Tag: Kevin McNally

Doctor Who (2005) s13e06 – The Vanquishers

What a lackluster conclusion. There’s actually a bunch of good stuff, including a triplicated Jodie Whittaker they should’ve been doing since the cliffhanger on the first episode. Still, as the finish to “Doctor Who vs. The Flux,” it’s minimally successful.

The resolution with rubber mask supervillains Sam Spruell and Rochenda Sandall is lousy, and then the hook is exactly what you’d expect anyway. It’s Whittaker’s last season as the Doctor, and of course, the villains know to threaten her with not being regenerated. They’ve been doing it since David Tennant was on the show. It’s been ten years of it. Blah.

There’s some really good stuff with guest star Jemma Redgrave, who hasn’t been on since Peter Capaldi. She and Whittaker have excellent chemistry—when the episode beats Bechdel, it beats Bechdel—only it’s Whittaker’s farewell lap. Maybe they should’ve introduced Redgrave earlier. In Whittaker’s reign, not in this season. Though, in this season too. They could’ve halved this “event” and had something.

There’s some good stuff with John Bishop, who just needed character development away from Whittaker to get into the right zone as a companion. Mandip Gill has decent material throughout until to have a thankless conclusion.

The “Flux”-specific companions all get some final arcs and farewells, with Craige Els, Jacob Anderson, and Thaddea Graham set for an obnoxious spin-off. The good work is from Kevin McNally and Annabel Scholey, who get thankless conclusions too. Scholey’s finish doesn’t even make sense for the timeline, but, whatever most of the universe is destroyed, so does it really matter.

The Sontaran villains are only good compared to Craig Parkinson as the pointless guest human villain. There are way too many qualifications on a way too long, way too thin storyline. Especially since the deus ex machina gives way to an even more effective deus ex machina, they could’ve obviously used. It’s terrible plotting from writer Chris Chibnall, who wasted full episodes of the season on nonsense.

A quarter of the episode plays like a Star Wars 1977 homage, like the BBC finally gave “Doctor Who” to do the riff on it they’d been planning since… 1977. There is some decent CGI work, though. Surprisingly good for the show. Even if the green screen compositing is still lousy.

But the three Whittakers—interacting with different sets of companions, friends, and foes in different times—is possibly the best Whittaker has done when it hasn’t been one of her companions holding up the show. It’s a shame it took them until now to figure out what to do with the character. Still, since Doctors Who are always temporary, it’s hard to get any character development going until they face their imminent recasting.

It’s a real shame they wasted so much of Whittaker, Gill, and Bishop’s limited time remaining on this six-part nonsense. Writer and showrunner Chiball stretched an okay three-parter (it’d have been better in two) way too far with way too little reward.

Doctor Who (2005) s13e05 – Survivors of the Flux

“Doctor Who” has been around for almost sixty years, but its plot reveals are recycled plot points from last summer’s popular entertainment. This episode opens with a terrible CGI sequence as we find out what happens to Doctor Jodie Whittaker after she gets turned into a Weeping Angel statue.

Nothing, it’s just carbonite to transport her to meet She Who Remains (Barbara Flynn, who appeared in a quick ominous cameo earlier this season). There Whittaker finds out everything she knew about the Time Lords and the Universe was wrong (again). Flynn runs the anti-Federation, called the Division, which breaks the Prime Directive to change species’ evolutions for the Time Lords’ purposes. Oh, and Flynn has a secret identity important to Whittaker’s history.

Only not really.

I mean, sure, technically, but at most, it’s Whittaker’s “history” from last season. But the weightiness of it is more from this season, like three episodes ago. Writer Chris Chibnall doesn’t even try to get away with the recently introduced fluff; instead, he relies on Whittaker and Flynn to make the scenes effective and then—since Flynn’s playing a caricature—it ends up being all on Whittaker.

Who’s fine. It could be a lot worse. It will be a lot worse. Chibnall actually manages to hold on to the narrative cheapness until the end of the episode. Well, the most narrative cheapness. There’s a bunch throughout.

