The Road of Danger – Book Review

Originally published on Set The Tape

The Road of Danger is the ninth entry in the Republic of Cinnabar Navy series by David Drake, and continues the epic space adventures of Captain David Leary.

With peace between The Republic of Cinnabar and The Alliance of Free Stars, and most of humanity split between the two, Leary and his ship, the Princess Cecile, are sent on s secret mission to try and locate a Cinnabar citizen that is trying to reignite war. Joined by his good friend and spy Adele Mundy, Leary find themselves in a wild chase to prevent war.

The Road of Danger is less a military action story with armies facing off across a battlefield and more an intriguing spy drama involving plot twists, double crosses, and secret agendas. Whilst this would prove to be a challenge to characters in many books here David Leary and Adele Mundy prove to be more than capable of handling the challenges.

The two lead characters are the best at what they do, Adele is the cold, pragmatic intelligence officer who prefers to keep people at a distance and spend time with facts and figures rather than feelings, and Leary is the suave navy officer with a love of history, and great instincts. Whilst they are fun characters, and move the story along in good ways, if I’m being honest they at times feel a little too competent at times. Adele comes across as an infallible super-spy in the mould of James Bond. Thankfully, the two leads are a partnership of equals, with both of them getting the opportunity to shine throughout the course of the book.

I don’t want to go into too much plot detail here as I don’t want to spoil the many twists and turns that the reader will experience, but Drake manages to craft an engaging and interesting tale that spans across multiple worlds, varied factions, and includes some well written action sequences.

The book has a strong influence from the Vietnam war, which David Drake served in. The characters visit worlds that are home to rice patties, where the local population are ruled by corrupt and incompetent leaders. Whilst not enough in itself to summon images of the Vietnam War, a military leadership that is a times incompetent and other points outright corrupt it’s not hard to see where Drake may have found some of his influences.

The Road of Danger is a space opera at heart, filled with space battles, melodrama, and over the top set-pieces. It’s a solid and entertaining story that will keep you engaged throughout. A definite recommendation for fans of science fiction, action adventure, or spy intrigue.


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Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 1×13 – ‘T.R.A.C.K.S.’ – TV Rewind

Originally published on Set The Tape

T.R.A.C.K.S. is the season one episode that a lot of people will take notice of and remember for one very specific reason: the Stan Lee cameo. It’s not a Marvel production until Stan The Man turns up. In all seriousness, this episode proves to be very fun, clever, and moves the story forward in some great ways.

Having continued their hunt for the evil businessman Ian Quinn (David Conrad) the S.H.I.E.L.D. team discover that he has purchased some advance technology from Cybertek Industries, which is being transported to his private estate in Italy by train. The team plan to steal the tech by infiltrating the team posing as ordinary passengers. However, as this is television the plan immediately falls apart.

The central feature of the episode, retelling the same events from different points of view to fill the audience in on what has happened has been done before, and can sometimes be a bit boring, but the writers use the concept very well here, especially when it gives some surprising reveals. Each section of the episode follows a different member of the team, giving each of the main cast a moment to shine.

The stand out is easily Melinda May (Ming-Na Wen) who sneaks through the train, runs across the roof in a cat suit, parachutes, steals a car, and takes down a room full of bad guys. May has always been the secret weapon of the S.H.I.E.L.D. team but watching her in this episode it’s easy to see her as an agent on the same level as Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) and fighting alongside the Avengers.

Despite being full of spy intrigue and action the episode also packs in some great comedic beats, with Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge) and her overly prepared backstory about Coulson (Clark Gregg) being her distant father who cheated on her mother being one of the best moments of the season. It’s great to see Jemma so flustered and panicked, as she does it so well, and Coulson trying to process what she’s doing and not break his cover, whilst being chastised by Stand Lee, is a particularly great turn from Clark Gregg.

The biggest developments in the episode come in the final few minutes, however, when it’s finally revealed just which comic book character J. August Richards is playing, when Mike Peterson is implanted with cybernetic devices from the ‘Deathlok’ program. With so much speculation over who Richards would be revealed to be Deathlok was certainly not a character that I’d seen mentioned, but it works well. The character has decades of comic book history and connections with characters from across the Marvel universe, but remains fairly unknown to the casual reader, allowing the series to be able to do almost whatever they want with the character.

The episode ends with a bang (sorry for the bad pun) as Skye (Chloe Bennet) is shot twice in the stomach by Quinn. With her life on the line the team are forced to take desperate actions in order to keep her alive. With Skye’s life far from saved the series seems poised to keep up it’s faster momentum.

