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Reviews
Squid Game: The Challenge (2023)
Legendary show turned into reality TV
I don't quite know how they managed it, if it's the personalities, the editing, the speakons... They took a legendary thrilling TV masterpiece and made it look and feel like as exciting as a season of Master Chef or Bachelor. I can hardly believe is.
What made the original so appealing was the sense of terror, a looming threat of death, the wrought sensation of these poor people having been forcibly put into a situation too hard for most to handle. A horrible dystopia. Fighting for their lives.
In this version the only stake is having to leave the show and not winning "the big prize". Why even make any of this in the first place? Did a whole team of creators at Netflix actually mistake reality for reality TV? What's with the paintballs? What happened to actual consequences?
It's incredibly hard to fathom how this show came to be like this, except through board rooms and focus groups. "We love the Squid Game but moms in Kentucky don't like the violence!". "We'll make it just like reality TV so people will think it's real!!". It's so stupid. I remember having nightmares about the singing doll. No risk of that ever happening to anyone in this rendition. Sure, being hit by a paintball hurts a while. I guess if the actors expressed some form of pain it would have been more affective. But imagine going in to that game lightheartedly only to realize that those who move when the doll stops singing are actually SHOT DEAD! Total panic. Petrifying fear.
I feel truly sorry for anyone who has not seen the Korean version and now wonders what all the fuss was about. Shame on you Netflix. Shame on American reality programming. Please, please, everybody, just watch the original. This version sucks.
Fargo: The Land of Taking and Killing (2020)
Such a new take on this period of crime
This is very original and has elements that we have never seen before. Whether the scenarios are good writing or pulled out of history I don't know.
But you have to get over the fact that Donkey has become a crime boss.
It was about time to see the African American side of things in Minnesota, since it't mainly been Lundstroms and Larsens this far. I like the sparse but content rich dialogue. I like that the series shows instead of telling. I like how it clips in and out of the timeline. It retains the Fargo ambience excellently while telling a story that isn't a journey or an adventure but a slow development of characters.
Matilda: The Musical (2022)
Very entertaining but a bit tame
This is a great film. I find the actors very talented, the song writing is great and the lyrics are really good as well. A lot of cleverness has been put into this script. It is a very long show for a 4 and 6-year old to sit through but they were captivated.
Talking to them afterwards I have this criticism to give: A big part of Roald Dahl's universe revolves around the disgusting, the horrible, the wicked, and the cruel, which is put in contrast to the amazing minds and abilities of humble and kind children. The poor and kind are heroes and the spoiled and selfish may burn in a pit of fire. Although this adaptation makes a few strides in this direction I still find it too tame in comparison to the book and earlier adaptations. I think it's foolish to believe that children today can't handle what we could handle when we were young. It's all a bit too cuddly and cheerful when confronting the reality of horrible adults in a dark grim world. This adaptation also lacks the signature gratification that is rewarded in the form of just retribution against evil. The song Revolting Children shows me that the writers are aware of this aspect of the storytelling, but chose not to go the whole nine yards. The children singing on the table tops don't feel empowered from a place of retribution, they just feel happy and care free which is not an accurate depiction of what Dahl was going for. My children did have the same experience as I got from the story when I was a child. They might as well have been watching Disney. What is for sure is that they won't remember the story of Roald Dahl's Matilda for the rest of their lives, but I do.
Gåsmamman: Avsnitt 3 (2022)
Could have been great, but WHY?
Nothing wrong with the plot. It's a pretty well thought-out Scandi-Noir series, above average with interesting characters for the most part.
The thing that continuously drags it down are the underwhelming appearances of actor Joel Lützow which completely diminishes any scene he takes part in. With an emotionless gaze and slow movement he never seems to nail the mood.
In this episode he is supposedly running in to a house where shots were just fired, to find his colleague (suspected of being a mole) has just been murdered. The assassins still present flee out the front door with no chance of pursuit as the character proceeds to try and save the colleagues life - this is important because he has crucial information about the bad guys - the attempt fails and our hero has to admit crushing defeat.
Joel on the other hand jogs in sleepily, makes no attempt at pursuing the slowly fleeing assassins as though he can't be bothered. He doesn't call for backup, he does nothing. He finds the victim in the kitchen - openly bleeding from gun wounds to the chest - he kneels down and softly pushes a rag onto him while telling him it's all going to be all right. No CPR, no scrambling to block the wounds, nothing. After this sub-heroic attempt he sits back against the kitchen counter and gazes into deep space wondering what just happened.
Emotional heavy string music tries to pull all of the scattered pieces together, but the attempt is feeble in comparison to the actor's daydreamy gaze and I'm left wondering why I should be feeling anything if not even the character does so.