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Reviews
Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2024)
Slow-Paced, Boring, Uninteresting, Etc
Don't believe the good reviews. It stinks!
Seriously, I think there are some gen-gap issues going here. My generation cares about plot, dialog, characters, action, romance and similar concepts. The younger generation cares about what? The main characters swapped races between the Brangelina movie and this series? The Smiths are an interracial couple? This is 2024, not 1974. Who cares?
There's no telling. Maybe Donald Glover has an intense fan club.
Look, it's boring. The plot is boring. The characters are boring. They seem to have next to zero training and very little qualifications, either. The dialog, and oh! So much dialog could be a speed freak to sleep.
I was really looking forward to this series, especially with the hype and good reviews.
Leave the World Behind (2023)
Big Fat Nothing Burger
Is it a big fat nothing burger or just a nothing burger? If it's nothing, how can it be big and fat?
I'll leave the philosophical and grammatical debates to others and focus on the film. Imagine a slow burning fuse that leads to nowhere. Imagine a nearly 2-1/2 hour runtime that has no payoff. Can you see it? Yes? Then skip this film. You already got it. Nothing.
This film needs some serious edits to pick up the pace. Cut the run-time, maybe add something exciting, or for heaven's sake, add something interesting to the plot.
Oh, there are some interesting things, but with no payoff. Wild animals show some strange behavior but without purpose or explanation. If the unknown but hinted-at calamity is man-made, then the animal's behavior might make sense. As we learn at the end, the catastrophe is man-made, making the odd animal behaviors just a stupid plot device.
Asteroid City (2023)
Fails to Deliver
This is a Wes Anderson film. It's quirky. Many of the characters are endearing. Is it entertaining? Not really. Did I mention quirky.
Wes Anderson has directed many films I'm quite fond of. Looking back at his filmography, I can see it's hit-and-miss with Anderson, with a few more hits than misses.
The film is not what I expected. I expected quirky and I knew it was a film set in the 1950's involving aliens. What I didn't know was it was a film-inside-a-film, or more accurately, a play-inside-a-film (or a film-inside-a-play).
I wasn't expecting Mars Attacks! I suppose I was expecting a quirky (there's that word again) Flash Gordon. I just wasn't that entertained. You know it's not good when you keep trying to guess how much longer until it's over.
Fair Play (2023)
Really Not Good
I'm once again perplexed by the high ratings for this underwhelming movie. Perhaps it's a demographic thing. What is the target audience? I can't say but it's I'm not a member of that audience.
First of all, the title implies an underhanded, anything goes competition between the two members of a couple who have a secret relationship. When the title implies one thing but the actual plot is something else, this can only disappoint.
One problem is the sound. Turn on Closed Captioning because much of the dialog is drowned out by an overly loud musical score. This is not an issue with my sound system.
The film starts slowly and really plods along. There is an idea for a plot here that never really comes together. The ending disappoints.
Good Omens (2019)
First Season Great, Season 2 Stinks
I can't recommend the first season of Good Omens highly enough. It was quirky, funny, engrossing, etc. It is definitely one of those titles you just want to keep watching until you finish the story.
Which brings us to season 2. All those things I loved about season 1 are missing from season 2. Funny? No. Clever? No. Engrossing? No. No, no, no and no.
David Tenant is given so little to do. His character is reducing to being a clown, given silly (and unfunny) things to say along with some very lame physicals comedy.
The people who gave us this dreck, realizing they had no purpose to make a season 2 decided "let's make them gay." I'm not offended by gay, but it doesn't interest me much. It's not 1975 anymore. There aren't any insights, new twists, etc. Just let's make the demon gay. The plot twist with the angel is not quite as far fetched but is also unsatisfying.
What I'm attempting to describe is the utter lack of creativity. Could a gay celestial being couple be interesting? Depends on the writing.
Yellowstone (2018)
Really Gone Downhill
The first few seasons of Yellowstone hit like gangbusters. It's been downhill the last couple of seasons. Season 4 was a letdown an Season 5 is just a mess. This show is overrated and is coasting on it's earlier success. There are a lot of loose, hanging threads.
Will we finish Season 5? I'll watch just to see how things end, if the second half of Season 5 is every released.
Yellowstone made me a Taylor Sheridan fan but that's no longer true. It seems Taylor Sheridan may be spread too thin these days, with too many irons in the fire. I don't know what original content Paramount+ could offer without Sheridan, but none is as good as the first two seasons of Yellowstone.
The Lincoln Lawyer (2022)
Just Not Up to the Novels
Let's take a popular series and make key changes and then wonder why the series isn't as popular as it should be.
