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Haunting of the Queen Mary (2023)
Not much to add
To be honest there's little that can be said here that hasn't been eloquently started by previous reviewers.
It's a good looking film spoiled and by awful writing and incoherent structure.
As an example, when the modern couple come back there no reason for it
There's no reason they would be accommodated either for the job they want to do our aboard ship. Why have they turned up to scan the ship just before bedtime? Why have they gone from pitching a book to wanting to scan the ship? Why do they suddenly seem to understand the hidden and supernatural history of the ship that's been kept hidden? Don't know. Yes, we later learn that their return is much later than implied and that things have happened to them off-screen but keeping that hidden as a late reveal doesn't add tension nearly as much as it does confusion.
The business with the modern 'captain' is nonsensical. Why does he bleed when the shop is damaged? How much do the owners know about what is going on? Again these are never explained.
There are people doing their best here. Cinematography is excellent, acting is mostly strong despite the paucity of any quality in the writing, music - both incidental and tunes - is good.
Shame they were so badly let down by the writing and the director.
War of the Worlds: The Attack (2023)
Abysmal
I was keen to see this as the trailer looks pretty good. We all know not to trust trailers, though.
Yeah, it was low budget but that can be okay if handled well. This isn't. Ever.
It's hard to tell which is more stilted, the script or the acting. Whilst it sticks fairly closely to the events of the book they manage to make them unbelievable and totally lacking in any tension. Stupid, pointless errors like a character saying that there's practically nothing left of the town they're in whilst in the midst of a scene so idyllic it could be a promotional video for the local tourist board. Did they just forget to digitally alter the background? Run out of budget? Don't know, but either way just drop the line so it doesn't cause a problem. When the production can't make that kind of easy fix you know they can't cope with any more serious problems.
The bland, uninspiring leads have been splitnfrommbeing one character in the book to three. Clearly this is to allow exposition and to allow for 'banter'. They just come across as an effort to make this look even more like those cheap Children's Film Foundation flicks produced in the 70s. Despite the lead looking far too old to be cycling around the countryside having adventures with his chums it's just an unnecessary device. They're generic, unlikeable cyphers rather than believable characters.
The effects are abysmal. Slapped together CGI with no attempt made to really make anything appear to actually interact with the backgrounds into which they're composited. The tripod design is quite interesting, I have to give them that, but they are so badly executed. The practical effects are no better. The red weed gets one shot near the end where this stuff that's supposedly taking over the countryside at a rapid pace is clearly some rubber bungees badly painted red and tied around ONE tree.
Everyone involved should just be embarrassed. This takes a classic and makes it shoddy, awkward and dull.
Meg 2: The Trench (2023)
Dumb but not that much fun
Much had been made of the increased humour in this sequel. There are a lot of attempts at humour but, sadly, most miss the mark.
The action is overblown, the science abysmal and the premise absurd. Not that it matters a jot. This is not the kind of movie that logic matters or would even help. For example; how would the rogue mining company even have known the super-valuable, only available there mineral existed never mind at up a secret operation to retrieve it? Don't know. How did they manage to construct a base that close to the official one without anyone supporting them? Don't know and don't really care.
I can be one helluva nit-picker with movie plots because most of the errors made are down to lazy writing and a moment's effort and some time on Google could fix them and make them better. Those movies world be helped by logic and same research. This world be hindered by them.
There's no excuse for the lousy jokes, however. If you're going for laughs then how a gorram joke-writer with some talent.
Krakowskie potwory (2022)
Mixed feelings
As per the title I have really mixed feelings about this. I can't truly say that I enjoyed it as I spent a lot of time thinking "Eh? What?" Some of that is clearly going to be due to my unfamiliarity with the lore and mythology being used here. In some ways that didn't matter too much but, as some others have said, there are serious issues with the writing.
I feel they jumped too quickly into dealing with a Big Bad without establishing who these folk are or what they do. There are no explanations at all, not even to the character they are recruiting and 'training'. Why should we care about any of these people? Don't know. Why do the twins keep switching to English? Don't know. Why should we trust the professor who betrays them all? Don't know. What happened to the surviving one of the first pair of monsters summoned? Don't know (she's just never mentioned again). I really feel too much was kept from the audience in a misguided attempt to create an air of mystery. It's a common tactic in some of these shows but when handled without real skill and some kind of payoff all it does is create confusion and frustration.
