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The Blacklist (2013)
Ugh
Let me summarize as much as I could tolerate.
A first-day-on-the-job FBI agent unknowingly facilitates the kidnapping of a 4-star general's daughter by taking the advice of a ten-most-wanted criminal master-mind. After the agent successfully identifies the general's daughter for the terrorists and then blindly chauffeurs her into an ambush (in-which not one of a half-dozen agents is able to radio for help); she gives the child over to the kidnappers, who decide to leave the hapless agent alive after offing anyone else they see.
So the kidnappers are free to escape in oh-so-slow rubber rafts in broad daylight across an empty harbor. Oh my, these guys are just too clever!
And they do look like a terrorist consortium of Einsteins compared to the idiots running this fictional FBI. The newly "hired" agent is now completely in charge of the case, with full-access to the master-mind. Ignoring her usage in the situation, the fact she's still alive, and of course the informants familiarity with her would mostly likely land her in solitary-confinement pending further investigation.
In the end I would guess they finally discover the master-mind is using the terrorists and all of them together, but they were all too dumb to realize it: and oh, the master-mind is actually her father or something...
But after so many plot non sequiturs: who can even care?
Farscape: Premiere (1999)
Heavy Sci-Fi Light-Weight Believability
I will probably watch the rest of this. More than likely due to the show's use of induction visuals accompanied by water-fall subliminal messages: "You love this show. You will watch this show every week. You will tell your friends how great this show is." And they would have had to induce people: the story gets off to a rickety start; not pausing to build a believable main character. Was it really all that necessary to have a fighter-jock-non-geek-scientist? I think things would have stayed interesting if he had been just a stick jockey OR a complete nerd. As it was I never believed him.
Which is probably why dialog gems like: "I wasn't just any anarchist, I was a leading anarchist" made it into into the shooting script. Can someone tell me how an anarchist would be a self-proclaimed "leading anarchist"? If they are a proponent of anarchy, wouldn't they understand that "leadership" would necessarily be eschewed? So how are they a "leading anarchist" if they don't even understand what anarchy is?
Okay. I'm being a little too critical. I just found it rather funny. Maybe I should give the writer credit for humorously creating a universe contradiction singularity?
Defying Gravity: Eve Ate the Apple (2009)
ABC did the right thing
This episode was a disaster.
Part of it seemed like the acting. The actors seemed like the beta revelation and the show cancellation were about the same thing: 40 minutes of stunned people talking about how they feel now that the world has changed.
But mostly it was the writer's choice to reveal everything. And more than that: how they should have revealed everything. The only way we find it out is boring semi- illustrated narrative that sounded as canned as an Am Way presentation. Show, don't tell. Reveal, don't preach.
Most of this information is back story, and really should have been dealt with, if at all, over the course of several episodes.
A fairly interesting series, run into the ground in one script. If I had been the exec, this episode would never have seen the light of day.
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005)
Shock and Awful
It doesn't cease to amaze me how Walden continues to bring down great directors.
Holes, while I had never read the books, had the same stilted hollowness that they managed to infuse into the Narnia tales (and that's WITH Disney helping) and that film was directed by the same director as the Fugitive! (Around the World in 80 Days was a travesty against the original work, but it kind of worked since Jackie Chan became the main character) How does Walden do it? How do they manage to wreck such great material? Despite having Mr. Gresham on board, the writer/director/maybe even some of the actors miss the feel of the book. Maybe it's not possible to replicate that on-screen: ever. But they should have at least tried for a more serious treatment. This was way too kiddish: like it was made for the Chicken Little crowd. I was hoping for something much better, much more sobering.
As far as acting goes, Georgia Henley is the best. She was the life of the movie. But as a result, everyone else (especially Susan) came off looking a little stiff. It never seems that the characters get to change much. They start off as one might expect, but by the end it doesn't seem like they're much different except for those crown things on their heads.
The music was terrible. Pop-ballads done with a symphony sounds cheap. Where was the theme music?
The editing was terrible: unless you're just advertising to sell an extended version of the DVD. (Hey audience: if you feel unsatisfied, buy the real movie next year!)
The children should have gotten lost like they did in the book so we didn't have to waste time having Peter and Susan whining about going home the entire film (oh bother, we have to rescue Edmund first...)
Very little build up to Aslan. No build up to the war. Trying to be Lord of the Rings, but Narnia isn't Middle Earth and they should never have tried to make it that way.
The witch's wolves have American accents: why?
The worst thing was the loss of the intangible feeling of discovery and wonder of a world within a world. I don't know how hard it would be to create it (in some respects the BBC version still had this feeling), but if you're going to spend $120 million, you sure shouldn't leave it behind.
I think this comes down to bad writing and too many corporate milk-toast spines having influence. All you needed was a real screenplay (one that they apparently weren't willing to pay for since they went with the cheap just of school writer) and someone who was passionate about the story and the BE ALLOWED to tell it. With only three or four lines of dialog being from the original book, I almost doubted whether Walden had actually optioned the material from the CS Lewis Estate! Watching the film did give me hope for one thing: it may still be possible for me to remake it some day. True, I'm American and I'm overly critical, and it will be 30 years before anyone will even care to see it again: but after seeing this film: I want to try. I think that's what having British people write/direct this British work does. They can't feel the book, because the book is nearly everyday English life and they can't see how that's interesting. (Remember the book didn't do that well in England, the US is where Lewis got his child readers) But there's a whole feeling that as an American I get from the book that is essentially idealised English family life, something that many Brits can't stand anymore. There's nothing for them to do than try to update and "modernize" it away: but when, as an American, that's a large part of what I enjoyed.
Solution: have an American write and direct the movie, and don't let a single American have a voice on screen!