3.5 Razors

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
  • IMDb: link

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story movie reviewThe first of the standalone Star Wars movies, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is set just prior to the events of the original Star Wars as a struggling Rebellion learns about the newest Imperial weapon capable of destroying an entire planet. Just as memorable for what it keeps from the Star Wars template as what it chooses to change about the formula, Rogue One offers no opening crawl, no screen wipes, and the unnecessary need to name every planet shown on screen in subtitles (something George Lucas’ original films allowed the dialogue itself to deal with).

For as much as it leaves behind, however, Rogue One recycles plenty of Star Wars ideas including an orphaned hero (Felicity Jones) reluctantly called into the service of the Rebellion, a soldier of questionable character (Diego Luna) and his lumbering sidekick, a funny robot (Alan Tudyk), an impossible mission, strange aliens, and a Rebellion (albeit a less united one than fans will remember from the previous films) focused on taking down the Galactic Empire. Along with new planets such as Jedha, Wobani, and Scarif, there’s plenty of familiar sights including Yavin 4 and, of course, the Death Star.

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LEGO Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures – Season One

/ / Home Video
  • Title: LEGO Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures – Season One
  • wiki: link

LEGO Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures - Season One Blu-ray reviewSet between the events of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, the animated LEGO Star Wars series follows the misadventures of a family of mechanics whose youngest member discovers a connection to the Force and accepts the responsibility of keeping the fragments of a powerful weapon out of the hands of the Emperor (Trevor Devall).

Most of the series focuses on the trouble young Rowan (Nicolas Cantu) gets his older siblings Zander (Eugene Byrd) and Kordi (Vanessa Lengies) into while helping a Jedi (who is secretly a Sith) find and collect the fragments of the Kyber Saber.

Collected on DVD and Blu-ray, extras include two short featurettes on the Freemakers and their salvage business. Highlights of the season include the Freemakers on Hoth, a trip to the Imperial Museum on Naboo, and getting dragged into a Wookiee rescue mission.

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Elementary – It Serves You Right to Suffer

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Elementary – How the Sausage is Made
  • wiki: link

Elementary - It Serves You Right to Suffer TV review

The season’s ongoing B-story involving Watson‘s (Lucy Liu) relationship to Shinwell (Nelsan Ellis) comes to a head when he becomes involved in the shooting of a member from a rival gang. Believing his innocence, Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) and Watson have only three days to find the person responsible for the crime, explain Shinwell’s involvement, and prevent the man from going back to prison. The investigation leads back to a FBI agent (Dorian Missick) who both Shinwell and the victim were working for as off-the-book informants.

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Green Room

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Green Room
  • IMDb: link

Green RoomNotable mainly for its cast including a pair of Star Trek actors (Anton Yelchin and Patrick Stewart), Green Room is your basic wrong place, wrong time thriller when a broke band stumbles on a murder in the green room of a remote Neo-Nazi bar in the Northwest. With the help of a witness (Imogen Poots) to the murder, the band (Yelchin, Alia Shawkat, Joe Cole, and Callum Turner) barricade themselves in the green room in an attempt to hold off the inevitable as the club’s owner (Stewart) rounds up some of the gang’s less-savory types to clean-up the situation.

Writer/director Jeremy Saulnier delivers a fairly tense thriller featuring a cast of damaged individuals fighting for their lives against some pissed off Neo-Nazis. Other than Yelchin’s bassist, I’m not sure there’s a good person on-screen which means we’re interested to see what happens to the dickish rockers but not necessarily invested in rooting for or against them making it out alive. Stweart’s casting is intriguing as brains behind the outfit (although it’s fair to say he’s slumming it here).

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Arrow – Invasion!

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Arrow – Invasion!
  • wiki: link

Arrow - Invasion!

The Invasion! crossover continues, focusing mainly on current and former Arrow cast members who are abducted by the Dominators and thrown into a virtual-reality world in which Oliver (Stephen Amell) and Thea‘s (Willa Holland) parents are still alive, Diggle (David Ramsey) is the Green Arrow, and Oliver is set to marry Laurel (Katie Cassidy). Haunted by memory flashes of their true lives, Oliver, Thea, Diggle, Ray (Brandon Routh), and Sara (Caity Lotz) come together to fight their way out of the fake reality and back into the real world where they wake up to discover they are aboard a Dominator mother ship in outer space.

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