I really enjoyed seeing something other than the usual monsters. I liked the chance to see something new. Handled better it could have been great. The cast were generally pretty good. The cinematography created an intense atmosphere and air of menace. The CGI is just about up to the task and it's fairly well paced.
Yet something, for me at least, is just lacking. The mark is missed but not by much. It's clearly set up for a sequel and I hope it gets it. Stuff that thinks out of the box and illuminates unusual mythologies - ie not vampires and zombies- needs to be encouraged. I just hope they do a better job with any future seasons.
The Banana Splits Movie (2019)
Feeble
A rather mean-spirited, poorly written, unimaginative, unfunny movie that turns beloved childhood characters into vicious mechanical killers.
I can see no reason for this to exist. When I saw it had been made I was actually quite excited by the idea. I hoped for something with a dark humour that might make good use of the characters and settings. Sadly, all we get is a badly-paced, sub-par slasher flick lacking in tension, suspense and any kind of reverence for the original.
There could have been some really imaginative scenes here. There was definitely always something a little creepy about the Splits and just a touch of effort could have made this something special. The anarchic nature of the show is totally missed. Even when they're depicting the show being made. That edge is totally missing in favour of a few pathetically unfunny jokes, characters who don't behave in any rational fashion and awkward, badly-staged action scenes.
Avoid if you were a fan. Think twice if you just want a low-budget slasher. You really won't be satisfied either way.
Devil in Ohio (2022)
Just lacking something
Well acted, well shot, not over the top or too far-fetched (mostly). Yet it still misses the mark.
You can see how this could have been something special had it built some decent tension or had any real sense of threat but it just doesn't. Rather than being a decent horror it's more of a mixture of family melodrama and teen drama.
It does have issues that make it hard to care about the family. Many of the characters are stereotypical to a point of extreme predictability and their 'issues' are, at best, minor complications in what seems like a relatively idyllic life.
There are plot holes and goofs that break the focus, too. For example wondering why, in such an obviously large home there is no guest room for Mae to use instead of evicting one of the daughters to generate some unnecessary tension between characters. Little things like that manage to distract from the story, especially when - as in that case - they've clearly been manufactured to serve the plot.
Troll (2022)
Saturday matinee fare
Don't sit down to watch this expecting depth, novelty or innovation. What you will get, though, is a fun way to pass a rainy Saturday afternoon.
The effects are good and carry the story well. The troll is very well crafted and manages to out-act many of the human performers. Managing to pull off a huge troll without making it look absurd was a pretty impressive piece of animation. Comes near to the pathos of the original King Kong.
I like that it doesn't take itself too seriously and manages to do it without needing to go down the path of snarky wisecracking so beloved of Hollywood monster and superhero films. Nothing wrong with that in it's place but it's nice to see that the levity can be achieved in other ways.
Yes, it has more cracks in its plot than the troll has in its skin. No, it won't make your top ten of all time. You should give it a try, though. It's good fun.
Selfie from Hell (2015)
Know when to quit
As a short this is brilliant.
Tight, creepy, well performed and shot. Okay, it's a single jump-scare and you know what's coming from pretty early on but that's often what makes a jump-scare effective; the anticipation.
I've discovered that it has been expanded into a feature film. What a waste of time. I haven't seen it but the reviews are universally awful and I can see why. There really was nowhere to take this. The schtick isn't going to work more than once and it doesn't have an antagonist that can be expanded upon or made scarier. The premise seems to have become that taking too many selfies is evil and leads to your death but to set that number at 13? Come on! This would be the busiest supernatural revenge killer in cinematic history.
Just conclusive proof that you should know when to leave a good thing alone.
Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities: The Outside (2022)
Badly overstretched
This is awful.
Slow, dull, blindingly obvious.
If it had a redeeming feature or two to merit any stars they would be good performances and looks appropriate. Kate Micucci tries hard with a tedious script but can't make any headway against the tide of mediocrity she's swimming against. There's a character who tells us how much she loves filler. Must have been the director as we're treated to sequences that do nothing to move the plot in any way, such as Micucci's character taking delivery of a parcel followed by every single step of her transporting it to the basement.
I kept hoping there would be a twist (the senseless, consequenceless, murder wasn't a twist having been telegraphed for a good five minutes), or something creepy or disturbing to bring some tension or horror to the proceedings. Zip. Nada. Nothing.
