the_it Reviews

Life (I) (2017)

This film ROCKS!!!!

[9/10 · 21 February 2019]

One of the best sci-fi films of this genre EVER!! Superb. And the final scene is absolutely BRILLIANT! Tragic, but BRILLIANT!! What a great film and concept.

IO (2019)

The Worse Film I HAVE EVER SEEN!!'

[1/10 · 31 January 2019]

What. A. Waste. Of. Time!!! I feel totally CHEATED AT THIS GARBAGE!

How the hell did this rubbish get commissioned and greenlit?????

AVOID AT ALL COSTS!!!!! Truly AWFUL!!!

Killing Eve (2018–2022)

Predictable rubbish

[2/10 · 13 December 2018]

After hearing all the hype and this being recommended to me by a female friend, I binge watched on iPlayer. The first 5 eps were good, but things went rapidly downhill when they decamped to Russia! It was just awful and boring the whole way after that- painfully so! Fiona Shaw's character, so over the top creepy, was ALWAYS going to be duplicitous and with a lot to hide (wouldn't be surprised if her son has a Russian spy as a dad >groan<). The lead as a stone cold world class assassin stretched it a bit, especially her totally non emotional character (ZZZzzzzz.......) I actually found this show so bad that I speed skimmed the last episode and went right to the end, where Eve and Villenelle or whatever her name is where on the bed. Having taken a knife to the gut and almost bleeding to death, she STILL managed to disappear which, in my opinion, is awful. Because that means there's a second season planned!!! Tosh!

Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)

This is one of the best films I have ever seen!!

[9/10 · 26 November 2018]

I listened to Queen on the radio growing up, even though my parents predominantly played Motown, Atlantic and Stax. But those were the days when pop music was brilliant, and 99% of what you heard on the radio was good! But this film literally BLEW ME AWAY, and I think that, although getting on in age now and with kids of my own who play music I don't get, I consider myself fortunate to have lived through some of the greatest cultural and musical times the world has ever experienced! The Live Aid scene, particularly when they played Radio Gaga, literally had me in tears, as did the final scene with his parents watching him. Magnificent film, magnificent music, magnificent era in musical history. Honoured to have experienced it firsthand! Brilliant film- go see it now!

How It Ends (2018)

Starts off well then........that's it!

[4/10 · 14 July 2018]

Was really looking forward to this after I saw the trailer on Netflix, and Forest Whitaker is The Man! Watched it on the first day it was released, and the build up to the end was great. Until we got to the end! And it fizzled out like a sparkler that's been placed in water. WTF was that all about? NO explanation of what happened! NO idea of what was going on! NO clue as to what the hell the mad neighbour was all about!! I genuinely think the writer/director had NO IDEA what it was they had created, and just let it fly along on its own. They too is for a ride- literally and figuratively- that had one of the flattest ends to a film I can ever remember! So disappointed with this....it had so much promise and potential but then kinda went flat when he found his wife and the mad neighbour, and it rapidly went downhill from there. Right up to the end!!!! Stupid movie!

Lost in Space (2018–2021)

Now THIS is how you do a reboot- Wow!!!!!!

[10/10 · 18 April 2018]

Netflix has done it again with Lost In Space, people!! One of the best sci-fi shows I've seen, and I'm old enough to have seen a lot of them! I remember the original series I caught on reruns, and also the 1998 film which was OK, I guess. But this show hits the spot totally. Dr. Smith- who I totally and utterly despised- is a woman, and the robot, although never called Robbie, is an alien sentient being that was clever thought out and conceived. This show has it all; tension, humour, a highly imaginative story (forget the naysayers and haters!!!) and a great husband and wife team in Toby Stephens and the incredibly sexy and criminally underused Molly Parker, who I've fallen in love with!! The only beef I have with this show is that it only ran for 10 episodes (huh???) and finished on a cliffhanger to end all cliffhangers that had me instantly google 'Lost In Space Netflix season 2.... Great show, brilliant concept, fantastic cast, top marks!!

McMafia (2018)

McAwful McClichéd McRubbish!

[2/10 · 14 March 2018]

This show was just so dreary and boringly clcihèd that I regret wasting my time watching it on iPlayer.... I only stuck it out to see how it ended. Shouldn't have bothered really! Once again the BBC is wasting our license fee with such dreary rubbish to showcase yet another privately educated one-dimensional Oxbridge pretty boy whose acting is average at the very best! And, like his predecessor, the press starts touting him as the next James Bond...! This show went all over the world and dragged out the plot to show how international and truly global the Beeb is nowadays, and no expense has been spared- mainly because it's paid for by the viewers who have no choice in the matter! But this show telegraphed the entire plot all the way through- absolutely NOTHING was a surprise- even down to the 'moral compass/conscientious girlfriend who knows from the get-go not to get involved with shady businessmen from afar! Shockingly bland, in spite of the global locations ZZZzzzzzzzzz.........

Snatch (2017–2018)

One of the worst shows I have EVER, EVER seen !