There are several changes from the Lincoln Lawyer novels. Some of the stories from the books are redone. The plot of the first novel is just a minor subplot in the series.
Other changes are to character's, such as gender and sexual orientation. Yes, there is a token LGBTQ+ character among the regulars. I don't mind but now it seems every series requires one or more such characters, whether it adds anything to the story or not.
All this being said, the major weakness of this series is the portrayal of the title character, Mickey Haller. Mickey comes off as weak and passive. He's simply uninspiring. The lead actor needs to step things up and show some charisma. He is uninteresting.
Jurassic World Dominion (2022)
Overly Long and Repetitive
The reviews have not been kind to this movie. It is better than expected and overly long and repetitive. The plot is good guys get in bad situation with dinosaurs, then bad guys get in same situation and get their just rewards. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
This movie is simply too long. It throws in characters from the first three Jurrassic Park films (from the 1990's), puts them in dangerous situations which they luckily, sometimes cleverly, escape. Luck never runs out for our heroes but the bad guys eventually shoot craps.
It would be much better if twenty to thirty minutes were cut. Perhaps if one of the protagonists actually didn't escape every time?
Lightyear (2022)
Just No Good at All
Let's forget they got time dilation wrong and focus on the film. The tone is wrong. The energy isn't there. The sense of adventure, wonder, and comically over-earnestness are MIA.
And about that kiss? Parents need to decide if it's appropriate. The big problem is the belief that wokeness is a substitute for plot, dialog, (voice) acting, direction, etc. It's not.
Stop the in-your-face stuff and focus on making a family film that appeals to children and parents. These movies should be focused on the audience and not on the creators.
Is it just me, or has almost everything from Disney, Marvell and Pixar just sucked eggs lately?
Star Trek: Picard (2020)
WTF Happened?
Season One of Star Trek Picard was very good. It was arguably the best series on Paramount+. Being outstanding in a sea of uninspired mediocrity is an easy achievement but Picard was quite good.
Emphasis on WAS. Season Two is just an awful mess. The first episode was so boring you may sleep through it. But watch it to the end and you can see a promise of great things to come.
Unfortunately that promise was unfulfilled. You might be tempted to think "went woke, got btoke" but that's hardly the problem. The problem is any writers who throw this woke nonsense into a series to add relevance are just bad writers. In the 50+ years of Star Trek, it's been the most diverse, most inclusive set of series ever. Past series were sophisticated in how this inclusiveness and diversity were portrayed.
Fans of The Next Generation will notice an unwelcome rewriting of Picard family history. Fans may also recall when the Enterprise visited 19th century San Francisco. This too, was deleted from history. Without adding spoilers, that's all I csn say.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (2022)
What's All the Excitement About?
I see a lot of high ratings for Star Trek Strange New Worlds. Let me warn you, this is another review where I ask what show are they watching?
Compared to the other new Star Trek series on Paramount+, this one is brilliant. But that's a low bar.
In fact, original programming on Paramount+ is uniformly mediocre. There's not one winner in the bunch. The first season of Picard, if I recall correctly was pretty good. The second was miserable. Star Trek Discovery is a very uneven series that finally, irrevocably went off the rails.
Star Trek Strange New Worlds is somewhere in the middle. It's just good enough to make you watch just to see if it gets better but not good enough to make you want to watch the next season.
Not only is the story uninspired but the characters are mostly uninteresting. There is an outright dumb character on the bridge crew whose only purpose is to make comments and wisecracks that simply wouldn't be tolerated on any ship other than the S. S. Minnow.
House of the Dragon (2022)
Meh, Just Meh
We've seen it all before. Whereas GoT spent time world building, the audience already knows this Weteros. Two centuries earlier, there aren't enough differences.
The story jumps ahead months, years and even a decade between episodes with little of importance happening in between. Six episodes in and I can't tell what the central theme is.
I mentioned GoT earlier. That series started well with many very good seasons. GoT unfortunately ended poorly with many very bad seasons. HotD is just mediocre. It's boring. At least the early seasons of GoT had a lot of sexual tension, gratuitous sex, nudity and violence to keep things interesting. We get very little of that here.
The point is, HotD is boring. It's just passable.
Moonfall (2022)
Dumb and Not Entertaining
Sometimes dumb movies are really entertaining. This is not one of them. The plot is poorly handled, the dialog is often unusually bad and the actors, for the most part, are just phoning it in.
Nothing here is remotely plausible. The big "high-concept" idea could have been great but instead was just dumb.
The moon simply can't fall out of orbit. It would have to be pushed to crash into the earth. As the moon gets closer, somehow the tides on the west coast become enormous but on the east and gulf coasts nothing is effected.
