Tag: Robert Sheehan

The Umbrella Academy Season Two Review.

4 stars
I quite enjoyed the first season of The Umbrella Academy. 
Based off the comic by Gerad Way and created by Steve Blackman for Netflix, the show followed the dysfunctional, superpowered family of the Hargreeves as they attempted to stop the end of the world… only to inadvertently cause it.  
Now, we finally have season two with the family now trapped in 1963 with ten days to stop the end of the world… again.
And all of the Hargreeves family have their own storylines and new characters to interact with.
There’s the literal ticking time bomb Vanya (Ellen Page), gorilla bodied Luther (Tom Hopper), justice seeker Diego (David Castañeda), rumor girl Allison (Emmy Raver-Lampman), addict Klaus (Robert Sheehan), and older man trapped in a younger man’s body Five (Aidan Gallagher). 
Surprisingly though, I would say that my favourite character of the family this season would have to be Klaus’ ghost buddy Ben (Justin H. Min) who has a great arc.

Ben was unexpectedly the best character this season and Min does a great job playing the ghost sibling

However, I will say that the way Klaus treats Ben did make me like Klaus a lot less as a character.
Onto more positives now, we also get more insight into the Umbrella Academy’s horrible father Reginald Hargreeves (Colm Feore), with one of the best scenes in the season being a meeting between him and the family he traumatized. 
As for new characters, many of them are great, with Allison, Vanya and Diego’s love interests Ray (Yusuf Gatewood), Sissy (Marin Ireland), and Lila (Ritu Arya) being especially interesting with their storylines. 
We also got some pretty fantastic action scenes this season, like the opening battle and a fight with Five in the middle. 
As well as this, the show is not afraid to go into weird territory with things like a talking fish and aliens, along with the bulk load of weird stuff from the first season. 
Although, I will say that season two is not all good. 
For one thing, I was disappointed with how some amazing characters from the first season were written out.  
Not only this but even though I said some of the action sequences are great, some are rather bad. 
This is the case for one of the final battles of the season, which has the absolute worst case of Stormtrooper aim that I have ever seen.  

Seriously, there’s an entire army shooting at our heroes and somehow all of the bullets miss. How is that possible?

There is also some character logic that doesn’t really make much sense when you think too much about it. 
Still, despite these issues, the second season of The Umbrella Academy is a solid season that I would rank just as good as the first.
It has a great cliffhanger that prepares us for more craziness with this crazy family next season.

Mortal Engines: A Spectacle… but one with Little Substance.

two-and-a-half-stars
Despite what the trailers would have you believe, Mortal Engines is not directed by Peter Jackson but rather produced by him.
It is clear his name was used for recognition to try and get people into theaters because, given how badly this film has bombed, there was not much else that would draw an audience in.
Mortal Engines is actually directed by Christian Rivers and, I will admit, when I first saw the trailers I was intrigued.
The whole concept of the film was a bit ridiculous and, like most, I was fooled into believing Peter Jackson was the director but I still thought it looked like a spectacle.
And it was a spectacle… but one with little substance.
The film takes place in a dystopian future where large cities like London have been made mobile and capture other cities for their supplies to keep going.
This concept does require a large suspension of disbelief going in but the film could have still succeeded by going for a Mad Max type of movie.
This is evident by the exciting opening scene, which features London chasing down and capturing a smaller city in a thrilling action sequence with great CGI.

London chase
The opening scene of London chasing down a smaller city was genuinely exciting. If only the rest of the movie was like this.

However, after this Mortal Engines unfortunately delves into the realm of a young adult story that we have all seen a thousand times.
Hester Shaw (Hera Hilmar) is the typical female protagonist out for revenge against a dictatorial government leader and Tom Natsworthy (Robert Sheehan) is her bland love interest.
Their love for one another grows throughout the film, only for it to completely fall apart when you realise they have almost nothing in common and have known each other for a few days at the most.
As for Hugo Weaving’s Thaddeus Valentine, he is the typically evil government figure out for power that we have seen in all of these types of films.
Almost every character in Mortal Engines is incredibly bland or a character we have already seen in every single young adult more ever.
The one exception to this is Shrike (Stephen Lang) a character who, despite only having a small amount of screen time, is surprisingly sympathetic and a multi-dimensional character.

Shrike.jpg
Shrike is a surprisingly relatable character in a large cast of bland and cliche ones.  

With the exception of him though, every other character is bland or cliche, and this is not helped by the story these characters inhabit.
Full of plot holes and eye rolling moments, the writing makes it very difficult to care about what is happening most of the time.
The worst moment of Mortal Engines has to be right at the beginning when a historian declares that the Minions from Despicable Me are valuable ancient relics.
This alone shows how cringe inducing this film can get at times.
Like I said though, there are a few moments in the film when it is a spectacle to behold.
The opening action sequence is great and the other ones across the film are also fairly enjoyable, even if you do not really care about what is happening.
I just wish the excitement of this first action scene was carried along across the film because then it would have been a much better experience.