T.R.A.C.K.S. takes some of the standard television formulas and puts the Marvel spin on things, adding new tech and innovations that are sure to reappear again in the future, as well as sneakily adding a new comic book character to the series. Each character gets a moment in the spotlight, and the actors all get to play to their strengths before a dramatic finale that leads to some exciting developments. An episode that shows how good the show can be, and possibly one of the best in the series so far.


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The Flash 5×01 – ‘Nora’ – TV Review

Originally published on Set The Tape

The Flash returns to our screens with huge changes this season as the show picks up directly where the last season ended, with the daughter of Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) and Iris West-Allen (Candice Patton), Nora (Jessica Parker Kennedy), having travelled back in time and becoming trapped.

Having seen Nora appear a number of times throughout Season 4 the show managed to build an air of mystery around the character, though many fans managed to figure out who she was long before the on screen reveal. Despite many of her mysteries having been revealed in this first episode, though not all of them, the character hasn’t completely lost that sense of mystery, but manages to become a bright, wonderfully fun new addition to the cast.

The majority of the episode centres on Nora, even the opening and closing narration is done by her instead of her father, with the villain of the week being elegated to a minor annoyance. Nora even points out that Gridlock (Daniel Cudmore) was a ‘one and done’ villain according to the Flash Museum records. Sometimes the meta-human of the week routine can get quite dull, especially when it’s done so often at the beginning of a new season, but it’s easy to overlook that here as the story of Nora, and her time with Barry, is so much more important.

As many fans had theorised over the break between seasons, Nora had travelled back in time to see her dad because he isn’t around in her time. This isn’t really a surprise as the show pretty much gave us this information way back in the very first episode with the newspaper from the future telling us the the Flash ‘disappears in crisis’. This episode builds on that, with Nora showing another future headline stating that the Flash has been gone for 25 years. Eagle-eyed viewers can also spot a few additional hints in the text of these papers, but it’s quite hard to do without pausing the screen and getting very close.

The news that Barry disappears for what could be forever in this upcoming crisis is a big moment for him, as it tells him that this is probably one ‘death’ that he can’t cheat, and most importantly, that he’ll never get to have a life with his daughter. This becomes the emotional heart of the episode, and could go on for most of the season. Barry loves his family dearly, and the knowledge that he won’t be there for his daughter visually tears him apart. His decision to keep Nora around rather than sending her back to the future might not be the smartest choice, but it’s the one that makes sense emotionally. Barry wants to be a father now because he knows he can’t be later.

Whilst the new dynamics and emotional story that Nora brings to the season are great, one of the other side effects of having a character from the future in the show now is that she gets to hint at so many things that could happen in the Arrowverse one day. She mentions King Shark fighting Gorilla Grodd (please god let us see this on scree!), name drops heroes such as Ryan Choi’s Atom and Lightning Lad from the Legion of Superheroes, and brings up the Flash Museum. The best thing she brings with her, however, is the new costume.

The episode also managed to add some additional developments outside of the Barry/Nora plot, exploring further into the Caitlin (Danielle Panabaker) plot to bring back killer frost, with Ralph (Hartley Sawyer) managing to discover that Caitlin’s father appears to have faked his death. The episode also highlights the fact that Ralph wasn’t around much in the previous season, poking fun at this with his lack of knowledge of time travel and the multi-verse in some really fun scenes. Hopefully this is the production team acknowledging that he wasn’t full used last year and that they intend to correct that.

Overall Nora proved to be an incredibly strong opening episode for Season 5, possibly one of the best season openers that the series has had for quite a while. The character dynamics are great, the new costume is fun and interesting, and Nora is a brilliant addition to the cast filled with energy and a sense of joy.


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Star Wars Resistance 1×01/02 – TV Review

Originally published on Set The Tape

Following the massive critical and fan success of both Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels, new Disney series Star Wars Resistance had big shoes to fill. In the build up to its release, the reaction to the show has been mixed, with some people disliking the drastic change in art style, the apparent lack of any Jedi, and some even disliking that the show wasn’t going to continue some of the plot threads left over at the end of Star Wars Rebels.

Despite a lot of vocal fans decrying the show before it had even aired, the reaction to the first episode, entitled ‘The Recruit’, seems to have won audiences over with its bright and beautiful animation, new characters, and sense of fun adventure.

The story is set several months before the events of Star Wars: The Force Awakens and follows young New Republic pilot Kazuda ‘Kaz’ Xiono (Christopher Sean) as he finds himself being drawn into the fledgling Resistance. Having gotten hold of some intel that hints that the First Order may be planning a strike on the New Republic, Kaz agrees to help Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) by going undercover to find a spy on the planet Castilon.