[1/10 · 20 November 2017]

I get this free with my BT subscription, which is the only good thing I can say about this show, which is beyond bad! It's even beyond awful!! I remember the original Snatch at the cinema- I even own it on blue-ray- but this is a poor man's knock off version of the movie.

Even the way these guys talk seems forced, contrived and fake- it's one thing hearing these words from Jason Statham but it's another thing hearing it from the 3 leads! Add in an over the top Colombian "gangster" and his obese cuddly sidekick who's about as menacing as wet custard and the most inept wannabe "streetwise" gang outside of an Ealing comedy. And Rupert Grint is extremely bad in this as well…….shockingly bad! With the amount of mistakes he makes along the way and his big mouth, he would have been put out to pasture years ago!

One more thing-the scene of the three Jewish guys with the diamonds in the taxi was one of the most embarrassing, nauseating, cringey, forced scenes I've ever watched!!!

Stopped watching this garbage halfway through episode 3 and reached for my laptop just to post this. So, so, sooooooooo bad!!!!!!

Stranger Things (2016–2025)

Season 2 was looooooooooooonnngg!!!!

[3/10 · 30 October 2017]

This show was dragged out and stretched to beyond breaking point! I binge watched (as you do) the new season and it was puffed out with stuff that is obviously setting up a third and fourth season but I'm past the point of caring now! The first season was great, highly enjoyable, but now it's a rehash with new characters that add nothing to moving forward, apart from Max and the doctor played by Paul Reiser. Max's brother was……….totally pointless!!! I'm still baffled by his inclusion to be honest, as he brought NOTHING to the party apart from being a fantastically ridiculous cliché from the '80s! it was a nice throwback to Paul Reiser and probably the greatest sequel in the history of movies, Aliens, with some scenes and dialogue lifted word for word and move by move from the film, especially the 'Stay frosty' line said by the soldiers in the lair of the beasts. Even the demadogs were totally xenomorph-like in the way they moved and hurled themselves at glass and doors.

Apart from that, the 'sister' inclusion with the bunch of old-timers (the mohican man firing the gun at the cops and screaming half-heatedly was awful!!!) and the mum scene in the house were dull….in fact, most of the scenes with Eleven really slowed down the whole show in my opinion, apart from when she met up with the rest of the team. But it was marked just how boring Eleven's scenes were ZZZZzzzzzz…………

Not a patch on the first season, and this was just acting by numbers…. very disappointed with this!

Star Trek: Discovery (2017–2024)

Set in the universe of Star Trek Rebooted NOT ST:TOS

[10/10 · 30 October 2017]

Once you can accept the fact that it's set in the JJ Abrams created Trek Universe, the rest will be easy. As someone who has watched TOS from an early age and grew up watching the movies and Star Trek TNG, this is perhaps the best series since TOS, and definitely the freshest, most ail-out Star Trek since Picard and his Enterprise took to the small and big screens.

Imagine he Universe of Yesterday's Enterprise met JJ Abrams's Star Trek and this is the result- a Federation at war with the Klingons and a ship with the most gung ho captain ever! And I have to say that the scene in episode 2, where the Klingon ship smashes through the USS Europa literally left me with my jaw open as an obscenity left my lips! Superb action that is a breath of fresh air to the whole franchise from top to bottom, start to finish!

And Jason Isaacs as Captain Lorca absolutely and positively and definitely ROCKS!!!

This is Star Trek at its best- give it a try from start to finish. Only the traditionalists who probably also hated the recent Star Trek movies will hate this. Everyone else should just give it a try and sit through the first 4 or 5 episodes and you WILL NOT regret it!

10/10

24: Legacy (2016–2017)

They chose the WRONG WRONG WRONG Carter brother to lead this!!!

[3/10 · 19 April 2017]

Having been a fan of 24 since the very first episode and throughout every season (although one or two seasons were pretty mediocre!), this spin-off is quite shocking! The biggest problem, however, is the casting of the lead character- Corey Hawkins, as good an actor as he is- does NOT have the gravitas or is even remotely believable as a former Special Ops soldier. I mean, he looks like a college freshman!! The guy that played his brother would have made a better Eric Carter! That was absolutely awful casting that let the whole show down- I know we've had to stretch credibility in the past with 24 but that was a stretch too far- he's totally not believable in the lead role! And the rest of the show was just rehashed, reheated 24 by numbers. Really disappointed with this, especially given the fact that a college kid is the lead....!!!!

Roots (2016)

Sacrilegious remake of a pivotal show in American TV history

[1/10 · 10 April 2017]

As a black British man who is old enough to remember the seismic event of the original series 40 years ago, I can only shake my head at this boring, pointless, time wasting PC remake that has sullied the original and best version.

