The Emoji Movie (2017)

"Nobody leaves the phone! Delete them!"

Ok, let me make one thing clear from the outset; this film is pants. Oh, there are some films, such as Sausage Party, which seem at first as though they're going to be puerile and stupid but in fact turn out to be witty and clever. So I gave this film a chance. Don't make the same mistake; this film is half-arsed, boring and just plain bad.

It's hard to see whether the fundamental flaw is the concept or the execution. It's all set inside the phone of a kid called Alex, with emojis competing to be flavour of the month and the hero Gene, a "meh" emoji, gets into trouble for failing to always display a "meh" expression, only to save the day, predictably, for being in touch with the full range of his emotions and all that. Oh, and there's a token love story which, to be fair, has a genuine feminist subtext, and James Bloody Corden as the most annoying sidekick ever. We even get a deeply irritating dance scene purely for the purpose of letting Christina Aguilera do something.

The film is stupid, boring, feels over-long, and will inevitably look incredibly dated in not many years from now. And it gives rise yet again to that age-old question: why does America find James Corden funny?

Lesbian Vampire Killers (2008)

“Bottoms up!”

“Cocks in!”

The critics really didn’t like this movie. My expectations were therefore not all that high at the start. Added to this, I’m sort of on the fence in that I sort of like James Corden – I think he’s quite funny and a good actor, hence his regular straight roles in TV and theatre- but I’m no fan of Matthew Horne. But, you know what? I’m not saying that this is the greatest film ever made, but it isn’t the worst either. Perhaps it’s partly because I came to this film having had to abandon another film half way through because of rubbishness (no names mentioned yet), but there’s nowt wrong with this.

Quite sensibly, the film structures itself around some silliness in the style of late Hammer Horror vampire films, complete with clichéd plot and the regulation lesbian vampires. We all know what to expect from this sort of thing, so the film can proceed to milk humour out of putting characters in this situation and respond knowingly to the clichés in a nicely metatextual way. Hence, Fletch doesn’t really give a monkeys about the fact that the lesbian vampires are going to completely destroy everything; he’d rather have some fun with some rather attractive ladies and make the sort of comments that the viewers are making to each other about the delightful sweariness of Paul McGann’s Scouse vicar and the clichés that abound.

Fletch is the character who makes the film work; I found Jimmy a little wooden and the squadron of girls are just there to look sexy. They’re good to look at though, and it’s good to hear “I like you so much better when you’re naked” by Ida Maria. I loved that song when it came out but I’d forgotten about it!

The best thing about the film is the climax, with the condom “holy water” balloons and other such silliness. My favourite moment in the whole film is when Fletch points out to the Vicar that everybody knows how to kill vampires because of pop culture and that. This may not be the best film ever made, but it’s unfairly maligned.

Doctor Who: Closing Time

“I’m the Doctor. I work in a shop now.”

Oh dear. I seem to have fallen into a bit of a rut in lavishing praise on how nicely shot the pre-titles sequences are. Shall we just take it as read that I’ve done that and move swiftly on?

This is the umpteenth bloody good episode in a row, and maintains Gareth Roberts’ impressive record. His four episodes might not be quite up there with the very best, but all of them are consistently brilliant, and this one is probably his best yet. Even the sickly-sweet resolution is appropriate given the context of Cybermen vis-à-vis emotions.

It’s good to see Craig again; James Corden is bloody fantastic with his subtle physical comedy and nice balance between humour and pathos. It helps that he and Matt Smith are a great double act. The “fact” that Matt Smith speaks baby is a fab gimmick, too.

Two centuries have passed since the last episode tomorrow. Tomorrow (by the Doctor’s subjective timeline- how does this work? He’s a time traveller. I suppose he has to die at his present age because it was stated in The Impossible Astronaut, but why this particular day? Is it the day before his next birthday or summat?) he gets shot dead. He’s spending his last day visiting Craig (and others, I assume).

There’s a lot of great humorous dialogue. We get a “You’ve redecorated. I don’t like it.” to please the fans and a hilarious “Social call. Thought I’d try one out.” There’s a lot of nicely metatextual humour here; we all know perfectly know that noticing g things and sorting out the baddies is all the Doctor ever does; of course there’s going to be a massively coincidental alien invasion.

Once again it’s nice to see the Doctor in a contemporary setting; combined with this episode’s comic focus it gives Matt Smith’s Doctor a chance to breathe and be really Doctorish. His interaction with George, Kelly and the Fabulous Val (the great Lynda Barron, again!) is great; this is a sweet, likeable Doctor who is liked and trusted by all. Midnight feels a long time ago. Plus, we have a nice little mystery with Cybermen. Yay! This is a particularly good story for them, not least because they lurk in the background being menacing and hardly say a word, as they do in all their best stories. The new Cybermats are great, too, with real and very pointy teeth. We even get a small snatch of Murray Gold’s old Cyber-theme. If only we could have that “Space Adventure” theme from the ‘60s again…

Of course, it’s in no way surprising to see Amy and Rory here. You were expecting them too, right? And I don’t need to have seen any spoilers to know that they’ll be back full-time next week. But it’s great that Amy has stopped being a kissogram and become a model, although there still a certain objectification-of-women thing going on, and I understand the fashion industry is largely run by bastards. Still, it’s great that she’s advertising something called “Petrichor”.