So, we know what this attack is going to be and how it’s going to come about thanks to the events of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, so there’s no mystery there, but the hidden spy on the Colossus fuelling station is a good enough mystery to get the series started. The platform is a unique looking place, somehow reminiscent of the wider Star Wars universe, yet looking very new.

The Colossus itself is packed with a huge variety of species for the series to show off and dozens of potential suspects for Kaz to have to investigate. There are races from the original trilogy, such as Rodians and Bith, there’s a number of pit droids and an Aleena from the prequel films, to sequel trilogy species like Abednedo and Crolutes. Despite all of these races making an appearance, the show is still able to add its own unique looking designs, with junk shop owners Orka (Bobby Moynihan) and Flix (Jim Rash) being particular stand outs.

There’s little focus on Kaz’s mission in these opening episodes, with time being given over to establishing the world instead. Because of this, there is a bigger focus on racing. It’s hard to know how much a part of the series this is going to be going forward, but considering there’s at least four other big name pilots that Kaz has yet to face, I’d imagine his racing career is going to be intertwined with his spy mission quite a bit. And after two shows about fighting huge foes, along with the Jedi and Sith, a smaller scale story like this is actually a nice change of pace.

The animation style also helps with this too, with the new cell shaded look a big leap away from the previous shows that utilised CGI animation. The new looks makes Star Wars Resistance look brighter and more colourful than either The Clone Wars or Rebels were able to be; and along with some fun comedy moments, helps to create an opening that feels somehow less oppressive and more enjoyable.

I can’t help but feel that this is an intentional choice on the part of the creators, and particularly Dave Filoni. This is set in a time period before the First Order started their campaign on the galaxy, when the New Republic was in power and people didn’t believe war was coming. It was a time of relative peace and harmony, and the tone of the series seems to be reflecting this. If the series continues to the point of the new films, I’d be very interested to see if the visual style alters to show this darker period, especially as Kaz’s father is a New Republic senator, and in theory will die during the events of Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

Star Wars Resistance is a bright and engaging new series with some good universe building in a time period we known virtually nothing about. The opening episodes don’t delve too deeply into the series plot, but chose to spend some time building their new world and establishing the new cast of characters. With the previous two Star Wars animated programmes having achieved such great heights in quality, it’s safe to say that this could be the beginning of something special.


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Serpent – Film Review

Originally published on Set The Tape

Psychological thriller Serpent tells the story of Gwynneth (Sara Dumont) and Adam (Tom Ainsley), a married couple who travel to South Africa so that Tom can study a rare beetle. However, things aren’t the great when the two of them become trapped in their tent with a deadly Black Mamba, and Tom discovers that Gwynneth has been having an affair.

The concept of Serpent isn’t a bad one, that of being trapped in a confined space with one of the most venomous and aggressive snakes in the world, but the film can’t survive solely on this. There is only so much of two people laying in a tent not moving you can watch before it becomes boring. As such, the film has to bring something extra to the table.

Writer and director Amanda Evans chose to make a relationship drama; again, this isn’t a bad choice. Whenever people are trapped in dangerous situations together, personal interactions can be pushed to the extreme and relationships can be strengthened or destroyed completely. However, the biggest issue is that it’s hard to care about Gwynneth and Adam.

They’re the only characters in the film and as such it’s down to them to populate this world for the audience. Gwynneth starts the film apparently trying to break off her affair (although it’s hard to tell for certain as she never states this once). She is ignoring calls and from whomever it is that she’s been sleeping with. It gives the sense that she’s trying to get away from him and wants to rededicate herself to her marriage, especially when she begs Adam to take her with him on his trip.

It’s easy to see why she would have an affair and hard to understand why she wants to be with Adam as the two of them have very little chemistry. The film is filled with long, awkward silences between them, one of them walking off screen instead of answering a question, or long glaring looks. They feel like a couple whose relationship is already long over.

Whilst you could chalk this up to Adam having been suspicious of Gwynneth having an affair it’s pretty obvious by his reaction when he finds the messages on her phone that he’s taken completely by surprise. That actually leads me to one of my biggest issues with the relationship drama between the two of them.

Adam uses her phone’s screen light to try and distract the snake whilst inside the tent. He picks up her phone and it immediately unlocks, bringing her texts with her mystery man up on screen. Now, anyone who is seriously cheating on a partner would have a lock on their phone, would not have the messages open ready as soon as the phone unlocks, and if the affair is over, they would delete all of those messages. The fact that as soon as Adam touches her phone all the evidence pops up on screens is incredibly convenient for the plot and unbelievable for real life.

