Tag: Otto Bathurst

Super Recaps: Halo Season 2 – Episode 5

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Halo the series is owned by Paramount Plus

Directed by Otto Bathurst

The Fall of Reach has come and gone with some surprising changes to the status quo and many questions to answer before we finally get to that darn ring everyone keeps talking about. Still, a big event like that needs some time to decompress so it’s time for a budget-friendly talky episode that I tend to enjoy much more than the action. Sure, it’s there if you want it, but a show has to be more than that and this season has had a bad track record of developing its characters and establishing themes. Will this be the turning point for the series that I’ve been waiting for, or is it back to business as usual after the big mid-season blowout? Let’s find out!!

With the fall of Reach, humanity is on the brink of annihilation as few defenses remain between The Covenant and Earth. The UNSC is fighting amongst itself due to the machinations of Ackerson and the ONI, Makee (Charlie Murphy) managed to get one of the sacred artifacts off Reach before it blew up, and Silver Team lost Vannak (Bentley Kalu) in all the chaos. While Chief, Halsey, Soren, and Riz (Pablo Schreiber, Natascha McElhone, Bokeem Woodbine, and Natasha Culzac) were able to escape the planet with the help of Kwan Ha and Laera (Yerin Ha and Fiona O’Shaughnessy), there’s little hope to be found on that ship as they head their way to a remote mining planet where Soren and laera hope to find their son Kessler (Tylan Bailey). It’s a dark chapter for The Master Chief as the galaxy presumes him dead and the ONI did everything in their power to make it so. Chief is used to having his back against the wall, but with so much against him, can he get back on the saddle and finish the fight, wherever that fight may be? How is everyone else dealing with the fall of Reach and the loss of everyone there? Do you think maybe we can chill out on this planet for a while longer as it’s not bathed in constant darkness? I mean, it still doesn’t have sunlight but at least I can finally see what’s going on!

“Oh, wow! They got you good, didn’t they?”     “I know, right? Should have put on a helmet, at least.”
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Cinema Dispatch: Robin Hood

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 1 Comment

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Robin Hood and all the images you see in this review are owned by Lionsgate

Directed by Otto Bathurst

Oh BOY is this gonna be a good one!  Can’t you just feel it!?  The trailers have looked awful, no one is talking about this and if they are it’s not in a positive light, and they’re just dumping this against a huge nostalgic franchise on Thanksgiving!  Lionsgate clearly believes they have a bomb on their hands here and from everything they’ve deigned to show us I can’t entirely disagree, but  then there are a lot of movies that didn’t have the full confidence of their studio yet still turned out great, from my beloved Jupiter Ascending to even the cult classic Donnie Darko!  Will this be another example of a good movie stuck with bad marketing and a poorly timed release date?  Yeah, probably not, but let’s find out!!

Robin of Loxley (Taron Egerton) is some rich punk in the town of Nottingham who meets her true love Marion (Eve Hewson) trying to steal a horse from him.  Eh, he’s rich.  Possessions are utterly meaningless to him anyway.  They’re have a whirlwind romance through montage which is abruptly brought to an end when it turns out that the Sheriff of Nottingham (Ben Mendelsohn) has drafted him to join the crusades.  Okay… I thought the armies retaking the Holy Land were volunteers, but I guess if the Sheriff of Nottingham wanted Robin out of the city that he could pull some strings and force him into service.  Wait, why does the Sheriff of Nottingham want him gone?  Oh whatever.  During his military service he manages to be THE BEST SOLIDER EVER but also TOO SWEET to survive in such a place, so after trying to save a captured POW from being executed, he’s non-fatally shot by his CO and sent back to England.  Surprise for Robin though, the father of the POW who he tried to save stowed away and wants to use him to take down the oppressive system in Nottingham, and after a pretty racist joke about foreigners having WACKY names, he starts going by the name John (Jamie Foxx).  It doesn’t take much to convince Robin to join this fight since The Sheriff literally stripped away every last valuable from his home (including his parents I assume) as well as punched a bunch of holes in the walls, and on top of that Marion was told that he had died and is now married to some dude named Will (Jamie Dornan).  With all this rich white boy angst, Robin begins to steal from the rich and give to the poor which soon earns his alter ego a nickname; THE HOOD!  Will Robin and John manage to smash Medieval Capitalism (which I guess is Serfdom here?) and create a socialist Utopia in the heart of thirteenth century England!?  What is The Sheriff’s REAL beef with him and the people of this town, and is he planning something more sinister than just taking all their stuff?  Is it just me, or is a lot of this sounding very familiar!?

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“OH MY GOD!  ARE YOU GREEN ARROW!?”

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