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Catching Killers: True Lies, Part 1: The Happy Face Killer (2021)
Interesting Episode
This is an interesting episode, with the usual cast of a willing female victim who makes herself an unbelievably easy target, a family of the victim who made absolutely no effort to protect their daughter and instead let her get drunk at truck stops and sleep with strangers, a vile female suspect who - purely because she's female - police treat like an angel, and a low-life drunk. And don't forget the utterly incompetent detective that has to be forced by a superior to arrest someone that has just confessed to murder with a ton of evidence.
Great twist at the end though makes it far more interesting than just the usual tale of low-lives in a sex-gone-wrong and low IQ police.
Tempting Fortune (2023)
Absolutely Terrible
The entire problem with this show is that the reward differential for those that had resisted temptation and those that didn't was not great enough. That ruined the whole show.
I actually enjoyed this show at first but the ending was absolutely terrible and the message of the show by the end was absolutely terrible because of how the show was made and the rules it has.
It DEFINITELY needed a final twist and didn't have one, making it one of the most morally bankrupt shows I've ever seen. It should have had a twist where at the end the ones that gave in to temptation were told that actually that money came out of their own funds.
The vilest and most disgusting aspects of human behaviour like theft, no impulse control, lies, rationalisations carried out by the lowest and most reprehensible types of people are actually justified by the show which rewards sociopathic, anti-social and dysfunctional behaviour.
House of the Dragon (2022)
So Disappointing
This show had so much potential but there are just too many issues. I will list them below without spoilers.
1. There are no consequences
The characters face basically no consequences for their actions which make ultimately no difference to the plot. This is a complete contrast to Game of Thrones (when it was good) which had a dire and logical consequence to every decision taken by every character. There is a massive disruption to a coronation. Zero consequences. There is a murder in the King's hall. Zero consequences. There is a brutally violent murder during a wedding. Zero consequences. There is a murder of a wife. Zero consequences. There is a murder in the Queen's council. Zero consequences.
2. The characters are passive
Even main characters tend to do nothing for YEARS to advance their position or achieve their goals. Daemon should be an incredibly interesting, dynamic rogue and charismatic leader who plots and acts, but instead he does nothing and has absolutely no plan.
3. Male characters are completely redundant
I don't know if it's due to wokeness but the male characters are the most passive of all and do nothing to advance their goals. The King does nothing. He doesn't even appear to have any goals. Daemon does nothing. The Sea Snake does nothing. The Hand essentially does nothing. The new Hand definitely does nothing. The young male characters do nothing.
4. Multiple characters have absolutely no part to play in the plot and are included for no reason
There are many characters throughout the story that have absolutely no impact on events at all. There is a female spymaster called The White Worm who lives in the poor district of King's Landing who achieves nothing and does nothing and is of absolutely no consequence whatsoever, for example. There is a maester introduced in episode 10 that does absolutely nothing. The young characters are of no real consequence. They fight and it doesn't matter. The Sea Snake's entire family is basically pointless and has basically no bearing on the plot. A princess that's meant to be a main character does nothing of consequence.
5. The time jumps create a lot of problems
I know the point of the show is about succession and dynasty over the course of time, but because of the time jumps we form no real attachment to any of the characters. It also causes many pacing issues. The pace is usually either painfully slow or jarringly fast. It also introduces new characters (minor ones) in the last episodes that we have not formed any attachment to.
6. Morality
George RR Martin does lots of moral grey areas and he does it very well. However, in GOT, there were clear good guys (the Starks etc) and clear evil guys (Cersei, Joffrey, the White Walkers, etc) and you knew who to root for. In this show, no one is particularly good, and no one is particularly bad (apart from the terribly shallow and one-dimensional character of Aegon who is more of a parody than a real character). Because of the lack of clear morals, it's hard to care about what happens or form any allegiance to any characters.
7. The dialogue
A minor issue, but in many scenes the dialogue is clunky, obvious, on-the-nose, and spelling things out for an audience that the writers clearly think is stupid. GOT (before the last two seasons) had far more subtle and interesting dialogue which had real undertones and subtext. This show has none of that depth at all.