With the added realisation that his wife has cheated on him, Adam discovers that he’s trapped in a tent with two serpents (I see what the film did there). Whilst most people would probably shelve this issue until they’re more hand inches away from a horrible death, Adam decides that it’s a perfect time to pin his wife down and try to strangle her to death. His pregnant wife I might add.

The cheating wife trope, the unfiltered physical violence he enacts upon her, the use of Serpent as the title, and the poster of the snake slithering over a woman’s mouth in a mock shushing finger pose all make the film feel very misogynistic and a little sexist. It plays up to tired old tropes and hackneyed storylines that not only feel out of place for 2018, but astounding when considering they were written by a woman.

The actual snake feels very secondary for much of the film, only really coming into play in the final act when both parties end up bitten. Luckily they have some meds that will save them, but only enough for one person. What kind of person goes out into an area they know is full of dangerous snakes and only brings the one dose? Seriously?

The ambiguous ending is both incredibly grim and unsatisfying. The personal drama feels strangely forced and the relationship between the two characters is mostly unbelievable. Despite some brilliant performances from Dumont and Ainsley, the film ends up feeling drab, overly long and very underwhelming.


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Night of the Creeps – Blu-ray Review

Originally published on Set The Tape

If you asked me what I thought of Fred Dekker before I watched the release of the Night of the Creeps Blu-ray I wouldn’t have been able to give you much of an opinion. However, having now seen the film, and realising that he was also the writer/director of Monster Squad, a number of Star Trek: Enterprise episodes, and Robocop 3 (even he’s not proud of that one), I have to say he might be one of my favourite directors.

Night of the Creeps is Dekker’s first time as a feature film director, but watching the movie you’d be hard pressed to tell. It’s sleek, stylish, has great effects, a brilliant cast, and a sense of fun that directors who have been working in the industry for decades sometimes fail to achieve.

Beginning in space, the film shows a battle on an alien spaceship, complete with little rubber space men and laser guns. During the fight a mysterious canister is ejected from the ship and crashes to the planet below them, Earth. Landing in a quiet American town in the 1950s, the canister is found by a college couple and the boy becomes infected by a strange parasite.

This opening sequence is brilliant. The alien spaceship is so completely different from anything else in the film, yet doesn’t feel jarring or out of place, and adds an extra layer of scope and scale to what could have been a fairly small story. Once the pod lands on Earth the film switches to black and white and evokes the feel of a 1950’s B-movie, complete with parking teens, radio announcers talking about an escaped mental patient, and said mental patient wielding an axe.

Following this frankly inspired opening the film jumps forward in time to the 1980s where it follows college students Chris (Jason Lively) and J.C. (Steve Marshall) as Chris decides to try and woo the beautiful Cynthia (Jill Whitlow). When Chris decides that the best way of doing this is to join a fraternity, he and J.C. get roped into performing a prank that requires them to steal a body. Sneaking into the college labs they discover the frozen body of the boy from the 1950s and let him out, unwittingly unleashing the parasites inside him upon the town.

The set up is silly and simple, two things that are definitely needed for a film as ridiculous as this. The characters don’t take themselves too seriously, J.C. seems determined to make everything into a joke, and they are content to have fun with their misadventures. Whilst the film isn’t an out and out dark comedy, the college students bring a level of levity and humour to the film that stops it going too far into the realm of horror.

Dekker would go on to release Monster Squad a few years later, and it follows a similar mix of humour, charm, and horror, though aimed at a younger audience. As such, if you enjoyed Monster Squad but have not seen Night of the Creeps you’ll very much feel at home here.

One of the best characters has to be Ray Cameron (Tom Atkins), a gruff and grumpy police detective who is haunted by events in his past. He brings a level of seriousness to proceedings, even having the darkest and most emotion filled scene of the film, yet also has some of the best comedy lines too.

‘I’ve got good news and bad news girls. The good news is your dates are here.’

‘What’s the bad news?’

‘They’re dead.’

 The zombie effects are top notch, with everything in the film being done practically by an incredibly talented team. Whilst some practical effects can age very quickly, a lot of the work in Night of the Creeps still looks great. The head bursting effects of the zombies are over the top and at times ridiculous, but they work so well because the film as a whole feels over the top and ridiculous.

There’s not really a moment of the film that feels slow or dull, and it was thoroughly entertaining throughout, especially when you spot the little cameo appearances from people such as Dick Miller, Greg Nicotero, and Shane Black. The script is punchy and witty, and the editing and music are perfect for a cheesy 80’s flick.

The Blu-ray presents the film in the director’s cut version, which boasts an extra scene of zombie killing action in a tool shed, as well as the original ending. The release does provide the alternative, theatrical ending in the extras, but it’s good that the film is presented in the way it was originally intended.

