Reviews

This film is just outstanding on so many levels, and well worth the watch. It plays on so many parts of modern life, religion, loyalty, racism and on and on. In the vain of A Knight's Tale, this film supplies a modern take on an old, familiar story, including updated music and cultural references. It keeps things moving as you wonder what they will do next!

The cast is outstanding on so many levels, each and every one of them. Lakeith is exceptional.

Cumberbatch as the beggar is just hilarious, and the entire take on Jesus as a white man, which has always been incredibly absurd considering the part of the world he reportedly came from, is priceless! And what the actor does with it is hilarious. His final speech calling forth "fire and brimstone, or hopefully lava" should go down in history books as one of the greatest lines in film -- right up there with "Here's looking at you kid!"

It is also appropriate that this black take on the plight of the abused in a society is the one the writer chose to put forth, considering how tied to madness black people have been for centuries. The over-the-top dramatization in the Passion of Christ style is exactly what the film needs for the multitude of messages it is putting forth. The utter barbaric behavior of the Romans tracks with centuries of behavior, and the madness of men who seek to do damage to others is well on display.

All of the inside jokes like nobody pronouncing the two syllables in Clarence's name, and a ton of other jokes, even at some of the darkest moments, puts the delivery over the top. What is most interesting is how it dances from comedy, to high drama, and how it takes familiar parts of the story and turns them on their head.

Most interesting is how they maintain what was probably more true, that Jesus was a healer, like John the Baptist, and like many legitimate faith healers today from all over the world who have the ability to heal with energy manipulation. And the fact that it ends in the way it does, is spectacular.

I didn't think I would like this, but I loved it!

How can you make something bad with Hartley in it? Everything about him works, and they started out promising, but they are going downhill fast, like very fast. St. Louis was just downright BAD! Really bad writing.

They are falling into the lazy habit of making women stupid, even the ones who are supposed to be smart, so it is always going to be bad when they do that. People standing outside of cars, especially women who know better, having conversations about killers and crooked lawyers in the hometown of said killers and crooked lawyers, soon after meeting with the same crooked lawyer, is an invitation to be kidnapped, hurt, etc. And any woman would know that, especially now that is supposed to be the smartest person in the show.

Then having two women, one smart enough to evade capture for years, and the other, again being the "smartest" person in the show, not pick up a gun while the men are fighting, when they could stop this nonsense. Utter stupidity.

Bad.

Surely they won't make it past this one season if they keep this nonsense up. Hartley is producing this growing atrocity, but he'd better step up if he want's it to continue.

UPDATE: These last two episodes have gotten much better, thankfully.

Kevin Costner likes these rough films. This felt a lot like Open Range, except this time, Costner's character went in ill prepared, when he knew better. That part didn't make any sense. But decent people standing up to evil makes a lot of sense, and they did that, though not in a cohesive fashion, so the loss equaled the triumph. That made this sad.

Based on a book, this screenplay might be leaving out some of the development factors, but it feels like some parts in the logic have been left out. The most unbelievable part is that a 30-year lawman, would not utilize the law better, like bringing in federal authorities and moving around the corrupt local yokels.

It as well acted, well shot and edited, and the music was pretty much perfect, which is rare in recent years as many overuse music and make it a constant drone. I just wish they spent more time strengthening the script so that it was more believable.

The concept is good, albeit The Golden Child updated and rebooted. The writing is super weak and downright bad most of the time, though the concept is actually quite interesting. The editing breaks the mood of the action, and steals from it more often than not, making the film choppy, the music is way over the top as usual. It also is unsure who is what, and so the action is all over the place, inconsistent, absurd and they try to force it to be dramatic when there is actually no real drama inherent in the script, so it is just ridiculous. It lacks depth and tries to borrow scenes, sentiment and verve from too many other films. It is like 14 year olds wrote it.

Washington's character is absurdly dense, and thus in keeping with the bad script, everything he does is absurd, but that is in keeping with his horrible acting. The man needs to go back to football, because his father is one note as an actor, but the son can't even find that one not! He is truly horrible, and all the proping up and pushing forward apparently will never make him a good actor. It just does not seem possible. Neither will all the gimmicks and special effects. Nothing can help a person who just cannot find an emotion, and that seems to hold true for Washington. He's is just bad, and he neither has his father's swagger or pretty face to mask minimal talent. I don't even know if more acting lessons will help him, but it doesn't feel like it. The child is 50 times better than Washington.

The three rating is for the special effects, the child actor, and production designer - although their skills were wasted on this.

Once again, they have proven that they need to break up the monopoly in Hollywood and give more filters more money instead of making these massive flops that could have financed 40 films with the same money.

This is so, so bad, unnecessarily so at that. And Andy Serkis needs to stick to creature roles. This was just stupid.

First, how do cops, even British cops, go looking for a serial killer who has murdered dozens of people, without guns? Okay, let's just try to get past that insanity.

Secondly, how do you go after said killer, who et his wife on fire, without putting your own family in a safe place first?

And the biggest how, how do you have so many outstanding actors, and reduce them to such an absurd level of stupidity as the actions they take in this film, and not have to pay them emotional hazard pay, or career damage fees?

How do the divers know where to look or to look at all in the ice? So many levels of stupid it is unbelievable.

This was so bad, so, so, idiotically ridiculously bad. They could have fed a small country with the money, and should have. The last question is, why on earth didn't somebody stop them along the way? This had all the elements of a good film, except it isn't, because of the horribly written script.

Bad Idris, bad!

Andor is the best of this franchise I've seen lately. It is paced at such a clip that it keeps you engaged, but this one does not do that. It drags and drones on and on, with a dizzying slowness that puts you to sleep. The characters are flat and uninteresting, the acting is mundane, even from Rosario Dawson, and I didn't imagine that was possible! And she looks like she is dancing, more than fighting. They should have spent more time on that, clearly.

No tricks and cute scenes can save shallow characters who are poorly written. The General is the most interesting, and the Mandalorian is just bad. And just because there are more women fighting than usual, doesn't mean they can be slack on character building and rational action. Frankly, the entire Star Wars franchise needs to evolve and grow up some. It tried for a while and then recently just returned to nosensical fighting for the sake of it.

I like Jon Favreau as an actor, and sometimes as a Director, but as Producer in this last group, he is falling short.

I'm disappointed after all the hype, as this is just boring.