Colditz: "The Way Out"

Lieutenant McDonald (Prentis Hancock), a red-haired Scottish officer, receives a "Dear John" letter from his wife, who has become pregnant to another man in his absence. Recognising his upset, the escape committee negotiate to have him join an imminent French escape attempt, despite resentment from the British officers whom he is overtaking in the queue.

"The Way Out", while not a bad hour of television in its own right, feels like a weaker instalment of Colditz. The originality and depth that marks many of the other episodes simply do not seem in evidence here. It also focuses a little too much on its guest actor, turning it into an episode where the regular cast have precious little to do but work around the sidelines. That would be okay if the guest character was a good one. Sadly, and despite the best efforts of actor Prentis Hancock), Lieutenant McDonald feels a little too much of a stereotype. He is a weak core that leaves the episode struggling to hold together.

Star Trek: The Next Generation: "Conundrum"

It is 17 February 1992, and time for another episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

The USS Enterprise encounters an alien probe whose scans somehow erase the memories of the entire crew. Now, without memories of their names, their roles or even their real purpose, the crew find themselves thrown into the final stages of a war between the Federation and the alien species whose probe removed their memories in the first place.

"Conundrum" is a wonderfully clever episode of The Next Generation, combining a great twisting narrative with some perfectly-placed moments of comedy. It benefits enormously from a great basic premise - the characters all having their memories wiped clean - and then exploits that premise for reasons of surprise, drama, comedy and character development.

Jurassic Park III (2001)

Palaeontologist Dr Alan Grant (Sam Neill) is paid to act as a guide on a fly-by of Isla Sorna, an island off the coast of Costa Rica populated by InGen's genetically engineered dinosaurs. It is a ruse: before long the plane has landed, half of the crew has been eaten, and Grant is left to help two parents (William H. Macy and Tea Leoni) find their missing son - who was last seen visiting the island with his step-father.

There are not too many ways in which one can be kind to Jurassic Park III. The plain and simple truth is that it is not a good movie. It is a sequel in the unsatisfying and tired way all mediocre sequels are: it does very much the same sorts of things as the earlier films did, only varied just a little bit and with far less enthusiasm as it does them. Occasionally a glimmer of entertainment pokes through - a scene here, a joke there - but none of it compensates for a weak storyline, cardboard cut-out characters, and some uncharacteristically weak visual effects. It took four years between films to make The Lost World and Jurassic Park III. It took Universal Pictures another 14 to return with Jurassic World. I honestly think after the third film the franchise needed a long break to reset.

Colditz: "Murder?"

It is 4 January 1973, and time for another episode of Colditz.

A body of a murdered German guard is found in the parcel room. The Kommandant (Bernard Hepton) is keen to write the death off as a suicide, lest the Gestapo investigate and take over the running of Colditz. The British prisoners, however, know that if the Gestapo do suspect a murder, they will execute ten prisoners as an act of punishment. They therefore begin a murder investigation, to ensure that when the time comes there is a proper guilty party to serve up to the authorities.

"Murder?", the second episode by The Sweeney creator Ian Kennedy Martin, marks yet another change of tack for the series - now managing to present a murder-mystery inside a German prisoner-of-war camp. It is an unexpected and very welcome change, and tells a fast-paced and gripping story in which Carter (David McCallum) and Carrington (Robert Wagner) have to play detectives under the noses of their German captors.

The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)

Four years after the disaster on Isla Nublar, Dr Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) is summoned to meet with Jurassic Park owner John Hammond (Richard Attenborough). Hammond reveals the existence of "Site B", a second facility on the neighbouring island of Isla Sorna, where the dinosaurs are continuing to breed and thrive. When Hammond loses control of his company to his ambitious nephew (Arliss Howard), Malcolm is thrown into a race to stop the dinosaurs from being taken off the island.

The Lost World: Jurassic Park marked a rare sequel for Steven Spielberg. Other than his Indiana Jones films, this remains his only follow-up in a career running through its fifth decade. It is a much darker, more complex film that its predecessor, a direction that both benefits and damages it. All things considered it is a step down in quality from Jurassic Park, and yet of the four films in the series it is the one to which I return the most often.

There is an amazing amount of good stuff to be found here, even if its assembly is a little scrappier and more haphazard.

Personal Shopper (2016)

Maureen (Kristen Stewart) is a 28 year-old American living in Paris. During the day she works as a personal shopper for a rich celebrity named Kyra (Nora von Waldstätten). In her own time she obsesses over her recently deceased twin brother Lewis, and his promise to try and contact her from beyond the grave if he died. It is not long before something seems to be making contact, but whether it is her brother, her imagination or something altogether darker remains to be seen.

Personal Shopper is a horror film by stealth. It comes from acclaimed French director Olivier Assayas via the Cannes Film Festival, where it ran in contention for the prestigious Palme d'Or. At a glance it appears to be a typical French drama, with sullen overwrought emotion and privileged type complaining incessantly about their luxurious lives. Instead it is one of the best supernatural thrillers of recent years, and it has an alarming tendency to creep up on you and give one hell of a surprise.

Jurassic Park (1993)

Palaeontologist Alan Grant (Sam Neill), palaeobotanist Ellie Satler (Laura Dern) and self-proclaimed chaotician Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldbum) are invited by billionaire John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) to inspect his brand-new theme park. Jurassic Park is a state-of-the-art wildlife reserve on a small island off the coast of Costa Rica. The wildlife is genetically engineered dinosaurs, recreated through dna manipulation, and they have just broken out of their cages.

It was impossible to avoid Jurassic Park back in 1993. It was the biggest film of the year; indeed at the time it was the biggest film of all time, at least unadjusted for inflation. Pretty much everybody in the developed world saw it. Many went and saw it multiple times. Its combination of dinosaurs, action and thrills made it a huge popular hit, and its ground-breaking use of computer-generated images (CGI) made it a watershed in Hollywood filmmaking.

It has now been 23 years since it was first released, so it seemed high time to take a fresh look and see how 1993's biggest movie blockbuster was standing the test of time.

The Angriest: July 2016 in review

Everybody was talking about it for months leading up to its release, so it is not a surprise to discover that Ghostbusters - or at least my review of it - was The Angriest's most popular post for July 2016. I watched quite a few movies this month, including getting out to the cinema to see Three and Star Trek Beyond as well. It felt good to sit in the cinema again: I've barely managed to get there this year, so it made for a refreshing change.

In July 2016 The Angriest published reviews of four 2016 films, 20 older films, 17 television episodes, three anime episodes, and 46 comic books. A full index of the month's posts is included below the cut. Thank you for continuing to read the blog.