Starting with companions-lost-in-time Mandip Gill, Josh Bishop, and Kevin McNally, who are much better without Whittaker. They’re trapped in 1905, where “Doctor Who” continues its British jingoist timeline where no one was racist or sexist and instead thinks Gill’s wonderful. They’ve been trapped in the past for three years, and this episode has them figuring out how to get back to the future. It’s literally something they should’ve figured out on the second day. Their adventures are kind of Indiana Jones, but with a lot of colonialism thrown in. Like, do the British not see themselves?

Anyway.

There’s also some stuff with returning mawg Craige Els, who’s no more charming than before. Not even after finding out he’s thousands if not hundreds of thousands of years old or whatever. He’s got a couple tasks this episode, including dragging down Thaddeus Graham. Then Jacob Anderson’s off doing something too.

Craig Parkinson’s back—he was a racist future villain in another episode this season. Now he’s just in the British government in the late twentieth century, where they reward racist villains. Nice cameo from Robert Bathurst; I, unfortunately, cannot remember his “Downton” nickname. But having, you know, good actors cameo makes you wonder why they don’t hire more of them.

It’s a better episode than most this season, but solo writer Chibnall really should’ve brought back his co-writer from the last episode. There’s only so much Gill, Bishop, and McNally being charming can cover for and the episode finds that limit way too quickly.

Doctor Who (2005) s13e04 – Village of the Angels

Most of this episode—save a brief appearance from rubber masked villain Rochenda Sandall—is quite good. Not just the best episode of the season so far (though it’s handily the best episode of the season so far), but an actual good episode.

Doctor Jodie Whittaker is solo in late sixties small village England, trying to stop the Weeping Angels from getting lost-in-time Annabel Scholey for their nefarious reasons. Sure, there’s some tedious stuff explaining why the Angels want Scholey and how it ties into Whittaker’s lost history arc, plus the rules for the Angels are a bit loose here. I mean, they have the same rules as always, but the episode seemingly forgets them from time to time to move the plot along.

But it’s a compelling episode. Whittaker and Scholey are a lot better together than Whittaker has been with her regular companions this season. Whittaker’s relationship with Mandip Gill is on its way for another hard talk because Whittaker’s still lying to her, and then John Bishop is just around. Though when Gill and Bishop team up to help the villagers search for missing ten-year-old Poppy Polivnick, it pretty much just works. Like Gill and Bishop have fine chemistry opposite one another. You wouldn’t be able to tell when they’re hanging off Whittaker.

Whittaker met Scholey in the first episode of the season when Scholey knew Whittaker (and Gill), but they didn’t know her, which ought to make everyone chill out a little because the only explanation for that disconnect is they’re going to survive this adventure for Scholey to again see Whittaker in the future. I think. It’s timey-wimey, who knows. Plus, the “Flux,” which destroyed most of the universe or whatever, didn’t affect Earth’s history. At least not since they did something, but then the rubber mask villains did something and then….

Doesn’t matter. Unraveling it distracts from the strong episode, which has Whittaker and Scholey fortifying in amusing old professor Kevin McNally’s house to survive the Angels.

Then Gill and Bishop are trying to find Polivnick, which leads to some big twists and turns and generally engaging television.

And Thaddea Graham’s a lot better this episode than last time. She’s traveling the Flux-ed universe in search of Jacob Anderson. That storyline is the easy least of the episode, but it’s not terrible. I mean, it’s a definite improvement (until the end) over before.

The writing’s better—this time Chris Chibnall has Maxine Alderton helping him in addition to the plot not being a series of tropes and pop culture steals—and it’s easily Jamie Magnus Stone’s best direction of the season.

The end’s wonky, but it’s a much better-than-lately forty-five minutes getting there.

