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Automata Review By: Brandon Wolfe In 2044, the population of Earth has diminished by 99% down to a scant 21 million survivors due to a series of solar storms that have ravaged the planet. A conglomerate called the ROC Corporation has commissioned a series of robots called Automata Pilgrim 7000s as a means to erect walls and mechanical clouds to shield what’s left of the human race from the resulting radiation. These robots have been programmed to adhere to two protocols: They are not permitted to harm any form of life and they cannot reformat themselves or other robots in ways other than their creators have designated. This screed of place-setting text opens ‘Automata.’ It not only fills you in on what you’re about to see, it also lets you know up front that you’ve already seen all of which you’re about to see. Our protagonist to guide us through this world is Jacq (pronounced “Jack” but inexplicably not also spelled that way) Vaucan ( Antonio Banderas ), an insurance agent

Dracula Untold Review By: Brandon Wolfe How many Dracula movies have there been? Hundreds, right? Dracula has to be one of the most frequently adapted characters in the history of cinema. His story has been told six ways to Sunday, making it deeply difficult to get excited about any new Dracula movie by this point, even one that announces right in the title that this particular Dracula tale has been untold. It’s been told. They've all been told. Get over yourself, with your “untold.” Yet one of the chief surprises of ‘ Dracula Untold ’ is that it does indeed find a new spin on the old Dracula chestnut. This version of the story is something new, a yarn that truly hasn't been told before, something the film accomplishes by throwing out the old story altogether and inventing a new one in its place. ‘Dracula Untold’ positions itself as half-superhero movie and half-‘Braveheart’ with a William Wallace that turns into a flurry of bats. That probably sounds ridiculous, b

TV Review: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. “Making Friends & Influencing People” By: Brandon Wolfe With “ Making Friends and Influencing People ,” ‘ Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. ’ has struck out a new path, and that path is to rip off J.J. Abrams lock, stock and tomahawk. The series opens with the recently absent (except as a Fitz delusion) Agent Simmons waking up, setting about her normal morning routine of exercise and breakfast before strolling to work, all set to the chipper sounds of “God Help the Girl.” This is sequence so ‘ Lost ’ that it burns. It’s not just the sort of thing ‘ Lost ’ did all the time, but it’s almost a cut-and-paste of the opening sequence of that show’s Season 2 premiere, “Man of Science, Man of Faith,” right down to the record-scratch shocker revelation that ends the sequence, in this case, the reveal that Simmons is reporting for work at HYDRA. But the show is very quick – far too quick; they could have at least tried to let us think Simmons had defect

TV Review: Gotham “The Balloonman” By: Brandon Wolfe ‘ Gotham ’ has pitched itself on the premise of showing us what Gotham City was like in the years before the Batman came into being, allowing a young Jim Gordon a shot at the spotlight. This is a sound idea, as far as Batman projects without Batman go, but the problem shaping up with ‘Gotham’ is that it’s not willing to commit to the idea. Rather than letting Gordon have a go at it, the show still wants us thinking about Batman in a story where that shouldn’t be the most pressing impulse. The very premise of “ The Balloonman ” is designed to press the Batman button as often as possible. The story centers around a vigilante who, weary of the crime and police corruption infecting Gotham, takes it upon himself to deliver an off-the-books measure of justice to shady public figures that would otherwise never be held accountable for their crimes. The method of his vengeance? Handcuffing weather balloons to the targets’ hands and se

TV Review: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. “Heavy Is The Head” By: Brandon Wolfe The terminal blandness of ‘ Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. ’ continues in full force with no sign of stopping. And if the show’s stable of dull, lifeless characters weren’t already packed to capacity, we are gifted an additional stiff in the form of Lance Hunter, one of the mercenaries operating under Lucy Lawless’ dead-but-probably-not-because-c’mon Agent Hartley. Hunter is picked up by General Talbot and offered a deal to name his own price if he rolls over on Coulson. Hunter’s loyalties are kept murky, but ultimately he attempts to sell out our boring heroes. His reward for this is for Coulson to offer him a spot on the team, because the TV version of Coulson is a boob. Hunter is the primary focus of “Heavy is the Head,” which is asinine because we were barely introduced to him last week and the show already has upwards of ten useless regular characters as it is. Devoting all this attention to this unin

TV Review: Gotham “Selina Kyle” By: Brandon Wolfe ‘ Gotham ’ is not shaping up to be a subtle show. As we spend more time with the crime fighting duo of Gordon and Bullock, what we’re witnessing is not merely a study of contrasts so much as two diametrically opposed archetypes thrust together to represent each extreme end of a spectrum. Basically, Goofus and Gallant as cops. Gordon isn’t merely a good cop, he’s the most noble, square-jawed beacon of decency conceivable. Bullock, on the other hand, is the most slovenly, unabashedly corrupt law enforcer you’d never want to meet. These aren’t characters, these are character types. It’s still early enough in the going for the show to deepen these men into something with a measure of nuance, but starting them off so entirely one-note is not starting off right. “ Selina Kyle ” sets our heroes (or our hero and that gross jerk who works with him) on the trail of a kidnapping ring. Homeless teenagers are being shanghaied off into the

