17.
WHAT'S GOOD? HUMANS
The show has three central storylines. We mainly follow the Hawkins family, who purchase their first ‘synth’, Anita, in the opening minutes. Then we have George Millican, who is using his original model synth as a replacement for his fading memories. It could almost be a domestic drama, but the final plot shows that several synths have developed consciences, and the government is trying to cover it up. Humans is a very quiet, well-crafted bit of television. Much of the world building is done simply and subtly: we learn the health service has bought half a million synths, Joe Hawkins buys Anita as simply as buying a car, a montage of his wife, Laura, leaving the train station shows synths doing jobs like picking up rubbish and handing out newspapers. These all show how the world has adapted to synths without outright saying it, making it easy to immerse yourself in this world.
Created by Sam Vincent and Jonathan Brackley Starring Katherine Parkinson, Colin Morgan, Gemma Chan
Reviewed by Ethan Sills After months of overseas buzz and weeks of relentless promotion from TV3, Humans finally debuted on our screens a few weeks ago. The British-American sci-fi drama is set in the not-too-distant future, where realistic cyborgs exist as our servants. After the first hour, it’s clear that bringing this to our screens is the best decision TV3 has made all year.
FANTASTIC FOUR
The performances, particularly Gemma Chan as the mysterious Anita, heighten the shows quality. Chan delivers her lines robotically but with hints of emotion, and is so convincing it’s unsettling. Katherine Parkinson as the sceptical Laura provides the perfect audience surrogate, her fear and unease guiding us as she questions Anita’s motives. A stellar opening episode, Humans managed to introduce all their plotlines and central characters without ever feeling overcrowded. Intelligent without being condescending and accessible without being stupid. Humans is the best thing on free-to-air TV right now.
If you know the team, you know the plot: four people get superpowers after a science experiment goes wrong and have to team up to fight Doctor Doom. Except in this movie, it takes an hour for them to get their powers, has a year-long time jump that skips any chances for development, and then introduces the threat in the last fifteen minutes for the sake of things. Basically everything about F4 is bad. None of the characters are likeable, with non-existent personalities and storylines that go nowhere. Leading man, Miles Teller, delivers his lines with as little enthusiasm as possible. There’s the script, with faux-science terms randomly thrown out and the most basic, amateurish take on dialogue. Most of the special effects feel cheap and underdone, and despite having a 120 million dollar budget, no one seemed to notice Kate Mara’s hair changes colour between scenes or that Jamie Bell and Miles Teller look nothing like the teenagers they’re unfathomably meant to be.
Directed by Josh Trank Starring Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Michael B. Jordan
Reviewed by Ethan Sills Around the twenty-minute mark, I didn’t think Fantastic Four was going to be that bad. Sure, it only had nine percent approval on Rotten Tomatoes; sure, it completely bombed at the box office; sure, the director outright disowned it… but at the beginning, there are signs - faint glimmers of hope - that this movie can be saved. Or at the very least be mildly enjoyable. How wrong I was.
As a blockbuster, F4 is long, boring and ultimately pointless. As a parody, it’s brilliant: the hammed-in comic references, the terrible effects, the atrocious final scene; F4 is basically Fox giving Marvel a giant middle finger, but that is not a justifiable reason to make a movie. With about eighty minutes of set up and ten minutes of underwhelming action, this experience can be likened more to bad sex than any other comic book movie out there. A truly fantastic failure.