717 Best Film & TV Releases Translated Into Arabic
The Big Cigar
SimilarChristopher Columbus, Conquistadores: Adventum, Faraway Downs, Good Morning Children, Howards End, I Just Want To See You, Power Rangers Dino Force Brave, Spies of Warsaw, The Brothers Karamazov, The House in the Woods, The Killing Kind, The Quatermass Experiment, World War II: When Lions Roared,
A frequently offered solution to the problem of stale biopics involves ditching the cradle-to-the-grave format. Instead, focus on a specific era or significant event in the life of an important figure. Let that story define viewers’ understanding of the person, giving the audience an insightful perspective without the exercise of box-checking. The Big Cigar takes this advice, narrowing its vision of Huey P. Newton (André Holland) to (mostly) 1974. That year, Newton faced multiple criminal charges and became increasingly convinced the government was targeting him for more than arrest. In response, the Black Panther Party co-founder left the U.S. for exile in Cuba.
Joshuah Bearman’s Playboy essay gives co-creators Janine Sherman Barrois and Jim Hecht a fascinating launching pad for The Big Cigar. It’s not difficult to understand why Newton’s Hollywood-fueled escape just ahead of the FBI’s clutches would be a draw. Unfortunately, in adapting it for television, the creative team's tonal and structural choices undermine the series.
P.J. Byrne's on the line! (AppleTV+)
Hecht, coming off his work on Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers’ Dynasty, seems to have brought over some tonal impulses from his collaborator on that project, Adam McKay. As a result, The Big Cigar frequently tries to balance humor with dead serious topics like possible political assassination, government-orchestrated harassment, and gun violence. While the show manages those tonal juxtapositions better than McKay’s disastrous Don’t Look Up, it never delivers as well as The Big Short. Several jokes land without feeling disrespectful of the series’ more earnest moments or themes. Unfortunately, it is never as funny as it wants to be. That frequently creates a gulf between its humorous and solemn moments. They can’t seem to get both sides to integrate satisfyingly. Continue Reading →
Unfrosted (In Arabic: قصة البوب تارت الحقيقية)
I will give Unfrosted, director/co-writer/star/breakfast aficionado Jerry Seinfeld's heavily fictionalized, would-be-gonzo take on the invention of the Pop-Tart, this: I did laugh, albeit mirthlessly. For one sequence, Seinfeld and his creative collaborators push past stale, semi-affectionate satire and into the rarefied realm of "Yes, we're going for it." It's a funeral. The deceased is laid to rest with the highest honors a breakfast food developer may be accorded. Why is he dead? An office culture that prioritized the appearance of safety (testing the revolutionary self-stable fruit pastry in a full space suit, complete with isolated oxygen supply) over actual safety (keeping said oxygen supply next to an overclocked toaster). After all, beating Post to market is far more important than protecting your staff from violent immolation.
The Corn Flakes rooster, Toucan Sam (Cedric Yarbrough), Tony the Tiger (Thurl Ravenscroft, as played by Hugh Grant), and Snap, Crackle, and Pop (Kyle Mooney, Mikey Day, and Drew Tarver), among others, perform the rites. As the deceased's widow (Sarah Burns) looks on in increasingly horrified bafflement, these priests of the breakfast table lower the coffin into the ground and then dump cereal and milk into the grave, topped with fresh fruit laid by professional mourners. A cereal box prize is presented like the flags given to the family of slain soldiers.
It's an audacious, out-there scene, a moment of distinct, morbid silliness that reminds me of when Barry B. Benson had Winnie the Pooh sniped. In a world where rival cereal companies seek the aid of Kennedy (Bill Burr) and Kruschev (Dean Norris) and the head of Big Milk (Peter Dinklage) can have someone tortured for daring to suggest that breakfast might not always need cow juice, Full Cearal Honors feels like Seinfeld and company cranking up the dial to eleven and jamming while dancing around Stonehenge. What is there to do but laugh? Continue Reading →
Dark Matter
SimilarA League of Nobleman, And Then There was One Yuriko, Anna Karenina, Arrow,
Battlestar Galactica Birds of Prey, Blake's 7, Captain Star, Cooking Crush, Dark Winds, Dinner Mate,
Earth 2 Firefly Hero Return,
Justice League Longing Heart, Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Miss Marple: The Body in the Library, Monarch of the Glen, My Fantastic Mrs Right, Mystery Science Theater 3000, Percy Jackson and the Olympians,
Planet of the Apes Pride and Prejudice Project Thouser, Quark, Spider-Man: The New Animated Series, Spies of Warsaw,
Star Trek Star Trek: Strange New Worlds,
Star Trek: The Next Generation Star Trek: Voyager Sweet Tooth,
Tales from the Neverending Story The 100, The Brothers Karamazov, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Incredible Hulk, The Irresponsible Captain Tylor OVA, The Jungle, The Killing Kind, The Ordinary World, The Rainbow, The Umbrella Academy, The Woods, ThunderCats, X-Men: Evolution,
In reviewing Dark Matter, it feels fitting to follow the moral of the show’s story. While it is easy to get lost in forever puzzling over details, the far more useful—and rewarding—path is to take a step back and fully appreciate a thing. There are elements in creator/showrunner Blake Crouch’s adaptation of his own work that do not work, especially concerning pacing. And yet, by the time the credits roll on the final episode, one is largely left satisfied and, perhaps, a bit exhilarated.
The temptation to dwell on each choice at the expense of the larger picture is something Jason Dessen (Joel Edgerton) knows well. But we’re already getting ahead of ourselves.