8. The dragons
They're not a problem, they're just not that interesting and ultimately also of basically no consequence. We don't see characters bonding with them or caring about them. It would have been far better to see this. There's a great dragon chase scene. It would have been even more impactful to actually have seen a bond being built between the riders and the animals.
9. There are times when the plot makes no sense at all.
There are certain times when you have to ignore realism and logic completely. There is a moment when a mother sends her son of about 11 off to be her envoy while she and her entire family are in mortal peril then learns what happens to her son when there's no possible way she could have found out. There are many other examples of this where the writers don't want you to think about anything you're watching. Just consume and be mindless.
So that's it. I wanted to love this show, and thought it might finally be some kind of redemption for the absolute trash that were the final seasons of GOT. But sadly no.
I'm giving it 5 stars because the visuals are good and it started well in the first few episodes. Also, I suppose there's another season to come which might improve it. But I won't be watching.
Better Call Saul: Bali Ha'i (2016)
Terrible Writing
- Mike is patted down but FOR NO REASON allowed to keep his loaded gun when he meets the head of a drug cartel!
- Men are in Mike's house knowing he's not there but searching room to room for him
- Mike in his late sixties effortlessly disarms TWO grown men (Mike is Rambo and cannot ever be defeated because of plot armour)
- Mike threatens to murder the head of a drug cartel and also blackmails him and completely gets away with it FOR NO REASON (the cartel need Mike to get Tuco a lesser sentence, but can simply execute Mike for knowing too much and being a threat when they get Mike's testimony changed)
- Mike says he will kill the leader of the cartel and reaches for his gun while surrounded by henchmen and none of the henchmen shoot Mike to protect the cartel leader FOR NO REASON
- Mike makes a deal with the cartel head which when complete, simply means the cartel will be very motivated to execute him and/or his family
- Instead of spending longer on Mike's story of POSSIBLY HAVING HIS GRANDDAUGHTER MURDERED, the writers and directors decide to spend time focusing on Kim brushing her teeth, Kim going for lunchtime drinks and talking to a random man that doesn't advance the storyline at all
- Kim and Jimmy skip out on their work and bunk for the entire afternoon with zero consequences FOR NO REASON
- Kim, a woman in her late thirties or forties who has sacrificed having children and a marriage for her career and is completely career focused, jeopardises her entire career by scamming a random man and is inexplicably attracted to Jimmy despite it damaging and risking the career she has spent approximately 20 years building FOR NO REASON
- The pace as always is glacial and unbearable, what happens in two episodes could easily be condensed go one if we got rid of moody shots of characters literally staring in to space for long time periods while saying and doing nothing
How on Earth this is considered excellent writing is utterly baffling to me. I can only assume the viewers lack all critical thinking skills and have absolutely no grasp of how human beings realistically react, just like the writers.
You: The Fox and the Hound (2023)
How on Earth is this Realistic Writing?
This series, much like the others but perhaps even more so, has gone completely off the rails now. I decided to give the show one let go as the concept is decent. But in this episode realism has complete gone out of the window. There's suspending your disbelief and then there's completely ignoring all concept of realism.
Nothing any of the characters do makes any sense whatsoever and is completely irrational. Reactions and dialogue are completely fascile and so lacking in depth it beggars belief. Every character is an unlikeable and completely idiotic moron whose actions make zero sense.
The killer is revealed in this episode so there goes any suspense built over the previous episodes.
The killer's motives are not explained and so basic as to be ridiculous and their actions are completely illogical, self-defeating and incoherent, yet they're supposed to be an intelligent character.
This is just absolutely terrible writing, despite the first few episodes being acceptably okay. Just like the other seasons, you have to be stupid now to not notice all the lack of realism, coherence and totally bizarre and nonsensical actions of the characters.
1899 (2022)
Writers that don't Respect your Time
If writers can't grip you in one hour, and don't intend to, then they don't respect you as a viewer.
Despite what some reviewers say, you CAN judge a series by the first two hours of it. Think of what a brilliant film can achieve in two hours. This series can't even get started.
This show is full of extremely cheap and gimmicky hooks and cliffhangers at the start and end of each episode, then the rest of painfully dull padding. The entire series should really be condensed to a 90 minute feature film.
