The Lost Stories make an unexpected return this month (as in it was unexpected when it was announced months ago…), starting with Nightmare Country, a Fifth Doctor story that was proposed for Season 21 but deemed too expensive to produce. This audio adaptation proved not only fun to listen to, but also… not really sure how it would have been too expensive, honestly. Either way, let’s have a look at Nightmare Country!
Going into this final release in the most recent Fifth Doctor Main Range trilogy I was expecting to like Conversion more based on the synopsis, but it actually ended up the other way around. That’s not saying the latter story was bad, and in fact the end scene was brilliant, but … well, let’s save the specifics for the actual review, shall we?
We’re nearly at the end of the Titan Comics 10th Doctor stories with Vortex Butterflies. It finally deals head-on with the weird powers Gabby has been showing for some time now, while also having a role for Sarah Jane Smith and managing to throw in more companion name drops than you can shake a stick at. Let’s take a look!
It’s time to continue forward in the Universal Century, though we’re now so far away from Amuro and co. that it doesn’t really matter, beyond similar designs and faction names. Gundam F91 is a straight up theatrical movie by Gundam creator Tomino himself, but the problem is that it started off life as a new TV show, and therefore this comes across as a compilation movie to a series you haven’t seen… but is it still worth a watch?! Well, since you asked…
My idea of reviewing a story from every season as its released on Blu-ray immediately ran into a problem thanks to the release of Season 23, a season that’s actually one long story, albeit a story that is clearly segmented into four parts. Rather than review the whole Trial of a Time Lord (which I didn’t have time to do due to a certain six film, six game marathon) I was going to just review one part, but that didn’t seem right either. Thankfully, on the Blu-ray, is a special “Standalone Edition” of one of the stories, with all the Trial stuff cut out, so I’ve decided to review that, and then later do an additional paragraph or two when I reach this story during a review of Trial proper. With all that said, how is Terror of the Vervoids when all the Trial stuff is removed? Let’s find out!
Well here we are, the *ahem* day after Halloween and we’ve reached the end of the Resident Evil Game to Live Action Film marathon… marathon, with the self-titled “Final Chapter”. Sadly, while there were some good ideas and set pieces, a lot of this film falls apart thanks to dropping a bunch of ideas and characters in favour of bringing back an already defeated foe as a final enemy, robbing any drama from the final showdown… Hooray! Let’s take a last look at a Resident Evil live action film then, shall we? (For now anyway…)
Ah yes, Resident Evil 6, a prime example of trying to do too much leading to a poor end result. Four separate campaigns, seven lead characters, several different themes and tones but all with the same slightly clunky-feeling controls… it wasn’t great, and thankfully the reception of the game (not including sales given it’s still CAPCOM’s third bestselling game) led to Resident Evil VII going back to a horror focus, but that game will have to wait for another time, right now we end our look at the core Resident Evil games via the Game to Live Action Movie Marathon with Resi 6!
After a … well, hot streak would be pushing it… after a decent streak, the Resident Evil films hit another snag with Retribution. Instead of doing another simple, self-contained story, they go crazy with franchise call backs, clones and action set pieces and forget about having even the previously simple plots they’d used before. Oh well, we’re nearly done now, so we may as well get this out of the way and move on to the finale!
Resident Evil 5 had a bit of a negativity swirling around it after release, for failing to live up to the previous entry, but I personally found it just as enjoyable to play (if still not very Resident Evil-y) but with the added fun to tying up the Chris-Wesker storyline. Ah well, at least 6 came along to take the heat off of it a few years later! So let’s take a look at Resi 5, on the same day we’re cover a film featuring Jill with her look and storyline from this game in it! Fitting!
Resident Evil: Afterlife’s posters all contain a big “3D” logo under the title, which is always a worry, and sure enough the film suffers from an over-reliance of objects going towards the camera and slow motion falling. Still, it’s not all bad, it has elements from Resident Evil 5 which were a good laugh, with the live action debut of Chris Redfield no less, and the plot is simplified (apart from the opening!) so… let’s take a closer look!
Hogan Reviews 