Dark Matters begins with the Jason I’ll christen “our Jason” for clarity. Our Jason is a Physics professor living in Chicago with his wife Daniela (Jennifer Connelly), a former artist who now focuses more on the administrative and business sides of art, and their son Charlie (Oakes Fegley). One night, Jason meets up with his friend Ryan (Jimmi Simpson) to celebrate the latter’s academic success. The vibe is strained, with parties seemingly aware that Jason should’ve received the same award, if not over Ryan, then certainly before him. Continue Reading →
The Fall Guy
SimilarArmageddon (1998), Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002), Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997), Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999), Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006), Bridget Jones's Diary (2001), Bring It On (2000), Dr. No (1962), From Russia with Love (1963), Ghostbusters (1984), Goldfinger (1964), Hellboy (2004), Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004), Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (2008), My Super Ex-Girlfriend (2006), Night at the Museum (2006), Ocean's Eleven (1960), Renegade, Shrek the Third (2007), Snakes on a Plane (2006),
Star Trek: The Next Generation The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004), The Simpsons Movie (2007), Thunder in Paradise,
StarringHannah Waddingham,
"Delightful." That's the best word for The Fall Guy. It's a movie about moviemaking that loves moviemaking. It's a Tinseltown fairy tale. In The Fall Guy's world, going big at San Diego Comic-Con ("Hall H!" is a repeated refrain) guarantees that a nerdy, bombastic film will go big with general moviegoers. (Mr. Pilgrim would like a word.)
The Big Bad Wolf is Tom Ryder, a gormless hunk with a smoldering gaze (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). He's the biggest action star in the world despite stealing credit from a stunt team he treats, at best, with disdain. The Heroic Lumberjacks are the passionate, the driven, the caring. For instance, Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt), a director pushing through writer's block to capture what she's carrying in her heart. Or Dan Tucker (Winston Duke), a stunt coordinator who knows the angles, timing, and how to bring out the best in his crew. And, of course, there's Colt Seavers (Ryan Gosling), a stuntman willing to get set on fire or launch himself into a wall until the illusion looks like truth. Moviemaking is, in part, an act of love. The Fall Guy knows this.
Colt may be a ragged goofball who's fallen off his horse (not literally, though given his skills, he could), but he's still a knight. He cares deeply for first-time director-and-one-time-lover Jody. That's why he comes out of a self-imposed retirement triggered by the same accident that led him to ghost her. He wants to ensure the science fiction western war epic Metalstorm isn't her last film. Or that a conspiracy, gun-toting goons, and potent hallucinogens don't prevent it from seeing the light of day at all. Continue Reading →
Dead Boy Detectives
SimilarAgatha Christie's Poirot Ah! My Goddess, Amazing Stories, American Gothic, American Horror Story, Angel, Arrow, Baywatch Nights, Birds of Prey, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Captain Star, Constantine: City of Demons, Dante's Cove, Deadly Class, Dinner Mate, Erased, Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes,
Flash Gordon GARO, KO One, Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Sabrina, the Teenage Witch,
Sherlock Holmes Silver Surfer, Sonic the Hedgehog, Spider-Man: The New Animated Series, Suicide Squad ISEKAI, Tales from the Crypt, The Avengers: United They Stand, The Boys, The Fantastic Four, The Flash, The Incredible Hulk, The Umbrella Academy, X-Men: Evolution,
Dead Boy Detectives is, by its nature, a strange beast. Both a spinoff of MAX’s now-finished Doom Patrol series and Netflix’s own Sandman, it began as a sort of backdoor pilot two and a half years ago in the third episode of Doom Patrol Season 3. However, this series tossed the actors portraying the Boys and their living friend Crystal for an entirely different trio of performers. Now George Rextrew plays Edwin, the uptight turn-of-the-century boy. Jayden Revri steps into the jacket of Edwin's late 80s punk adjacent partner Charles. Finally, Kassius Nelson portrays their modern and still of this mortal plane third wheel, teen medium Crystal Palace.
Soon after meeting and freeing Crystal from the clutches of a demon named David (David Iacono), the boys take her in, although Edwin is less than thrilled at the idea. Missing large chunks of her memory, she is anxious to throw herself into the boys’ work investigating cases for and about ghosts, usually in the name of sending them off to the Great Beyond. Their first case as a trio takes them away from their English home to Port Townsend, WA. Unfortunately, even after they close the case, forces conspire to keep the three stuck in the town. With only time to waste, they decide to make the best of it by solving the problems of Townsend’s surprisingly bustling phantom population.
Kassius Nelson accesses those spooky-ooky powers. (Netflix)
This kind of “neither here nor there” of the show’s beginning and the characters’ “house arrest” soon reveals itself as a kind of meta reflection of the series itself. Steve Yockey, the writer of that backdoor pilot episode and the creator of this series, clearly has enthusiasm and love for the concept and the characters. The central relationship between the spectral friends has a striking sweetness without being cloying. The two's connection never feels in doubt, even as they bicker or revelations of unrequited sexual attraction come to light. The scripting deftly avoids needless "can their friendship survive" melodrama or after-school special syrupiness. It doesn’t hurt that, despite the roster change, Rexstrew and Revri wear the roles like comfortable clothes. They give Edwin and Charles a casual depth that extends behind their simple archetypes. Continue Reading →
The Big Door Prize
SimilarA Dance to the Music of Time, And Then There was One Yuriko, Cooking Crush, Game of Thrones, Hero Return, KONOSUBA – An Explosion on This Wonderful World!, M*A*S*H, Monarch of the Glen, My Fantastic Mrs Right, Percy Jackson and the Olympians,
Planet of the Apes Roswell Tales from the Neverending Story The 100, The Irresponsible Captain Tylor OVA, The Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These, The Shining, The Strain, The Wimbledon Poisoner, Troubles, Wedding Impossible,
Watch afterDexter: New Blood, Severance,
Silo The Night Agent,
StarringJosh Segarra,
In Season 1, The Big Door Prize felt like a cracked mirror version of a small-town Stephen King story. When the Morpho Machine—a device that spits out a card revealing the user’s “potential”—arrives in Deerfield, it does indeed disrupt life. However, most Deerfield residents are nice. Or, at least, they're not mean in the “could be tempted by Randall Flagg or Leland Gaunt” way. As a result, the disruptions were more of a “the principal buys a motorcycle” and “that dad grieving the death of his son declares himself sheriff without ever abusing power.” No escalating series of pranks culminating in out-and-out bloodshed or betraying one’s former friends to the dark embodiment of evil found here.
