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Reviews
The Following: The Poet's Fire (2013)
First misfire in a promising series
I will preface this review by saying that I have thoroughly enjoyed the first few episodes of The Following. The premise is dark and stylish, the acting is classy from James Purefoy who is marvellously malevolent as Joe Carroll, and also particularly from Valorie Curry who has quickly established a seriously unsettling character in Joe's deranged apprentice Emma. Kevin Bacon is also well cast as Starling-esque FBI agent Ryan.
However having so quickly and effectively established an atmosphere of terror, constant suspense with the idea that every character encountered so far could potentially be part of Carrolls' following, the decisions made by the FBI task-force in this episode are strikingly stupid. After arresting and detaining suspect Maggie Kester, who attempted to attack Ryan WITH A KNIFE they decide after a few hours that she's OK to go back to her own home, not a safe house, not a motel, but her own home with only one officer in tow in case her already established "follower" husband returns. This then leads to the painful process of the characters slowly piecing the threat together and to no-ones surprise they are too late in acting on the info to do anything about it.
To me this was a real disappointment as I felt it cheapened the established characters, by gleefully walking them into a fairly obvious trap. The trap lacked the sophistication that has been present so far, and the fact that protagonists just walked strait into definitely made me care less about the characters. However the rest of the episode was pretty good particularly the afore mentioned Valorie Curry whose character has a murderous intensity as well as psychologically-damaged depths, which she plays beautifully without going to far over the top.
I'm hoping this episode was just a blip in what has been a great series so far.
Thanks for reading, PC
Nevermore
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Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010)
Too much use of the word "Guys"
I haven't read the books, which judging from other people's reviews only furthers the disappointment of this poor film.
In my opinion every decent film starts with a good script, by that rationale most of this film should never have made it to the screen. The dialogue is at its best average and at its worst atrocious. It is particularly painful seeing actors like Pierce Brosnan trying to give weight to such garbage, and the word "guys" should have been completely banned (I lost track of the amount of times it's used). Particularly in the "quest" portion of the film it is just a barrage of one character after another saying, "guys, check this out" or "guys, come look at this".
I watched this film on impulse when I saw it featured Kevin Mckidd who I knew from the Rome series, this was a huge mistake as he's on the screen for about 15 minutes, and most of the film is the "Harry-Potteresque" team of three. The group attempt to lead the viewers through snippets of Greek myths blended into modern culture, often using blatant product placement.
This leads to the biggest failure which is in direction. I watched this film with no expectations and I just wasn't entertained, the few slick action scenes just got lost in a sea of bad dialogue and poor acting.
Thanks for reading. PC