DaViD´82

Last year's The Rescue is more about uncertainty, risks, unknowns, motivations and characters. This, paradoxically for a documentary, makes it work better in terms of tension and emotion than the feature film. But it’s not about which one’s better, on the contrary, both films complement each other brilliantly and it’s worth watching both, even if you already know the what and the how. Not that Howard’s film suffers from a lack of tension. The aforementioned does not mean in the least that it is not a claustrophobic blast with perfect technical aspects. Fortunately, it doesn't slip into a Hollywood fairy tale, and there would be room for it, which, considering who is behind it, is a hell of an achievement in itself.

A straightforward intimate period survival "from the mud to the puddle and back to the mud again" that would stand on its own, especially when it is functionally, and not just for show, set in the Predator universe. It's not without many "buts" (the atmosphere should have been thicker, it could have done with even more reliance on practical effects instead of digital, at times it feels like an adaptation of a rebooted Tomb Raider, and the English language didn't need to be so overused), but who cares when it works so well.

That's how you put together a rock, a Ratatouille, and the long arm of the tax authority, and you get something between Don’t Look Back, Rick and Morty and Big Trouble in Little China. By all logic, it should be a disparate hodgepodge of half-baked ideas, allusions to anything, originality at all costs, and stupidity². All this in charge of someone who happened to have a solid budget and an impressive ensemble, but no producer to hold the reins. And that's what it is. However unlikely it may be (or maybe we are happy that it worked in spite of everything), it is, worlds wonder, a cohesive and tightly grasped whole, which is undeserving of only a slightly overblown runtime. Thanks to confident direction, and the aforementioned perfect cast, it handily manages to throw up one bizarre scene after another, as well as wringing out emotions in a brilliantly effective "family members finding their way to themselves and each other" equation throughout.

A melancholically melodramatic (un)romantic (un)thriller, of the "better talked about than watched" variety, mainly because of the unjustified running time during the second half. Not even the precise actors and Park's traditionally playful direction can balance it.

The strongest aspect is that it's like Rick and Morty, just a tad worse. The weakest aspect is that it’s too much like Rick and Morty, but a bit worse. 4/5 | S2: 4/5 | S3: 4/5 |

Disney's solid take on Sherlock Holmes, but more than anything else it feels like a feature length Victorian prequel to Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers with everything from the animation to the plot, style and villain to the gadgets or the connections to the human world.

Le Carré's old-school, purely British spy stuff. The agents may be a bunch of losers, but it's not a comedy by any means. Not that there aren't lighter, dryly sharp moments, but at its core this is a regular spy drama where Lamb and Smiley could meet and it wouldn't feel out of place at all. Mick Herron clearly holds le Carré in almost religious admiration, and it shows in the characters, the plotting, the communication style, the obfuscation, the hinting and the unspoken between the lines. But he just can't build it up properly, and so after an excellent two-thirds (at least in the first series) it idles more than anything else at the end. It’s a shame, but at the same time a great promise for the future, because it's based on characters, and the supporting ones are undeniably there, led, of course, by Gary "I enjoyed Smiley, so I'm going to enjoy his slacker, eternally sour version all the more" Oldman. | S1: 4/5 | S2: 4/5 |

It starts like Christmas Vacation, continues like Owners, and ends up being a statement about the ambivalence of American society through a fight between two hypocritical, lying parties blinded by their "truth".

If (and it's a big if) you get over the "how the hell can they be so sure based on ideas built on water" objections (it comes across as "story over science" style, and the interesting bonuses and pages actually reinforce that impression instead of addressing the issues), you will feel the same childlike enthusiasm and interest in dinosaurs (verified by a first-grade kid) as with the Burian's paintings of his time or Wandering with Dinosaurs two decades earlier. This time with the input and natural history expertise of the BBC, the budget of Apple TV, and the traditionally excellent Attenborough as guide. | S1: 4/5 |

With Haller falling under Netflix, the option of a "Connelly universe" where they would meet Amazon's Bosch fell through. That is actually the biggest downside (especially the unintentionally ridiculous "wannabe Harry's replacement"), which is not to say that the creators of The Lincoln Lawyer don't have room for improvement; they certainly do. While the casting of Mickey is pretty much on the spot, the cast around him isn't particularly memorable. The whole first season could have been done in eight (if not fewer) episodes instead of ten, and the genius loci of Los Angeles should have played a much bigger role than just "pretty pictures". The fact that it didn't have to be so criminally predictable is partly a matter of the source material, but the changes didn't help in this regard. But it is entertaining, and there is undeniably a lot to build on (and not only in the number and quality of the script). There is also Bosch, who has hit the nail on the head in everything, while the creators of The Lincoln Lawyer are (so far) tapping the nail on the head rather tentatively. But on its own, as "a bit of a crime drama and a bit of a legal drama", it was more than solid the first time. | S1: 4/5 |