Reviews & Ratings for
"Revolution" More at IMDbPro »

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216 out of 313 people found the following review useful:

Lame effort from Eric Kripke

Author: findingdevotion
19 September 2012

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

To describe the premise as unrealistic would mean nothing as nobody should expect realism from what is essentially a post-apocalyptic sci-fi flick.

Watching something like this should lead to "what-if" scenarios, help you identify with more or less complex characters that beg you to care for them. Making a series out of something like this would allow the writers to embed details that allow characters to grow and plots to capture the audience for at least a season. And much like it is with meeting a new person, the pilot of series is expected to offer a perspective of what is to come.

But we have none of that in "Revolution", which is a truly awful series under all aspects.

The series would have us believe that a cataclysmic event left the world without electricity. This is fine, it is a bold premise that demands to know "how could this have happened", since it seems to defy any reason. The writers hint of a future answer and this is good.

What is bad? All that follows make no sense. We are given a 10-years after world, with decrepit ruins of the civilization.

Wait ... what, ruins? In my country we have blocks of flats that are over 50 years old and still stand strong without any maintenance whatsoever (sure, they look like crap, but they stand and are inhabited).

Next. Henchmen firing muskets? Why? You don't need complex technology to make bullets for the mechanical repeating rifles. They had those in the wild west before electricity. (FAQ on this is false: yes, making modern ammo is difficult without electric machinery but that doesn't equal revert to musket - in fact revert to musket poses huge problems because even if ammo can be anything, you need to first manufacture the weaponry as existing weapons have rifling bores, moreover to make simple rifle bullets you don't need the same process as the more modern ammo and they would still be compatible with a lot of modern guns).

Next. Can these characters be any less likable? A hot-headed teenager and her brother, a Justin Bieber-lookalike?

Next. Lacking electricity, how can people be alive? (most cellular processes require electricity - passing electrical charges along, brain processes are completely dependent on this) How can anything be alive? If you rub some material on your hair, is there any static left? Hell, since we're at it, what keeps molecules together? Have electric charges been replaced by something else? If so, and in fact those mysterious amulets just regulate this state, it means people can be alive only around them.

Next. How does that woman communicate using her computer? It would mean that an entire network runs continuously from her house to her counterpart. That means, the entire line has electricity running smoothly between her computer, to whatever router she is using, to her counterpart's computer (assuming a simple setup) is allowed to have electricity (otherwise the signal would die as soon as it got out of the range of her amulet).

Halfway through the pilot I was truly hoping that at least the Bieber- double would die in agony and soon after came the simply horrible hotel fight where I saw the evil henchmen pause for almost an entire minute to give the wonder-soldier time to stare in disbelief at his teen niece. Almost a minute the brain-dead henchmen just stand there not taking a shot. Even in cheap C-movies they at least try to give something to do to the henchmen to give the good guy a break (eg: moan as they stand, pick themselves up, slow-motion take, etc), but not here!

And in the end we are fed the incredibly cheap cliffhanger of the doctor typing on a dismembered computer. Why dismembered, may I ask? If she simply didn't keep her old computer in one piece and was forced to build one from scrap, what exactly prevented her from finding/making a case too, just to keep those precious components that remind her of a more civilized time, safe?

287 out of 471 people found the following review useful:

Typical JJ Abrams Drek

Author: Jim de Graff from Canada
20 September 2012

What we have is another production by JJ Abrams. Unfortunately that translates to BAD. In an interview, Abrams claims that the science makes sense. Sorry. If batteries (electro-chemical) don't work then neither do people. Our bodies run on electro-chemical processes. So there goes the science. But crap science, after all, is a staple of JJ Abrams. After all, in Star Trek he had Spock watch the destruction of the planet Vulcan from the surface of another planet in another star system WITH HIS NAKED EYES! Next I have to wonder how, after fifteen years, people can still be wearing fresh, white, machine-made clothing. I guess it wouldn't look good to have everyone walking around in sheepskins. Bu why not leather? Last, but not least, there is the JJ Abrams specialty. Billion-to-one coincidences. Again, in his absolute drek of a reboot of Star Trek, one coincidence (among so many) was having Kirk marooned within walking distance on the same planet as Spock and Scotty. In Revolution, the three questers enter a random building after entering Chicago. The first person they talk to is (what a bloody amazing coincidence) the very person they are looking for.

I can't imagine how anyone who puts so little thought into his work and who treats his target audience with such contempt still gets to do what he does.

