F Sandberg

When the Until Dawn game appeared back in 2015, its adaptation of horror, third-person gaming and the butterfly effect set in motion a chain of success that saw ripples for years to come.

Now a decade on, the game's been taken as an inspiration point for a horror film that mixes survival, Groundhog Day, slasher and the zombie genres in some truly effective ways.

One year after her sister's disappearance, Clover (Rubin) and a group of her friends head to the last spot she was seen to try and piece together what happened. But within hours of arriving, they find themselves trapped in a nightmare, destined to be killed time and time again.

Until Dawn's movie is tremendously effective at building a world of unease around it - but less so at creating a level of coherence as the reasons for what's going on are revealed toward the end. It has to be said the movie feels like it rushes to some kind of conclusion, with a stream of answers coming in between a run of attacks and escapes. (And a wonderful final nod to the actual game itself).

Yet the journey to the destination is nothing short of compelling and thrilling.

From its headscratching what's going on here approach as the group finds themselves caught in a clutch of seemingly unexplainable mysteries to the moments the horror really ramps up, Until Dawn more than delivers on a promise of changing up the traditional stalker horror into something that's more disturbing and upsetting.

Each kill feels gnarly and gut-wrenching. There are moments of humour (and one series of deaths that's laugh-out-loud funny in its gory execution, despite a final scene explaining away why it happened like that) but they're deftly balanced by a kind of tension that's sickening to watch.

Complete with Easter Egg nods to the game, PlayStation Productions' approach to Until Dawn has been to deviate slightly from the expectations of those who've played it and double down on what makes a good horror work these days - mystery and uncertainty.

An effective thrill ride that impresses until it doesn't, Until Dawn deserves your time - it's a reminder what the horror genre can do when it's treated with intelligence. 

Andor: Season 2 Review

The second season of the Star Wars spinoff Andor is a richly complex and compelling affair, one that requires a lot of its audience, but rewards their investment.

The hardest problem it faces is knowing how it all plays out in its conclusion, given that it builds to Rogue One: A Star Wars Story - though that said, the unpredictable nature of how some of it plays out makes for some truly strong viewing.

Though a lot of what Andor does feels like it inhabits a world outside of Star Wars - and the scope from the beginning through to its end is massive. Picking up threads from the end of season one, the story finds Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) separated from his friends and dallying with the idea of becoming a larger part of the Rebellion. But it's not until the final third of the season that this comes to fruition in a deeply upsetting manner.

Transgressing through themes of betrayal, trust, insurrection, a lack of faith in authority and a rise of fascism and evil of the Empire (with some prescient parallels in today's America), it's a heady mix which makes for intelligent storytelling.

Yet creator Tony Gilroy's fashioned something that's deeply resonant in parts, due to strong storytelling and some real edge of the seat set pieces. Moments that thrill throughout are double-edged, coming as they do with either a sense of tragedy or the highs of a success that's barely earned - or will barely last.

Visually, the series is just stunning. Different worlds feel lived in in different ways, but some of them stand alone for their sleek and sparse architecture. Certainly, in the final strait of the series, the emotionally charged threads pay off in unexpected and hard ways that are part of the investment in the season's 12 episodes.

What's most obvious about Andor Season 2 is the ambition of scope, something which Gilroy has paid off wonderfully. Yet it's the performances of Luna, Adria Arjona, Genevieve O'Reilly, Stellan Skarsgard and Denise Gough that will pull you deeply in - each of them delivers a masterclass in subtlety, frustration, ecstasy and their own arc.

There's plenty of discussion around what price for being part of a rebellion, but wisely, Andor Season 2 also looks at the human cost of being part of the other side as well. But the human cost throughout is utterly tragic, a reminder of the sacrifices made by those for causes - and the consequences and ripples of their doing so.

Andor Season 2 may be one of the best Star Wars entrants yet - a deeply mature piece of movie-level storytelling that will stand the test of time of the Lucasfilm ambitions in the 21st century. You may know how it plays out and what it leads to, but the journey there is one hell of a ride more than worth taking.

Andor Season 2 premieres on Disney+ on Tuesday, April 22 with three episodes.
12 episodes of 12 episodes of season two were viewed for the purpose of this review.