Del Toro is not doing his reputation any favours by attaching his name to this kind of guff.
Teen Wolf (2011)
Spoilt by hammy acting and corny lines
I tried. I really tried. I actually had to talk my wife into trying it out but I just can't take any more.
The premise is good. It's a fairly original take on the werewolf myth and there was some good tension to the story and some nice touches.
However, right from the beginning it has been marred by some truly awful performances. Styles gets on my nerves but at least there's a reason for him to be the way he is and I guess the actor might calm down as time goes on, but the coach? What a total ham. So are the actors playing the other werewolves. The walking down corridors (strangely devoid of other students) mugging for the camera like they're in a cheap rock video? Boak! The sighing and the drawn out, meaningful glances, the one truck I learned in acting class glance away from camera repeated several times in a scene, the laboured pauses it's all so grade-a ham I can't take it.
So, the mrs, after having to be talked into it, is continuing but I'm out.
The Orville: Future Unknown (2022)
They ended it with THIS?
After a pretty good build up and reasonable climax to the Kaylon/Krill/Moclan situation you'd have thought that dramatic climax would have been the series ender. Then they did this.
Painfully over-extended, unimaginative, derivative and just plain tedious. More Doctor relationship mince, more Moclan 'culture' played for ineptly written laughs. At least, I think that's what they were going for but, no, it wasn't even remotely funny.
Seth MacFarlane may have wanted to make this a more serious show and been strongarmed into making it a comedy and now be moving it away from that but he clearly can't write it well as a drama and, frankly, his comic writing is poor when he has to work without the edge of his early shows.
If it gets a fourth season I am not certain if I'll watch it because this season has been very poor.
The Orville: Lasting Impressions (2019)
Disappointing
Probably the worst episode of The Orville yet.
From the number of glowing reviews of this episode I guess that there are many who can ignore the total lack of understanding of programming. The jumps in logic that the computer would be required to make to generate this character from available information would be beyond most sentients never mind a limited computer which doesn't even claim to be an AI. Then there's the transparent excuse to let Scott Grimes sing in an episode.
If it did anything Star Trek hadn't already done with characters falling in love with holodeck characters it might be okay, but it doesn't. Dull, derivative, dumb and way below par.
The White Lotus (2021)
Dull
Tried this in the recommendation of a friend whose taste normally syncs with ours.
We were both bored rigid by the dull characters, the mundane plot, the vapid... You know what? I can't even be bothered to insult this. Won't be watching any more.
The Flash: The Trial of The Flash (2018)
Sloppy, sloppy writing
This is probably the most carelessly written episode of The Flash to date. From the structure of the trial to the way characters respond to questioning and finally the complete lack of comprehension of how radiation works it is fatally flawed. That a forensics expert like Barry would be unable to show that Deveaux's body was moved, that there was no blood on him at the time of his arrest is unbelievable enough. That the captain would undermine all he said because Barry was late to wor is just foolish. That such a supposedly brilliant lawyer would be unable to offer a shred of defence or would present the photographic evidence in such a cack-handed, amateurish way way is just inconceivable.
Should have been a powerful episode but instead is risible drivel.
Amsterdamned (1988)
A Persistent Floater
This is a truly awful film. There is an interesting idea at the heart of it and it could have been moody and atmospheric, but it's as cheesy and out of place as its dreadful Europop theme song at the end.
The acting is abysmal, made worse by the dubbing. The lead did his own dubbing for this so it can be assumed that this was the logic behind having every character played with heavy Dutch accents. Some well into parody level thickness. Dialogue in dubbed films often seems stilted or awkward due to poor translation and there's definitely a touch of that here with some oddly poor translations. The biggest problem is not only the dubbing but the painfully amateurish performances turned in by just about everyone in this. It's obvious few of them ever took any training in acting for camera.
Then add in the out of place Carry On style humour awkwardly shoe-horned in, the sped up chase scene elements and the increasingly Roger Moore-era Bond movie stunts all totally misplaced in a serious crime thriller. Yes, they actually do the speedboats jumping from the water to slide through a party then back into the water further along.
Still not daft enough? Make the killer almost as indestructible as Deadpool (make him look like Deadpool for good measure), give him super strength, and a back story better suited to a comic adaptation that seems to be an attempt to give the killer some pathos and the last shreds of dignity fall away from this inept waste of celluloid.
Truly something you'd have to flush repeatedly to dispose of.