The Blu-ray also gives two commentary tracks that are both filled with great behind the scenes stories and insight, as well as behind the scenes documentary, and an interview with Tom Atkins who briefly discusses his career.

Night of the Creeps is an absolute gem of a film, one that I’m disappointed that I’d never seen before. The new release corrects that, giving not only the best looking version of the film on home release but a slew of extras that are more than worth exploring. A must have for any fan of horror, or the 80’s.


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Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 1×12 – ‘Seeds’ – TV Rewind

Originally published on Set The Tape

After two weeks delving into the overall story of the season with Centipede and the mysterious Clairvoyant, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. takes a step back to adventure of the week, but brings a level of charm and fun to proceedings that has been missing for a while.

When a group of S.H.I.E.L.D. cadets at the academy fall foul of a mysterious assailant who uses a device to try to freeze them to death, Coulson (Clark Gregg) and his team are called in to get to the bottom of it. What’s surprising to the team, and the audience, is that it turns out that Fitz (Iain De Caestecker) and Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge) are something of superstars in the science division.

Giving Fitz and Simmons the spotlight without making a thing of their obvious love for each other was a welcome change, and we actually get to see the two of them having a lot of fun. They both seem incredibly comfortable being back in the academy, and fit well into the roles as mentor-like figures for the younger cadets. If the show were to suddenly spend a handful of episodes just following the two of them at the academy, helping out the future agents, it would be a great little diversion.

It turns out that one of the victims of the ice attack, Donnie Gill (Dylan Minnette), orchestrated the entire event specifically to get Fitz back at the academy in order to get him to fix the power source for his machine. Whilst this isn’t the biggest or most shocking secret plan in the history of espionage fiction, it’s kind of brilliant in its simplicity. Fitz identifies with the young Donnie, and desperately want to connect with him and help him come out of his shell, so of course he helps him with his project. But the project is actually a secret weapon that Donnie and his friend Seth (Daniel Zovatto) plan to sell to the shady Ian Quinn (David Conrad).

Outside of the Fitz and Simmons focus the episode sheds a little more light onto the mystery of Skye (Chloe Bennet) and her past, in particular her connection to a failed S.H.I.E.L.D. operation in the past that led to several deaths. Not only did these developments put an end to Skye’s search for her parents, but hinted at some deeper mystery to her past that could tie her into more important plots.

The best things about this episode though are the sense that the show has finally started to spend a little money on its episodes, and it painted S.H.I.E.L.D. as a larger organisation in a better light.

Donnie’s weather machine looks great, especially on a television budget, and the team behind the scenes managed to make things look fresh and interesting. We get to see the bus in an action sequence that wasn’t just the camera shaking on the set whilst the actors threw themselves around feigning turbulance. We got to see the plane from the outside as it fought against the deadly storm. It might not seem like much, but after so many episodes of seeing the plane just flying from place to place it makes a difference to see something a little more spectacular happening.

The S.H.I.E.L.D. academy is also portrayed as a really nice place to be, which is a stark contrast to the hectic nature and cold personalities of the Hub. You can see the hope in the eyes of the staff and the students, you get a sense that they’re eager to become part of something bigger than themselves, something that stands for what’s right. We get a small moment of this when Coulson takes Skye to see the wall of fallen agents. It’s an inspirational moment, and even the nod to Captain America can’t ruin it when she just happens to pick out the name Bucky Barnes out of all of them to read.

‘Seeds’ is a very different episode from what has come before. It doesn’t appear to play into the central plot in any big ways, but doesn’t feel like previous adventure of the week episodes. It has a sense of comfortableness that comes from a series that has finally found its feet.


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Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 1×11 – ‘The Magical Place’ – TV Rewind

Originally published on Set The Tape

After Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg) is kidnapped by the villainous Centipede in the mid-season finale, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. slows down slightly a little as the team are forced to search for their missing leader in ‘The Magical Place’.

The episode sees the return of Victoria Hand (Saffron Burrows) leading the S.H.I.E.L.D. team as they try to track down Centipede and rescue Coulson. Hand makes for a good leader of the organisation in the absence of Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders). She represents the facelessness of the organisation, the rigid rules and unwillingness to break from protocol.

We see how much leeway Coulson’s team actually have in the way they are treated when he is no longer there. The team are allowed a lot of freedom and whilst their standard way of operating might end up well for them, it’s far from the norm for S.H.I.E.L.D.. This is no more obvious in Skye’s (Chloe Bennet) role in the episode.

Thrown off of The Bus, Skye is left to her own devices to try to find Coulson. Normally this might not be much of an issue for her, but she’s slowed down by her inability to use any tech thanks to her S.H.I.E.L.D bracelet. However, after 10 episodes, we get to see that Skye has finally learnt some spy skills.