For those expecting The Big Door Prize Season 2 to start stacking the bodies like cordwood, I have bad news. It keeps the King’s small-town vibes without wandering into King’s “the secrets we keep will literally tear us apart” territory. Opening moments after Season 1’s end, the Morpho machine has stopped spitting out cards, instead offering the town folk a move to the next level. While the result is, essentially, yet another projective test, the results bring a distinctly different flavor to the mix. While the series retains a certain goofiness, it also gains a sadder complexity. The longer we look at the characters, the more forced their good-time silliness becomes. Instead of the exception, Season 1's Father Reuben (Damon Gupton) centric fourth episode feels more like Season 2’s template.
Mary Holland and Josh Segarra nail the couples' costumes category. (AppleTV+)
To find that tone, the series does reshuffle its character decks. Many of the students we met last year are nowhere to be seen, for instance. New characters are introduced, including a music teacher played by Justine Lupe. Others, like Cass’s (Gabrielle Dennis) best friend Nat (Mary Holland), get a much bigger spotlight. The overall result gives the series a stronger ensemble feel, even if it is not necessarily without downsides. Continue Reading →
Rebel Moon - Part Two: The Scargiver (In Arabic: Rebel Moon - جزء 2: حافرة الندوب)
Similar2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Alien (1979), Aliens (1986), Apollo 13 (1995), Armageddon (1998), Catwoman (2004), Code of Silence (1985), Con Air (1997), Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (2000), Die Hard (1988), Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995), Dune (1984), Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007), La Vie en Rose (2007), Live Free or Die Hard (2007), Sliver (1993), Star Trek: First Contact (1996), Star Trek: Generations (1994), The Fifth Element (1997), The Matrix Reloaded (2003), The Matrix Revolutions (2003), You Only Live Twice (1967),
Watch afterDune: Part Two (2024), Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire (2023),
My favorite moments in Rebel Moon: Part Two - The Scargiver come during quick breaths before a plunge.
In the first, warriors Tarak (Staz Nair) and Milius (Elise Duffy) come to terms with their likely imminent deaths at the hands of a smoke-spewing tank. Having spent years of his life consumed by survivor's guilt, Tarak thought having a cause to die for would be enough. It isn't. He wants to live, but he probably won't. The next best thing is to die fighting alongside a peer like Milius.
In the second, Kora (Sofia Boutella) is in the midst of blasting her way through the fearsome dreadnought King's Gaze. After slaying a warrior wielding a high-tech superheated sword, she takes a moment to catch her breath. With some pilfered cloth, she wraps the blade's hilt so she can use it without burning herself. It's a moment of improvisation, providing Boutella a chance to deliver a quieter piece of physical acting that stands in contrast to brawling with a corridor of goons or swordfighting Ed Skrein's Admiral Noble. Continue Reading →
Franklin
SimilarA Fortunate Life, A League of Nobleman, A Little Princess, A Respectable Trade,
Agatha Christie's Poirot And Then There was One Yuriko, Anna Karenina, Återkomsten, Atomic Train, Babel, Chicken Nugget, Cleopatra, Conquistadores: Adventum, Cooking Crush, Dark Winds, Dead by Sunset, Dexter, Fallen, Faraway Downs, Game of Thrones, Genesis, Good Morning Children, Gossip Girl, Heidi, Howards End, I Just Want To See You, Intruders, Jack the Ripper, Jewels, Long Time No See, M*A*S*H, Miss Marple: The Body in the Library, Monarch of the Glen, Murder in the Heartland, My Fantastic Mrs Right, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Ordeal by Innocence, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Peter and Paul,
Planet of the Apes Pope John Paul II, Power Rangers Dino Force Brave,
Pride and Prejudice Quatermass II, Rebus, RUSH: Inspired by Battlefield,
Scully Sherlock Holmes Son of the Morning Star,
Tales from the Neverending Story Tales of the South Seas, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The 100, The Brothers Karamazov, The Far Pavilions, The Fire Next Time, The High School Heroes, The House in the Woods, The Irresponsible Captain Tylor OVA, The Jungle, The Killing Kind, The Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These, The Lost World, The Murder of Mary Phagan, The Ordinary World, The Phantom of the Opera, The Quatermass Experiment, The Serial Killer's Wife, The Shining, The Strain, The Sun Also Rises, The Witness for the Prosecution, The Woods, Tiger Lily, 4 femmes dans la vie, Unterleuten: The Torn Village, Wedding Impossible, World War II: When Lions Roared, Wycliffe,
StudioApple Studios,
Michael Douglas's career so deeply connects him to as specific kind of late 20th/early 21st Century man. As a result, throwing him back to the 18th Century and into the body of Benjamin Franklin feels deeply counterintuitive. It is not surprising that Franklin—an adaptation of the book A Great Improvisation by Stacy Schiff—is one of the few period projects Douglas has done, joining the likes of The Ghost and the Darkness and those flashback scenes in the Ant-Man films. What is surprising, and to the series’ credit, is how quickly that strangeness recedes. It isn’t that Douglas manages to fade into the role of Franklin until he disappears entirely, but he does manage to recede enough that he doesn’t disrupt the show’s reality.
In some ways, Douglas proves a surprisingly apt selection. No stranger to playing womanizers on screen, Douglas easily finds the correct valence to portray Franklin’s specific flavor of late 18th-century skirt chaser. The metacommentary works in his favor as well, an aging icon who retains much of his skill but perhaps can no longer command the same buzz or box office returns embodying an aging icon whose mind remains sharp but whose body—and possibly will—has been beaten up by life and time. While almost a decade older than the Franklin he’s portraying, Douglas also excels at the moments where the audience witnesses the statesman energized like old times.