Incarnate (2016)
Mediocrity Incarnate
Interesting premise but slow and poorly executed.
There's no tension, no excitement and no thrills. Mostly thanks to Aaron Eckhart's totally monotone performance. Monotone both in emotional pitch and actual tone. I don't think he produces one sound that isn't identically pitched.
The twist ending? Totally predictable.
The Watch (2020)
Not Discworld
If you haven't read the books you might be fine with this. It's a mediocre, bog-standard fantasy trope, well enough shot, with a good cast doing their best with weak writing. The company don't even have to good grace to credit all the performers which tells you something, I think.
However, if you are a fan of the original author's work you will HATE THIS. The original premise has been scrapped, the characters are on a different world, and are NOTHING like they were written and it's very heavily WOKEified for no good reason. Pratchett was dealing with these issues long before it became fashionable and did it better. That the characters he did this with have been 'updated' shows that the runners of this did not read the originals carefully or just didn't understand it.
If you can separate this from the original it's a mildly diverting show. If you can't then do yourself a favour and stay away from it.
Beaster Day: Here Comes Peter Cottonhell (2014)
A teenager's home movie
Really, this come across like something a kid and his mates would knock up in a weekend. Can't believe anyone still comes up with effects that poor any more.
Daredevil (2015)
Dull,dull,dull, action, dull, dull
The headline is pretty much the whole review, tbh.
Yup, great acting but so, so slow. Existential angst being a repeated theme with Murdoch and co coming to grips with being a vigilante. Every season.
Summertime (2012)
Don't waste your time
It doesn't match the description in any way. It is an abysmal, student-level piece of self-indulgent drivel that thinks it's clever and meta but is really just awful.
I wasted 40 minutes skimming through this. Now you don't need to waste your time.
The Witcher: Rare Species (2019)
Odd choices abound
Never having read the books I'm not more than mildly interested in how they differ from this script. So, as an episode of TV I found this entertaining, if hardly original. Not even the 'twist' was any kind of surprise.
What does surprise me is that a show about characters with supernaturally endowed characters seems so reluctant to show the characters using them. Yen fights with a sword, Geralt seems uninterested in using signs. It's a very odd decision from the production team to minimise these powers and miss out on a big part of what makes the characters stand out from the crowd.
Besides that, the show is stunningly shot in impressive locations and mostly very well acted. Anya Chalotra is a revelation, poised, strong and yet able to show great vulnerability and subtlety whilst Henry Cavill is the best brooding stranger-type since Clint Eastwood; impressive and charismatic. This episode is, unfortunately, afflicted with one of the worst fake Scottish accents in tv history from Jeremy Crawford who not only can't do the accent he's attempting but delivers every single line as if he's in the middle of a 'roid rage. He really is very jarring in this episode shattering the atmosphere in every scene he appears in. Pity the RSAMD didn't teach him that anger like that is rarely interesting to watch, is a poor character trait and just puts viewers off. I guess he also didn't watch the scenes where Cavill and Chalotra use justified anger to great effect. I really hope he can calm down a bit for his next appearance and makes some visits to an accent coach.
I'm on my second watch of this series and I'm following it much better this time, partly because I'm playing the game and I have a better grasp on the world but mostly because I'm not thrown by trying to fit the stories together. It took us too long to realise that the stories we were watching are spread all over the timeline on the first viewing and there really isn't enough effort made to make this clear. It's a much better watch with that in mind. I think they assumed most viewers would come to it with foreknowledge of the world and characters, too, as there seems to be an assumption that the politics and conflicts don't need to be explained much. Whilst I don't need the depth the game gives it would have helped to have a little more world building to guide us along the path.
Still, I don't watch this for War & Peace so all-in-all it's a good episode of a very enjoyable series. Well-paced, with very interesting leads.
Dead Space: Downfall (2008)
Just awful
From the poor script, animation that looks worse than the game, awful voice work, unlikeable, unrelatable characters and more flaws in logic than flat-earthers, anti-vaxxers, David Icke and all Trump's rallies rolled into one this is just everything wrong with video game movies.