The main season arc moves forward as more information about the mysterious Clairvoyant is teased. Sadly, with this still being halfway through the season, very few real answers are given here, though the story does seem to be finally advancing with a clearer narrative.

The episode ends with the surprise reveal that Mike Peterson (J August Richards) wasn’t killed in the previous episode, but is now being forced to work for Centipede with one of the eye implants first introduced in the episode ‘Eye Spy’. It’s good that Mike hasn’t been killed off as he’s one of the best characters in the show. His shift to working for the villains definitely produces some extra drama. It’s also a nice thing that the show didn’t hide this reveal for a later episode and actually gave us some information up front for once.

‘The Magical Place’ doesn’t so much as provide answers to the mystery behind Coulson’s resurrection as much as it just confirms suspicions. Hopefully now that the cat is out of the bag, the series won’t be as stingy with information as it has been up to this point. ‘The Magical Place’ continued on from ‘The Bridge‘ by giving the audience a much improved experience, embracing a larger narrative and decent character moments over adventure of the week stories.


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Dark Souls: Age of Fire #4 – Comic Review

Originally published on Set The Tape

Dark Souls: Age of Fire promised to give details on the past of the Dark Souls universe, to show readers insights into characters and places from the games. Despite a few issues showing promise towards this end by the time the final issue concludes it feels like a very hollow end product.

The artwork is, as ever, amazing with Anton Kokarev delivering stellar visuals. I’ve said it in previous reviews for the book, but Kokarev’s work could easily be turned into poster sized art, with any panel from the book worthy of being a framed piece of artwork.

Unfortunately, the writing in this issue feels like the weakest link. The finale should feel big and dramatic, yet this is one of the dullest of the series. Instead of the characters coming together to fight a giant foe, or even each other the majority of the book is people in suits of armour talking.

The series has given the readers great moments of story and lore exploration but book hasn’t gone into any real depth. The series touches on important events, yet doesn’t give them the time they need. Sadly, the final issue continues with this trend, focusing more on the characters than the world or the events. Whilst I’m never one to complain about getting more characterisation this isn’t really what people came to read the series for.

I don’t think that this is a choice that writer Ryan O’Sullivan has done intentionally, rather an editorial decision to try and maintain enough mystique around these big moments that they can be explored in future comics, novels, or games, depending on the company’s decision.

The final moments of the book reflect this, with no satisfying conclusion to end with. We’ve not had a huge amount of time with the characters of Dark Souls: Age of Fire but it would have still been nice to have had some kind of wrap up to their stories.

Dark Souls: Age of Fire is a story that promised to delve into some of the most iconic characters and events in the series history, but only really touches upon them. It feels like the company wants to expand their reach into comics, yet don’t want to commit to creating solid cannon, wanting instead the opportunity to tell these stories in more detail at another time. As such, the story lacks any real depth or weight.

Whilst fans of the series are sure to enjoy it the casual reader may feel dissatisfied with the conclusion.


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Vengeful – Book Review

Originally published on Set The Tape

'Magneto and Professor X. Superman and Lex Luthor. Victor Vale and Eli Ever. Sydney and Serena Clarke. Great partnerships, now soured on the vine.

But Marcella Riggins needs no one. Flush from her brush with death, she's finally gained the control she's always sought--and will use her new-found power to bring the city of Merit to its knees. She'll do whatever it takes, collecting her own sidekicks, and leveraging the two most infamous EOs, Victor Vale and Eli Ever, against each other.

With Marcella's rise, new enmities create opportunity--and the stage of Merit City will once again be set for a final, terrible reckoning.'

Coming into Vengeful having not read the first book, it is easy to purely be attracted by the interesting description and a wonderful cover – I know, you shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover but this one is absolutely gorgeous. Normally I’ve found that jumping in half way through a story can be disastrous, especially when the writer assumes that you’ll have already read the first book, but V.E. Schwab seems to have kept this in mind and has written a book designed to draw you in straight away.

Telling the story of Victor Vale, an EO (Extra Ordinary) with the ability to manipulate both his nerves and pain receptors, and those in others, and his small group as they attempt to find a way of stopping his brief bouts of death. Victor is joined by an ex-con, a former soldier, and a young woman with the ability to revive the dead. This group, and the situation that Victor is facing, are a huge part of the carryover from the first book in the series, Vicious, but are explained in such a way that it’s easily accessible for new readers.