Thibault de Montalembert has neither the time nor the interest in your lame attempts at Call My Agent/Dix pour cent joke attempts. (AppleTV+)
Still, the script too frequently hamstrings the actor. Not bad by any means, the writing still suffers for trying to match Franklin’s reputation. It’s the old conundrum of trying to build a series, film, or play around a singular piece of art. How does a creator convince the audience that someone is singing the most fantastic song ever without truly writing the most fantastic song ever? Similarly, how do writers provide dialogue to what is, by historical reputation, one of the greatest wits in American History without simply quoting his greatest hits? Continue Reading →
Fallout
SimilarBlack Scorpion, Dark Angel, Dark Skies,
Earth 2 Knots Landing, Knuckles, LBX Girls, Mortal Kombat: Conquest, Noah's Arc,
Planet of the Apes RUSH: Inspired by Battlefield, Sonic the Hedgehog, Sweet Tooth, Tales from the Crypt, The 100, The Tribe, The Umbrella Academy, ThunderCats, Thunderstone, World's End Harem, X-Men: Evolution,
Few titles in the world of video game RPGs are as stylistically significant and cherished by fans as Interplay Entertainment’s Fallout. First published in 1997, the post-apocalyptic RPG has spawned countless sequels (including the acclaimed Fallout: New Vegas) and garnered millions of devoted fans through meticulous worldbuilding and its (now signature) atomic age-inspired retrofuturist aesthetic.
Thanks to shows like The Last of Us proving naysayers wrong and paving the way for high-budget, critically acclaimed video game adaptations, Prime Video has joined forces with Bethesda to bring the Fallout franchise to the small screen with an eight-episode series of the same name. Bolstered by source material with a baked-in sense of aesthetics and a pair of winning leads in Ella Purnell and Walton Goggins, Fallout is a clever, twisted apocalyptic odyssey that soars as both a video game adaptation and a standalone series.
Starring Purnell, Goggins, and Aaron Clifton Moten, Fallout follows Lucy (Purnell), an idealistic, sheltered “Vault Dweller” who has spent her entire life in an idyllic vault built to keep wealthy Americans happy and healthy in the event of nuclear devastation. When surface raiders disrupt her vault’s peaceful existence and kidnap her father, Lucy is forced to leave the safety of Vault 33, encountering all manner of unlikely enemies and allies along the way. Continue Reading →
Baghead
SimilarAlien (1979), Wild at Heart (1990),
Watch afterInception (2010), Joker (2019), Parasite (2019),
Sometimes when a loved one exits this mortal coil, they leave us something we don’t necessarily want. Outstanding bills, for instance. Or perhaps a piece of truly hideous artwork, or a cursed doll collection, or a house stuffed to the eaves with worthless junk, and we’re stuck dealing with it.
Or, like the main character in Alberto Corredor’s Baghead, you inherit an ancient malevolent creature with a connection to the dead. What do you in that situation? Do you try to foist it off on a cousin you never cared for? Maybe sell it on Facebook Marketplace? Well, if you’re Iris (Freya Allan), you turn it into a moneymaking venture, because why not? What could possibly go wrong??
Iris has inherited a pub from her late estranged father (Peter Mullan) that’s inexplicably in the middle of Berlin, even though every character in the movie is British and the pub looks like the Winchester in Shaun of the Dead. Despite it being a pub, it doesn’t appear to have paying customers, or at least not the kind you’d expect. Iris learns that hidden away in a hole in the basement is some sort of female creature wearing an Elephant Man bag over her head, and who can shapeshift into dead people. Whatever customers her father had came to the pub to communicate with deceased loved ones through the creature, paying a substantial fee for the experience. Continue Reading →
RIPLEY
SimilarA Fortunate Life, A League of Nobleman, A Little Princess, A Respectable Trade,
Agatha Christie's Poirot Amnesia, And Then There was One Yuriko, Anna Karenina, Annika, Återkomsten, Atomic Train, Blackeyes, Christopher Columbus, Cleopatra, Conquistadores: Adventum, Cooking Crush, Dark Winds, Dead by Sunset, Dexter, Elizabeth R, Faraway Downs, G.B.H., Game of Thrones, Good Morning Children, Gossip Girl, Heidi, Howards End, I Just Want To See You, Intruders, Jack the Ripper, Jekyll, Jewels, Kidnapped, Love You Just as You Are, M*A*S*H, Moeder, waarom leven wij?, Monarch of the Glen, Murder in the Heartland, My Fantastic Mrs Right, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Ordeal by Innocence, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Peter and Paul,
Planet of the Apes Pope John Paul II, Power Rangers Dino Force Brave,
Pride and Prejudice Quatermass II, Rebus,
Scully Sherlock Holmes Son of the Morning Star, Spies of Warsaw,
Tales from the Neverending Story Tales of the South Seas, The 100, The Brothers Karamazov, The Buccaneers, The Chestnut Man, The Far Pavilions, The Fire Next Time, The Gold Robbers, The High School Heroes, The House in the Woods, The Inspector Lynley Mysteries, The Jungle, The Killing Kind, The Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These, The Lost World, The Murder of Mary Phagan, The Ordinary World, The Phantom of the Opera, The Quatermass Experiment, The Serial Killer's Wife, The Singing Detective, The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty, The Wimbledon Poisoner, The Witness for the Prosecution, The Woods, Tientsin Mystic, Tiger Lily, 4 femmes dans la vie, Tira, Troubles, Ultraviolet, Unterleuten: The Torn Village, Viso d'angelo, Wedding Impossible, Witchcraft, World War II: When Lions Roared, Wycliffe,
StudioShowtime Networks,
Tom Ripley doesn't exist. Not just in the sense that he's a fictional creation of thriller novelist extraordinaire Patricia Highsmith, no; as a man, Ripley is a chimera, a shadow, a formless void that hungrily sucks in whatever nourishment it can from whatever or whoever is around him. Damn the consequences. He's one of literature's (and, in the case of several cinematic adaptations, moviedom's) greatest conmen, a remora with nothing behind the eyes except the next game, the next mark, the next place to flee when suspicions run too high. Now, writer/director/showrunner Steven Zaillian has adapted the first of Highsmith's novels into an eight-episode miniseries for Netflix (it was originally slated for Showtime before they sold it), and by virtue of those pedigrees, it's maybe the best original series the streamer has put out all year.