The Doctor gets a nice little monologue to the baby, but his mournful admission to Craig that he’s going to die because he’s “a stupid, selfish man” gets the perfect response. Craig knows the Doctor- he’s been inside his head- and instinctively knows that this is all a load of pants; the Doctor has saved loads of people and can be forgiven a little vanity and self-indulgence.

Oh, and we get that line again: “Silence will fall when the question is asked”. On which story arc-y note I really ought to do what I ought have done a few paragraphs ago, and point out that this is the first time since 1989 that a series has ended without a two-part season finale. The next episode, if it really is going to wrap everything up, has a lot of work to do in forty-five minutes, or an hour, or whatever.

The actual alien plot is rather prosaic, and very much takes second fiddle to the stuff about the Doctor and Craig. Six Cybermen and their ship have recently been woken up after centuries of slumber (Cyber continuity? Let’s not go there…), are a bit rubbish, they try to Cybernise Craig (always nice to see the Cybermen trying to do this; it brings out the full body horror), but it doesn’t work because he’s a great dad, and he kills them with love for his son. That’s it. It should be tacky and sentimental, but somehow manages to be brilliant instead.

Interesting, too, that the Cybermen are more impressed by Craig than they are by the Doctor, and even see him as potential Cyber Controller material.

We end with some throwbacks to the start of the series; the Doctor has bought some nice blue envelopes, and Craig gives him a Stetson. The scene then suddenly shifts to River Song, who’s just got her Doctorate. Suddenly, along comes Madame Kovarian, she who has pulled River’s strings for her entire life. She’s accompanied by a couple of Silents (“Your owners”). River is put into an astronaut suit and shoved at the bottom of Lake Silencio…

I shouldn’t really mention the “Next Time” trailer, but it’s all about to kick off. I can’t wait…

Doctor Who: The Lodger

“Craig, the planet’s about to burn! For God’s sake, KISS THE GIRL!!!”

It’s so close. I can feel it. The Lodger tonight, the season finale tomorrow, and my Marathon will be over at last. It won’t be the end of my reviewing, of course- I’ll keep on writing the same sort of reviews in the appropriate parts of the forum (and this very blog!) until I’m completely up to date with all parts of the Whoniverse, and in a couple of weeks time I hope to be reviewing episodes the weekend they’re broadcast. But I’m not there yet, and the end of the Marathon is upon me. It feels big! Still, more, much more, on that theme tomorrow.

This story is an odd one, Marathon-wise. Ever since 22nd November, 2008, the day it all started, my Who viewing has been strictly in order and strictly Marathon related… except for current stories, as broadcast, plus repeat viewings over the following days. This hasn’t affected my Marathon, but The Lodger is different. Now then…if you haven’t seen The Impossible Astronaut, LOOK AWAY NOW.

Still here? Good. It’s an odd time for this story to come up in my Marathon. Normally I try not to be influence by anything I know about stories which come later, but here… it’s been hard not to take special notice of the set for the spaceship interior, or to look out for… things lurking in the background!

But let’s start at the beginning, and actually talk about The Lodger. We’ve seen suburbia and tower blocks before but it’s actually even more jolting to see a city park and some urban 1930s houses. I don’t know Colchester, and I’ve only once briefly been to Essex, but that’s ok: I have ready stream of stereotypes to keep me going. And I’m highly amused at Murray Gold’s channelling of the music from the end of The Empire Strikes Back in the moments where the Doctor realises he’s stranded in Essex of all places.

The set-up of stairs which people go up but never come down is a fantastic hook, but it’s general enough to hang around in the background for a bit while we have a bit of fun with the Doctor, Craig and Sophie and how they all relate to one another. Craig and Sophie are a pair of “best friends” who absolutely froth and steam with repressed love and desire for each other. We know damn well, because we’ve seen TV drama before and have a general idea how it works, that they’re going to end up together by the end of the episode by means of the Doctor as a catalyst. But the pleasure is in the “how”, of course. That and the fact this episode is very funny indeed.

The Doctor being placed in a “normal” situation is intrinsically funny, of course, but especially this Doctor, who is delightfully childlike in his complete and utter lack of self-consciousness. He’s better at football than Craig is. He’s better at Craig’s job than Craig is. But none of this is done with any arrogance; the Doctor even innocently wonders whether he’ll be any good at football.

This is an Amy-lite story, although Amy’s few scenes in the TARDIS give her some great lines. The production team has been very clever handling this; I can’t think of a Doctor-lite story this season. This is, if anything, particularly Doctor-heavy, and gives Matt Smith a proper chance to shine. His chat with Craig and Sophie, and his perceptive understanding of what makes both of them tick, are great. And, sticking to the childlike, he doesn’t like wine. Blimey. Takes all sorts, I suppose.

I’m not sure about the head butt, what with the children watching and stuff, but at least it save us a few minutes of potential exposition, along with giving us a fun little montage of old clips.

This is, of course, a re-use of the perception filter and room that shouldn’t exist from The Eleventh Hour, but I’m sure by now that this is deliberate. Moffat is trying to tell us something that’s going on. And yes, I paid particular attention to the exact appearance of what the Doctor calls “someone’s attempt to build a TARDIS” (hmmm!), to the exact appearance of the blue lightning drawing the Doctor’s hand to the central console, and to the apparent lack of any mysterious figures in the background, or unexplained glances from the characters…

The ending is pleasingly neat, with Craig and Sophie getting together being the exact thing which saves the day. I love the scenes where they gradually destroy their friendship. Aaaah! Good one, this. 4/5. But we end with another crack, and it’s a big one. And Amy’s found her engagement ring...