The ending is the most predictable and pathetic cliche that your primary school teachers told you to stop using in stories. A real waste of time. Just because an ending is unpredictable, it doesn't make it good!
Nine times out of ten, an unpredictable twist is simply a cheap gimmick that gets a writer out of explaining the overdone mysteries they introduced throughout the series.
I honestly think that the people eating this show highly are doing it to pretend they are more intellectual than everyone else and somehow spotted some deep themes and meanings that others didn't. They didn't spot anything. They were duped by serious poor writing.
If you saw Lost, then this show does exactly what Lost did. It leads you down a garden path only to have the most terrible, cliched, cheap and gimmicky ending possible.
Terrible writing.
The Northman (2022)
Eggers is on the Right Track
I want so badly to like Eggers' films. He is on the right track and doing the right things: historical accuracy, not caving in to wokeism, not race swapping characters, not writing overpowered female characters, and having interesting elements of the supernatural that are in keeping with genuine historical accounts and mythologies.
However, his films never seem to be that engaging. This tale is what a film should never be: dull. It's been the same with all his films. Plot and character development is sacrificed so that visuals and history can be prioritised, and frequently it makes for slow-paced storytelling with frequent moments that feel like a slog to wait through.
I would love him to work with a more talented writer in his next venture, while maintaining all the things he already does really well.
This is still a film worth seeing, and it is his best so far in my opinion.
In the Mouth of Madness (1994)
I Really Wanted to Like This Film
John Carpenter films are enjoying a slight resurgence as Hollywood seems hell-bent on churning out terrible woke piles of festering garbage that play like a seminar run by the Huffington Post.
Therefore I really wanted to like this film, it being my only Carpenter movie since The Thing.
All started well as the first twenty minutes set up a decent yarn, and the film has a pleasant early to mid nineties style that caught the tail-end of filmmakers still taking movie making somewhat seriously.
Sadly, the film descended into a meandering and nonsensical, rushed, plotless and meaningless drivel that went absolutely nowhere all the way to the end. Some will say the plot was meant to be nonsense to reflect the protagonist's growing madness, but it's fairly clear the film isn't that deep.
It's such a shame as simply setting up the madness with a little more time and forethought, and fewer set pieces and poorly-aged animatronics would have kept this film on an even keel and built to a relatively satisfying ending. The female lead is entirely pointless and serves no purpose for the plot whatsoever, which is a good example of how poorly thought through the writing is. Or maybe this is another example of studio interference.
This is a mediocre to poor supposed homage to Lovecraft (who has also enjoyed a recent resurgence despite fairly trite and recycled, repetitive tales) that seems like it was written by a teenage boy with ADD.
It's put me off watching other Carpenter films. I'll give one more a go perhaps, but now I understand why he isn't considered one of the greats, and the recent renewed interest in him is more of a reflection of our own current slim pickings in quality movies, rather than his overlooked genius.
TLDR: Watch it if it's free, you have an hour and half to kill, your IQ is under 100, and you're a bit of a masochist.
The Last Duel (2021)
Such a Disappointment
This is a beautifully shot, beautifully set, complete failure.
The main problems:
Absolutely terrible editing. Genuinely the worst, most grating and baffling editing I have ever seen in a film. Jump cut, jump cut, jump cut. Completely ruins the movie. This is the worst problem of all. I can't believe a so-called genius director actually approved of this editing. I can't help but feel there should be a director's cut that should be about 6 hours long instead of the 2.5 this film is.
Awful acting and accents. They set the film in France, aiming for some sense of historical accuracy but none of the actors bothered with French accent, apart from the extras! The extras, being paid a pittance, or nothing at all, make more effort than Hollywood actors being paid millions. But no surprise there given the current state of Hollywood. So you have some actors speaking in posh Boston accents (Affleck, Damon), some in Trans Atlantic upper class accents (Driver), posh English accents (Comer) and French accents (some extras and minor characters). The result is a non-immersive ahistorical mess clearly intended for a stupid audience, and to mask the fact that some actors (I'm guessing the American ones) can't do a French accent.