Johnny English (2003, Peter Howitt)

Johnny English runs just under ninety minutes, which is one of the film’s secret weapons–nothing ever goes on too long, not the good stuff, not the bad stuff, not the mediocre stuff. There’s not a lot of bad stuff–more varying degrees of mediocre; when things then get better, when things finally pay off, it’s a cause for celebration. When Johnny English gets funny, it gets funny.

The film is a Rowan Atkinson vehicle masquerading as an incredibly safe James Bond spoof. Atkinson is a British Security Service office worker who gets promoted to number one agent. Because, through his incompetence, everyone else has been killed. Somehow his boss, Tim Pigott-Smith, never holds Atkinson accountable for the very inept and dangerous things he’s done, instead railing on him for the things where Atkinson is actually right.

Like how French private prison-owning billionaire John Malkovich is a bad guy.

Malkovich is another of English’s secret weapons, because he doesn’t play his part like a Bond villain. He plays it like a goofy Malkovich comedy part. He’s never outrageous or campy–unfortunately–but he’s always got enough energy to make the scenes work. Atkinson never gets to be showy. Malkovich gets to be showy. He’s the only one who gets to be showy.

Bringing us to the other–and probably last–secret weapon: Ben Miller. He plays Atkinson’s subordinate. Miller is the spy office peon who should be the secret agent. There’s a lengthy period where Miller’s not in the film and Atkinson is playing sidekick to real secret agent Natalie Imbruglia and Malkovich isn’t really in the movie and it gets long. There are also too many poop jokes. Because without Miller and Malkovich around, English has to go into the literal potty to get some humor going.

Because Imbruglia doesn’t bring anything. It’s not a great part and she’s not terrible, but she’s got no presence and less personality. Her comic timing–at least in her timing as it reacts to Atkinson–is fine though.

Atkinson has some great physical comedy in English. Nowhere near enough, but the movie wouldn’t really know what to do with any more. Director Howitt does an adequate, uninspired job. He doesn’t get in the way of the good jokes and he doesn’t make the bad ones any worse. So he wouldn’t know what to do with more physical comedy. Howitt’s impatient, while everyone else seems completely comfortable not being rushed. Not ninety minutes but also not rushed. The film’s self-awareness about its limitations increases its charm.

Anyway, back to Atkinson. He’s good. He’s hilarious at times. His straight man performance as the stupid secret agent is most impressive–at least during the expository scenes–in how seriously Atkinson takes the part. He’s going for it’s funny because he’s so serious. When other actors aren’t as serious about their parts as Atkinson, it hurts. Imbruglia, for example. Miller gets it, Malkovich gets it. Pigott-Smith not really.

Of course, the writing tends to be thin. Pigott-Smith not transcending the caricature isn’t entire his fault.

Howitt’s lack of enthusiasm for directing his actors–he showcases the comedy, focusing tightly on the comedy, not the actors essaying it–doesn’t help either.

Technically the film’s fine. Nothing stands out, good or bad. The music isn’t overtly “Bond,” which is kind of nice, and the Robbie Williams theme song is fun.

Thanks to Atkinson (and the professionally executed production), it’d be difficult for Johnny English to fail too hard. It’s both a surprisingly pleasant comedy and a not insignificant disappointment. With Atkinson, Miller, and Malkovich, it seems like it could be better. However, it’s not clear if it should be any better.

Additionally… if you’re going to have Prunella Scales play the Queen, give her at least one joke. What should be an inspired comedic casting is instead an end credits curio.

2/4★★

CREDITS

Directed by Peter Howitt; written by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, and William Davies; director of photography, Remi Adefarasin; edited by Robin Sales; music by Ed Shearmur; production designer, Chris Seagers; produced by Eric Fellner, Mark Huffam, and Lucette Legot; released by Universal Pictures.

Starring Rowan Atkinson (Johnny English), John Malkovich (Pascal Sauvage), Natalie Imbruglia (Lorna Campbell), Ben Miller (Bough), Tim Pigott-Smith (Pegasus), Oliver Ford Davies (Archbishop of Canterbury), and Kevin McNally (Prime Minister).

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