126 out of 188 people found the following review useful:

Post apocalyptic middle America soap opera

Author: stfual from UK
29 October 2012

I've given Revolution five episodes because I love post apocalyptic dramas and films generally but this really is awful. Forget the fact that the plot is full of holes and general stupidity. Apparently 18 years after wars and the end of civilization everyone has discovered the secrets of moisturizer, hair gel, makeup, and they have invented the non-electric travel iron and curling tongs. Also they have access to an endless supply of clean push up bras and flimsy outfits.

I suggest the producers go live in a third world country for a while where most waking hours are spent focused on survival and getting enough to eat and drink, and where the balance between male and female power shifts dramatically when democracy and regulation is removed. Also see how fast the trains go when you have no idea if the track ahead has a cow or a tree on it.

While the "Walking Dead" staggers into soap opera territory too often at least it clearly recognizes the difficulties of just surviving and meeting basic human needs while trying to move to a better world of lofty moral standards.

Revolution has the moral philosophy of the film "Taken" in that as long as the very annoying, sobbing,teenage white virgin drama queen girl and boy are OK everyone else can die for them without anyone caring.

Everyone involved with Revolution should quickly watch the 1984 BBC drama "Threads" and start again before it gets the cancellation notice it currently deserves. Also please kill off that sobbing girl.

145 out of 230 people found the following review useful:

Good Idea, Horrible Execution.

Author: austinzeller from United States
29 September 2012

The whole blackout thing, where the world is without power, is a really interesting subject, however, the story line that was chosen is down right awful. The main character, Charlie, is more obnoxious than Jar Jar Binks in the first episode of Star Wars. The show basically consists of Charlie sobbing about her brother and being outrageously clique and stubborn. In addition to the fundamental problems with the show the whole blackout scenario is pushing the limits. The show states that even batteries and motors will not work, I can see how one could create a world without electrical power but to completely stop the functionality of batteries takes the work of some black magic. Now unless they incorporate Gandalf into the story line I do not see this a feasible scenario. Please, don't waste your time with this show and go read a book.

92 out of 141 people found the following review useful:

A waste of electricity watching it

Author: darkeyes9090 from United States
27 September 2012

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

The show is, to elegantly sum it up, quite horrible. As so many have noted, the science (planes fall straight down out of the sky, muskets, no steam power etc.) is bad enough, but could be ignored with suspended disbelief, if the remaining criteria for a well done show didn't also fall flat.

When one has to point to the CGI as being the only saving grace, there is a problem. The actors are bland at best and annoying at worst. They neither look nor behave as though they come from a dangerous post apocalyptic civilization. The action is terribly repetitive and formulaic. The dialog is boring and only serves as a filler between overly long fight scenes, which themselves do not serve the plot.

In the end what we get is a lot of nothing with a smidgen of plot that is revealed in dribbles and we are supposed to be tantalized enough to keep coming back for more. I might dvr it and watch the last five minutes of each show.

The idea of a post apocalyptic world without electricity excited me, but this show is a real loser. It is more the pity as there are some fine actors involved.

I do not understand this trend of formulaic sci fi with expensive budgets and excellent producers etc. turning out high tech versions of Space Family Robinson. I believe it is insulting to audiences.

To make myself hated even more, I also think that Walking Dead after the first great season is terrible. Endless dialogs revealing lives that I could care less about interrupted by zombie attacks.

163 out of 283 people found the following review useful:

typical for network television: that is, stupid and bad

Author: zee from United States
26 September 2012

I was expecting nothing from the "science" in this, and I got nothing, so I won't harp on that.

What I will harp on is the characters. It is set a dozen years after no electricity; people have been surviving in a difficult world, on too few calories, with too little medicine, have witnessed murders and stealing and a brutal military dictatorship, and no doubt rapes and probably (though it's not shown) freakout insanity and cannibalism and many deaths from childbirth and simple infections gone septic. And yet the teens act like spoiled white American suburban teens. And the adults around them let them! This is crazy. When you're in a survival situation and the experienced fighter says, "shut up" or "stay there," or "no" or "of course we have to kill this bad guy," the child will not whine and do what they please and run the world, like a suburban kid of professional divorced parents who throws a hissy fit to get the newest wii. They'd do as they're told--or the adult would shoot them very quickly or beat them unconscious because they were putting other lives at risk. It's not today's suburban American with all our cushy values, free time, and needless electronic crap. It's supposed to be a dire survival situation, and yet no one is acting like it. They're all acting as if they have 5000 square foot homes, wall to wall carpet, and not a care in the world beyond their next tooth-whitening appointment. This is, at best, a sad lack of imagination.