Schwab spends a good portion of the start of the book exploring these characters, their motivations, their histories. It makes it so that you can come into this story with no knowledge of the past events but still feel engaged and invested in what happens. I even had to go online and check which characters were actually part of the first book and which were new because everyone was given the same time and effort in their introductions and execution.

Also returning is Eli Ever, the ying to Victor’s yang. A character that would be easy to make absolutely evil, Eli is made much more sympathetic, especially when he’s being dissected whilst still alive over and over again.

The new characters added to the mix are very interesting too. There’s June, a young woman with the ability to copy people’s appearances. What makes her interesting, however, over other shape-shifting characters is that not only does she gain some of their knowledge and memories when she becomes them, but any injury that she receives when in another form happen to the original person rather than her.

Marcella is the other big addition to the universe, a woman whose mob husband beats her and leaves her to die in a burning building, but survives and develops her own EO powers. I really like her ability, able to cause things to rapidly break down, and her motivations are more than just simple vengeance.

Vengeful is a book about people with varying motivations and desires that occupy the area of grey between good and evil. The book doesn’t have any real heroes, and most of the bad guys are understandable in some way. The characters are complex and layered, rather than being two dimensional archetypes.

Schwab writes in short chapters, ranging from a handful of pages in length to a dozen at most, and they don’t follow a standard narrative structure, jumping between time and location. Instead of being off-putting or disruptive to the story it allows for deeper insights into characters, and means that Schwab is able to manipulate the way the story unfolds or how a reader will feel by messing with the standard narrative structure.


Vengeful is my first dip into the world of The Villains universe, and V.E. Schwab as a writer, and both have been much better than I was expecting. I not only enjoyed the book, but would highly recommend it to others. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to track down the first book because I’m excited to read more of this universe.


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Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 1×10 – ‘The Bridge’ – TV Rewind

Originally published on Set The Tape

After a number of episodes that felt stand alone and unconnected, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. finally begins to show just what the series is capable of. This could be down to the fact that this was originally the mid-season finale and the show wanted to go into its break with a bang, but it’s more likely due to it actually starting to embrace more serialised sense of story, rather than an outdated ‘adventure of the week’ structure.

Centipede rears its head once again as Raina (Ruth Negga) returns with a mission to assist sinister scientist Edison Po (Cullen Douglas) in finding a way to stabilise their soldiers. In order for Coulson (Clark Gregg) and the team to stop them, they call upon the help of one of the newest agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., the super-powered Mike Peterson (J. August Richards).

The return of Mike Peterson is one of the best things that the series did. He’s the first character to work with the heroes that actually has powers, which is something that a series set within the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been sorely missing. He’s also a better example of a regular person becoming a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent then Skye (Chloe Bennet). The two of them joined the organisation at pretty much the same time, yet where Skye has found it difficult to become a member of her team or know what her role should be, Mike has embraced his new life. He seems relatively happy, eager to be the best agent he can be and even aspires to become a hero like Captain America.

With how pleasant Mike comes across and his interactions with Coulson being some of the best in the season so far, it’s a shame that he didn’t the team in a full time capacity. Unfortunately, this was not to be as Mike is forced into betraying Coulson and the team in order to protect his son.

In what has to be one of the most dramatic moments in the series to date, ‘The Bridge’ ends with Coulson captured by the villains and Mike appearing to die in a huge explosion. Whilst this isn’t be biggest of twists (even by latter Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. standards) it is a bold choice going into the show’s first break.

This is the point the series really begins to change, where it starts to connect with the wider Marvel Universe, revealing that previous story threads were connected all along; and it introduces several exciting supporting characters. Suddenly the show has heard the complaints of its audience and has started to take things seriously.

The performances are all solid, though J. August Richards easily stands out. Skye will go on to become an amazing character as the show progresses, but at this point it really does feel like a shame that she was chosen as the entry character rather than Mike. Why not use Skye and Mike? If he was around as a regular for the first 10 episodes, the moment of his apparent death would have held much greater impact. As it is, the shock not as effective as it could have been.

The episode is far from perfect, but after some of the previous entries, it feels like a huge jump in quality. Sadly for many of those watching week by week when the show was first airing, many had already given up by this point.


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Dusty And Me – Film Review

Originally published on Set The Tape

Dusty and Me is the kind of film that you’d expect to find playing on a Sunday afternoon. It’s the tale of a misfit trying to find their place in the world, an animal sidekick, some bumbling bad guys, and nothing too offensive.

Derek ‘Dusty’ Springfield (Luke Newberry) is a young man returning home to Yorkshire after attending private school, waiting to hear if he’ll be accepted into Oxford University. Dusty is portrayed as something of a black sheep of the family, though this is less because of anything he’s done that could be considered particularly bad, but because he’s smarter than his family.