The battle scenes. Utterly terrible disregard for any historical accuracy has men recklessly charging into battle completely alone, and then... JUMP
CUT to a more boring scene. Why? Why even have these one minute battle scenes that were presumably very expensive and difficult to shoot, and included because they relieve the boredom of the drivelling dialogue (more on this in a moment) if you're not going to properly use them to reveal a key plot point or reveal character, or even just have them as eye candy? They are completely redundant.
The dialogue. It is one of the worst, most boring parts of this film. Affleck's every other word is an F bomb, while other characters call people a "sow" so again there is no consistency or attempts at historical accuracy. The rest is quibbles over land and bureaucratic boredom. Nothing really reveals character, nothing really creates tension or sets a tone before... JUMP CUT!
Tone. Due to all the jump cuts the tone of the film is completely all over the place. I'm noticing this with more and more Hollywood films; they don't understand tone. It is oddly autistic and jarring for an audience to feel outraged one minute then JUMP CUT to mild silliness and gratuitous comedy orgy scene the next. This is so bizarre and means you never really know how to feel about this film or its story. I don't think the director does either.
Colour palette. Here's an idea: let's shoot a really spectacular expensive period piece with some of the best settings, costumes, castles, regalia, weapons etc of any modern film THEN WASH IT ALL OUT WITH A COMPLETELY DULL MONOCHROME. Sound good? Nope. It doesn't does it? But Scott thought it was an excellent idea. Maybe he thought constant darkness would create the tone that the story can't create because of his annoying jump cuts? Regardless, it doesn't work and it's annoying.
The structure. They were trying to be clever by telling three different perspectives of the same story, but it doesn't work. It's dull to go over the same events again and again. This structural choice seems to be the filmmaker's main focus but it shouldn't be. I can't help but feel this film would be so much more interesting if it was simply linear and told in one go, but ambiguous about who was in the right. There wouldn't be the need for annoying jump cuts that wreck the tone, and it would give us a chance to get to know each character well instead of jumping around. The jumps also go too far forward in time, so we are in one moment at a battle in Scotland in which the protagonist is about to cut a swathe alone (of course) through the English then... JUMP
CUT and he's back in France saying hello to his wife and has a cough. What? What happened? Oh it turns out it's irrelevant for the story so you don't need to know what happened in Scotland and we'll ignore it. Oh... okay?
And this is the problem with the whole film. You never get attached to any character because the director and editor will jump cut too far forward in time to a new scene with a new tone and a new event far too quickly, leaving you never really caring about anything that happens.
There are other problems with this film, but I don't want this review to last as long as this gruelling and repetitive film did.
Overall, it's a travesty to take history, spend all that money, and create a boring story, edit it shoddily, make zero effort with key details, then in the current arrogant and stupid trend of Hollywood, BLAME YOUR AUDIENCE for its poor reception because it couldn't possibly be that you made a poor film, no, the audience just don't appreciate your genius.
The only reason this gets 4 stars is that it has some decent visuals and I like the settings. That's it.
Mary Queen of Scots (2018)
Dull and farcical
Queen Elizabeth has a sub Saharan African as an ADVISOR. I immediately then knew this film cared nothing at all about its subject matter. The film is dull, vapid and becomes utterly inane very quickly. The subject matter is incredible and gripping, a key part of my nation's history, and this film doesn't respect it. Terrible.
Living with Yourself (2019)
Tonally all over the place
Neither a particularly good comedy nor a particularly good drama. It's as if someone said "we need Black Mirror meets an inoffensive comedy that isn't that funny". The concept had legs but ultimately fizzles out.
The world building is poor with some highly advanced sci fi plonked in an otherwise contemporary world, which seems lazy and again doesn't fit.
The loud soundtrack is very Black Mirror but it doesn't fit and is just distracting. The story ultimately goes nowhere, is rushed, and has no meaning or resolution in the end.
The good aspects were a decent turn from Paul Rudd and Aisling Bea, and some observant writing about relationships.
Ultimately the writers cannot decide what this is: meaningful take on identity, comedy of errors, Black Mirror serialised, or romantic drama? So it fails on all fronts.