When we first meet Tom Ripley (Andrew Scott), he's a low-level grifter eking out a living with some street-level mail fraud in New York City. But one day, a private dick (Bokeem Woodbine) taps him on the shoulder and hauls him in front of a wealthy shipping magnate (filmmaker Kenneth Lonergan) for a special mission: travel to Italy on his dime to find his layabout painter-wannabe son Dickie Greenleaf (Johnny Flynn) and bring him back home to fulfill his business responsibilities. Ripley doesn't know the man, but he agrees -- the chance to start all over somewhere else (and be bankrolled for it) is too great. So he swans off to Atrani, a small beachside villa where he ingratiates himself to the pampered Dickie and his writer girlfriend, Marge (Dakota Fanning), two people as insulated by their wealth as they are by their respective artistic mediocrities.
RIPLEY. (L to R) Dakota Fanning as Marge Sherwood and Johnny Flynn as Dickie Greenleaf in RIPLEY. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2024
Unlike previous adaptations of the material, Zaillian barely (if ever) clues us into any kind of deeper humanity lurking under the surface for Tom Ripley. Matt Damon's version from The Talented Mr. Ripley was motivated by emotional impulse; here, Scott plays him like a reptile. There's something downright alien about his cold tilt of the head, those shark-like eyes (aided by Robert Elswit's chiaroscuro photography, which we'll get to later), the way his delivery teeters between blase deference and a flat, manipulative affect. He seems less like a desperate hanger-on than a predator, one all too happy to take rich people for everything they've got and discard them when he's sucked all the meat off their bones. He doesn't covet the lifestyles of the rich and famous, and even the script's frequent allusions to Ripley's subtextual lust for Dickie don't seem to fully account for his motivations. Continue Reading →
Sugar
Similar4400,
Agatha Christie's Poirot Angel, Baywatch Nights, Black Scorpion, Dexter, Kidnapped, Knots Landing, Noah's Arc, Pope John Paul II,
Sherlock Holmes The 4400, World War II: When Lions Roared,
StudioApple Studios,
Some shows are difficult to write about because they don’t excite one’s passions. They’re not terrible or great, so they offer little to dig into. Sugar is not that sort of show. Instead, its difficulty stems from a plot development that seems too large to go unremarked upon. And yet, it would be unfair to those who haven’t yet watched the show to spoil it.
With all that in mind, I will delicately attempt to navigate a third path. This development is significant. It changes much of what you know about several of the characters. And yet, it largely doesn’t impact the show. I don’t mean it is a waste of time, only that the show’s positives and negatives remain largely unaffected by this development. Take it out, and the story’s heart will remain essentially the same. It’s the rare significant plot point that changes so much without fundamentally altering the series. So, while it would be interesting to write about and explore it, this review is still broadly comprehensive without touching it.
Amy Ryan bellies up to the bar and reminds us all she's excellent in noir stories. (AppleTV+)
John Sugar (Colin Farrell) is a private investigator specializing in finding missing people. Draped in bespoke suits, he insists he hates hurting people but does so with fluidity and ease. After completing a case in Japan, a message from legendary film producer Jonathan Siegel (James Cromwell) draws him back to LA. Jonathan’s granddaughter Olivia (Sydney Chandler) is missing. Despite a history of substance abuse and frequent absences—as well as the lack of concern from her father Bernie (Dennis Boutsikaris), a producer of…less quality movies—Jonathan is convinced this time is different. A film obsessive, Sugar can’t resist taking the meeting despite reassuring his handler Ruby (Kirby) that he’d rest and recuperate. When Olivia reminds the PI of his missing sister, he must take the case, promise or not. Continue Reading →
Star Trek: Discovery
Similar3rd Rock from the Sun, Batman Beyond,
Battlestar Galactica Ben 10: Omniverse, Blake's 7,
Caprica Captain Star, Crusade, Dark Skies, Dinosaur Corps Koseidon,
Doctor Who Duck Dodgers,
Earth 2 Eureka Seven Farscape,
Firefly First Wave,
Flash Gordon Future Man, Hyperdrive, Intruders, Inuyashiki: Last Hero,
Justice League Kamen Rider: Dragon Knight, Lilo & Stitch: The Series, Lost in Space, Marvel's Rocket & Groot, Mystery Science Theater 3000, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Out of This World, Quark,
Red Dwarf Space: 1999,
Star Trek Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Enterprise, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds,
Star Trek: The Next Generation Star Trek: Voyager Star Wars: Droids, Stargate Atlantis, Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters from Beverly Hills, The 100, The Ark, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Irresponsible Captain Tylor OVA, The Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These, The Sarah Jane Adventures, The Transformers, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, Threshold, ThunderCats, Torchwood, UFO, Ultraman,
StarringAnthony Rapp, Blu del Barrio, David Ajala, Doug Jones, Mary Wiseman, Sonequa Martin-Green, Wilson Cruz,
The 1960s Star Trek show did not have the chance to do a true series finale. All of its successors did though, until now. From The Next Generation to Deep Space Nine to Voyager to Enterprise to Picard, every show had the opportunity to make a final statement and sum up the years of adventures in some fashion. Yet, despite being the primogenitor of the franchise, The Original Series just sort of ends, with the sense of the conveyor belt simply stopping, and its last output accidentally becoming an end, if not quite the end.
And yet “Turnabout Intruder”, infamous though it may be, is a surprisingly fitting finale for TOS. It features the good notions and abiding themes of the 1960s show: the idea that this crew knows their captain well enough to sniff out a fake; that become a well-functioning team that can work through even the most unorthodox problems, and that after seventy-nine episodes’ worth of outlandish adventures, they remain open to new and unexpected possibilities. It also features the bad ideas and problematic elements that plagued series time and again: from a mixed-at-best perspective on women to William Shatner’s over-the-top acting. In that, the show’s final outing is an inadvertent but strangely apt swan song for the series.