His mother Lil (Lesley Sharp) and big brother Little Eddie (Ben Batt) offer him support and encouragement, but he struggles to connect with his father Big Eddie (Ian Hart) or make new friends. However, this all changes when he takes on a disowned greyhound named Slapper.

This is where the film struggles to decide on the tone that it wants. At times it’s trying to be a comedy – and isn’t too bad at it – whilst also bombarding viewers with Dusty lamenting Slapper as his only friend. It seems to want to be a family-friendly comedy, but also wants to be something deeper and resonating. Unfortunately Dusty and Me isn’t original enough to be able to succeed at this. The awkward outsider finding their only friend in an animal has been done a number of times before.

The plot expands in expected ways when Slapper helps Dusty to become noticed by local girl Chrissie (Genevieve Gaunt), leading to a slightly awkward romantic sub-plot. When something bad happens to Slapper (in this case getting stolen) the rest of the cast come together to help rescue her.

Sadly, despite good intentions, Dusty and Me feels like it lacks any real originality and substance. Dusty feels less like an outsider and more an arrogant young man who believes that his intelligence makes him better than other people. He lacks any real development and the acceptance he receives later in the film comes more from people wanting to help Slapper than anything he’s earned.

The supporting cast are good, with some recognisable and likeable actors in the mix, but many are underused. Iain Glen in particular is one of the strongest actors in the cast, yet never feels like he’s being used to his full potential.

Dusty and Me has good intentions; it wants to tell an inspiring and uplifting story, yet lacks any real nuance, drama or real character growth.

The production design works well, recreating the 1970s pretty well. Where some films and television shows set within the period often feel drab and dull, with East is East and Life on Mars springing to mind as prime examples, Dusty and Me manages to be both colourful and bright. These design choices inject life into a time and setting that other projects often portray as somewhat depressing.


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Star Wars Resistance 1×03 – ‘Triple Dark’ – TV Review

Originally published on Set The Tape

Star Wars Resistance took it’s time setting up the world in its two-part season premier, spending a good portion of the episode introducing the new characters and the Colossus, but the third episode shifts the focus to Kaz (Christopher Sean) as he attempts to figure out just who he wants to be.

With it still being very early on in the season, and all of the regular characters being new creations for the show, the audience doesn’t have a good grasp on who people are yet, why they’re on the Colsus, what their motivations are, or how they feel about the Resistance and First Order. Triple Dark keeps the focus squarely on Kaz, with the other main cast members being featured very little, yet despite this it’s hard to get a feel of who Kaz might be.

This is in large part down to the fact that he doesn’t seem to know who he is himself. He wants to be a pilot and racer, he’s trying to be a mechanic, and he’s desperate to prove himself as a spy. Sadly, he doesn’t seem to be particularly good at any of these three things. It’s clear that the series is going to tackle this during the course of it’s run, and as with previous Star Wars television shows will give it’s characters room to grow and evolve but I couldn’t help but feel frustrated with Kaz in this episode.

He has no mechanical skills at all, but instead of informing Yeager (Scott Lawrence) of this and finding a work around or a way of him learning some skills he tries to guess his way through, with disastrous results. He’s not much better when he’s trying to be a spy either, if he’s not sneaking around the station like a loony tunes character and crashing into things he’s loudly talking about being on a secret spy mission in front of people.

Fortunately the episode picks up in its second half when the titular triple dark storm hits the station, allowing a fleet of pirate ships to attack. The pirates are a great bunch of characters with some brilliant designs. Led by the vicious looking Quarren Kragen Gorr (Gary Anthony Williams) the pirates include a Trandoshan, and someone wearing looted original trilogy Stormtrooper armour. The group is visually exciting and make for an interesting group of antagonists for the series. The revelation that they’re working for the First Order in an plan to make the citizens of the Colossus willing to let the First Order take over the station to stop the pirates is an interesting plan, one that feels very much in the vein of Palpatine working both sides of the Clone Wars.

The pirate assault gives the audience some fun action as the ace pilots engage in a dog fight in order to stop them, revealing that the racers are more than just recreational pilots, but also the main defence for the station. The attack also gives Kaz the opportunity to shine and save the day. Rather than going for the obvious choice of having him get in a ship and join the fight the writers have him use his intelligence to force the pirates to break off their assault, all while keeping his involvement a secret. The first real indication that he might actually be cut out as a spy.

Triple Dark feels more like an episode of two half than the double length premier, with the first half of the episode unsure of the tone that it wants to capture and offering little in the way of story or character development. Thankfully the second part of the episode picks up in quality and delivers an interesting and engaging story, as well as introducing a brand new faction.


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