TV Review: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. “Shadows” By: Brandon Wolfe ‘ Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. ’ was one of the biggest disappointments of the previous year. Heading into the fall TV season last year, it seemed like the show to beat. Bringing Marvel’s cinematic hot streak to the small screen, under the (partial) guidance of brilliant TV impresario Joss Whedon and employing fan-favorite Clark Gregg to anchor the series as the beloved, revived Agent Coulson, ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ appeared to have everything going for it. Then it aired and the balloon of hope immediately burst. In place of the intelligence and personality we had grown accustomed to with Marvel’s cinematic universe, ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ was a dull slog, less an expansion of the Marvel experience into broadcast television than some cheap junk-TV adventure show that seemed more at home airing on a Saturday afternoon in 1994. The chintzy production values, the blandly attractive leads, the plodding dialogu

TV Review: Gotham “Pilot” By: Brandon Wolfe In perhaps his most well known stand-up bit, Patton Oswalt sums up his reaction to the ‘ Star Wars ’ prequel trilogy, and prequels altogether, by railing to the heavens/George Lucas that he doesn’t care where the stuff he loves comes from, he just loves the stuff he loves. That condemnation seems tailor-made for application to Fox’s new series ‘ Gotham ,’ a crime-drama that takes us back to the days when Gotham City wasn’t patrolled by a man in a batsuit, but by a stalwart young rookie cop named Jim Gordon ( Ben McKenzie ), standing true against the villainy and corruption the city teems with, including within his own precinct. Bruce Wayne is here, but he’s a preteen boy, probably a good decade away from putting on a cowl and cape. So you get to see Batman as a little kid. Just as your heart always wanted. Our first sight in ‘Gotham’ is of another youthful incarnation of a famous Gothamite, as a nascent Selina Kyle prowls the stre

TV Review: Z Nation “Puppies & Kittens” (Pilot) By: Brandon Wolfe Given ‘ The Walking Dead’s ’ present status as the most popular series in all of television, it was bound to spawn some imitators sooner or later. The only surprise is that it’s taken this long for a true rip-off to emerge. ‘ Z Nation ’ is the SyFy Channel’s spare-every-expense answer to the AMC phenomenon. Spearheaded by The Asylum, the brain-trust behind the ‘Sharknado’ films, ‘Z Nation’ also centers around a world plunged into a zombie apocalypse and the survivors struggling to get by. ‘The Walking Dead’ has a lot of problems as a series, many critical and seemingly in no great hurry to be resolved. After sampling ‘Z Nation,’ these problems maybe don’t seem so bad. The ways in which ‘Z Nation’ is similar to ‘The Walking Dead’ are so myriad that it will be easier to delve into the handful of ways in which the two shows differ. The greatest difference is that ‘Z Nation’ plugs us into the grander schem

TV Review: The Leftovers "The Prodigal Son Returns" By: Brandon Wolfe From the start, ‘ The Leftovers ’ has struggled with trying to figure out just what it wants to be. Though the series was sold on a humdinger of a premise – 2% of the world’s population vanishes inexplicably into thin air – the meat of the show has dealt with the small town of Mapleton and its mopey, grief-riddled denizens. That tug-of-war between that tantalizingly fantastic high concept and the low-stakes misery of its characters, with the misery handily winning out, has led to an inert, relentlessly unenjoyable viewing experience. The series could just as easily be about the aftermath of a mass shooting or a pipeline explosion to the same effect. It’s a series about sadness and loss, and little else. Its faux-profundity and all-thumbs approach to symbolism do little to assist with the fact that ‘The Leftovers’ is a vehicle running on the wispiest of fumes. In the immediate aftermath of Patti’s sp

TV Review: Tyrant “Gone Fishing” By: Brandon Wolfe The launch season of ‘ Tyrant ’ has not amounted to great television. The story of a Middle Eastern nation in the throes of social upheaval and the balance of power among the family that rules over it is one that could have easily made for a compelling series, but has instead resulted in a leaden, deeply uninteresting soap opera. The series has bungled matters every step of the way. Its story arc shambles along lifelessly. Its characters are one-note ciphers. Its cast is largely bland and underqualified. Its dialogue is torturously overwritten, horribly flat and unnatural. It has a premise that affords it the opportunity to say something substantial about real-world issues, yet it squanders that potential at every turn. By any reasonable metric, ‘Tyrant’ is a failure. Yet in “Gone Fishing,” the season finale, ‘Tyrant’ stuns us by doing a few things right on its way out the door. It’s not only the best episode of the series by a co

TV Review: The Leftovers “The Garveys at Their Best” By: Brandon Wolfe Initially, and not a little bit jarringly, “ The Garveys at Their Best ” seems to present us with exactly what its title promises. When we open, on Kevin going for a run, sneaking a smoke from a pack he’s surreptitiously hidden under a mailbox before heading home, nothing seems terribly out of the ordinary. What throws us off is what we find when Kevin arrives home: Laurie, dressed in regular, non-white clothes and speaking. With actual words coming out of her mouth. She even has a pleasant demeanor and is warm to both Kevin and a bubbly, singing Jill as they all shuffle off to their daily routines. For this is a flashback episode to the final days before the Departure changed everything for all of these people. We also peek in on Nora’s previous life to find an encouraging husband and a pair of adorable children. Everyone’s so happy. It’s weird. The kicker of “The Garveys at Their Best” is how it appears a