In its new season, Star Trek: Discovery follows in those hallowed, unexpected footsteps. This is Discovery’s fifth and final year on the air, but as reported by the cast and crew, they didn’t know that when writing or filming it until the last minute. Despite the promise of a hastily-shot coda to give the show an air of finality, that makes this last leg of Discovery’s mission an accidental ending, not unlike the one endured by the original Star Trek series. Continue Reading →
Palm Royale
SimilarA League of Nobleman, A Respectable Trade, And Then There was One Yuriko, Anna Karenina, Annika, Återkomsten, Blackeyes, Bodies, Brides of Christ, Cooking Crush, Dark Winds, Dead by Sunset, Dexter, Fallen, Fearless, Game of Thrones, Gossip Girl, Hero Return, Jewels, KONOSUBA – An Explosion on This Wonderful World!, Monarch of the Glen, My Fantastic Mrs Right, Oh, Doctor Beeching!, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Ordeal by Innocence, Percy Jackson and the Olympians,
Planet of the Apes Pride and Prejudice Rebus, Spies of Warsaw,
Tales from the Neverending Story Tales of the South Seas, The Brothers Karamazov, The Chestnut Man, The Far Pavilions, The Inspector Lynley Mysteries, The Irresponsible Captain Tylor OVA, The Jungle, The Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These, The Ordinary World, The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty, The Strain, The Sun Also Rises, The Wimbledon Poisoner, The Witness for the Prosecution, The Woods, Tira, Troubles, Unterleuten: The Torn Village, Wedding Impossible, Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty, Witchcraft,
StudioApple Studios,
There’s something undeniably inspired about casting Kristin Wiig as Maxine Simmons in Palm Royale. A social climber attempting to ingratiate herself into late 60s Palm Beach high society, Simmons shares with Wiig a certain constant desire to change herself. The actor's years at Saturday Night Live and subsequent film roles have established her as a chameleonic performer. She has enough versatility to play everyone from the painfully grounded to live-action cartoon characters. In this case, Wiig pours that talent into a woman trying desperately to be a different version of herself.
As a kind of middle-aged conservative version of Tom Ripley, Wiig does indeed excel. The actor invests a mix of brute force cunning and barely hidden desperation in Simmons. That makes the would-be social maven compelling and repulsive in equal measure. Her machinations are too intriguing to ignore, but her very presence can be almost unendurable, especially for viewers with an overactive sense of vicarious embarrassment.
Kristen Wiig and Allison Janney try to hash it out. (AppleTV+)
The show also adds an interesting layer to her performance of wealth and class. Simmons’ claims often sound outlandish, the scrambling lies of someone trying to stay one step ahead of being exposed. However, Palm Royale slowly confirms a great many of them. Unlike Ripley or Saltburn’s Oliver Quick, she’s not a total fabrication. She has the credentials for the inner circle, but can’t stomach the time it takes. Continue Reading →
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (In Arabic: غودزيلا × كونغ: الإمبراطورية الجديدة)
SimilarBack to the Future Part II (1989), Back to the Future Part III (1990), Beverly Hills Cop II (1987), Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007), Fantomas vs. Scotland Yard (1967), Ghostbusters (1984), Godzilla Raids Again (1955), Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001), Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992), Jaws: The Revenge (1987), King Kong (1933), King Kong (2005), Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (2008), Shrek 2 (2004), Shrek the Third (2007), Spider-Man 2 (2004), Spider-Man 3 (2007), Superman Returns (2006), The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005), The Crow: Salvation (2000), The Rage: Carrie 2 (1999),
Watch afterDune: Part Two (2024),
The most frustrating thing about Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire isn't that it's stupid. It knows it's stupid; it's banking on that. It's not even that its luster has been eclipsed by Japan's most recent entry in the terrible lizard's decades-long rampage on the cinematic landscape, the now-Oscar-winning Godzilla Minus One. It's that somehow, director Adam Wingard and the team behind the MonsterVerse have forgotten how to be the right kind of stupid, fumbling the formula that 2021's Godzilla vs. Kong captured with surprising charm. (Then again, our assessments of 2021's COVID-era output are innately suspect, considering most of us were just glad to be back at the movies at all.)
But the more you settle into the latest entry in Warner Bros. and Legendary's "MonsterVerse" -- the Americanized shared universe of Japanese-sourced kaiju movies that started with 2014's Godzilla -- the more confounding this exercise becomes. The end of the previous film in the series teased a kind of detente between Japan's favorite reptile and Skull Island's favored son, the two working together to take down MechaGodzilla after a movie's worth of preening spats on cargo ships and among the skyline of Hong Kong (no relation). You'd think screenwriters Terry Rossio, Simon Barrett, and Jeremy Slater would double down on the "what now?" of it all: how would these two reluctant allies share the Earth? That might be fun.
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire Review (Warner Bros./Legendary)
Instead, The New Empire feels like a semi-retread of Godzilla vs. Kong -- actually, scratch that, more like a King Kong movie with a few bits of Godzilla peppered in here and there. Like so many sitcom roommates before them, the pair have drawn a chalk line halfway down the planet and decided to each keep to their own territory. Godzilla protects humanity from rogue Titans on the surface, and in between bouts, he curls up in the Roman Colosseum like a cat bed, one of the film's more charming images. Meanwhile, Kong searches for other giant apes like him down in the Hollow Earth. (Yeah, that exists now.) Continue Reading →
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (In Arabic: صائدو الأشباح: الإمبراطورية المجمدة)
SimilarA Christmas Carol (1938), Annie Hall (1977), Armageddon (1998), Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002), Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997), Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999), Back to the Future Part II (1989), Back to the Future Part III (1990), Beverly Hills Cop II (1987), Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006), Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), Bugsy Malone (1976), Constantine (2005), Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007), Fantomas vs. Scotland Yard (1967), From Russia with Love (1963), Ghost (1990), Goldfinger (1964), Hellboy (2004), Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992), Jaws: The Revenge (1987), King Kong (1933), King Kong (2005),
Live and Let Die (1973) Manhattan (1979) Men in Black (1997), Men in Black II (2002), North by Northwest (1959), Ocean's Eleven (1960), Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006), Scrooge (1951),
Shaft (2000) Shrek 2 (2004), Shrek the Third (2007), Snakes on a Plane (2006), Spider-Man 2 (2004), Spider-Man 3 (2007), Stranger Than Paradise (1984), Superman Returns (2006), The Apartment (1960), The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005), The Fifth Element (1997), The Green Mile (1999), The Simpsons Movie (2007), The Terminal (2004), Transamerica (2005), Volver (2006),
StudioColumbia Pictures,
There are few names as deeply ingrained in the fabric of American pop culture as Ghostbusters, the action-comedy franchise spawned by Ivan Reitman’s beloved 1984 film. Nonetheless, despite its staggering financial success (netting nearly 300 million against a 25 million dollar budget) and pop culture permeance, Sony has had trouble recapturing the magic in later entries. Neither 1989’s Ghostbusters II, 2016’s Ghostbusters, and 2021’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife have neared the original’s success.
