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Peter_Camb
Reviews
Obliterated (2023)
Really silly, great fun, and I loved it
I started binge watching this after a very unfavourable one star review in legacy media.
It is cheesy mindless diversity ticking unbelievable cliché ridden and poorly scripted.
Pesky Reds! USA USA USA.
I thoroughly enjoyed it and would happily watch more, so I hope that there is a second season.
Plenty of action, some good laughs, and enough plot twists to maintain interest.
Die Hard? Mission Impossible? More like Team America but with fewer puppets, more babes, and weirder gentleman sausage torture.
Las Vegas makes a great looking backdrop, so all in all, highly recommended.
Oh and Shelley is smokin' hot!
Upload (2020)
Interesting sci fi concept infused with politics
The basic idea of preserving an individual so that they can "live" a digital afterlife is worthy of exploration. The cast is good, as is the camera work, and the sets are well designed. The Lakeview building and countryside look fantastic and a great place to "retire". There were also funny moments and a few that made me laugh.
Some of the dialogue, particularly by the "angels" seems forced and overacted.
The story begins well introducing the concepts and some interesting tech like the "holo" phones and as is often the case with multi season series gradually deteriorates as the writers run out of ideas.
This is all fine until you realise that whole story is basically an anti-capitalist rant that goes on to describe an evil cartel of Republicans* that is trying to steal the election by literally killing millions of voters.
Wow, I would have given this a much higher rating but by season 3 it is simply very creepy political propaganda.
* David Choak is based on David Koch, a wealthy Republican supporter. They made the name as similar as possible so that everyone gets it.
Jack Ryan (2018)
Season 3 is poor in almost every regard
Much of the acting is wooden possibly due in part to the poor quality of the dialogue.
To enjoy any of this apart from the action scenes it would be necessary to suspend all of your critical judgement, here a few examples, but there are many more.
Ryan and elite team board a Russian ship and grab a Russian scientist from deep in the ship almost completely unnoticed until they are getting back in to their boat. Fortunately their little rubber dinghy has unlimited fuel and the sea is calm so they can make an unexpected detour to drop off Jack and the scientist and still get the elite squad back to their warship. The escape from the ensuing ambush is preposterous and could only be made enjoyable if there were more shooting in the face like the John Wicks cartoons.
Two senior CIA managers trolling armed and unaccompanied round Europe doing stake outs, it just wouldn't happen.
CIA managers busting Ryan's balls and one of the CIA managers busting the other managers balls and Ryan being burnt because of reasons, cliched and stupid.
Ryan dumps a burner phone but keeps the SIM, what is the point of this?
A Russian spy directing a couple of dozen Greek police on a raid on a car workshop. They bring no dogs and they are too dumb to look in the car inspection pit.
It is possibly worth a 4 for the action but an overall rating of 8 is ridiculous so it gets a 1 to balance those that rate this drivel as 10.
Blacklight (2022)
So bad I couldn't watch it all
Took a chance without doing any research into the film because it starred Liam Neeson. Unfortunately, it turns out that nowadays his presence is no guarantee of at least a half decent film.
The dialogue was wooden and boring, all the actors including Liam Neeson were uninteresting and uninspiring. The action scenes were not exciting and there was nothing to redeem this film or make me want to finish it.
It is very rare for me to abandon a film before the end as even with the poorest productions there is usually some aspect that justifies seeing it through the end, sadly in this case there are none.
Two stars because it is not the very worst film that I have seen.
Stranger Things (2016)
Season 3 is awful
Meaningless, unoriginal, interminable, uninspiring, boring and full of clichés and tropes.
Worse still the final scene threatens more of this garbage is yet to come.
The Sweetest Thing (2002)
Light hearted and funny
I enjoyed it and it made me laugh.
I did write a very long review but it was too big to fit in here.
Mars (2016)
Interesting mix of documentary and fiction descending in to climate change preaching
For the first season, I was entertained and informed by the discussion and dramatisation of the different aspects of mankind colonising Mars. In the second season, the dramatisations became less credible and the orange man bad, capitalism bad, climate change bad rhetoric became more and more tedious and boring.
Discussing the science and illustrating the issues with role play was a good idea but ultimately this series failed.
Rake (2010)
Well developed characters and strong dialogue
In the past I have consciously avoided any cinema emanating from Australia as my experience was that it was of poor quality.
This series changed my mind and I enjoyed it from beginning to end and now that it is over, like a good book, I feel a gap where once was Cleaver Greene.
Only downside for me was that dreadful woman Miriam Gargoyles.
Blue Jay (2016)
Not my sort of film but I loved it
I rarely review films, so I will keep this short.
Outstanding performances from the two actors, beautifully balanced film, works well in black and white. I was touched by the portrayals, my wife cried and that is unusual.
Award worthy, memorable, highly recommended.
The Conjuring (2013)
Do not waste your time
Somehow somewhere this was recommended and I found it was rated 7.5 on IMDB and so I watched it.
It is full of cliches and has no redeeming features, I gave it two stars because some of the jump scares actually made me jump, but honestly don't bother. Really, your life will be better without it. Seriously, do anything else other than watching this tripe, I promise it will be more rewarding. Awful, probably the worst film I have watched for decades.
Peaky Blinders (2013)
Gradually becoming overtly PC spoiling a great show
Beautifully shot, great sets, well written, really good casting and acting particularly Murphy and Hardy.
It just seems that as the seasons went on they had to introduce more and more girl power to the point where it becomes unrealistic and obtrusive.
Thouroughly enjoyed the first few seasons and sorry to see it go downhill in what has become the predictable way these days.
The Crown (2016)
Faction presented as history which I think is dishonest and unfair
Claire Foy was great at conveying the powerful sense of duty of the young Queen Elizabeth. so two stars for that. Without her we are left with an attempt to invent the sensational and present it in an almost documentary format. I stopped watching when Olivia Colman took over.
The Mash Report (2017)
It's not funny
Occasionally, I used to enjoy visiting the Daily Mash website and imagined that The Mash Report might be amusing. It isn't.