Stephen King’s Doctor Sleep, the 2013 follow up to his classic 1977 novel, The Shining, is an interesting and disappointing story.

It follows on from The Shining, focusing on how young Danny, eventually Dan, learns how to cope with his shining ability and the ghostie people that still haunt him. Over several time jumps, Dan turns into an alcoholic and does some despicable things. Eventually, however, he overcomes his addiction and uses his shining ability to help people in a hospice. Then Abra, a girl unknown to him, who has vast shining skills, contacts him and he becomes involved in protecting her from a cult of centuries old people called the True Knot, who use the life force, or “steam”, from people with shining abilities.

As with most of his books, King shines at creating suspense, with much of the story a tense and exciting read. He also excels at portraying Dan’s alcoholism, depicting the desperation and despicable lows Dan sinks to with authenticity. Yet, once Dan overcomes his alcoholism, the story peters out.

While the concept of the True Knot is interesting, it’s characters are unrelatable stereotypes and their depiction is flat. Whereas Dan’s despicable acts are relatable as a human struggle, the horrific acts of the True Knot are truly evil. Still, King’s portrayal of Dan’s guilt is realistic, while his development of Abra and Dan’s shining abilities, mind speak, and their relationship are well developed.

In the end, however, the story comes across as average, with the second half reading like an engaging yet predictable Hollywood blockbuster. That said, fans of Stephen King or the genre might enjoy it. Otherwise, it’s a somewhat disappointing sequel.

2 stars.

Peaceful Warrior, an adaptation of Dan Millman’s semi-autobiographical book, The Way the Peaceful Warrior, is an emotionally engaging and spiritually enhancing film that will convince audiences to seriously look at their lives.

The story follows Dan (Scott Mechlowicz), a talented young gymnast who stands to have it all. One night, unable to sleep after a nightmare of shattering his leg, he encounters an old man (Nick Nolte) in a gas station and sees him perform an amazing physical feat. Impressed, Dan continues to visit the man, who he nicknames Socrates, hoping to learn how to perform the stunt, learning from the man’s wisdom in the process. Then, one day he is involved in a motorcycle accident, which shatters his leg bones. The rest of the story shows Dan sucking up his pride and working his way up to becoming an Olympic entrant once more.

Unlike many films that convey spiritual messages and inner guidance, Peaceful Warrior doesn’t come across as preachy or overly religious. Instead, it focuses on the emotional drama of the protagonist to convey insights to the audience. This is aided by strong performances from Mechlowicz, Nolte, Amy Smart, and the rest of the cast.

The beautiful and sensitive score enhances the emotional moments and audiences, helping audiences feel connected with Dan as well as annoyed at his stupidity and ignorance at times.

Having not read the book, I can’t comment on whether the film does it justice (as with most book to film translations, it’s likely the former contains more depth and insights than the latter). However, on its own, the film is a wonderful experience, taking audiences on an emotional journey while opening them to a lot of wisdom.

Overall, a fantastic film for anyone wanting to learn about life and themselves.

4 stars

The title of the game, SEGA Mega Drive Ultimate Collection, is misleading. “Ultimate” implies the pinnacle. The forty or so games collected here, while some of SEGA’s best Mega Drive games, don’t encompass the term ultimate. Rather, what you have is most of SEGA’s software output on the Mega Drive plus a few arcade and Master System titles thrown in for good measure, omitting many awesome third-party titles, like Konami’s Rocket Knight Adventures, Treasure’s Gunstar Heroes, Electronic Art’s Road Rash series, and many more.

That said, this is a fantastic collection of classic Mega Drive games, from arcade favourites, such as Golden Axe, Shinobi, Altered Beast, and Streets of Rage, to the role-playing stalwart series, Shining Force and Phantasy Star, and, of course, every Mega Drive Sonic the Hedgehog game, except the lock-on capabilities of Sonic & Knuckles, which is strange, given it only takes a line of code to access the lock-on titles from the Sonic & Knuckles ROM.

So what you have here is an excellent, rather than ultimate, collection of games. All are presented in 720p and they look amazing for games that are now over twenty years old. For the most part, the games sound as good as they did back in the early 90s and they play just as well. Players are given an onslaught of options, from saving games mid game, improving the graphical capabilities through some simple graphics filters and stretching algorithms, and customisable controls. There is a slew of unlockable extras, from games, to interviews with the developers, and it’s all presented in a very slick package. It loses points for not including enough games to earn it the title of “ultimate”, but what’s here is so good you will hardly notice. Highly recommended for 80s and early 90s retro gamers.

4 Stars.
 

James Redfield’s The Celestine Prophecy is a classic book of our time, detailing how we as individuals and a society need to grow. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the film.

It closely follows the novel as the protagonist, here named John (Matthew Settle), encounters a series of synchronicities and characters who help him learn about the first eight insights of the Celestine manuscript, which depict a better way of living, while searching for the hidden ninth part. Throughout, forces within the Peruvian government and Catholic Church peruse and persecute the group and try to destroy the manuscript, afraid it will leech them of their authority.

While the book was insightful and well paced, the film suffers from trying to force too much information at the audience as the narrative progresses. While the novel’s synchronicities feel natural, in the film they mostly feel forced, as John rushes from insight to insight, with little breathing space for the audience to reflect on the information. So much of the film is expository and it comes across as overwhelming.

It doesn’t help that Settle’s depiction of John is, at times, wooden and unbelievable as he trusts most of the information without question. However, Thomas Kretschman gives a fantastically enthusiastic portrayal of Will, and the rest of the cast, for the most part, do the best they can with the material. Yet, in many cases it comes across as unbelievable and too convenient.

Fortunately, at the heart of the film is the same pertinent spiritual message as the book. While I encourage faithful novel adaptations, here the adherence to the book’s material works against it. Had the filmmakers spent more time developing the characters and their relationships, spaced out the insights, and slowed the pace down, it would have been as good as the novel. As it is, however, the film comes across as below average.

2 stars.