It's clearly been made with fans of the game in mind as there's no attempt to explain the background or the world. No effort to let us know what the church is that they take about and why it knows about this artifact. Here's one of the biggest errors: the ship send a message after the artifact is found that they will be on-site in one month. Then we see folk on the base talk about the deaths in the week since it was dug up. This is ongoing as the ship moved into orbit, so what happened to the month? Why are there bodies from the planet in the morgue on the ship (why does the ship even have a morgue that big?). They make s big issue out of lifting a vast chunk of the planet and in thought that was the boot surrounding the artifact, but that's in the ship's hold, so wtf is the deal with the chunk?
Why is there a huge button on the outside of a crashed shuttle to launch a message buoy? Why would a wrecked shuttle's systems be accessible from a random terminal in a cargo bay? Where does this shuttle come from in the first place? It just appears on the planet with characters we've not seen or heard then flies up to the ship, but since those characters clearly live on the base...
It's just constant flaws. The acting is mostly either shouting, snarling or strangely emphasised. Except Kevin Michael Richardson this one of the few to come out with any depth to his work. Although, his character is another confusion. He's a member of the religion that's so important to why this all happens but spends his time fighting the creatures until he then prays to be converted into one and shown the 'true way'. What? Either he believes or he doesn't.
No pace, no tension, the only surprises come in trying to make sense of why people do the things they do. Obviously trying to rely on gore and being 'adult' but fails dismally even at that. One of the worst pieces of guff I've ever endured.
Artemis Fowl (2020)
An insult to source material and fans
The announcement of an Artemis Fowl adaptation thrilled us. The series was bedtime reading for my daughter for years. She's re-read them on her own repeatedly. Kenneth Brannagh has crapped all over them and left us with something less appealing than the effluvia from Mulch Diggums's bum-flap.
Storyline? Abandoned and replaced with generic mcguffin hunt. Setups for future stories are ignored making it impossible to progress as Colfer planned and doing a Rian Johnson on any future directors should this persistent floater somehow manage to garner a sequel.
Characters? Changed on fundamental levels, undermined and devalued in every way. Character arcs and development are abandoned. Relationships are fundamentally altered and one character, vital to later stories is dead offscreen before this even gets going. Juliet, who didn't appear in the first book, is stuck in but then used to do nothing but offer other characters food rather than being the badass she would be and is introduced as.
World building? Inept and confused (Just why would the fairies have a table that's too big for them?) Fails to explain vital points for the uninitiated, wastes too much time badly explaining stuff that shouldn't even be there.
Script? Clumsy, stumbling inanely from cliche to cliche. Underestimating the audience's intelligence at every moment and where clunky exposition wasn't forced into a character's mouth it's slapped on in an awkward, out-of character narration.
Virtue signalling? There in spades but actually undermining the way the books challenge equality issues and the diversity it actually includes. Holly is supposed to be brown, so she's whitewashed. The Butlers -strangely no longer brother and sister - are meant to be Oriental (yes, I know Americans don't like that word but Asian means something different here and would mask the point I'm trying to make). Both of them fail dismally to do their jobs within the story or to represent the characters in the books. Holly is meant to be the first female officer in L.E.P.- Recon that's abandoned. Artemis' outsider status is given a moment's lip-service between showing him as a cool, active jock rather than relying solely on his intelligence and using assets like Butler to compensate for his shortcomings. Here, he has none.
There isn't one single redeeming feature in this, unless it's that Holly's uniform fits with how we always imagined it.
Iron Fist (2017)
Very enjoyable
Unlike some of the other Marvel TV shows in this group I haven't found myself wishing that they'd just get the heck on with it. He's far from Marvel's greatest super hero, little more than a way to do their own version of the Kung Fu TV show, but that doesn't undermine this show at all. Good, strong actors given pretty good well paced scripts. Good entertainment.
Blade Runner 2049 (2017)
Pretentious, ponderous, dull
In those ways it's very like its predecessor. The original, like most of Ridley Scott's work, spends so much time on visuals and lingers over them far too long to the detriment of story and pace. This film runs at 2:43 telling a story that would barely fill an hour if it wasn't for long, loving shots of pretty sets and portentous glances. It doesn't have the saving grace of allowing an interesting world, having interesting characters or a moment's tension. There isn't a moment when a character seems to feel any urgency about anything. Even after the climactic fight Joe takes time to gaze meaningfully at his fallen foe and stroke her cheek despite the fact that Deckard is trapped and drowning.
Through much of the film we're supposed to believe, like the character, that he's the child. Yet he does so many things a human couldn't possibly do there's no surprise to discover that he's not. He barely responds to his lover's pointless death so why would an audience?