While it was really great seeing a tough, capable woman kicking ass, I found the whole going a bit slow. Did we really need to follow our heroine through quite so much of a walk, for instance? Ho-hum. Fab supporting cast, albeit with little to do.

Biggest jar for me, I think, was the music: not just noticeable, but distracting – just, overlaid on scenes with no attempt to fit in; I just didn’t get why!

Actually, I’m thinking I just don’t ‘dig’ Soderbergh’s style in general?

Weird mix.

There’s a lot of orchestral stuff, heavy on the shrill brass, lifting from all sorts of famous classics, notably Mars and Ride of the Valkyries. Some shrill chorus voices, too.

Then there’s some cheesy, tv-theme-tastic keyboardy jazz.

Overall, it does sound very much like a 1960s (it shouldn’t, btw!) sci-fi tv spectacular – which isn’t awful, but it’s not something I’d necessarily want to pop on in the background much!

Vile, VILE flavour that had me doing something reminiscent of a scene from The Crying Game. Yukky. Actually reminds me of the smokers’ toothpaste powder we used to use on the dog – no wonder she hated having her teeth cleaned!!

Massive potential bug in this game: loaded fine, played for quite a while, but then it would never load again – just kept getting error messages. Well known, but no fix. Argh!! Luckily it worked fine on another (newer) computer, but be aware!

Aside from that, an enjoyable hidden object game with pretty good puzzles and spooky story line.

As one of my all-time favourite movies, it was a bit daunting to go back and compare the original book. Oddly – or maybe not?! – I still much prefer the movie. There are bits of the book that were interesting (the author’s voice, mostly) but otherwise it was a bit too self-conscious and cynical compared to the very sweet (and why it’s my feeling poorly go-to) film. Ironically, there are so many discussions on the paper about what’s been cut out of the ‘original’, and actually the story is improved by cutting out even more bits for the screen, imo!

Biggest shock is the ending – not utterly changed, but different enough, and not as smiley-making for me!!

Not even worth it for the sight of Chris Evans (un)dressed up as a sundae. ’Scuse me, banana split ;)

Nic Cage and Ron Perlman are former Crusaders, disillusioned with the whole deal, coerced into escorting a suspected witch across country to be tried. Things, however, are obviously not going to be as straightforward as all that…!

Actually nowhere near as bad as I’d feared, in fact I’d almost go as far as ‘watchable’! ;)

As far as (based on) true stories go, this is an absolute cracker – in fact, it (ahem) brought more than a wee tear to my eye. I suspect the combination of a life-long dream (to write) coming spectacularly true, coupled with the fight against the worst odds, just sort of hit a chord – oh, to have that kind of passion and be able to follow it through, and to such dizzying success!!

In every other respect it’s every bit as mediocre as you expect made for TV movies to be – although I did enjoy the glimpses of my home town!

This got absolutely slated by some, but personally I found it a lot of fun. I think some folk were expecting something groundbreaking, which this really isn’t; the sfx aren’t jaw-dropping, the storylines aren’t Lost-tastic.

In 2149, mankind has been reduced to living in cramped biodomes having finally polluted the rest of the planet to toxic status. A time portal is found and harnessed, allowing small numbers of the specially chosen to go back and set up a colony in some prehistoric, dinosaur-inhabited time: harsh, inhospitable, but the air is clean and promise good. (Incidentally, I wonder if the author Julian May has considered suing…!)

The bulk of the series follows the colonists, particularly the Shannon family. Alongside the daily practicalities (not that tough, actually, when you’ve taken a ton of tech back in time with you!) of life, family and friendship, there’s the far more interesting sideplots: why are the ‘Sixers’ – a splinter group – so determined to wage war on the main colony? What happened to the gruff leader’s (him out of Avatar!) son? What’s with the mysterious carvings in the out of bounds area? And is it all really so straightforwardly lucky that this is a different timeline, so stepping on butterflies isn’t a problem?

I can easily see what some people were disappointed, if they were expecting the next big fantasy/sci-fi masterpiece (the Spielberg connection maybe pushed that, and possibly the advertising – I didn’t see any). What they got was closer to a family adventure, with (disappointingly few!) added dinosaurs.

MASSIVELY addictive, and so much fun! :)