Roots The Original was one of the first global must-see TV events that captured the attention and imagination of the whole world simultaneously, at a time when the US was celebrating its bicentenary and race relations and civil rights were at a delicate state (a bit like today in that respect). Most of the black actors, singers, rappers and sports stars of today weren't even born when the original was screened, so the impact that the show had on culture is lost on them to be honest. Regardless of people saying they've watched it on video or DVD or heard stories their parents told them about it, the original Roots had to be experienced back in the '70s to have had any effect. Which sadly led to this pile of cheap garbage being made for the 21st century's millennials. And what a mess! From showing an 18th century African village that wouldn't look out of place in the late 1990s, with an airbrushed sense of heightened culture that didn't really exist, this was Roots for the politically correct, non offending generation. The problem is that Roots was an idea whose time was the 1970s. We've seen tales from a black perspective since then that have been superb- Glory, Amistad, 12 Years A Slave, Malcolm X, Ali, Django Unchained, Men of Honour- and films with black stars on the level of Denzil Washington, Smith, Whitaker and the fantastic Jeffrey Wright.

But this is a remake for the sake of it. And it was totally, utterly pointless, bland, banal shoulder-shrug and one raised eyebrow inducing. Most of all, IT WAS BORING! Take it back. Please! Take it back....!!!!

Iron Fist (2017–2018)

This show goes on way too long and is over-complicated

[5/10 · 22 March 2017]

This show started off quite good, but now it's actually become a chore to watch! I'm only doing so so that I can see it to the end. The characters started off as really interesting but are now clichéd to a man-jack! Ward has become a douche bag in a couple of episodes, Joy is annoying, Colleen is vacuous, Danny is wooden and Gao is moronic!

And one thing I can't help wondering- Joy, Danny and Ward, billionaires and heads of the multi-billion Rand Corporation, would surely, SURELY have a posse of bodyguards, drivers and escorts with them every step of every day! But they stride around NYC without a care in the world- the biggest security risks.

Since the first series of Daredevil, Marvel shows on Netflix have steadily gone downhill. Jessica Jones was fantastically bad, Luke Cage stunk out the place as soon as Cottonmouth died and Diamondback was introduced (sheesh!!!), and now this.....the shows go on 4 or 5 episodes too long.

I'm done with this show anyway now!!

The Outer Limits: Quality of Mercy (1995) Season 1, Episode 13

What an Episode!!

[10/10 · 12 November 2006]

I am old enough to remember the original Twilight Zone and Outher Limits series on TV. The newer Twilight Zone series was disappointing at times, but the New Outer Limits was always thought-provoking and adult sci-fi at its best. Quality of Mercy is perhaps the best episode EVER of The new Outer Limits, and that's saying something! And this is the best thing Robert Patrick's ever done!! What a shock, depressing, sickening ending!! It was a real shame that this series came to the end of its run, and when are we going to get the complete collection here in the UK on DVD? We're always the last to get the cool stuff. Anyway, regardless of that, this particular story gets full marks on every count!

The Outsiders (2006 TV Movie)

Clichéd and awful!!

[2/10 · 6 October 2006]

I watched this the other night because I'm a huge fan of Brian Cox, one of this country's most talented actors ever. The rest of this cast, however, stunk the place out! It was a mixture of the Da Vinci Code, The Bourne Movies (starring Brian Cox) and a throwback to the halcyon days of 60s and 70s espionage/crime series. But this couldn't cut the mustard and Nigel Harman brought the same character from Eastenders to The Outsiders, ie, moody, broody, a hidden and troubled past, blah, blah, blah, yawn, yawn yawn! How many times is ITV going to raid the cellars of the Queen Vic and take Eastenders cast-offs, give them their own shows and kill their careers dead? With this kind of mentality, NO WONDER ITV is in such a bad state, churning out dross like this! And the concept of this kind of organisation, minus 12 or whatever they were called, operating in Britain was absurd- this country is just too small for this kind of team stepping on the toes of MI5, MI6, GCHQ and the rest. And as for Colin Salmon- how many times is he going to accept these god-awful roles, where he's little more than pretty wallpaper that doesn't do much or say much? it's a shame, because we had high hopes for this guy, and it seems to have gone to waste. He should be a leading man, not a supporting actor, especially in sh*t like this! This should be give a -12. It was truly shocking in every respect!!

Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002)

very enjoyable- a return to the meaning of star wars

[8/10 · 20 May 2002]

I really, really enjoyed this flick and I think Lucas has tapped onto what the people want to see. Epsiode I was, in my opinion, a great film too because it was a political intrigue thriller, showing a politician's desire to be master of all he surveys, which is alot in the Star Wars universe!! All those who talk about it being stupid, not up to the level of the previous episodes need to look at it for what it was- the beginning of the story that is complex and complicated.

But Episode II was brilliant- absolutely superb stuff. I think it was nice NOT to have a climatic star battle as every other episode has had- nice to be different because this is a different movie where we see Anakin slowly moving over to the other side with his ultra-fascist tendencies spilling out. Great stuff! And the final battle was something that was truly awesome!

This was one of the most enjoyable films of the year, and you can't compare it to Lord Of The Rings at all- the talk of a rivalry between the camps should be laughed at when you look at this film.