Despite that, it seems the Ghostbusters franchise has finally found a sequel concept it’s willing to forge ahead with. The franchise’s latest installment, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, is a direct sequel to Afterlife. It once more reunites Egon Spengler’s (Harold Ramis) children with the three living original Ghostbusters— Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, and Bill Murray. Despite an intriguing subplot for Phoebe, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is an incohesive, unoriginal entry. It coasts on fan service to carry a paper-thin plot and a lukewarm crop of characters, new and old.
Bill Murray and Paul Rudd discuss their love of fog machines. (Sony Pictures)
Picking up two years after the events of Afterlife, Frozen Empire follows the Spengler family (Carrie Coon, Paul Rudd, McKenna Grace, Finn Wolfhard) to New York City. After the previous film's tradition-breaking decision to unfold in rural Oklahoma, this returns the franchise to its true home. Bankrolled by the uber-wealthy Winston (Hudson) they're back operating out of the old Ghostbusters firehouse. There the Spenglers struggle to juggle ghost-hunting with their interpersonal dynamics. That's all while working to keep the mayor (William Atherton) from shutting the family business. Continue Reading →
Manhunt
SimilarA Respectable Trade,
Agatha Christie's Poirot American Gothic, American Horror Story, Anna Karenina, Babel, Dark Winds, Dexter, Erased, Fallen, Fate/Apocrypha, Fearless, Game of Thrones, Gossip Girl,
Hilda Furacão Jack the Ripper, Jewels, Kidnapped, La Mante,
Little Women M*A*S*H, Miss Marple: Nemesis, Moeder, waarom leven wij?, Monarch of the Glen, More Tales of the City, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Ordeal by Innocence,
Planet of the Apes Pride and Prejudice Sherlock Holmes Soul Land 2: The Peerless Tang Clan, Super Pumped,
Tales from the Neverending Story The 100, The Buccaneers, The Far Pavilions, The Jungle, The Lost World, The Strain, The Sun Also Rises, The Wimbledon Poisoner, The Witness for the Prosecution, Tientsin Mystic, Troubles, Twin Peaks, Unorthodox, Viso d'angelo, Witchcraft, World's End Harem, Wycliffe,
Studio3 Arts Entertainment, Apple Studios,
Making Abraham Lincoln or Hamish Linklater the least interesting thing about your television series is no easy feat. That's especially the case when it features Linklater playing the 16th President of the United States. Yet, somehow, the Monica Beletsky-created MANHUNT, adapted from the James L. Swanson tome of the same name, manages to do just that. And that is 100 percent a compliment.
Often forgotten is that Lincoln was not John Wilkes Booth (Anthony Boyle) and his co-conspirators’ only target. The schemers also marked Vice President Andrew Johnson (Glenn Morshower, an acting veteran turning in his best work.) and Secretary of State William Seward (Larry Pine) as targets. (The series additionally implies that the show’s lead, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton (Tobias Menzies), may have been on that list, but that doesn’t appear in historical texts.) By opening on the far larger plot that almost immediately unraveled due to bungling and cold feet, MANHUNT quickly asserts its intentions. While catching Booth is the series’ splashiest element, it is certainly not all it has on its mind.
Tobias Menzies has hat, will travel. (AppleTV+)
If anything, the eponymous search provides the show a means of taking stock of America immediately after the Civil War. Ping-ponging around in time, Manhunt provides a glimpse of how a collection of Americans experienced life after General Lee’s surrender. The derailing of a far more extensive restructuring of America feels every bit as mourned here as the fallen President. Continue Reading →
Apples Never Fall
NetworkPeacock,
SimilarA Fortunate Life, A Little Princess, A Respectable Trade,
Agatha Christie's Poirot Amnesia, Anna Karenina, Annika, Återkomsten, Atomic Train, Babel, Blackeyes, Bodies, Brides of Christ, Chicken Nugget, Christopher Columbus, Cleopatra, Close Relations, Conquistadores: Adventum, Cooking Crush, Dancing on the Edge, Dead by Sunset, Dexter, Elizabeth R, Fallen, Faraway Downs, Game of Thrones, Good Morning Children, Gossip Girl, Heidi, Howards End, I Just Want To See You, Intruders, Jekyll, Jewels, Kidnapped, Love You Just as You Are, M*A*S*H, Miss Marple: Nemesis, More than Blue: The Series, Murder in the Heartland, My Fantastic Mrs Right, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Peter and Paul,
Planet of the Apes Pope John Paul II,
Pride and Prejudice Quatermass II, Queer as Folk, Rebus, RUSH: Inspired by Battlefield,
Scully Sherlock Holmes Soul Land 2: The Peerless Tang Clan,
Tales from the Neverending Story Tales of the South Seas, The 4400, The Brothers Karamazov, The Buccaneers, The Far Pavilions, The Inspector Lynley Mysteries, The Jungle, The Killing Kind, The Lost World, The Murder of Mary Phagan, The Quatermass Experiment, The Rainbow, The Shining, The Singing Detective, The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty, The Sun Also Rises, The Witness for the Prosecution, The Woods, Tira, Unterleuten: The Torn Village, Wedding Impossible, World War II: When Lions Roared, Wycliffe,
The expression, “The book was better,” has become a truism in adaptation, an assumption where the few exceptions only prove the rule. But what’s a creator to do when the source material is deeply flawed?
If you’re Apples Never Fall creator Melanie Marnich, you make several cosmetic changes to Liane Moriarty’s novel. The drama moves from Australia to West Palm Beach. The four Delaney children—Troy (Jake Lacy), Brooke (Essie Randles), Amy (Alison Brie), and Logan (Conor Merrigan Turner)—are no longer uniformly tall and olive-skinned. Quite the opposite, really, on the skin tone front. Relationships are shuffled a bit. Unfortunately, these changes fail to elevate the series.