Every TV show like this needs to hire a consultant who has actually...oh, I dunno...grown up on a real, struggling ranch and hunted for the table should do it. Those who never had to get up before dawn to go out and crack the ice on the trough, or live on 20000 calories spread over a month because that's all there is, and who do not have the wit to imagine doing so, really shouldn't write this sort of thing.

Watching episode 2 on Hulu, I kept wondering, do the car manufacturers pushing electric cars to me have no sense of irony about advertising such an item during a show that says "electricity might end" and "we can live without it." Maybe they should rethink that strategy.

A combination of stupidities that makes me, again, hope for the end of the human race; if we use our big brains this badly, truly, extinction is what we deserve.

159 out of 277 people found the following review useful:

It is a let down.

Author: Dan Reece from United Kingdom
26 September 2012

The best reason to watch this was because of the story/plot and i think that the idea is great but then when you watch it the writing and acting is a complete let down there are a few good actor's in this but i think that the female lead is not good..actors make the story and for me if they are not good then it ruins the show. From what i have watched the writing is very predictable and the acting just makes the show seem flat these reasons make me and probably will make other people just drift off from watching this show after a couple of episodes. This is just from watching the first two episodes which for me the first couple should get you hooked on the show not you thinking that you cannot believe that who these actors are playing. If you want to watch this show go for it. This is just my opinion

172 out of 305 people found the following review useful:

"But when you talk about destruction...don't you know that you can count me out"

Author: ween-3
18 September 2012

"Revolution" has it all. Bad writing. Bad acting. Bad premise. The trifecta. Which probably means that, in the grand tradition of groundbreaking TV shows like "According To Jim', NBC is prepared to keep this turkey going for 7 or 8 years until it finds it footing.

Giancarlo Esposition is better than this.To paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen, " I knew Gus Fring. Gus Fring was a friend of mine. And you, my friend, are no Gus Fring". Never saw Mr. Esposito in a bad project before, but I guess there's always a first time.

This hodgepodge of "The Postman" and "Life After People" looks dead on arrival. And speaking of "dead on arrival", AMC's little zombie show seems to have a way to make this post-apocalyptic stuff a whole lot more palatable. Just add writers and some committed actors and you got yourself a winner. It CAN be done. But "Revolution" ain't doin' it.

"What's in the whiskey, bitch??" Man. If I had nickel for every time I've heard that.

239 out of 439 people found the following review useful:

I'll Keep This Simple!

Author: kadianpusher from United States
30 September 2012

Okay, I wasted 2 hours of my life watching the first 2 episodes. Unfortunately on IMDb, you are required to leave 10 lines of review to get it to post. I could have reviewed this show with 2 words.... IT STINKS! But I can't get it to post with so little about the show. Okay, let me try harder. Oh, the show has terrible acting, and I was hoping the main character (Charlie) would fall on her own arrow. Annoying character that you cannot feel anything for and actually root against. I was hoping one of those Hunger Games kids would suddenly show up and take her out. Also, the story, it seems written by high schoolers! Do the writers think their audience is ignorant. Just because 60% of Americans can't find their own country on a map doesn't mean..... Okay, maybe they are. Let's move on.... Oh I think I've typed enough now to get this posted, so where was I? Oh, Revolutions.... It STINKS!

119 out of 200 people found the following review useful:

lacks sophistication, typical 1970s-era comic book scifi

Author: russmillerwy-957-682439 from Laramie
27 September 2012

When I was a child of the 1970s, I really loved Six Million Dollar Man, Bionic Woman, Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek, and pretty much any other kind of scifi out there. What was their formula? Big imaginative premise (bionics, space battles, people who turn green when they get mad), a good looking cast of good guys and girls, and mean bad guys and girls. When better scifi came along, scifi that engaged me as an adult, my tastes changed and I could no longer really enjoy the old stuff the way I did when I was little. Love them or slam them, Lost, the new Battlestar and Star Treks raised the bar for what we expect of character development, complex morality, believability, story consistency, and adult themes.

Kripke goes back to the old formula and ignores everything that's come along ever since. As a result, we get a simplistic show that's aimed at children, and that's a very limited audience. We also get a good-looking soap opera quality cast that's better at posing than talking. Even Giancarlo Esposito, aka Gus Fring, abandons subtlety altogether in his role as the heavy. I suspect after a season, maybe less, this show will go the way of Terra Nova-- too expensive and too dumb for the 21st century.

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