I could go on and on but I don't want to waste more time here. My review needs to be longer so this paragraph is pretty much filler.
Luther (2010)
Dumb Show Pretending to be Smart
Luther is not good TV. It's not smart. The plots are full of holes. Luther continually breaks rules and commits crimes. He is often falsely accused and arrested without evidence. There is no sense of police procedure, rules of evidence, etc.
I am confounded by all the glowing reviews. Yes, I like idris Elbis' performance. But he can't overcome the bad writing and unrealistic plots.
The Thing About Pam (2022)
Narration Strikes Weird Inappropriate Tone
The whimsical narration sets a weird and inappropriate for the story of a murder of an innocent woman. The main character, Pam, is unsympathetic and Renee Zellweger gives a strange take on her performance.
If you want to make a comedy about a murder, the victim should be unsympathetic and the killer likeable. This miniseries has it all backwards.
Star Trek: Discovery (2017)
Seasons 1 - 3 Very Uneven
Season 1 started badly and finished well. Season 2 consistently good. Season 3 is a see-saw. Hoping season 4 even things out.
I'm wondering if this series is going to be like the original movies -- odd-numbered bad or mediocre, even-numbered superior? Time will tell.
Without Remorse (2021)
Phony War with Phony Adversary
Behind the scenes, high-level American defense officials plot to start a war with Russia in order to unite the American people against a common enemy.
However, America already has a common enemy -- The People's Republic of China. But the film makers made a cowardly choice to use Russia as an enemy in this film because they feared offending the communists.
Other than that, it was a mediocre action movie with a lot of improbable plot twists and continuity issues.
Evil (2019)
Jumped the Shark Early. Can it be Redeemed
Evil jumped the shark early when a defense expert testifies that a man on trial as a spree killler is possesed by a demon. The way this was handled in court by the judge and the prosecution, is simply unbelievable.
In the next episode, the prosecution hires that expert witness as a forensic psychologist. Again, unbelievable and completely ridiculous.
I had very high hopes for Evil and so far it's pretty disappointing. I'm not sure I'm going to continue. It's supposed to be a serious drama but it's simply not.
Iron Sky (2012)
Lots of Missed Potential and WTF with the Closed Captioning
There was a lot of potential here but the writing and direction often missed the mark.
My biggest issue with this movie are the subtitles and closed captions. Who shows English closed captions over English subtitles? The film show English subtitles when the characters speak German. Great. But the subtitles were superimposed over the subtitles and were very hard to read. But if the closed captioning is turned off, the German-accented English was very hard to understand.
Note -- Get an intern to watch your damn movie with the closed captioning turned on before releasing to streaming! How hard is that?
The Tomorrow War (2021)
Don't Over Think It
Just enjoy and turn off your brain. Most of your qustions/concerns/what abouts are eventually answered. These nagging issues kept me from fully enjoying the movie and I wish many were resolved earlier.
Miss Sloane (2016)
Fact Challenged with Humanity Challenged Hero
If you care about facts, fairness, balance or the US Constitution, just move along, nothing to see here. It does show how feelings and ignorance motivate the gun-grabbers. Beyond that, the lead character is a repulsive human being.
Star Trek: Discovery: The Vulcan Hello (2017)
Very Rough Start
First episodes are typically not well polished and serve as introductions to characters, places and situations. But there's not much here to give hope for future episodes. Other reviews are much higher so perhaps it gets better fast.
I strongly disagree with the decision to have all Klingon dialog in Klingonese. This was off-putting and appeals to the fanboys but the general audience not so much.
The tech is anomalous considering the series takes place a decade before The Original Series. I'm not complaining about FX, costumes, or set design. TOS was very low-budget. The a prequel should not have more advanced technology.
The Flight Attendant (2020)
Muddled
Starts ok but quickly becomes muddled. The comedy usually falls flat. Are the jokes too dark, or not dark enough? The attempts at humor do no go well with the alcohol abuse, multiple murders and other dramatic themes.
Kalley was so funny in "The Big Bang Theory" but her talents are wasted here.
Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)
Don't Bother
Based on other reviews, I had low expectations going in but it's worse than I was led to believe. Let's face it, quite a bit of WW's appeal is Gal Gadot's fantasticly exotic good looks. Believe me, watching her hardly makes it worth your time.
This sequel may have killed the Wonder Woman franchise. It's obvious not a lot of thought went into the release -- that's assuming the project wasn't a hot mess before production.
Mile 22 (2018)
Hotrible Direction
There's a good movie in here somewhere. But the choice to jump from angle to angle multiple times in a scene is nigh unwatchable. I have a headache from watching it.