The broad strokes of the plot itself are intriguing. The Delaney parents Joy (Annette Bening) and Stan (Sam Neill) have finally retired from a lifetime of running a tennis center, including their own stints as players and coaches. Rather than a delightful occasion, it churns up all manner of unprocessed relationship issues. Stan is cantankerous and competitive, oscillating between diminishing everyone around him with words and beating them all over the court. Joy, on the other hand, expected to spend her golden years catching up with her children, who lack the time or interest in doing the same. Continue Reading →
The Regime
SimilarA Fortunate Life, A Little Princess, A Respectable Trade, Anna Karenina, Återkomsten, Atomic Train, Blackeyes, Brides of Christ, Christopher Columbus, Cleopatra, Close Relations, Conquistadores: Adventum, Dancing on the Edge, Dead by Sunset, Elizabeth R, Family Guy, Faraway Downs, G.B.H., Genesis, Golden Years, Good Morning Children, Heidi, Howards End, I Just Want To See You, Intruders, Jack the Ripper, Jekyll, Jewels, Knuckles, Long Time No See, Love You Just as You Are, Miss Marple: The Body in the Library, Moeder, waarom leven wij?, More than Blue: The Series, Murder in the Heartland, Ordeal by Innocence, Peter and Paul, Pope John Paul II, Power Rangers Dino Force Brave,
Pride and Prejudice Quatermass II,
Scully Son of the Morning Star, Spies of Warsaw, The Buccaneers, The Far Pavilions, The Fire Next Time, The Gangster Chronicles, The Gold Robbers, The House in the Woods, The Killing Kind, The Murder of Mary Phagan, The Phantom of the Opera, The Quatermass Experiment, The Rainbow, The Serial Killer's Wife, The Shining, The Singing Detective, The Sun Also Rises, The Wimbledon Poisoner, The Witness for the Prosecution, The Woods, Tiger Lily, 4 femmes dans la vie, Troubles, Ultraviolet, Viso d'angelo, Witchcraft, World War II: When Lions Roared,
It might help some to think of The Regime less as satire and more as dark farce with political opinions. Yes, there’s nothing especially new here in the series’ send-up of a paranoid autocrat, Chancellor Elena Vernham (Kate Winslet), whose withdrawal from the larger world has brought an ever-decreasing grasp of reality. But sometimes, it is enough for a story to just make you laugh and feel sick with fear for the real world.
Much like creator Will Tracy’s The Menu, The Regime's advertisements suggest a different viewing experience than it delivers. And, as with that film, the audience risks missing a nasty treat if they don’t meet the series where it lives. The film arrived when “Eat the Rich” entertainment seemed to be spiking. However, The Menu’s focus didn’t lie with economics, at least not solely or predominantly. The Regime hits MAX as America is facing an eight-month nightmare Presidential election campaign goosed by the worst human being you’ve ever known, armed with his naked desire to rule entirely for personal gain and without even the slightest hint of criticism. However, the show’s goal isn’t a six-episode allegory on the excesses of executive power.
The dialogue, from an array of writers including Tracy and Bodies, Bodies, Bodies writer Sarah DeLappe, often suggests Veep with a less dexterous tongue. It keeps the palace intrigue fun and quick even when it the notes feel quite familiar. The willingness to spike international incidents with amoral verbal tartness is a delight. Continue Reading →
The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin
SimilarChicken Nugget, Family Guy, Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Sound of Your Heart,
StarringNoel Fielding,
There is perhaps no more annoying phrase to hear from someone recommending a TV series in the streaming age than, “It’s very good, but you do have to wait a few episodes.” Regretfully, this writer nonetheless must employ it in reviewing The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin. When the series finds its footing, it is equally adept at the goofy gag and the droll declaration. It’s just that it doesn’t settle into that groove until the third of six episodes provided to critics.
The premise revolves around a decidedly ahistorical take on the British outlaw Dick Turpin (Noel Fielding, late of The Great British Baking Show). For those not steeped in 18th-century English criminal lore, Turpin was a highwayman who became something of a legend after his execution at the age of 33. Fans of new wave pop star Adam Ant may recall the singer briefly made Turpin a sartorial touchpoint with the inclusion of a tri-corner hat in his rotation.
In co-creators Claire Downes, Ian Jarvis, and Stuart Lane’s The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin, Fielding’s interpretation of the character hardly reflects the historical or legendary figure. Rather Turpin patrols the lawless outskirts of the Georgian era as a thoroughly modern man. A vegan who’s terrible with a gun and worse with his fists, he seems more drawn to the theatrics of criminality than the violence or even the money. As a result, he frequently confounds the odds through his stubborn insistence on making unusual choices and a healthy dose of good luck. Continue Reading →
Created byDave Filoni,
SimilarThunder in Paradise,
StarringDee Bradley Baker,
The final season of the Star Wars side adventure goes to some unexpectedly moving places.
Into a television landscape suddenly devoid of Star Wars content, The Bad Batch swoops in with its third and final season, a darker yet not grittier adventure that loops its way into the greater Universe’s timeline while still managing to surprise an audience who knows how much of this story ends.
Picking up some time after the end of Season 2 (though there are several short time skips throughout the initial eight episodes), Omega (Michelle Ang) remains imprisoned in the Imperial scientific testing facility in Mount Tantiss. Ostensibly there to assist cloning expert Nala Se and fellow female clone Emerie (Keisha Castle-Hughes), it’s clear to both Omega and the audience that she’s there for more nefarious purposes, including mysterious bloodwork that Emerie has been conducting on all of the clones and of which Nala Se is insistent that Omega not be a part. Omega is the shining star of this season from the first episode; determined, loyal, and brave (not to mention generally smarter than all of her brothers), Omega is the sort of female character on which Star Wars (and internet controversy) thrives. Decried from her very introduction, Omega has cemented her place as the heart of the Bad Batch, both the series and its namesake group. Continue Reading →